Again I thought things would go better because Ray had inquired about “nap” time several times over the course of the evening. He was in good spirits at bedtime. Sure enough as soon as I said mommy hug time he began his distress.

For about an hour we did the usual with Ray opening his door and either Daddy or I telling “no game” “back to bed” etc. Dad and I have taken the broken record approach trying no to say anything additional or engage with him in any way except to say the aforementioned. Or course we don’t always succeed.

What’s funny this … the game elements for Ray …

1.       He tries to lengthen the time by rearranging the stuffed animals on his bed

2.       he tries to lengthen the time by asking for things

3.       He tries to be as quite as he can until he opens the door

So as the night drew on I was trying to think of a consequence that would be immediate and important enough to get Ray to change his behavior. I finally come up with telling him that if he continues to get out of bed and opening his door I won’t let him sleep with his pooh bear. I got back to the kitchen and about 3 minutes later I hear his door open. I head for his room determined to take pooh bear away and steel myself for the crying I am sure will follow. I get to the door and Ray stick his hand our of the door which is holding pooh bear and says, “here.” And then turns around and gets back in bed. Deep sigh.

So after about another ½ hour, I am growing weary. So next time I hear the door open I just round the corner and say “back to bed.” Ray goes back to bed but I don’t go over and close the door. I just leave it open thinking that he’ll wait a few minutes and march out to the living room. 3 minutes pass. 5 minutes pass. 10 minutes pass. 20 minutes pass. 40 minutes pass. We debate whether we should creep over and shut or not risk him waking up. Finally, Dad bravely goes over and gets the door closed. Whew.

He did get up around 3ish, I think, it was Dad’s turn so I don’t know for sure. Daddy reported in the morning that Ray went back to bed and didn’t get up again until 7am he usual wake up time.

We're going to try fitting a baby gate in this doorway tonight.

The following night it took Daddy about 45 minutes to get him to sleep so by the time I got home from my martial class I thought things were going to go well. Oh foolish me.

Around 1 am we heard Ray jump out of bed and open the door. It was my turn so I jumped out of bed and directed him back to bed. This continued in the usual manner for about an hour and a half.

Well it has begun. Over the weekend, Ray did not nap on either Saturday or Sunday which led to very unfortunate evenings for all. We thought, okay he'll go back to daycare and nap there and we'll be back on schedule. He did nap at daycare yesterday but when it came to night night time here's how things went down:

7:15 – mom reads to ray for around 15 minutes.

7:30 – mommy hug time. Ray starts with “no no” and “sing sing” and “e i e i o” Mommy sings around 5 rounds of old McDonald and tells Ray that it is night night time and to go get in bed with Pooh bear.

7:35 – Much screaming and crying for mommy begins.

7:45 – I make in 10 minutes (I’m out of practice) before going in to say night night again.

7:46 - Much screaming and crying for mommy begins.

8:00 – Jon is doing the dishes and Mom is upstairs. All sounds quite in Ray’s room on the monitor. Then I hear Jon say “hi Ray” Ray had come out to the kitchen on his own (first time).

8: 01 – Daddy herds Ray back to bed. I think he read to him and then put him back to bed.

8:05 – Ray comes out of room and Dad herds him back to bed, no reading.

8:07 – Ray comes out the room and tires to run past daddy to get to the “rug” room.  This continue every 2 to 5 minutes for the next hour.

9:00 – Jon turns the reigns over to mommy so he can get to studying.

9:02 – For the next hour I go through the same thing. At the end he is just getting to open the door and I’d say “Back to bed Ray” and he would turn around and put pooh bear and back on the bed and climb in, lie down, I’d put the blanket over him and then in 2 minutes we’d start the cycle over.

10:10 – He finally falls asleep.

5:30 the next morning – The whole things starts over and daddy spends the next 1 ½ getting Ray to go back to bed.

7:00 – Mom gets him up at his regular time and he seems fine. Daddy is exhausted.

We’ll see how things go tonight.

Now maybe I don’t remember things correctly, but I don’t recall the instructor talking about how difficult breastfeeding can be for many mothers. All I remember is her talking about how important and good for the baby it is, that you were supposed to watch the baby not the clock, and practicing latching techniques with a stuffed fake boob and a doll baby. That was really easy and I’m here to tell ya that “real” breastfeeding is no walk in the park.

Unfortunately for me, I had a lot of expectations around breastfeeding and what a wonderful joyous bonding time it was going to be for me and my baby. That nirvana has yet to materialize.

Baby Ray latched on pretty easily within the first hour after birth. Now I might not remember the easiness of this latch since I was still somewhat in shock after the birth and after being stitched up. And this latch was with the assistance of one of the post-partum nurses. After that, however, things weren’t so easy.

In the post-partum room, I would have to call for a nurse to help me with the latch. It’s kind of weird having someone you don’t know grabbing your breast, scrunching up your nipple and stuffing into your baby’s mouth. One the other hand, you are so concerned that your baby is getting something to eat that you really don’t care. I would try and mimic what the nurses did but the positioning is backwards and I never got the hang of it while in the hospital. Finally a lactation specialist came for a visit and just like when you take your car to the mechanic, everything went beautifully when she was there but fall apart after she left.

When you’re ready to go home after the birth you’re ready to go home. You’re tried of being in a cramped room without any of your own stuff and you think you’re to get settled with your child in your own home. What you don’t think that much about is that you’re leaving all that professional help behind at the hospital.

The first two days home from the hospital were pure hell. The thing is when you’re breastfeeding is that you have no idea how much food, if any, your baby is eating. I couldn’t get Ray to latch very well and essentially he was starving. So Ray is being to cry all the time because he’s so hungry and Jon and I are at our wits end and are running on next to no sleep. My mild isn’t coming in fast enough and on the third night we enter into a long debate about whether or not to give Ray formula in a bottle and how much should we give him, etc. We end up giving him a couple of ounces of formula and I ended up crying myself to sleep thinking I was the worst mother in the world. The next day I called the lactation department in tears again. In the time before we go to the appointment, Jon is syringe feeding and I’m attempting to breastfeed and I’m pumping after every feeding.

The nice thing about going to lactation is that they weight your baby, you feed them, and then they get weighted again. That way you know how much milk the baby is transferring (eating). So Ray’s mouth is small, my boobs are big, and my nipples are flat. All of that spells a steep learning curve for latching. Although you watch these movies about how baby’s instinctively go the breast after birth, they don’t tell you (until later) that they have to learn how to breastfeed. Anyway, I leave lactation with a nipple shield, a supplementer, and instructions to watch the clock while feeding Ray. A nipple shield is this plastic perfectly formed nipple with holes in the end of it that fits over your nipple so that the baby has something to latch to. A supplementer is a device with a small tube that you tape to your breast so that the baby is getting more milk than they would just suckling at the breast. So we go through two weeks of trying to use these two devices as well as continuing to use the syringe late at night. The nice thing about the supplementer and the syringe is that you know exactly how much the baby is getting to eat when you use them.

Finally, more than a month out, Ray is slowly getting better at latching on the bare breast and we’re no longer using the supplementer or the syringe and just using the nipple shield rarely. The downside of the being solely on the bare breast is now my nipples are really sore. So it’s getting better, but I’m feel I’m a long way from the joyous unstressful bonding I was lead to believe breastfeeding would be.