The first week back at work was pretty tough. On my first day back, Sophie decided to go on a hunger strike again against the bottle. I got a call from Jensen around 12:30pm calling for reinforcements because he and my mom were just exhausted from battling her all morning. Fortunately, I live really close to work and so I can easily make it home pretty quickly. I took over the bottle battle while Jensen took a much needed nap, and as I looked at her weepy eyes, I felt really guilty for deciding to return to work. She finally drank from it around 3:30pm. Then I went back to work to finish out the day, and we haven't had bottle issues since then.
Then that night, Sophie decided that since mommy wasn't home most of the day, night time = play time, and she was wide awake until 2:30am. Thing is she was so darn cute and I missed her so I wanted to play with her, but I knew I needed my sleep. For the rest of the week, her sleep schedule got all thrown off. Not only did she not want to go to sleep until past midnight each night, she would wake up around 3 or 4 in the morning for another feeding. She hadn't been doing that in over a month! We figured it was all because I was back at work, so she had figured out that she had to maximize her time with me by going to bed late and waking in the middle of the night. Sort of a sweet way to think about it that makes it less frustrating. :-)
I also noticed that my milk production started to decline as the week progressed, so Sophie may have been night waking more frequently because she wasn't getting enough at her bedtime feeding to last her through the night. Each day, the amount I was able to pump during the work day seemed to decrease by 2 ounces, so I'm going to have to start pumping more frequently. Nursing all weekend got me back up to speed, so I'm just going to have to be really intentional about keeping up my milk production. It is definitely a labor of love...
This week, we are starting to get a schedule down. Sophie and I go to bed around 8pm while Jensen finishes up some chores, and I wake up at 5am to feed her and to make it to work by 6am so that I can get home by 3pm. Jensen comes into work around 9pm and gets home at 6pm. This way, my mom is only alone with the baby for about 6 hours, and I get home early enough to help prepare dinner. We're trying it out this week, and we'll see how it works.
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4 comments:
Aw, that's sweet that Sophie loves her mommy so much! I've read that sometimes the baby will go back to night-wakings when the mom goes back to work (I think I read it in the Jodi Mindell book?), so now you're living that part out, I guess =P Hopefully another week and she'll get used to it?
hehe, little sophie is turning out to be a night owl. that's good, then i can call you after work without having to worry about waking you up :)
it's hard to be a mommy isn't it? :)
Hey Jennifer, congrats! Jessica passed on your blog info to me. I was especially entertained by the comment of "not so great bosses at my old job". Its raise time here, so morale hasn't changed much since you left. Well no, its probably headed downhill a bit.
Sounds like you're having a lot of fun being a mom. I'm totally freaked out by this whole dad thing, but its worth it. lots of fun. This blog is kinda making me a little nervous for when Jessica goes back to teaching in the fall :).
Hope your new schedule works out.
-Bill
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