The making of a zealot

[muck_a_luck]

I definitely have the makings of a true believer, if the right maniac could ever get ahold of me.

(Let's assume for a moment that slashers are not "the right maniac.")

Couple of unpleasant events in the night have lead to me saying "Fuck this!" to the idea of supplementing with formula. (Not in front of the baby, of course. Just inside the privacy of my own head, and here in print.)

First, we had a little motion sensor alarm test.

When Small Boy was born we lived in a tiny apartment. There was no need for a baby monitor. You could hear a baby wake up from any point in the apartment.

But now, we live on three levels. I wanted to be sure that if Little Sister was sleeping in her crib on the third floor, and I was in the basement doing laundry, I could hear her. So Husband went baby monitor shopping.

And he discovered motion detecting monitors and did way to much reading about SIDS. He scared himself silly and did some research and now we have a very-well reviewed sound/moition monitor.

I had some misgivings about it, mainly, that it might have so many false alarms that the freak out factor would not be worth the possible benefits it could provide. But the reviews were good, including people who said things like, "three fals alarms" in the full year they used it.

Well, last night, the alarm went off. It supposedly goes off if the baby is perfectly motionless for 20 seconds in a row. It has a beeper in the baby's room, as well as at each monitor station. Husband leaped from bed and dashed in. She was already stirring around when he got there, and not showing any evidence of being in distress. Her hands and feet were warm and she was her normal color.

So now we are trying to figure out if we had a near-death experience, or just an equipment malfunction. *rolls eyes*

So we all trooped downstairs for her to have something to eat. Whereupon I realized that I was going to do my first round with powdered formula. Whereupon I realized just EXACTLY how stupid formula is. The poor thing had to wait so long for the forumula to be ready that I could have expressed the milk faster. But I finally got the bottle ready for her, and she ate it and we all went back to bed.

She woke up about an hour and a half later just screaming. I went in there and her head was surrounded by a puddle of baby spitup.

THIS is why I was terrified to let AG33 sleep on his back. He used to spit up constantly, and I was sure he'd choke and drown. So here was my baby, me fresh off the SIDS alarm, laying on her back screaming in a puddle, with formula in her hair.

I realize that babies spit up. But this was her first big barf and it came hard on the heels of her first experince with the stupid powdered formula. I said, dammit, formula is stupid and it made her throw up and I'm just going to have to pick up the pace on the milk production.

The upside of this is that she has had to wait a really long time for two feedings now. Both times, I tried to take the edge of for her by alloing her to try to nurse first, and it is clear that, though she is still a little lazy about sucking, she IS getting a good latch. I think there may be a light at the end of this tunnel, and maybe I can put the pump away soon. I'm a feeding ahead of her now, so my plan is, allow her the chance to nurse, and try to get her to go at least 10 minutes, hopefully 10 minutes per breast, if she doesn't completely give up and have a fit. Then, offer her a bottle to be sure she got enough, then express after she's happily settled to get the next bottle and keep up production, in case she really didn't suckle long enough. I figure once she stops showing interest in the bottles after she nurses, we'll be safe to freeze whatever's in the fridge and put the pump away.

Comments

[green-grrl.livejournal.com]

Argh to formula spit-up! She's too young and innocent for rock star death!

So apparently the key to increasing milk production is to drink beer. Jack will be pleased to know, too, after his mpreg-induced sobriety is over. ;-)

[alpha-strike.livejournal.com]

It supposedly goes off if the baby is perfectly motionless for 20 seconds in a row.

I'm probably horribly ignorant about these things, but is it inconceivable that a sleeping baby may not change positions for twenty or thirty seconds at a time? I understand apnea monitors -- they go off if the baby doesn't breathe for fifteen or twenty seconds -- but I don't quite get this.

More info

[muck-a-luck.livejournal.com]

It's a motion sensitive plate under the mattress. It is supposedly sensitive enough to detect *any* movement, which I presume includes breathing. Supposedly it is sensitive enough that it will not work properly if you have something that vibrates on the same level with it, like a running washer machine or dryer down the hall, for instance. Then the monitor detects movement from the machines transmitted by the floor and doesn't go off if there is a problem with the baby.

False alarms are often generated when the baby moves in her sleep too far from where the monitor is centered in the middle of the crib. The monitor stops picking up movement and goes off. This is not what happened last night, as she isn't even rolling over yet, obviously.

[muck-a-luck.livejournal.com]

Is that so? Hmmmm.

*peers at you out of the corner of my eye*

Is there more of that m-preg thing?

Stargate m-preg is not soooooo bad.

*looks around shiftily*

[green-grrl.livejournal.com]

There is an entire backstory in brain justifying the few lines referring to P3X-459, but I wasn't planning on actually writing it down. *eg* But I agree -- why are people so afraid of Stargate mpreg? (Assuming of course, one avoids mpreg written by 14-year-olds.) We must do that squick-a-thon thing.