New Fav Toy

This inchworm is Sage's new favorite toy. She will hug it while playing on her back and she attempts to grab his legs when on her tummy. Today I noticed purposeful reaching while on her tummy. It's crazy how fast children develop the first year of life. Everyday I'm amazed with all the new things she does.

3 Months Old

Sagey Poo is three months old today. She also laughed for the first time today.

Feeding Update

First I have to mention how lucky I am to work with and know such wonderful therapists. I took Sage into see Kathy, a physical therapist I know who specializes in feeding/oral motor challenges. She is also trained in an amazing modality called Cranio Sacral. She checked Sage over from head to toe and found some tightness in her little body and released it with some cranio sacral therapy. Once she got into her mouth, she figured out fairly quickly our feeding challenges. The position of Sage's palate makes her push nipples forward versus backwards which is why she has been nibbling nipples and constantly needing to be re-latched during breastfeeding. It has also caused her to not cup her tongue. She was able to somehow adjust the palate and told me to have Sage suck on our fingers daily since we can keep our fingers further back in her mouth. This will encourage her to keep nipples farther back in her mouth and also push her gag reflux back a little. Brad will be taking Sage into see Kathy again next week. Hopefully it will only take a couple of sessions to get our baby eating happily again. I'm also meeting with a lactation consultant tomorrow regarding upright positions to keep Sage in while breastfeeding to help out with the acid reflux. I'll keep everybody posted.

Just When You Think Things are Going Well

As most of you know, one of my goals is to breastfed Sage until she is twelve months old. For me it wasn't a hard decision at all to breastfeed. Why wouldn't I want to give my baby the healthiest nutrition available? Today it is not even debatable if breastmilk is the right milk for a baby. Research has shown time and time again that formula, no matter how hard they try, does not come close to being as nutritious and beneficial as breastmilk. New research has also shown that breastfeeding moms are also less likely to have breast cancer. Because I wanted to give Sage the best start possible, I educated myself on successful breastfeeding. I read a highly recommended book and Brad and I took a class on the subject. Breastfeeding is also one of the reasons why I wanted a natural childbirth due to the fact that non-medicated babies tend to latch and breastfeed better then babies exposed to pain medication. After all this, my beautiful daughter decided that she was going to scream when she ate. We would have some great days and then some horrible days. As a new mom, I was constantly stressed thinking "is her reflux medication not working, am I trying to feed her when she is not hungry, etc." Yesterday she would not breastfeed at all, so I ended up giving her bottles of my pumped breastmilk. After a call into a lactation consultant, I'm now concerned that Sage is having troubles sucking and swallowing correctly. As some of you know, one of the lactation consultants noticed in the hospital that her tongue was tied and she had her frenulum clipped soon after. I don't think the frenulum clipping completely solved the problem because even though Sage has gained weight well she still has challenges staying latched and has been biting the bottle and the breast versus sucking appropriately. She has also been losing a lot of milk while bottle feeding. After three months of stressful feedings, I'm taking Sage into a pediatric physical therapist who specializes in oral motor therapy and feeding. Luckily I'm in a field where I know the best people in the business for feeding challenges. Hopefully this therapy will give us some insight into Sage's feeding challenges. I'm going to do what I can to continue to give Sage "the perfect milk" even if it means multiple pumpings throughout the day, lactation consultations, therapies or changing my diet. Hopefully we will get this figured out soon. Wish us luck.

Ahhh Parenthood

With Sage close to being twelve weeks old, it is amazing how different our lives are. In one of my favorite parenting books (TouchPoints by Dr. Brazelton), Brad and I read that infants typically start a fussy period around 2 weeks that will last until approximately 12 weeks and that this fussy period usually starts in the afternoon or evening and can last for hours. Well Brazelton was right because at about three weeks Brad and I were constantly soothing Sage all evening long until she passed out due to exhaustion. We would take turns doing the few things that calmed her (wearing her and walking around, swaddling her next to some white noise, etc). At one point, I called up my sister and said "is this what motherhood is all about, because if it is, I'm not a fan." I don't thing Brad and I have every been as stressed out in our entire lives then the first ten weeks of Sage's life. Luckily around eight weeks we started to notice a huge change in Sage. She started to play and interact with us and the evening fussiness would last only a short period of time or not at all. Tomorrow Sage will be eleven weeks old and our evenings are now becoming one of our favorite times together as a family. They are spent playing with Sage, reading her books and going for walks. Brad and I can now eat dinner with Sage happily playing next to us. Bedtime is also a thousand times better. She goes to bed fairly easily on her own and wakes up a couple times throughout the night to eat. We are still learning about each other and have our ups and downs but life is definitely starting to feel somewhat normal again. For all my friends who don't have children yet, just remember that when your infant is screaming all night long, that it won't last forever.

Brrrrrrr It's Getting Chilly

Every weekend morning the whole family goes for a early morning walk. It was shocking how fall like it was outside. Brad was hesitant to take Sage since it was sooo chilly but I reminded him of the importance of getting children outside (rain or shine) and we bundled our little beauty up and headed out the door. Did I mention how tiny our little girl is. I had to go buy her some warmer newborn clothes this weekend because three month clothing still drowns her.

I'm a talker

As of late Sage has been carrying on long conversations with her daddy. There is a video that goes along with this photo of our latest conversation, but for some reason the video won't upload. Needless to say, she hardly lets anyone else get a word in.

Who is that beautiful little girl?

It's baby Sage!