Hi friends!
And just like that, we have a rolling baby and not a newborn anymore! I’m a little late. I’m my update as our baby girl’s 3-month birthday was the 7th, but that’s okay! It’s been quite the month! And there is no way I can wait till the next update to share that baby girl rolled from back to front a bunch of times yesterday!
Even though both boys were early rollers, I was so surprised she did it! I was just chatting with my mom, and all of a sudden, she made it all the way over. I put her back on her back, and she did it again, and again, and again. I was so surprised because we spent most of the last month working on some mild torticollis (more on that in a minute), so I really didn’t expect her to roll so soon. It’s both exciting and dreadful because she loves the swaddle even more than the boys, and a rolling baby has to come out of the swaddle.
Tortillicolis
Let me backtrack a little bit, though. This last month during tummy time, I noticed that she really was only looking to the right. In fact, I even picked her up and tried to put her over my right shoulder to encourage her to look left, and she kept hitting my head with her head trying to look right. The more I watched, the more I realized she really only ever looked right. Even if you look back at her two-month post, you can see every single photo I posted, she is looking right in. Interestingly I watched her at night, and she would go both directions with her head at night. But, to be safe, I reached out to Mr. Hungry’s Aunt, who is a pediatric physical therapist specializing in infants. She lives in Colorado, so I sent some videos, and immediately she encouraged me to find ways to encourage baby girl to look left. The tongue tie people had already shown me a few stretches as they had noted she was really tight on a certain side, but I honestly can’t remember which one. I went over those stretches with her, and she said to get consistent in doing them. Luckily the next week, she happened to be here visiting. She did a lot of manual treatment and showed me a lot of stretches etc., 3 or 4 times that week. That, combined with what she had me doing at home, seemed to really help, and while she still prefers looking right, she is comfortable going both directions. I’m actually surprised when she rolled she rolled to the left. We’re keeping an eye on it, but it seems to have made a huge improvement!
Sleep
At 12 weeks, I implemented a dream feed between 930 and 1030, or two hours after she goes down. This pushed back her first wake-up until 3 AM ish, so she was only waking up one time a night. It was a really nice couple of weeks until she rolled yesterday. And last night was a literal shitshow out of the swaddle. I still have her swaddled for naps and for the first part of the night because I can watch her on the monitor to make sure she doesn’t roll over. But, at night, I can’t watch her, so she needs to come out of the swaddle, and she was up every 1-2 hours. I expected it, but I still didn’t enjoy it. Right now, we are using the swaddleme transition sacks that I used with KK, but I ordered a Merlin suit to try. The boys were both too skinny for the Merlin like they could literally get out of it, even the small size. They met the weight requirement, but for their length, they were too skinny haha I looked at the Dreamland transition swaddle, but not sure if I’m comfortable with a weighted product. It has fabulous reviews, though. But, since I supplemented with her sooner (more on that later), she’s a bit bigger than they were at this point, so hopefully, she can use it! So sleep this next month is gonna be rough. It is what it is. I’ve been dreading it, but I knew it was coming. At 14 weeks, she is my latest roller. The boys were 12 weeks and 10 weeks, ridiculous, I know. Little overachievers. haha
Breastfeeding/Bottle Feeding
As mentioned, I implemented a dream feed around 12 weeks. This really helped with bottle acceptance, as she would be sleepy and take the bottle just fine. Although, we did have to end up switching from the Comotomo bottles the boys both used to Dr. Brown’s bottles. She was really having trouble latching to the Comotomo, and when we did get her to latch, she would click a lot on it. My friend encouraged me to give Dr. Brown’s bottles a try. We found she latches better to Dr. Brown’s bottles and is less fussy taking them overall. The first week of implementing the dreamfeed I was doing pumped milk, and now I’m doing formula because she’s up to take 5-7 ounces at a time, and I typically pump a max of 3 ounces in any one given session. I didn’t want to burn through all the breastmilk in the freezer, and I supplemented both boys, so I feel like I was quicker to supplement her. Initially, I tried to offer her formula during the day, and she literally gagged like I was poisoning her. If it weren’t so stressful, it would have been hysterical. I tried both Nutramagen and Bobbie Gentle. I preferred the Bobbie Gentle because the ingredients are better, but it was only partially hydrolyzed; luckily, she seems to be doing okay with it. She’s got a little more mucus in her poop but no blood, no green, and no additional symptoms of reflux like she had when I eat dairy. So, I’ve kept her on it. She will take it during the dream feed when she is sleepy but not during the day, which is fine. If she needs a bottle during the day, she gets breastmilk, so it works out! She can still be a little fussy with the bottle, taking around 5 minutes to accept it, but eventually does.
Mama’s Recovery
Future updates will focus entirely on the baby girl and not on Mama. But, I do believe with all my heart that my body won’t be fully recovered until closer to 18 months postpartum. It usually takes me all year to lose the baby weight, and that’s because I really try to nourish my body for breastfeeding, but also because I’m still recovering. I’m 25lbs down with 20 or so to go. Pretty much the exact same as I was with the boys at this point. Recently, I felt like workouts. I’m taking two steps forward and one back. Like things go well, but then I have some sort of random ache and pain that throws me out. It makes me feel old, and I don’t like it, but my chiropractor encouraged me to remember what strain childbirth is. My core needs to rebuild, etc. One thing I did is replaced my 8-year-old orthotics. I feel like that should help clear up some of my foot and low back pain. I shared a little bit about the orthotics fitting process on my Instagram highlights if you are interested in seeing more about that! (@hungryhobbyRD)
I’m still doing the expecting and empowered strength program, but I also took their running assessment and started their return to a running program. I’ve officially done two full running workouts, which didn’t feel amazing, but it’s progress. Again, when my new orthotics come in, I think that will help clear some stuff up. So will time. I remind myself that every day I get stronger. And with this journey, I feel like it will take as long as it will take, and that’s okay. I’m not looking to have any more kids, so I plan to take recovery slow and do it right. I also scheduled a Pelvic PT appointment. I did that with both boys even though I had no issues. I just wanted to be checked out because I think it should be standard after birth. This time my doctor said I have POP, but thankfully, for now, I’m asymptomatic, which is GREAT, and I’m so thankful for that. I’d like to keep it that way to avoid surgery or the need for something like a pessary. I heavily debated whether or not to share that info, but I think the more we talk about the realities of women’s health, the more we can be realistic about what women truly experience in pregnancy and the postpartum period. Especially the postpartum period, as I feel like that gets overlooked quite often. Plus, I feel like I was very kind to my pelvic floor and did everything to take care of it during pregnancy and postpartum, and I still ended up with POP. It just happens, I’ve had three pregnancies. Sometimes you can do everything right, and it still happens because three pregnancies are a lot on the body. I’m guessing the umbilical hernia created a pressure regulation issue that put too much stress on the pelvic floor. But, I also think taking care in order to prevent POP is why I’m likely or maybe why I’m asymptomatic now, I at least minimized the severity and symptoms, so that’s still good. I have three friends who ended up in physical therapy after the trauma of their first births and c-sections because of how bad it was. But we often act like women will be fine after birth with zero problems, but that’s not the case a large majority of the time. Many women end up recovering for years afterward with long-lasting complications. So in true HH fashion, I’m just keeping it raw and real over here so we can lift up women’s health and help women take care of their bodies instead of ignoring them.
I remind myself in the last 4 years, I’ve birthed THREE babies and, in five years, had three full-term pregnancies and one early loss, so four pregnancies. That’s a huge toll on the body, so grace, grace, grace I tell myself daily. Mr. Hungy is also quick to step in and remind me to be kind to myself, which is helpful too!
That’s it for now! I’m sure I’ll share more on Friday Favorites as I document workouts etc!
LOVING THIS MONTH:
Pretty much the same as the last couple of months, but I started using the Ergobaby 360 more instead of the Embrace.
- This playmat
- Portable sound machine
- Swing
- Bouncer with toy attached
- Elvie Breast Pump
- Hal0 Bassinet with newborn insert
- Hatch Rest + (gifted to us)
- Doona Carseat –> the one big purchase I did for baby 3!
- Baby Brezza Sterilizer
- HATCH Baby Scale
- Ergo 360
- Legendairy Milk cups – I use these with my Elvie Stirde pump, and it’s definitely way better output.
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