My Sharpei Baby

Sharpei: a very wrinkly dog.  Pictured below for reference.

Notice that I entitled this post "My Sharpei Baby" and not "My Baby Sharpei."  This was intentional.  I meant for Sharpei to be an adjective and baby to be a noun.  The reason for this is that I do not own a baby sharpei.  I own a very fluffy poodle.  But this post isn't about him either.  This post is about my little baby girl, Gwen.  This is a picture of her that I took today.

I call her a sharpei baby because she has tons of rolls, much like a sharpei.  Note the deep wrist rolls.  Also see the ankle rolls (or should I say cankle?).  See all of the texture on her legs.  That is not a trick of the camera.  That is the beginning of cellulite.  Her leg rolls would be more pronounced, but she is wearing a cloth diaper that somewhat hides her chunky thighs.

This is a picture of her from a couple of days ago.  As you can see, she has rolls at her armpits and on her torso.  

Here you can see her amazingly squeezable, chunky cheeks.  If you try to squeeze them, you would discover that they are actually quite firm because they are packed so full of chunk.

If you had any doubts about the extent of her chunky legs, look at this picture.

I love her chunkiness.  I find her absolutely adorable.  I love adorable, roley poly babies.  While she has the core strength, I think, to sit up at this point, her belly is too big for her to reach forward and balance herself with her arms.  I find that to be so freakin' cute and endearing!  

But the one thing that I don't find endearing is cleaning her sharpei rolls.  I heard from someone, somewhere (and have no idea if it is true or not) that you have to clean between the rolls on sharpeis because if you do not the rolls will get infected.  The same is true with babies.  Gwen has not gotten any infections because I am vigilant about cleaning each and every roll each and every night at bath time.  However, how do you fit a washcloth between her shoulders and chin?

I face this challenge every single day.  And she does not do anything to make it any easier on me.  This has become increasingly important since she started eating solids.

I make her wear a bib.  I wipe her down with a wash cloth after each meal.  But, let's face it: she's not very good at eating yet.  About 97% of the food ends up running down her face and onto her body.

Before she started eating solids I would discover the occasional crumb in her neck folds (mommy or daddy apparently ate a snack messily while holding her).  But now I discover large amounts of pureed fruits and veggies in there.  I lifted up a neck fold yesterday a couple of hours after she ate and found an entire line of sweet potato.  It's not that I didn't clean her.  I wiped and wiped, but how did she get sweet potato on the back of her neck?!?!  I wiped under her chin.  I wiped her shoulders.  I even wiped off her back.  But the back neck fold?  I guess I either need to be more careful feeding her in the future, or I need to do a 360 degree cleaning.

Until her height catches up to her weight I guess I will have to clean her like the little sharpei puppy that she is.  (She started as the 7th percentile for both weight and height and is now, somehow, the 90th percentile for weight while only the 50th for height.  That makes her the 90th percentile weight for height.  I know how she made that jump, actually.  She eats her feelings.)  And, also, I'll continue referring to her by her sumo wrestler name: Gwenihito.

The story of how I slept through my last final in college

There are two things you need to know for this story.  1.) Entering my final semester of college I had a 4.0 and was on track to be valedictorian of my graduating class.  2.) I was able to achieve these grades through a mix of dedication and caffeine.

When I started college I hated coffee.  We had a coffee shop on campus.  I liked hanging out there with my friends, but I would only partake in hot cocoa.  After a few months I branched out to vanilla chai.  I was constantly exhausted, however, and I decided that I was going to MAKE myself like coffee beverages.  I didn't know anything about any coffee drinks, however, so on my first conference trip during my second year of college, I decided to branch out and try several drinks.  Anyone who has attended a conference knows that lots of drinking goes on.  I, however, went to a Christian university with a no alcohol rule, so while the other attendees went to the scientist mixers, I hung out with one professor and two schoolmates who were coffee addicts connoisseurs.  I dove in first trying a carmel machiato (not a great choice for someone who didn't like the taste of coffee), and finally settled on lattes and mochas.  I also discovered the frappe, a seemingly magical blend of coffee and milkshake like dessert.

By the first semester of my junior year, I was taking the most challenging course load of my college career.  I also knew that at the end of that school year, I would have to take the MCAT, the standardized test that determines where you can realistically be accepted to medical school.  I increased my caffeine intake accordingly.  I also realized that if I kept on buying lattes I would run out of money in my account quickly.  However, coffee was only $1.00!  And, if I used my own cup or reused my paper cup it was only $0.50!!!  Plus, I figured, if I added enough cream and sugar it would almost be like drinking a latte.  Because my study schedule was so demanding (and I also chose that year to be in leadership positions in 3 student organizations), I started to drink my coffee black.  You may be thinking, "That action does not logically follow."  You would be wrong.  There was always a line to add cream and sugar to coffee.  By foregoing these extravagances I was able to shave about a minute off of my time in line each time I filled up my cup.  This was usually 5 or 6 times a day.  You do the math.

Senior year of college, I had taken the MCAT and my courses had eased up slightly, but I was in the midst of applying to medical school.  I also got somewhat obsessed with learning to bake that year, and would sometimes blow off some of the steam of studying and applying to schools by baking cheesecakes (junior year I struggled to make cookies from a prepackaged tube of dough, so if you have ever enjoyed one of my cheesecakes you can thank senior year and the baking guidance of one of my professors).  This meant that I needed to continue with little sleep and excessive caffeine.  I would generally sleep 4.5 to 5 hours each night.  That same year, a convenience store opened on campus.  How is this significant?  They sold no-doz.  Not only did they sell no-doz, but I could use my meal plan points to purchase the no-doz.  I figued out that it only cost 3 points to buy no-doz.  This would be equivalent to 3-6 cups of coffee.  Each no-doz pill contained as much caffeine as a cup of coffee.  There were more than 6 pills in each bottle.  Thus, no-doz was a better deal.  Plus, I didn't have to pee nearly as much.  Growing up with Zack, Kelly, Screech, Lisa, Slater and Jessie, I knew that no-doz was no joke ("I'm so, I'm so...scared.")  So I made sure that I was consuming no more caffeine than I had previously from coffee alone.  This level of caffeine and sleep often led to headaches.  My friend Jeremy would sometimes make me a "cocktail" of ibuprofen and no-doz (both were necessary to get rid of headaches).  The biggest coffee mistake that I made was the night that I had a caffeine headache from consuming too much caffeine.  I decided to try to knock my headache out with an excedrine.  Anyone who has read the label of excedrine knows why that was a bad idea.

As you can tell, I often overcommitted, expected too much of myself, and was not dedicated to healthy living.  But this combination led to me entering my final semester of college with a 4.0 (which I believe is the reason that I got into the MD/PhD program at OSU...they were applying for a grant and were looking for people to bring up their average GPA and MCAT scores; I met Keith in the MD/PhD program at OSU, so I believe that my marriage and now our child stem from my caffeine intake in college).  I felt quite a bit of pressure to keep this GPA.  One of my med school interviewers said, "You'd better not screw that up."  Yeah.  Encouraging.  Right?  I wasn't super worried.  I was taking one science class pass/fail and then some gen eds.  I had put off taking my literature courses until the very end, so my final semester I took world literature and C.S. Lewis.

And this brings us to that ill-fated final: C.S. Lewis.  C.S. Lewis class was taught by a woman named Marge Elder.  Yes, she is as old as her name sounds.  I believe she started teaching at the university right after WWII.  I'm not joking.  She really did.  1946.  You can look it up.  She was a sweet little old lady who invited me over to her retirement village to look at her book collection and eat cookies one time.  And this class was a cakewalk.  All you had to do was read a bunch of C.S. Lewis books (an author whose writing I enjoyed), discuss the books in class, and write a couple of short papers (2 pages or less).  All you had to do for the final was show up and read the 1 page final paper that you wrote.  I had already gotten A's in all of my other classes, so I wasn't sweating my C.S. Lewis final.  All I had to do was show up and read a paper I had already written.  Piece of cake.  In hindsight, I made a poor choice in staying up late to pack up my dorm room (yes, I still lived in a dorm my last year of college).  I also did not supplement with caffeine.  I ended up going to bed in the middle of the night thinking, "All I have to do is read 1 page out loud tomorrow and I'm home free!"  Imagine my surprise when I awoke the next morning with my friend Brittany's face inches from mine.  Brit took C.S. Lewis class with me.  She said, "Why weren't you in class?  You missed the final!  Dr. Elder wanted to know where you were."  Instead of exchanging pleasantries, I threw on whatever non-matching clothes were strewn across my floor and ran across campus in the rain to Dr. Elder's office.  I apologized a thousand times for missing the final.  But how do you make up a final that was solely based on listening to other people read their 1-page papers and then discussing what they wrote?  Thankfully, I had worked hard (meaning I participated in class discussions the entire semester and was a nice girl who was willing to visit an old woman in her retirement village for cookies and old books), and I explained to her that I had a 4.0 and that if she failed me for this final I would no longer have a 4.0, and that would be a great shame since I was set to graduate as one of the valedictorians in just a couple of days.  I then came up with a plan.  No, I couldn't participate in a class discussion.  But would it be okay if I read her my paper and then sat in her office and read every one of my classmates' papers? She said yes.  So I slept through my last final, but she gave me an A anyway.  I was able to have my cake and eat it too (sorry about that.  I had already used 2 references to cake in this paragraph and felt the need to round it out with a third).  This post is dedicated to you, Dr. Elder.  Thank you for having grace on me for my last final of college.

The tale of Keith and the cheesy puff dog treats

Simba got groomed on Thursday night.  This might not sound like a big deal, but I was quite distressed.  When we took him to the groomers two times ago, he got cut by the scissors.  The cut went through his skin and his subcutaneous fat (which is only a couple of millimeters thick).  We could see his muscle through a thin layer of fascia.  He had to get the wound stapled shut.  Needless to say, we did not go back to that groomer.  He went to the groomer again in December.  This time we decided to take him to the groomer at the vet.  We chose this option because we didn't know where to take him and we figured that, at the very least, if they cut him they would pay to fix him (unlike when I had to pay $150 after his previous grooming experience).  Simba had been out of sorts because he had spent over 3 weeks away from our house at grandma and grandpa's while I was on bed rest.  After that, a teeny tiny baby had claimed space on his turf and taken away much of the attention previously paid to him.  We thought that having a new haircut would make him feel better, but we were wrong.  The groomer asked that we bring him in at 7:00 am.  She also decided that she would cut his hair last.  We didn't get to pick him up until 5:00 pm.  10 hours is a long time to be in a cage.  He came home more depressed than he had been before his trip to the groomer.

On top of my guilt over his last two trips to the groomer, I have felt guilty about ignoring Simba since Gwen was born.  I think he has a touch of poodle depression.  When I dropped him off at Petsmart (there was no way I was going to take him back to the groomer at the vet and make him stay in a cage for 10 hours), he put his tail down and gave me a look like I was betraying his fragile trust.  He had been so excited to go for a ride in the car before he realized the final destination.  This was especially difficult for his poodle psyche because the baby was with us in the car, and, while I left him at the groomer, she got to go home with me.  Because of the crushing guilt, I walked out of the grooming salon and went straight to the squeaky toy aisle.  I followed that up with a trip to the doggy treat aisle.  (I am convinced that the reason that Petsmart hosts a grooming salon and veterinary clinic is so that guilt purchases, like this, can be made).  I walked out of Petsmart with a moose squeaky toy and a canister of "cheese puff" dog treats.

I was glad for my purchases when I arrived back at the groomer and Simba was yelping as they plucked his ears.  I was even more thankful when they showed me where they cut him with the clippers.  He was so happy to get in the car and escape the torture that he completely ignored the dog treats and toy on the way home.  When we stepped into the house, he ate his treat and started to destroy his new toy.

Keith noticed the canister of new treats while I was in the living room playing with Simba.  "These treats look like cheesy puffs."

"I know.  I bought them because Simba likes when you feed him cheese puffs.  I was halfway tempted to taste one to see if they really taste like cheese puffs."

"I just did.  They aren't very good."  I can't say I was shocked that my husband ate a dog treat just because it looked like a cheese puff.  He buys the 2 foot tall "barrels" of cheese puffs from Sam's club and eats them in 1-2 weeks.

The next day I noticed a plate in our refrigerator with about a quarter of a cup of peanut butter smeared on it.  Keith was at work, so I had to wait until that night to find out what it was for.

"Honey, why is there a plate of peanut butter in the refrigerator?"

"I couldn't find any snacks that I wanted so I thought I would just eat peanut butter."  This isn't surprising.  Since we are trying to sell our house, I have been doing my best to clean out the pantry and all of the cupboards, so we are fairly low on our snack supply.  I did wonder, however, why Keith didn't: A.) just eat a spoonful of peanut butter (he said he was hungrier than that), or B.) put the peanut butter on something (for example: a piece of bread, which we have).

Jokingly I said, "You could have just had some doggy cheesy puffs."

"I did eat a couple before I decided on the peanut butter.  I still don't think they taste very good."

Yes.  This is the man I chose to marry.

$856

$856.  That is how much I will spend on diaper rash cream this year if I continue to use it at the current rate.  G has had diaper rash now for about 3 months (which is pretty impressive, in a bad way, since she turned 4 months old yesterday).  It's not just normal diaper rash.  It is bright red with open sores.  Her bottom has bled before (thankfully, because of the cream, it is no longer bleeding).  It looks horribly uncomfortable.  Occasionally, her skin will heal most of the way.  The sores heal over, and the redness diminishes.  But at those times I am saddened because her skin stretches in an unnatural way.  I think she may end up with scars.

I have tried everything that I can think of to get rid of diaper rash.  I have used several different types of diaper rash cream (Burt's Bees, California Baby, Bummis, Triple Paste, Pinxav, Boudreaux's Butt Paste - both 16% and 40% zinc oxide, Desitin Max Strength, a mix of Aqauphor and Maalox).  I even used a tube of colostomy cream and colostomy powder.  The nurses at the hospital where Keith works like to hear about the baby.  One of the nurses is very concerned by G's diaper rash and shared that information with the skin care nurse.  The skin care nurse gave Keith the colostomy cream and powder with written out instructions and a promise that the diaper rash would be gone within 48 hours.  At the end of 48 hours, G had open sores.  While it didn't work, it was very nice of the hospital staff to pilfer colostomy care materials for our baby.  The only cream that has worked in any way is Boudreaux's Butt Paste Maximum Strength.  While it has not healed her bottom, it has helped to keep the open sores away...for the most part.

I have tried many other tricks that people have told us are "guaranteed" to get rid of diaper rash: cloth diapers, cloth wipes, soap, running G's bottom under water with each diaper change, letting her have diaper free time, using a hair dryer with each changing to make sure her bottom is extra dry, etc.  So far, all I have really accomplished it getting poop on my hair dryer.  The only thing that really seems to work is diaper free time, but there are many obstacles preventing that from happening.  First, I am trying to get G to nap well.  She tends to only want to nap between 35 and 55 minutes at a time.  Unless she has a good solid 1.5 hour nap, however, she gets hysterical by the end of the day (usually much earlier and several times).  This means that I need to be vigilant about getting her to nap on time and about jumping up at the first sound of her waking to nurse her back to sleep for nap round 2.  Sometimes I will just take a nap with her so she can eat immediately upon waking and fall back asleep. Second, she spends much of the day inconsolable if I set her down more than a few minutes at a time.  This means that I am either carrying her, holding her on my lap, or lugging her around in a carrier most of the day.  This creates a very messy diaper-free situation.  I sometimes try to carry her around without a diaper, but have found that this usually results in me being covered in a variety of substances.

I really wanted to wait until G was 6 months old to introduce solids.  I wanted her to be exclusively breastfed.  But that changed somewhere around 2 months of diaper rash.  Now I just want her to not poop 10-12 times a day.  I have decided to view solid food not as food but as a magical medication that has the ability to slow poo and maybe allow us to spend less than 5% of our annual income on diaper rash cream.

Dear Friends:

Dear friends,

Thank you so much for all of your love, support, prayers, advice, baby supply loans, and offers for baby sitting over the past few months.  A difficult pregnancy followed by a colicky baby really wore me down, but I am starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel.  I have tried to thank you each individually over the past several months, but I really feel like I can't thank you all enough.

Thank you to everyone who visited me in the hospital.  I was scared (which you could probably tell by my frequent blogging that I was using to sort through my feelings), I was bored (2 weeks in the hospital is a long time), and I needed love, comfort, and reprieves from hospital food.  Thank you for all of you who attended my baby shower in the hospital conference room.  It was unconventional, and will be a special memory that I hold onto for the rest of my life.

Thank you to all of our wonderful friends, family, and neighbors who provided us food during the weeks after Gwen was born.  It was all delicious, and I still need to get some recipes from some of you!  I know it can be challenging cooking for vegetarians, but you all rose to the challenge and filled our bellies with tasty food.  It was so nice not having to worry about cooking dinner and being able to cuddle our little girl with that time (or sometimes take a nap or shower).

Thank you to everyone who has let us borrow baby clothes and gear.  Having a baby is expensive, and your generosity allowed us to save money in some areas, try baby products before buying to see if we really need them (and in many cases the answer is yes), and try other styles of parenting (while I was against co-sleeping when Gwen was born, I had to do it out of necessity and now I love it so much that when she can't use the arm's reach co-sleeper anymore I will be moving her into our bed).

I have reached out to many of you over the past several weeks when I have felt weary and weak, and when I've wondered if I just was not cut out for parenting.  Your willingness to help out with watching Gwen and with chores has touched my heart.  Without actually accepting the help (not because it isn't appreciated, but because it has not been practical for Gwen's stage of development, etc), the amazing offers have recharged me in a way that I would have never expected.  I was surprised to discover how knowing that help is available is sometimes as helpful emotionally as a physical reprieve from efforts.

I have also appreciated the reassurances.  It is amazing to see how far I have come in parenting in just 3 months (having never been around babies before, I had quite a bit to learn quickly...former college dinner buddies - remember the time I almost gave Evelyn a ring to play with because she looked like she wanted it?  Well, I have not given Gwen any choking hazards, and have learned many other lessons over the past months).  While I have come a long way, I still have doubts in my abilities and knowledge.  By talking to you and getting reading suggestions (The Fussy Baby Book by William and Martha Sears) I realize that my baby's temperament is not my fault.  It is not her fault either. I didn't break her.  She came this way. She has high needs and it is my job as a parent to meet those needs.  My intuition for how to care for her is correct.  I'm not going to spoil her.  She is not manipulating me.  I am going to reject the judgement of the nay sayers who would tell me to set my child down and stop feeding her so often, and I'm going to continue parenting her to the best of my abilities.

Thank you, from the bottom of my heart.

Sara

Better and worse

Things seem to be in a constant state of flux with my little newborn.  I guess that's the way that things will be for the next several years.  It seems like I get one thing straightened out (or nearly straightened out) and something else seems to go wrong.

On the plus side, Gwen is sleeping much better.  When I started the No-Cry Sleep Solution (on Feb 10), Gwen was waking up about 6-8 times each night (once every hour to hour and a half).  Now she is in bed for 12 hours and she only wakes up twice (kind of...).  She has been sleeping through the night since Saturday night (definition 5+ hours of uninterrupted sleep), and for the past two nights she has slept greater than 6 hours straight.

The only problem with her sleep is that over the past few weeks her gas has gotten much worse which sometimes wakes her up (often at 5:00 am).  Ever since she was born, she would cry whenever she would poop.  But that is a normal newborn thing.  Some have trouble coordinating all of the muscles in their bodies.  In order to poop they have to contract certain muscles and relax certain others.  Babies will often contract all of the muscles, however, and then the poop has trouble coming out and the baby will cry.  As she has gotten older, her crying has gotten worse each time she poops.  And starting a few weeks ago she started crying several hours a day whenever she would have gas (she would cry inconsolably for about 10 minutes, I couldn't figure out why none of my soothing techniques were working, and then I would hear the gas start that would usually last for about an hour or so).  I read as much as I could about the topic.  The question I got most often was "Have you been eating anything weird?  Have you tried cutting _______ out of your diet?"  Only about 2% of cases of colic are from food sensitivities, however the mother's diet is often blamed.  Since I knew that it is rarely the mother's diet, I figured I should try all of the other remedies first.  I sometimes spend 10-15 minutes after a feeding trying to get Gwen to burp, I do baby colic massage, I give her simethicone (anti-gas medication) with each feeding, but to no avail.  I finally gave up dairy a few days ago.  While only 2% of cases are from the mother's diet, my child may be one of the small number.  The only other advice I got from the pediatrician was to wait for her gut to mature and eventually she would grow out of it.  Since the only other course of action is to wait and see I thought I would try this one last thing.  Unfortunately, it could take 2 weeks for the dairy proteins to make it out of my body and for her symptoms to improve (at which time any improvement may be due to having a more mature gut rather than anything that I am doing).  She has been doing much better the past couple of days.  But are we just having a good day?  Is her improvement from what I am doing?  Or is she just getting better on her own?

Another problem that could be causing her to cry so much when she poops is that she has had diaper rash for about 1.5 months.  I took her in to the pediatrician twice for this so far, and still can't get rid of it.  At one point, her entire bottom was a red, bumpy rash.  On two other occasions, her bottom has been bleeding it is so irritated.  I tried everything that I found in books and online to try to treat it (not using baby wipes, but instead using cloth wipes with soap and water, running her bottom under running water with each diaper change, using cream - desitin, butt paste, triple paste, 12% zinc oxide, 16%, 40%, Aquaphor + Maalox - with every change, cloth diapers, using a hair dryer to make sure her bottom is extra dry before putting a new diaper on her, letting her go diaper free for hours sometimes).  Nothing worked.  The most effective treatment we've found is a mixture of 40% zinc oxide boudreaux's butt paste with cloth diapers.  But Butt Paste ruins cloth diapers, so I have had to use fleece liners to prevent the cream from depositing itself on the diapers.  At diaper changes I still use soap and water and then blow dry her bottom.  And I leave her diaper free quite often.  With all of these efforts, her diffuse rash has gone away, and the bleeding has stopped, however she still has a painful looking raised up rash where the bleeding used to occur.  Things have gotten better, but we still haven't been able to kick it.

I am very thankful that all of these things are going better.  However, I am really bummed out that I am struggling with one of the things that was most important to me.  I love breastfeeding Gwen, and feel so proud that I have been able to push through the hard times and provide my child the healthiest food possible.  A couple of weeks ago I noticed that my milk supply dropped drastically over the course of a couple of days (after being really good for Gwen's entire life up to that point).  I hadn't been taking care of myself, however.  I had become dehydrated and stressed.  I wasn't even making enough milk to feed Gwen, so I had to dip into the small stockpile that I had built up in my freezer.  I made sure to relax that weekend and drink plenty of fluids.  It took about a week and a couple of more interventions (spending about 3 hours each day pumping after breastfeeding to try to increase the stimulation to make milk, and taking fenugreek).  My supply was amazing this past weekend, and I was pumping like crazy.  I was making so much milk that I nearly became engorged at one point.  And then throughout this week my supply has dropped off drastically yet again.  I don't understand why.  I am well-hydrated.  I am still pumping often (after breastfeeding, since directly breastfeeding is a better stimulator of milk production).  I am still taking fenugreek.  I have still been feeding Gwen about 8-10 times each day.  But I could feel my breasts getting emptier and emptier as the day progressed, and I had almost no milk left for her last feeding (I felt very empty, so I figured that I would have Keith feed her a bottle and I would pump to see if I was really empty, since it is difficult to tell when Gwen eats directly from my breast.  She ate more than I was able to pump).  I am at a loss for what to do now.  I won't take any other supplements because of lack of data about safety and efficacy and I can't take the pharmaceuticals that can increase milk production.  The only thing that I can think of to do is to rest again this weekend.  I am really disappointed that I am struggling so much with something that is so important to me.

Mommy vs. Scientist

Nothing has had the ability to turn me away from thinking like a scientist more than being a mom.  This isn't necessarily a bad thing.  I tend to be way too analytical.  I do copious research into topics before making decisions. (I told the pediatrician at Gwen's 2 month appointment on Monday about all of the reading I've been doing about instilling healthy sleep habits in your children.  After I listed off a couple of books she told me I really need to stop reading.)  I have found that I am now much more willing to cling to anecdotal data.

I took a supplements class last year.  I have had a few people ask me if there are any supplements to increase their breast milk supply.  The answer is that there is no good data.  Part of the reason is that the major supplement that many women use and swear by would put no money into the pockets of pharmaceutical companies, so they do not have a vested interest in running the trials to determine if Fenugreek increases milk production.  But, since there are no positive trials, I would never recommend that a mother take Fenugreek.  I would also recommend women away from Mother's Milk Tea (a blend of Fenugreek, Blessed Thistle, Marshmallow Root, Fennel, etc).  I WOULD recommend Metoclopramide (Reglan).  Reglan is used for GI issues (I used it for delayed gastric emptying during pregnancy), but a common side effect is increased lactation.  It is, in fact, very effective.

Last week my milk supply tanked.  I was stressed and dehydrated, and not even making enough milk to feed Gwen during the day, let alone extra to store up for a rainy day.  Thankfully, I had been stockpiling some milk, so I was able to thaw one bottle a day to feed to her while I increased my fluid intakes and focused on me for a couple of days (I bought a magazine, took a nap, and spent the afternoon with some girlfriends).  Not only did I focus on me, but I scoured the internet to determine what people recommend for a low milk supply.  And what did I find?  Fenugreek.  Not all of my scientific sensibilities went out the window.  I went to Natural Medicines Comprehensive Database to determine the efficacy and safety of fenugreek (both rated as insufficient evidence to rate).  But I also realized that women have been using this spice for thousands of years for this very purpose, and the studies likely will not come since all that matters for many studies to take place is the bottom line.  So I went to Whole Foods, bought a bottle of Fenugreek, and have faithfully been taking it for a few days now.  I don't know which intervention increased my milk supply, but I went from not making enough milk to feed my child to pumping about 9 or 10 extra ounces yesterday.  I still would not recommend that others take it, but I am going to continue my fenugreek regimen myself.

For Gwenie's sleep, I have been focusing mainly on two different books.  Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Baby, and The No-Cry Sleep Solution.  I appreciate each for different reasons.  Healthy Sleep Habits was written by a doctor who does sleep research for a living.  He has invested years into studying and understanding sleep.  I learned quite a bit from reading his book.  The No-Cry Sleep Solution was written by a breastfeeding, co-sleeping mom who was dissatisfied with the "cry it out" advice that she was receiving from everyone.  She spent, in her own words, "months" researching sleep and developing her system.  She had about 60 women test out her theories on their children (as opposed to several thousand studied for Healthy Sleep Habits).  But I like her theories better.  I don't want to make Gwen cry it out.  So I am willing to try the advice of the non-expert, who uses stories of the 60 women to support her case, before I jump into following the expert advice, supported by statistics.

I have also decided to give up dairy.  My sweet little cherub is lying on my lap as I write this crying in pain.  Many babies have trouble pooping and cry when they do so.  But most grow out of it by this point.  Gwen is over 9 weeks old and not only cries when she poops, but every single time she is gassy.  She is generally a happy baby, but she will suddenly burst into a miserable sob fest, followed within about 5 minutes with lots of gas passing and pooping.  She has had 4 bouts of gas today, each time crying like the world is going to end (and crying like she is in pain), and the gas sometimes wakes her from naps and during the night, resulting me in rocking her for about 20-30 minutes until the gas finally finishes passing.  As soon as she has pooped or passed all of her gas, she falls asleep, exhausted, with salt lines, from the dried tears, down the sides of her face.  I can handle fussy crying.  I can handle "I'm bored" crying.  But I can't handle the crying she does when she is in pain.  I have done quite a bit of reading about food intolerance in breast feeding.  While many women attribute it to problems in their children, it is a very small percentage of babies that actually have reactions to the things that their mommies eat.  But what if my baby is a part of that small percentage?  The odds say she's not, but I can't stand by and do nothing (I have already been trying simethicone, but it does not seem to be helping).  So I have picked the most common culprit, dairy, and am giving it up.  I have heard encouraging stories about it helping in other people's kids, so I am hoping it will help in mine.  I have read that it can take 2-3 weeks to get the dairy completely out of your system and to see results in your child.  I realize in those 2-3 weeks things may resolve themselves on their own, so any results that I might see could possibly be attributed to a maturing of Gwen's GI tract.  But I have to do something, and so I am willing to hold on to the hope that the ideas that I have heard from others will hold true for my daughter too.