Helpful baby things

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Sophia turned one month old yesterday, so I thought I’d list the things I’ve found to be the most helpful so far. The following are on my list of must haves…

  1. Lansinoh – Nursing Cream – As a breastfeeding mom this is my absolute number one must have! Yeah my nipples are still a bit sore, but they aren’t cracked and bleeding. I’ve heard it’s also good for diaper rash.
  2. Medela: Contact Nipple Shield 24mm (Standard) – I absolutely needed this the first four or five days while Sophia and I tried to figure out how the breastfeeding stuff works. I tried to only use it for the first couple minutes during each feeding and then only if she started to get really frustrated to finally not needing it at all. This isn’t something that needs to be put on a baby registry though. I got mine at the hospital.
  3. Boppy Pillow with Miracle Middle – This is great and I needed it to prop Sophia up to breastfeed at first. Now I don’t need it but it is nice to give the arms a rest. I also use it to prop up Sophia in a sitting position.
  4. Halo Sleep Sack – Since blankets aren’t supposed to be in cribs this is the new nighttime baby blanket.
  5. Quilted Multi-Use Pads from Babies ‘R’ Us – I use these as changing pads.
  6. “Gerber” Five Pack Flannel Receiving Blanket – Everyone told me, “you can’t have too many of these.” They aren’t kidding and I’m going to repeat the same. You just can’t have too many of these!
  7. Burp Cloths – In addition to a cover for the Boppy pillow I also place one of these burp cloths on top of the pillow to catch all of Sophia’s messy milk wastefulness. I also use these for burping the baby – Amazingly burp clothes are useful in that way. :P

The following are very nice to have but not absolutely mandatory…

  1. Baby Trend Regular Size Diaper Champ
  2. Safety 1st Comfy Bath Center
  3. Tote Bag and Diaper Pail Liner from Swaddlebees – I use this as a laundry bag. When it gets full of spit rags and clothes soiled from diaper explosions then I toss bag and all into the wash.

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whoa milk

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I don’t know how, but this morning Sophia took in more than she could swallow. She started coughing so much that milk came out her nose. I had to get the snot sucker out (nasal aspirator) and make sure all the milk drained out of her nostrils lest she die a Rock Stars death (drowning in one’s own vomit).

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Led by trains

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I love trains minus living near a stretch of tracks that has many crossings. *grumble* What’s funny about the tracks I currently live near is that right next to them is a sign that reads, “Sound ordinance strongly enforced”. I shit you not. I’ll have to get a picture of that sign someday.

My senior year of high school I used to play hooky all the time and go to a park that was about three miles from where I lived. At this particular park there was an overpass over the tracks which lead to the “beach”. I use the word beach loosely because this was in WA state and the beaches are quite sad – not as sad as those in Alaska, but I digress. I would hang out alone on this overpass and watch the freight trains travel below me. At this spot they would sometimes go very slow and I kept trying to work up the courage to hitch a ride and see where it would take me.

I moved to Michigan three days after graduation and after signing up for the Navy. My first train ride was when I was shipped off to boot camp from Michigan to Great Mistakes Great Lakes Illinois. Despite that I still love trains. It probably helped that anytime we had liberty in boot camp it was the train that also took us away to Chicago for the day.

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Engineering Boobs

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A couple weeks ago, it came to Kurt’s attention that it really hurts when Sophia latches onto my boobs. The actual breastfeeding doesn’t hurt, but my nipples are incredibly sore. “Just from normal use?” he asks. What? Normal use? Up until the birth of Sophia it wasn’t normal for my boobs to serve about eight meals a day. It has never been customary for anyone to latch onto my nipples and gum them eight times a day for ten to twenty minutes at a time – Not that they never got attention just not with that frequency nor the same intensity. The only person that I can think of that may consider that the norm would be the psychotic woman from that family in Arkansas with 17 kids. “Yes” I said, “From ‘normal’ use”

“Wow, that’s just bad design.” He says.

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Our genetic contribution to the world

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Thank us now for our genetic contribution before we find out the full potential of our baby genius. Kurt went out to pick up a pizza tonight while I was feeding Sophia. When he came back I was still feeding her, but nearly done. I burped her then went downstairs to eat while she slept. Just two minutes later, she was screaming at the top of her little lungs. She has had several nightmares in her three weeks of life. It’s somewhat funny. She’ll be sleeping then scream and cry in full force, even turning bright red all with her eyes closed. Then as quick as you can snap your fingers she’s silent and fast asleep.

As someone that very rarely even dreams it surprised me that newborns can even have nightmares. I just thought one would need more life experiences to fret about, but apparently newborns can have nightmares about their birth (as if they’re really at the tough end of the ordeal). Even though I was sure tonight’s dramatic moment was probably a nightmare, I rushed to see what was wrong with my darling baby genius pumpkin head. To my surprise she was awake and pulling her own fucking hair. She has done the hair pulling several times, but this is the first time she woke up screaming to her own hair pulling. Usually it starts with her moving her hand around her hair and then closing her hand without knowing her own hair is in the way. She’ll pull then scream, pull harder, scream louder, and so on until we help her unclench her fist. I fear it’s the short bus for this little one.

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The name Sophia

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I’ve had two blog comments stating they also have a Sophia and today I was just reading another blog with a baby Sophia. So I just had to look it up in the name rankings, Yikes! Is Sophia THAT high on the popularity list? According to the Social Security Administration site the name, Sophia ranked number 9 in 2006. The last time I looked it was somewhere around 29.

Despite some claims our Sophia is not named after Infanta Sofía of Spain (born 29 April 2007) nor Sofía’s paternal grandmother, Queen Sofía of Spain. If she had been named after either one of them I wouldn’t spell her name with a “ph”. I’ve held onto the name Sophia for my own daughter since I saw the movie, Vanilla Sky in 2001. I hated the movie but I absolutely adored the character “Sofia Serrano” played by Penélope Cruz. I heard that the original movie, Abre los Ojos (Open Your Eyes) was better but I haven’t seen it yet. I chose the name not just because of a cute character that caught my attention in a movie, but because I also like it’s meaning. I absolutely had to look up the meaning – I would hate to name her and then find out that in Greek it meant something like, “born in a graveyard”. It is Greek, but it means “Wisdom”.

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Bilirubin Baby

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Sophia with daddy Sophia was born with cephlahematoma (English translation: a pool of blood between her skull and the scalp). Technically, she wasn’t born with it. It was caused by her being nine pounds and squeezing through my “birth canal”, which resulted in me needing stitches in two places and her looking like a descendant of Joseph Merrick (The Elephant Man) for the last three weeks. The cephlahematoma wasn’t too bad right after her birth but it grew on the left side of her head for a couple days, along with her pumpkin-like jaundice look. The Biliruban test she took at the hospital wasn’t too high, but because of her pumpkin color at her first doctor appointment (October 1st) we were sent to the hospital again for another test. I held her while they milked her tiny little foot for blood. She screamed and protested I had tears running down my face. :( The results came back with a 17.3. I don’t really know how that rates, but the doctor said if she had that result at birth he would have had her put under lights. He explained that her tiny body had to break down the pooled blood in head and that was what was causing her jaundice. He also said that at that point she was probably at the peak of it and it should start to go down, but that it would take longer because I’m breastfeeding her. He then back peddled a few steps and said that I shouldn’t stop breastfeeding because of it – it’s just that it does take longer. I didn’t ask, but I’m guessing that the difference is because breast milk doesn’t have the high levels of iron that is put into formula.

The doctor told us to keep an eye on her (like he really had to tell us) and to call in daily to let him know if there are any changes either way. We didn’t see any change at all during the next two days, so on the 4th we were sent back to the hospital to have Sophia’s foot milked for Biliruban blood once again. This time Kurt held her and she didn’t even wake up while her blood was being extracted. The results came back at 16 – Yay for being on the downhill slope!

On the 11th, Sophia had her first baby wellness appointment. Her birth weight was nine pounds even. At the prior doctor appointment (Oct 1st) she had gone down to eight pounds and twelve ounces, now she had not only gained her birth weight back but also added two ounces! The doctor said that Sophia’s color looked much better, but neither Kurt nor I could tell. We were more concerned that her head still had that squishy lump, which FINALLY subsided just three days ago.

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Ten things I learned about my newborn

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Ten things I’ve learned about my newborn and motherhood so far:

  1. Meconium is not just the *first* poop it is the first three or so days of poops. Sophia had about five meconium diapers in the first 24 hours.
  2. Kurt is better at soothing the baby than I am :(
  3. Car rides put her to sleep, but only if you can get up to speed on the freeway. I can just see it now…She’s going to be like the kid in the movie, Talladega Nights – The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, “I wanna go fast! I wanna go fast!”
  4. Babies with Sophia’s skin pigment turn an orange color when they have Jaundice.
  5. The whites of Sophia’s eyes are naturally tinted blue and with Jaundice – Blue and Yellow make Green!
  6. My little pumpkin can go from orange to tomato red in .03 seconds.
  7. When my baby turns red it’s not just her face. She turns red all the way down to her legs!
  8. Most newborns have a quiet almost cute cry that sounds like, “ah la ah la”. Not my child. She screams as if her limbs spontaneously dislocated themselves.
  9. I didn’t want to use pacifiers at first because I had heard about babies having a hard time switching between that and breastfeeding. I heard about “Soothies” which supposedly force the baby to suck the same way as when breastfeeding and I bought some. My child hates them. She prefers a pinky.
  10. She loathes wearing hats. Placing a hat on her causes color changes and not so cute newborn screams.
  11. The instructor in the breastfeeding class I took while pregnant should receive the coveted “understatement of the year” award when she told us that our boobs and nipples will be “tender” the first few weeks. I have to cover my nipples when taking a shower because the water hitting them causes tons-o-pain!

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