time machine

[mmcirvin]

A breast pump is the baby's TiVo.

(Never mind. Just be thankful I posted this observation to a LiveJournal instead of trying to get a syndicated comic strip out of it.)

Comments

[spatch]

It's too late, they've already heard and I believe it will be Thursday's joke for Baby Blues.

[adw3345.livejournal.com]

Well, when Zhanna fires up the breast pump, the cats come a-runnin'. She gives them whatever the baby didn't finish last time. I guess it's better than developing a taste for human blood.

-Derrick

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

Sam takes a couple of pumping sessions just to produce the amount Jorie currently gulps down in one feeding. Producing is apparently harder without a real baby there. Sam's mom says that staring at a picture of the baby helps.

Feeding's still difficult in general. The baby's latching skills are improving but far from perfect, and it hurts Sam. Sam's mother is trained as a lactation consultant, and she's helped a lot, but it's a tough process.

We've at least tried to get away from the assumption that feeding the baby is the default response to any kind of fussing; Jorie's thrived on the bouts of near-continuous cluster feeding but it is murder on her mother, and it can't go on like that. The result is slightly longer episodes of crying while we try to figure out how to settle her down; we're learning, but it's terrible when Sam's trying to get a bit of rest, because the slightest sound from the baby wakes her up. Worse, the baby is still mostly nocturnal; her period of maximum wakefulness is usually midnight to 6 AM.

I'm having a bit of survivor guilt about it--it really hasn't been that hard on me personally, and I try to do the household chores and cooking and help Sam out any way I can.

[iayork.livejournal.com]

With our first I felt guilty about going to sleep when Amy had to stay awake. That meant that there were two sleepy, inefficient people zombying around trying to deal with routine stuff.

With the second, I firmly slept through anything I couldn't deal with, and was (relatively) alert and ready for things I could deal with.

So don't feel guilty. Sleep is important for you too. If you can't sleep and there's nothing you can do about it*, then go somewhere else -- put a sleeping bag in the basement or something -- and get yourself some sleep.

*Although of course adding moral support is sometimes something you can do that's useful, or essential, so if staying awake does that then go for it. But otherwise, sleep, guilt-free.

[iayork.livejournal.com]

... and be aware that the bad sleep times don't last forever. Some people joke about new parents lacking sleep, but I don't. It's awful, it's not funny, but it doesn't last forever. Best wishes to you and Sam coming from Michigan.

Also, the pumping gets much better with time and practice, too. It's never as efficient as the baby, but it got much better, and fairly quickly too. (Amy may remember it differently, I dunno.)

[eb-oesch.livejournal.com]

Or Tivo is a breast pump for the glass teat.