Bodily Fluids

Parenting involves dealing with a lot of bodily fluids, especially when your children are young. In the first few months of motherhood, one is likely to be peed on, pooped on, and spit up on. Nadia didn't spit up much At All, but Ian has more than made up for that. He has been doing better with that for the most part, but we are still getting A Lot of use out of the cloth diapers I was given for Nadia that we use as burp cloths. Usually he doesn't spit up during the night, but last night was a huge exception. During the 1:00 AM feeding, he spit up so much that I had to change his pjs (his right sleeve was totally soaked and in fact dripping it was so wet), my pjs (including my underwear!), and I threw the boppy cover in the washing machine this morning as even 6 hours later it was still wet. Oi vey! I was sad when it happened because it was my milk ("liquid gold" as the lactation folks call it) that he spewed up all over the place. I wish he had kept more of it down. Once potty training is over for Nadia, I want to have the family room carpet shampooed because between Ian's spit ups and Nadia's accidents, it's had a lot of bodily fluids on it the past few months.

One becomes increasingly aware of bodily fluids during potty training time. The update with that would be that things are about the same. She continues to use the potty for #2, but she's not doing well with #1. The last time she peed in a potty was Sunday morning before we went to church. She had one accident Sunday evening and two each day on Monday and Tuesday. She didn't have any accidents this morningm BUT she also didn't use the potty at all. She has amazing bladder control. She was up for over 6 hours before I put her down for her nap and she didn't pee or poop during that time frame. She drank milk, ate a banana (high water content), etc. I would never be able to go that long without going! I tried to get her to go before we went shopping this morning, but I finally gave up and put a pull-up on over her underwear, but she managed to keep both dry during the about 90 minutes we were gone. During the past week the most diapers/pull-ups she's used in a day has been 2. Some days she's only used one. One time she kept her diaper dry all night. The other 6 days that didn't happen at night. She's kept her pull-up dry during her nap a few times. The past few days she has had two #1 accidents a day, pooped in the potty, and peed during her nap and at night. She didn't have an accident from 3-6pm while Beth was babysitting her. It was nice that she saved her accident for Daddy when he got home, lol. I think part of the problem is that she's not drinking enough, but honestly even back in March when I pumped her with tons of fluids (including many popsicles), she still was able to hold it for many hours. I welcome any advice regarding getting her to drink water (I have limited her milk consumption to meal times only in the hopes that at the other times of the day she'll drink water) and how to get her to pee on the potty. She had zero accidents on Saturday so I know she CAN pee on the potty. This afternoon she pooped on the potty and peed in her swimming pool. She yelled "pee hurry," and I did hurry, but she was mostly done by the time I got her on the potty. I was nursing Ian at the time. Potty training is just not fun, but she's made enough progress that we're not turning back. At least I haven't had to clean any accidents today.

The increase in attention to bodily fluids isn't limited to those of your kids. Although the heartburn went away following the removal of the placenta in January (YAY!), I still have some "stress incontinence" when I sneeze. Not all the time like when I was pregnant with Ian, but it's still annoying, and my guess is that at this point it's going to be a lifelong condition. Bummer. In general I haven't had trouble with leaking and blocked ducts and such lately, but last night was an exception and was likely the reason Ian spewed up all over the place. Last week I didn't take the pump to work like I did every day I went to school during the spring semester. However he was awake when I got home or woke up after I got home and so I nursed him before I went to bed. That didn't happen yesterday. The previous two nights had woke up within an hour of being put down, so I didn't pump when I got home because I thought he'd be waking up soon. He didn't. Instead about 10.5 hours passed in between times when I had nursed him. Not Good. I didn't get much sleep and was grateful when he woke up as I was in pain and leaking all over the place. Had I known he would sleep until 1am, I would have pumped at 8pm. If he's in bed when I get home from class tomorrow, I will definitely pump. I don't like to pump, but I don't like being in pain and leaking so much either.

Another thing that moms tend to focus on is sleeping habits. When Nadia was 6 months old she was getting about 15 hours of sleep a day - 12 at night and four 45 minute naps during the day. Right now Ian is averaging 9 hours at night and four 30  minute naps during the day, which is 4 hours less of sleep a day compared to what Nadia got at this stage. Ian did have one really long nap today. I can't remember the last time he had a nap that exceeded one hour long. He fell asleep in Walmart around 10am (nap #2 since he started his day at 5:15 this morning) and stayed asleep when I transferred him to the carseat at 10:45 and continued to sleep in our garage (with the car door beside him open as well as the door into the house open so I could hear him) until 11:40. He slept for 100 minutes straight! Wow! I think that's his longest nap EVER. Now had that happened for nap #3 (during Nadia's nap) I could have gotten a lot done! I am grateful though that nap #3 was 45 minutes long. Naps 1 and 3 were the typical 30 minutes, but the other two give me hope of longer naps becoming the norm in the future.