Things learned in the last 24 weeks and 1 day

This crazy ride called parenthood (especially as an anxious, obsessive, thrifty, money-conscious breastfeeding and cloth diapering parent) has taught me a lot, and I've been intrigued (and/or shocked/annoyed/stressed) by some of the information I've garnered and lessons I've learned. May this serve as a reminder to me for when we have future children or when people ask me questions and I, in my permanent state of mommy brain, cannot remember, or as a reference to expectant or new mommies who might be curious about the following:


Sleep: 

Around four months old,
passed out in her swing.

Babies often experience disrupted or require more sleep before some developmental milestones like rolling, walking and talking.

Babies need a LOT of sleep. And they need help and encouragement to get that sleep. The better a baby naps, the better a baby will usually sleep at night. An overtired baby will be TOO tired to sleep or sleep well, and we've learned quite a bit about baby sleep patterns over the last few months. I was first introduced to the 90-minute sleep cycle and the N.A.P.S. approach at one of my breastfeeding group meetings, and as she's gotten older, we've watched Elle's 90-minute cycles extend to 100- or 120-minute cycles. Basically, if we're watching and paying attention, we can see Elle's sleep cues about an hour to two hours after she last woke, and she needs to go back to sleep during that time. One of my friends has a daughter who fluctuated between 60- and 90-minute "90-minute" sleep cycles. Every baby is different, but the awareness of these patterns has helped us infinitely.

Sleep regressions are real, frustrating and sometimes unexplainable. We had that period of a few weeks when Elle had a hard time going to and staying asleep, and then it passed. I'm not sure if she grew out of it or if it was Tim's suggestion to reintroduce (and strongly enforce) a late afternoon/early evening nap that prevents her from getting too tired before bed. When she gets a short nap late in the day, she typically sleeps better at night.

Breastfeeding:

The content of the milk changes with baby's age. So that means that the "bigger" bottles I registered for way back when I was pregnant? Totally unnecessary. In retrospect, I guess I would have used them if breastfeeding hadn't worked out for us, but since the quality of my milk changes as Elle ages, the quantity doesn't need to, which I find wayyyy cool. We've slightly adjusted the number of ounces in her bottles, but she's going to top out around 5-5.5 ounces. When I was getting ready to head back to work, I used this site to figure out about how many ounces to start with, and we've adjusted based on Elle - if she drains it and seems hungry in a short amount of time, we've increased it by a half ounce until she seems satisfied and can go longer, typical stretches without eating. A friend of mine told me to leave one ounce of milk for every hour I'd be away from the baby, which worked for an estimate, and we modified from that based on the rest of Elle's daily schedule.

The majority of my freezer stash.

Related: I have a lot of frozen milk (between 250 and 300 ounces). But some of that milk is from October, when Elle was three months old. So if I would stop breastfeeding when Elle is say, 11 months old, and then just give her frozen milk from my stash until she turned a year old, she'd possibly be getting milk that was designed for a baby with the nutritional needs of a three-month-old. Even though it would stay good in our deep freezer much longer than three months, I've been trying to rotate one bottle of frozen milk in to her 2-3 daily bottles, so usually the oldest milk she'll get is three months old, and then the other bottles are fresh milk. I had no idea about this when I started breastfeeding and pumping.

There are many positives to breastfeeding, for both mother and baby. Various studies cite lowered risks of certain kinds of cancers for women who have breastfed and increased IQs in breastfed babies. I wasn't aware, however, of studies that show lower childhood obesity rates in breastfed babies. They also have a better ability to self-regulate their intake.

Breastfed babies are sometimes less picky eaters because they've been exposed, through their mother's milk,  to many different flavors. We wanted to delay introducing solids until at least six months, which gives Elle's digestive system time to mature as well as decreases her risk for food allergies. She's been exclusively breastfed, and we plan to make the transition to solids with baby-led weaning, and a friend of mine sent me an awesome article about it. Based on the way Elle reaches for and grips
everything in her pathvarious toys, I'm eager to see how she reacts to solid foods :)

Cloth diapering:

Not nearly as clear-cut as I first thought. For the first 20 days until Elle's cord fell off, we used newborn-sized disposables. We began our cloth diapering journey with a stash of infant prefolds and covers.

Then Elle grew out of the infant prefolds. I realized, though, that I really didn't mind the typically more-involved prefold/cover method, and I wanted to stick with it as our primary diapering system, as opposed to the all-in-one diapers I had previously planned on using after she grew in to them. The prefolds and covers dry fast and are cheaper, so I purchased some new, higher-quality and larger prefolds and the other size of covers to replace the infant ones. I thought my diaper stash was set until Elle grew out of those prefolds. I was wrong, because ...

In the all-in-one diaper.

We have a heavy-wetter. It is no surprise, considering she sleeps 9-12 hours between her nighttime diaper change and her morning change. And now she's sometimes soaking through her naptime diapers. There are easy, fairly inexpensive remedies to these issues (like inserts made of absorbent materials like hemp, or moisture-repellent wool covers), but I hadn't anticipated them. I'm still experimenting with solutions, but I think I'm close, including using those previously mentioned all-in-one diapers with extra inserts at night.

Also unknown prior to starting this journey: Cloth diapers and most diaper creams don't mix. If Elle shows signs of diaper rash, we slather on the diaper cream and use disposables for a bit. We could buy liners to use in the cloth diaper (to act as a barrier for cloth from the cream) or buy special "cloth-safe" cream, but we don't at this point. It happens so infrequently that it hasn't been worth it. We keep disposables on-hand at all times in the diaper bag (so far, we don't cloth diaper on-the-go) and for the first change of the morning, which has to be fast because Little Miss is hangry like whoa.

I'm sure I'll face new challenges as Elle starts solids, too ... oy.

Cloth wipes are cool, too! Tim and our sitter don't use them (I never really said anything to the sitter, and Tim is just taking this process one step at a time), but I bought some small, cheap washclothes on clearance and spray them with plain water when I change Elle. Then I throw them in our pail with the cloth diapers, so they get washed together and it doesn't create extra waste or laundry. If she has a poopy diaper, I use store-bought wipes, although I don't have to - I just feel more comfortable cleaning her up with those.

General:

There is very little rhyme or reason when it comes to baby. Flexibility and patience are essentially, and trying to figure things out? It will drive you mad.

Babies - even babies who are fairly low maintenance and only a few weeks old (i.e. not mobile) - require a lot of time. I had fairytale dreams of redesigning my Web site during my maternity leave and catching up on some scrapbooks, among other things. Did. Not. Happen. There were days when I barely managed to shower between diaper changes, feedings, naps, laundry, dishes, cooking, etc. I knew having a baby would change my life, but I don't think I was fully accepting of how immediately and completely that would happen.

That infant car seat that touts a 30-pound weight limit? Welllllll ... I knew that most kids reach the height limit on it (30 inches) first, but I didn't realize how fast these babies grow! Many moms in my mommy/baby group expressed the same surprise I did when we realized that we'd be car seat shopping again much sooner than expected. We've probably got a couple of inches to go on Elle (will find out more at her six-month well-baby visit!), but I've started the preliminary research on our next step.

There are approximately 1.2 million different books on infant sleep available to stress new parents out.

Everything is controversial, everyone has an opinion, and all of the baby books contradict each other. You do what feels right for your family and your baby ... and just when you get accustomed to something, it will change.

Any other moms discovering things that they never knew? Or any advice for curve balls that lie ahead for us? :)