I recently became a mommy again for the second time. It's very different this time. This time I have a baby girl, and no post partum depression, or rather anxiety as I did 5 years ago. 5 years ago I remember every day feeling like a week, and crying because I felt so overwhelmed and tired. Oh so tired. There are many things I just don't remember from my first 3 months with my son, maybe because I was just trying to get through each day, and really not enjoying him until he was a bit older. I REALLY started enjoying him when he started talking but things (and our bond) got better starting from 4 months on. This time I have only cried a few times... once out of frustration with my son for not listening when I was super stressed due to a crying infant, and a few times when I was looking at my daughter and just felt so overwhelmed by love and happiness to have her in our lives. I hardly sleep, but besides losing patience at the end of the day (well, sometimes throughout the day too) and feeling extra tired some days I'm actually coping much better with the lack of sleep this time. My daughter has cried a LOT. She has colic which was the worst from week 2-7. It is hard, but I never feel like I can't get through it or I need to escape, like I did 5 years ago. She cries some days more than others, and the natural tendency is to figure out what is bothering her and try to fix it. I worry and stress about wanting to help her feel better and be okay. It's stressful to hear her (or anyone) cry.
The funny thing is that I worry no matter what. She has days that she hardly naps and slept in short hour long stretches at night, and I worried it wasn't enough sleep. I complain how hard it is and hang on to hope and knowledge that it will get better. But, the truth is it would be worrisome if she slept too much as well, maybe more so. If all she did was sleep I would worry there was something wrong, or she was sick, and would wake in the night just to check she is okay. I do wish she slept longer though...
I think I was destined to fail from the start at breastfeeding this time. I knew from the start before she was born I wanted to supplement and was skeptical from the start about succeeding. With my son when I made the decision to switch from breastfeeding to bottle feeding I felt so guilty. The nurses made me feel bad. This time it was a nurse in the hospital who actually gave my daughter formula for the first time, without me even telling her to do so. They were much more supportive of either option and though I don't feel guilty about making the switch at such a young age (probably because I know how switching with my son was the best thing I could have done, helped us bond more, and helped ease some of the stress of being a new mom), I am definitely not proud of it, and am often embarrassed in public when pulling out a bottle, feeling like others are judging me for not breastfeeding. I don't really care (it's their problem if they are judging, my reasons aren't all selfish, but even if they were I'm the mom and it's my decision not anyone else's), but it crosses my mind. At the same time, I hear from moms who do breastfeed how they feel judged for breastfeeding in public and worry about how others feel - so you worry no matter what.
My daughter, just like my son was at this age, is very chubby, probably due to the formula. Sometimes I worry I feed her too much, but I'm happy she is big and healthy instead of not gaining enough and sick. Doctors seem to prefer chunky babies, and my son was probably even more chunky as a baby but evened out after he started walking. She may start to even out sooner because hopefully she will be able to crawl and move around on her own sooner than my son (he never crawled).
I worry about everything but try not to obsess over anything. I worry she is too hot at night and other times I worry she is too cold. We have air conditioning on and it is hard to know the right way to dress her. Both my husband and I prefer it to be cool at night in order to sleep better.
For the first few weeks our daughter had bad diarrhea. We were going through about 16 diapers a day. We even took her to the doctor because of it. We switched formulas in some people's opinion too many times, but I knew none of the ones we tried worked for her and wanted to find the right one. We have finally settled on soy formula, even though this one seems to make her constipated.... the opposite of our earlier problems. In order to combat that we started giving her bio gaia probiotic drops which offer some relief, but she still only has one bowel movement a day which is probably harder in consistency than it should be and she often struggles to get it out. Why can't there be a balance? There are worries either extreme.
Then there were the bottles - we tried every single one. The ones we settled on, for now, are our Medela bottles we used with Ryan with Dr. Brown nipples. They are the slowest flow we can find. She seemed to choke on all the other brands. These seemed too slow at first, but the others were definitely too fast. Nothing was perfect. And now that we settled I wanted to purchase some extras but all the stores that sell the brand are all sold out of level 1 which is the size we need. Now there is no point. By the time they stock them we will soon be moving to level 2 (3 months).
Sometimes I worry we aren't outside enough, to get enough fresh air, but when we are outside I worry there is too much sun or it's too windy and we'll get sick. Even with my son I worry. I worry he can be sooo sensitive about things like name calling that he will end up being bullied at school. But then he has such a strong willed bossy personality that I worry he will be a bully. In the end there will always be things to worry about. I am just happy I have two happy healthy kids that smile a lot and fill my heart with love every day. I don't think I will ever stop worrying about them, but I think that is pretty normal. Things are not always perfect but we have each other and that is just perfect.
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