Welcome back!

After finally navigating my way through how I’d like to feed my growing baby boy, everything changed! That’s how it works, doesn’t it? You FINALLY feel like you have a grip on this ‘mom’ thing and BOOM, the switch-up! Gotta love those growth spurts.

Kolt was born on the ‘larger side’ at 8lbs 13oz and 21 inches long… AND A WEEK EARLY (nurses said he’d have been 10 lbs had he made his due date). No. friggin. Thank you. (May I add that I’m only 5’2”). It wasn’t much of a surprise that Kolt advanced quickly through milestones and charts. At 2 months old he was in the 80th percentile for his height and weight (want to check your baby’s percentiles? CLICK HERE. Not sure what percentiles indicate? Watch the YouTube video below).

Needless to say, Kolt was taking after his tato (dad in Ukrainian) and growing to be big and strong. His growth spurts were intense, which brings us to this week.

For the last 2 weeks, Kolter has been consuming incredible amounts of milk and I haven’t been able to keep my production up to his consumption. Thankfully, in the first 3 months of his life, after my milk came in, I pumped, bagged, and froze extra breastmilk for emergency purposes just like this. All week I have been so grateful that I did my research early on and learned how to properly store and freeze my milk. (Below is a video that gives a great overview of how to store, freeze and properly thaw your milk. You can also CLICK HERE for my favourite site, The Mayo Clinic, and their information on the topic).

Many moms ask why I don’t just start supplementing him with formula but we have found that Kolter becomes incredibly lethargic and constipated when on even small amounts of formula. So much so that he isn’t himself even after one feeding of formula mixed in with breastmilk. I consulted our pediatrician, a few online sources (I’ll list them below), and the local lactation specialist about introducing solid foods at four months and got conflicting responses. Luckily, one of the leading lactation consultants in the country, and the developer and researcher of the More Milk Sooner Program, Naida Hawkins, is from my hometown and gave me an incredible site by Dr. Jack Newman to consult. In the end, we’ve decided that we are going to give it a go and blog about the journey! #letsdothis

CDC - When, What and How to Introduce Solid Foods

Mayo Clinic - Solid Foods

From Naida:

International Breastfeeding Centre

So although a majority of doctors and sites say to wait until 5 or 6 months to introduce solids, they also say that every baby is different and there are signs to watch for when your baby is ready. Kolter is showing all of these signs so we have added avocadoes and other items to our next grocery list to begin the journey of solid foods. Stay tuned for the mess, faces, successes and failures of food introduction.

Well, this week has been… eventful, to say the least. I’m officially in full swing of the Spring term of my degree and in the thick of readings and writing essays and blogs. To top off a full week my son decided I needed to learn some new “mom things” and proceeded to use his razor-like fingernails, that were just clipped and filed the previous day (click here to see the amazing baby file my mom ordered me) to gouge an abrasion across his right eyeball. Yup, fun times.

Let me set the scene, I had just finished feeding Kolter 20 minutes before and had him laying down under his mobile play mat to let his tummy settle a bit before Jolly Jumping later on. I was talking to him and playing with him and once he seemed content to play with his mobile I proceeded to grab myself a snack from the pantry just 8 feet away. As I was reaching into the granola bar bin I hear a painstaking scream from Kolter and whip around to see him with legs raised, fists clenched, and eyes squeezed shut, squealing in agony and turning purple from stress. I had never heard such a sound from him up until this time and knew something was wrong. I picked him up and cuddled him and tried to assess his physical state but found nothing to be the matter. His eyes were still clenched shut and watering but I had assumed it was tears. I took him up to my bedroom to lay on the bed with him and attempt to calm him, which worked after about 10 minutes. He was visibly worn out from his distress so I took a break from schoolwork to just sit with him and comfort him.

At this point we returned downstairs to my home office, a large, well-lit sunroom on the south-facing end of our home, allowing beams of sunlight to enter all day and night. It was here that I laid Kolter down on the ottoman and when he looked at me I could see an abrasion on his right eye. Of course, Google-mom immerged.

May I break here to recommend never typing “baby gouges eyeball” into Google search. I’ll spare you the images and not link the results.

I rephrased my entry to “abrasion on 4-month baby eyeball” (see the article I chose HERE) and was pleased that a simple ointment may be applied but that meant seeing a medical professional. I then sought advice from my sister, a nurse at the local hospital and she recommended trying to see an ophthalmologist first as the ER would likely refer me there anyway and the wait would be shorter. I contacted my second source of credible information, my mother, and she suggested the same and gave me the number to my cousin (this information is outdated as he has now moved back home) who is a local ophthalmologist. I called Taylor and he was able to see Kolter right away.

Now comes the fun part, applying dye drops into the eye of a 4-month-old child in order to locate an abrasion. I will tell you that all the restraint and hold training in the world had not prepared me for this tiny human’s squirming to avoid the drops. What did work was an Elsa light-up wand from Frozen to distract him long enough in the opposite direction for Taylor to lightly administer a drop of dye. Sure enough, there was an abrasion.

Upon confirming the abrasion Taylor looked at me with hesitation and asked if my husband happened to work from home. I responded with a no and inquired why he asked. Taylor held up a prescription for an ointment that I needed to apply in a liberal strip ACROSS Kolter’s eye… wait for it… 4. Times. A day.

FOUR!

Needless to say, I’ve been aiming for 2 successful applications and if we make one I am pleased. My child holds strength I never knew existed until this week. In the end, his eye is healing, has not acquired an infection, and I’m pleased to announce that 2 successful applications a day are happening largely due to the credit of my mother’s persistence and craftiness that I have not yet acquired as a new mom. Kolter is back in his Jolly Jumper and a happy camper because of it.

What I’ve learned about being a mom this week:

1) growth spurts suck and nobody gets sleep

2) #hatersgunnahate just do what is best for you and your family

3) solid foods are not “bad” prior to 6 months of age

4) your child is stronger than you think

5) apply eye and ear drops/ointments while your child is asleep

Hey everyone,

Welcome to my “how to” mom journey. In May of 2023, I began a Master’s course called EC&I 831 and our Major Digital Project gave us an option to take the opportunity to learn something new and blog about it. Anything we decided. Since I had recently become a mom to a baby boy, named Kolter (Kolt) I decided that this was potentially the biggest lesson I’d ever take on, forever, with no end in sight! Why not blog about it?

The reason I chose to call it “How to” Mom versus How to “Mom” is for the simple fact that there is no “how to” manual, guidelines, or books on how to be a mom because every mom, baby, and situation is different. Therefore, this “how to” isn’t going to please or apply to everyone, hence, “how to” mom.

One of the first things you encounter when becoming a new mom is how to feed your child. There are all kinds of opinions on the subject. “Breast is best”, pump to bottle feed, and formula feed are the three top choices for feeding your newborn but all are easier said than done (Mayo Clinic summary of Breast versus Bottle feeding). How much do you feed them? How often? (I attached one of the articles I used when we got home from the hospital). Which method is best? Why? What if it doesn’t work for you or your baby?

And then add the judgment.

The number one thing I have learned thus far, in 4 months, of being a mom is that you just need to do what is best for your baby and for you and not worry about what everyone else thinks. #hatersgunnahate. I think some people don’t stop to think about why a person may have made the specific choices that they have. For example, when my son was born he was a week early and arrived via emergency cesarean after nearly 40 hours of labour. This means my body did not physically “birth” a child and did not know to begin producing milk (or colostrum), so I had none to feed to my baby (c-section and milk production). This meant the hospital supplied us with instant formula for our baby. They brought in lactation consultants to help me practice latching and breastfeeding in the meantime but we used the formula until I had production. Unfortunately, the latching struggle what REAL. As it turned out, our son had both Jaundice and a tongue tie which both can contribute to difficulties in breastfeeding. We opted for the tongue tie to be clipped immediately (my husband has family members who did not get theirs clipped and they have a number of struggles with speech, eating, etc). The tongue tie and its healing now added to the struggle of breastfeeding.

Upon arriving home, after 5 days in the hospital, I had acquired an infected hematoma due to an improperly stitched cesarean incision and was struggling just to get in and out of bed let alone feed my son. These happen in 2-5% of women post-cesarean and I happened to be the statistic (this seems to be the story of my life in recent years). The first night, I did as the doctors and specialists recommended and attempted to have my son latch, but after 30 minutes of him screaming, me crying, and my husband trying to calm us both he told me we don’t need to do this. We agreed ahead of time that “fed is best” and that I wasn’t going to contact breastfeed. The stress melted away immediately. The next day I started the process of pumping and I bottle-fed our son breastmilk instead of contact breastfeeding him.

Now 4 months into this journey I have had experience pumping and feeding, formula feeding, and breastfeeding Kolter. They all have their pros and cons. The major bonus of pumping and feeding is the fact that anyone can feed him and I don’t always need to do it or even be there. My parents frequently watch him as my husband works unset hours and I am a full-time university student. Pumping and feeding enable them to take him for the day or even overnight without me needing to worry that he’s getting enough nourishment.

So what’s next?

For the next 7 weeks I am going to be blogging about the new situations, experiences, and obstacles I navigate through and overcome with being Kolt’s mom (my 4 sisters-in-law have informed me that this will now forever be my new name to everyone). I’m simultaneously working on the next blog posts about growth spurts, sleep regression, and introducing solid foods! I’m sure it will be eventful. #thestruggleisreal

I leave you with these final thoughts:

1) if you’re a parent/caregiver, what were your experiences with feeding in the first few weeks/months?

2) If you’re a parent/caregiver when and how did you first introduce solid foods? How did that go?

3) Do you have any tips, advice, or questions about my journey so far? Ask away!