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The diaper change
The other day I was thinking how diaper changing
would make a pretty entertaining Olympic sport. The categories could be middle of the night changes, explosive poop changes, best technique for avoiding getting sprayed by baby boys, maybe even a special one for cloth diapering!
By the time Koda was 9 months old, I felt like a pro – I must have changed countless diapers and sometimes I even competed with myself. How fast can you get baby out of a soiled diaper and into a clean one? How tidy of a little dirty diaper package can you make?
I feel like I’ve changed Koda’s diapers in all seasons, situations and places. In the car? On the sofa? On the ground at a friend’s bonfire? On my lap (when he was smaller)? On a friend’s portable changing table? On a table? Yes. Yes I have. And I’ve dealt with more blow-outs than I care to remember, each one adding yet another outfit splashed with bright yellow to the handwashing pile.
Now that Koda’s older and more active, it feels like we’ve entered a new level of diaper change difficulty.
He is super wriggly and distracted, so Diego and I often find ourselves calling for back-up as we try to wrestle him into a clean diaper with minimal damages to the surrounding area. Giving him a toy to hold helps some, but our boy just loves to push toys down into his diaper area for some reason so one of us has to hold his hands or keep him distracted. He is one determined little guy.
So maybe we’re never pros? There’s always a new challenge
in the game. And maybe diaper changing Olympics is a bad idea… Moms are already competitive enough, right?
You may have heard of "Breast is best" out there in the world of baby feeding philosophies. The phrase advocates for exclusively breastfeeding because of the extraordinary nature and components of breastmilk that science can't perfectly replicate. But there's another popular phrase that offers a different perspective: "Fed is best." To be honest, when I first heard it I disagreed with that claim because I was learning about breastmilk and was amazed by its design and sufficiency for my newborn. However, as I learned more and more from my mama friends about their nursing journeys, I started to understand it. Some friends struggled with bad latches and the painful effects of tongue and/or lip ties, which I had never heard of before then and didn't experience with Koda. Others had trouble keeping up a good milk supply because of health, work or other issues. I heard the pain and even shame coming from my friends as they shared these difficulties or even simply their dislike for nursing. I started to understand that a fed baby - from a bottle Mom pumped, from formula or directly from Mom - is indeed better than an underweight baby. Or an upset baby Or a baby in pain. Or a mama in pain. Or a tense, stressful mother-child relationship. And so many other situations mamas experience. I would like to think that my own perseverance and commitment to nurse Koda were the sole things that got me though the first few difficult months before we got into a rhythm, but that's simply not true. A week after Koda was born, we met with our new pediatrician and checked his weight and other levels. She told us he had lost a concerning amount of weight and she was going to test his blood for bilirubin. I later realized that Koda's bad latches were preventing him from getting enough colostrum, which came out in slow drops after a lot of effort. If I hadn't had a 30-minute meeting with an incredible lactation consultant who changed our lives, I might have given up exclusively breastfeeding and pursued other options. (I considered becoming a lactation consultant for a while because of the difference she made!) Suffice it to say that getting in the groove of breastfeeding is tough, whether it's your first baby or your sixth. Sometimes it's hard to even begin learning how to breastfeed and how to get past frustrations and setbacks. It takes lots of practice for mama and baby to figure out what works best for them, and it doesn't stop at the newborn stage - as baby learns and grows, so do we! Here are some of my top resources for getting started with nursing your little one (the videos were especially helpful for me). I hope it can help you find a feeding plan that works for you. You can do this!