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• Booby Blues, Anyone?

  There's a lot of awareness and information out there about post-partum depression. But what people don't talk about -- at least, I'd never heard it -- is that weaning can also lead to moodswings and depression. It makes total sense, when you think about it: You've had prolactin and oxytocin (the same stuff that's in ectasy, for God's sake) coursing through your veins for months -- a double dose of it, in my case. Take it away, even gradually, as I've been doing, and you're bound to have a bit of a come-down.   Yesterday, I finally decided -- after much hemming and hawing and saying "well, maybe next week" -- that I was ready to finish weaning the girls. In December, I'd cut down to nursing just three times a day, then to two in January, and finally, just before my trip to New York, down to once, first thing in the morning. Since then, maybe because they're getting more from their evening bottle than they were getting from me, the girls have been sleeping later -- until seven or seven-thirty a.m. instead of six or six-thirty. I need to be out the door to work by 7:30ish myself and don't want to wake the girls up early just to nurse them. They need their sleep, and Alastair appreciates the extra shut-eye, too. Given the fact that their nap schedule is in transition, too, this just seemed like a natural stopping point.   And the girls are totally fine with it. Honestly, for the past few months I've sometimes felt like I was forcing them to nurse. I was lucky if I could get them to stay on the boob for more than a minute or two at a time.  Who wants to lie in once place, waiting for the let-down (which started taking longer and longer) when you could be chugging a bottle while walking around the room?    So, we're stopping. This is day two of no nursing. And I feel like utter shite, my friends. I feel grumpy and hazy and foggy and down. I feel like staying in bed, burrowed under the covers, or lying on the couch in my PJs watching bad TV. I keep heaving heavy sighs. My veins hurt. Everything feels like a huge effort.   How do I know all this is a hormonal thing? Well, I started feeling not-so-hot soon after I cut down to one nursing, and it's gotten sharply worse since yesterday. I'm also familiar enough with depression to know when it's circumstantial and when it's chemical. In this case, I suppose, it's probably a little of both, one fueling the other. Stopping breastfeeding -- especially when you're pretty sure you won't be having any more children -- is an emotional thing. It's definitely the end of an era, and I can't help feeling a sense of loss and nostalgia. My little babies are growing into children, and it's bittersweet. But I don't think I would suddenly feel better if I changed my mind and decided to nurse them a while longer. (That is, not until the hormones re-upped.)   I guess what I'm saying (See? I can't even write clearly...) is that I'm pretty sure this the right time for me to wean. I think if I did it two, three, six months from now, it would probably feel exactly the same. This feeling of utter...uck...is not guilt or regret or grief, but my body chemistry recalibrating itself.   I just hope it doesn't take too long.     Sorry for such a depressing post. Here -- I'll end on a lighter note, with a very silly picture of me taken a couple of months ago, full of oxytocin and prolactin and breastmilk. And check out that rack!       Ah. Those were the days.   Posted Feb 12 2008, 04:50 PM by Roper with | with 30 comment(s) Filed under: dropping a feeding, weaning, boobs, post-partum depression, depression

• Out with the old

  Recently, it seems, we've been getting rid of a lot of things where the babies are concerned. I just sorted through a big bag of the clothes they've outgrown (some of which they never even had a chance to wear), designating some things to keep for sentimental reasons, others to donate or give away, and others to sell at my MOT club's upcoming sale. A few weeks ago, we returned the co-sleeper we used for the first few months to the friends who'd lent it to us, and this weekend we returned the folding swing to some other friends. I recently bought an excellent little inflatable tub to put inside the bathtub, rendering the old baby tub we propped in the sink obsolete. We won't need the bouncy seats much longer, either -- Alastair uses them to give both girls their bottles simultaneously, but they're both getting pretty good at holding their own bottles now.   Each time we get rid of something, I feel a palpable sense of relief (less crap in our house!) and excitement for the forward progress; It's really fun, for example, to be able to put both girls in their new inflatable tub together and watch them splash and giggle. At the same time, I can't help getting a little wistful. No more gingerly bundling babies up in towels laid out on the kitchen counter. No more putting them in the "magic swing" (oh, how it could pacify them) and watching them stare at the blinking colored lights and bat at the little dangling toys. No more tiny, swaddled babies sleeping next to our bed in the co-sleeper, making those funny grunting, snorting newborn sounds.   Not that I particularly miss the exhaustion and thanklessness of the newborn phase. I find this older stage of babyhood infinitely more interesting and rewarding, and it seems to just keep getting better -- and easier. But what can I say. I'm a sap. When our friends Mark and Polly were here the other night with their 5-week old, it was so sweet to watch him sleeping, tiny and bundled, making little snorts and sighs. I found myself wishing I could go back and relive the early weeks and months with our girls, but with the super-powerful bond I feel with them now, and the knowledge of what their personalities are like. Alas, life has to be lived forward. Who's the genius who came up with that idea?   Anyway, tonight, we will attempt to bid farewell to another institution of our LWB (life with babies) up until this point: the 10:30 feeding, AKA the "dream feed" for you other Baby Whisperer devotees out there. Alastair has generally done this feeding, which is meant to "tank up" the babies just before we go to sleep, to get them to sleep as long as possible. For the past couple of months it's basically been their only nighttime feeding, and most of the time they don't even wake up for it anymore; we end up feeding them in their sleep. Alastair has been gradually decreasing the amount of breastmilk or formula he gives them, and I've been pumping earlier and for less time, and sometimes not at all. So, tonight, we're going to try to forego the feeding (and pumping) altogether. If/when the girls wake up in the middle of the night we'll (gulp) ignore them and hope they fall back asleep within a few minutes.   How will our heroines fare? Will they be able to go the full 11-12 hour stretch? Or will they wake up angry and miserable and screaming bloody murder at one a.m.? Will their mother be able to resist going to them, or will she cave and whip out the boobs? Tune in tomorrow -- well, more likely Thursday or Friday -- and find out.   Posted Sep 11 2007, 10:13 AM by Roper with | with 3 comment(s) Filed under: dream feed, dropping a feeding, bathing twins, Hindsight, The Baby Whisperer

• The Great Leaps Forward

  It's funny how babies--ours, anyway--seem to make advances in fits and starts. They'll be hanging out on a little developmental plateau for weeks, not doing anything terribly new or exciting, and then all of a sudden, wham! They're a completely different baby.   Take Elsa. Please! (Thank you very much; I'll be here all week.) All of a sudden, she's a babbler. No longer content to gurgle and goo and squeal (oh boy, can that girl squeal), she's started staging long, loud, monosyllabic filibusters: "Buh buh buh ga bah ah ah bah ga ga guh guh da da ba da ba ga ah guh guh buh buh!" And then there's her special pacifier sound, a funny, nasal little speech she makes when she's in her crib with her pacifier in her mouth, which makes her sound like a cross between Popeye and an old Yiddish man: "Goy goy goy goy goy!"   What's even more impressive, though, is how crazily mobile she has become. In the past week, she's gone from slow, casual creeping to seriously intentional, commando-style scooting and proto-crawling -- always in the direction of electrical cords, naturally. She's also suddenly capable of getting up to a seated position on her own, from her back or stomach or all fours. This means that now, when I put her down in her crib to sleep, whether or not she remains lying down is entirely up to her. I'm not sure how I feel about her having this much free will.   In any case, we've had to make some adjustments. Yesterday, I lowered the mattress in her crib, just to be on the safe side. While she's not pulling up yet, I'd rather not have her first attempts at it land her on the nursery floor. And last weekend I gave in and paid a visit to the Superstore That Must Not Be Named for babyproofing supplies. There is now foam on the corners and edges of the coffee table, and a very nifty plastic cover over the power strip in the living room. (Who knew such things existed!) The other day, Elsa made a beeline for it and I watched, chuckling in evil triumph as she failed utterly in her concerted effort to electrocute herself. And what of Clio, you ask? Has she been sitting silently, stilly by while Elsa bounds ahead with verbal and gross motor skill advances? Well, sort of. She has started babbling a bit more, and last night I heard her try out the Yiddish Popeye pacifier thing. As for movement, she will occasionally push up onto her hands and knees or scoot a little bit when she's on her tummy, but she seems to be doing it more out of a sense of obligation as opposed to any real desire, like Elsa the Exploradora. Mostly, Clio's perfectly content to sit in one place and flap her arms around or play with a toy and grin, twinkly-eyed, at us, or to lie on her back and play with her feet. Cruising across the floor hell-bent on her own destruction just isn't her thing right now. And that's cool. But we are pretty sure that she's about to beat Elsa to a milestone for the first time any day now: those lower incisors are totally ready to pop.   In other news, I'm very happy to report that since my post in which the girls first slept through the night (or most of it, anyway), they have pretty consistently gone from their 10:30 dream feed through until 6 or 6:30 without needing parental intervention. Elsa still wakes up and cries a little around three or four most nights, but gets herself back to sleep after a few minutes. Clio has awoken with teething pain a few times, but some cuddling and a quick hit of Tylenol generally do the trick. Meanwhile, I'm trying to adhere to a strict I-will-not-come-in-and-get-you-before-6-am policy, because as far as I'm concerned, anything before 6 am still counts as the middle of the night -- a value I want very much to instill in my children. The next big step will be to eliminate the 10:30 feeding. Any tips on how and when to do this -- including how to involve majorly painful engorgement -- from those who've been there are most welcome...   Posted Aug 09 2007, 09:19 PM by Roper with | with 5 comment(s) Filed under: teething, crawling, sleeping through the night, babyproofing, dream feed, dropping a feeding