Milk supply

Because of Reagan sleeping through the night on Sat I have all but lost my milk supply. I cannot tell you how upsetting this is and I am really struggling with coming to terms with it. I am calling on God to be with me through this and remind me that some things are out of my hands.

It is not a total lost cause yet, but I don't think I am going to be able to recover from this. My breasts are not only empty (for the past 36hrs) but already shrinking back to pre-nursing size. Reagan is refusing the bottle which only makes this harder because she is not getting enough to eat. I am having her at the breast as much as possible and she usually does get a let down every few hours. But she is only swallowing milk for a minute or two before it is gone. At least it is something and so far is keeping her from getting dehydrated. I am offering the bottle several times a day (and night) even though she is totally rejecting it.

I know all the tricks with teas, pumping (I am using Reagan to stimulate rather than a pump which should be more effective), resting, drinking lots of fluids, etc. But this is not just a decrease in supply, there is really no supply; therefore the best thing I can do is make sure I am eating and drinking enough, continue to let Reagan suck and give my worry up to the big guy.

Reagan's sleep

Reagan slept through the night for the first time last night! I don't expect this to be the norm (Katya slept through the night at 6weeks but did not do it consistently until 7 mo) for a while but it is still exciting. She slept from 9am until 6am!! I was really shocked, especially because she did not want to nurse before bed and so she had not eaten since 5pm. That is 11 hours without food and her diaper reflected that by not being very wet this morning. That I don't like because it is so important for babies to stay hydrated. I had to get up and pump at 1230 and if I had known that she would sleep for so long I would have pumped both sides. When she got up at 6am she nursed well, projectile vomited, then we played and read books, nursed again and then went back down at 7am.

She definitely is sleeping longer stretches at night. A 4-6hr stretch is not uncommon but we are still struggling with getting her to let us but her down. She is still sleeping in her swing.

We are doing great with her in cloth diapers and I once again prefer them to disposable. They are not leaking like they were with Katya; the laundering is going well and we have less blow outs in them than in disposables.

We have several projects going on which I will talk about in another post. Love to all, Brenda

Current pics

Reagan is so smiley!

Katya with her Crocs and Curious Gorge books from Grandma and Baba T.

Katya in Grandma and Baba F's beautiful yard.

Reagan sucking on her hand and looking super cute in her Bum Genuis diapers!

Reagan playing in her crib, wearing Katya's birth-day hat from Bozeman Deaconess Hospital.

My girls

Reagan will be 11 weeks tomorrow! She is totally into the binky now which we are happy about. It is so nice to have something to help sooth and calm her. She still sucks on her hand at times and I try and swaddle her with one or both arms out so she can learn to self sooth. Sometimes this works and but usually she is mad and will not go to sleep without being completely swaddled. She is really finding her voice and making the cutest noises. She does a little sqealy laugh occastionally. She loves being talked to and smiled at when she is on the floor playing. She will lay by helself for a little while but overall seems to require being intertained more than Katya did. She is in cloth diapers now and that is going well. Lastly, she is so freaking cute I can't stand it! I love her chub and her beautiful eyes. Craig and I are quite smitten by her (of course).

Katya really likes her Disney "Princess" book pack that Aunt Rena got her. It is great because it has some of her favorite characters (Bell, Snow White, the Faries from Sleeping Beauty) and each book teaches her about something: shapes, colors, opposits, numbers, animals and letters. I have read them a lot lately and the other day she opened the opposits book to the appropriate page and said, "up, down!" Another time she opended the ABC book to the first page and said "Do-py," since D is for Doppy. So cute! She is getting really good at her shape box where she puts the right shaped block into the right hole. She sometimes needs help getting them in but she is getting better and better. She is really good at recognizing the shape and finding the corresponding shape on the box. She gets the square and the rectangle mixed up and the hexagon and the octagon but that is understandable. She is so smart!

I am typing this post on our new computer; Yeah! I don't have any pictures on here yet so new pictures are to come. Love and prayers to all, Brenda

Reagan and Katya stuff

Reagan is starting to make a gurgley laughing noises. I am not sure if it is an official first laugh because it is still ambiguous but it sure is cute! Speaking of ambiguous, Reagan's eyes are quite a mystery. They seem to have gotten lighter, which we did not expect and it is so hard to tell what color they will turn out to be. They definitely have light brown in them but also some greyish/bluish/green around the outside edge. I think I would call them hazel right now but of course they still can change quite a bit. They look different in different lighting too. There is a little streak of dark brown in one of her eyes. It is pretty small, so not real noticeable. It may be a unique fluke that stays there like her Aunt Eryn has. Eryn's eyes are blue but one of her eyes has a brown "patch."

I have some disposable diapers I trying to use up before Reagan grows out of them (which she really already has but we are pushing it) and then we will go to the cloth full time. I decided to just have Reagan in the cloth and keep Katya in disposables. Katya is cheaper to buy for since she does not go through as many diapers a day. Plus she pees such huge volumes now that she is older we were having trouble with the cloth diapers leaking. Reagan sure looks cute in the Bum Genius diapers! I have been using Katya's Fuzzi Bunz without the insert to cover her disposable diapers. She has been wearing dresses so much and I like having a barrier between the disposable that droops as it fills up and things like our couch. Plus they look cute.


Katya is really copying our words these days. It is pretty cute. She also likes to say "Umm-hum, yah" when I am talking to her about something. A lot of times she is not following what I am saying but still says, "yah, uh-huh." Here is a picture of her drinking milk out of a big girl cup. She liked trying this but would get upset when the milk spilled.

We think Katya is going to love camping; being outside all the time! How fun. Here is a picture of our awesome new tent that Craig and I got with our birthday money. We can't wait to use it in a few weeks! (July 2nd and 3rd).

I was able to coax Katya out of her Aunt Candace made dress (so I could wash it) into the one in this picture. She is being pretty particular about what she wants to wear. She has gone several days and nights in a row in the Aunt Candy dress, which is her favorite, but she is now liking this pink one too. It is way too big on her and she is constantly taking the spaghetti straps off. I have to get pretty creative at night to get her into PJ's without lots of screaming (some nights I don't even try, not worth the fight).

Katya's new big thing is she is opening doors! She still has to try pretty hard but can turn the knob and open a closed door. What a big girl!

We are leaving tomorrow for Duvall. Alexi's high school graduation is tomorrow night and the open house for her is on Sat. We are looking forward to seeing everyone and celebrating with Lexi. Katya is very excited to see Grandma and Baba Doug. We are coming home Sat night because our dogs will be home alone (the neighbors will come over and feed/let them out). It will be nice for us to have a day at home before our crazy week starts again. Monday and Tuesday are long days for both Craig and I since he works all day long. Bye for now!

Katya and Addison

Katya sure loves her couisn. They were being so cute sitting on the couch next to each other at our friends house on Sunday. Katya kept getting into Addison's face and they were saying "hi" to each other over and over! The part of the interaction that I caught on video was the end when Addison got tired of Katya being up in her grill but it is still cute.

Reagan is 2 months old!

Reagan's 2 month check went fine. She is 14lbs, which is off the charts and 22.75 inches, which is about 80th percentile. I can't find were I wrote down her head circumference but it is 75th percentile so she is growing just great. She is doing all the things she is suppose to at this age, namely smiling. She is getting pretty wiggly and tries to roll over when she is on her tummy. She is kicking her legs a lot and starting to discover her hands. She is also starting to "talk" which is so fun. Here is a video clip of her smiling.



Still sleeping great during the day and not so great at night. Last night she was particularly fussy and I slept terribly. The night before was pretty good. Although I did not get to fall asleep until 1:30am (because she would wake up every time I put her down and we would have to start over with the soothing) she slept until 6:30 so I got my first 5hr stretch. She still sleeps best in her swing but we get an occasional hour or two in her crib. That's it for now! Love, Brenda

Happy Birthday Craig!!

Craig is now 29! So I don't feel quite as old as I did for the month that he was 28 and I am 30:0) We are having Beef Wellington for dinner, yummm!! Hopefully Reagan will be sleeping or content in her bouncy seat so we can eat together. She did yesterday and it was our first meal together in weeks!

Here is the news with us:

Katya is doing great without her morning bottle. She only asked for it one morning. She is such a big girl! I have to say that I am glad we did not push getting rid of the bink or bottle earlier; no reason to rush my baby to grow up:0)

Katya is wanting me over Craig big time. I feel bad for him but he says it does not bother him. She runs to me and says "mama, mama. up." when he gets home from work. She wants me to do everything for her, but she doesn't freak out the whole time if Craig is putting her to bed without me. I think this new development is a result of the new baby taking up some of my time.

Reagan really does best if her naps are not interrupted with outings. She continues to go down sleepy but awake during the day. She still doesn't like to be put down in the evenings and usually won't stay down (we make several attempts) until about 10-11pm.

Reagan is smiling a ton when she is awake and well rested (about 3 or 4 times/24hr). Her smiles are so cute! She does this gaping mouth smile with her tongue poking out. I have gotten a few pics but it is hard because to get her to smile I have to get in her face and can't aim the camera. I have tried to get a video of it but not having much luck. I need to get Craig's help with this.

Reagan still only lasts 15-30mins of being awake and happy before telling us she is ready to be soothed and back to bed.

Craig is doing great in his new job and is finally getting Sundays off from the Gausthus again (starting this Sun). We have a few vacations/excuses for him to take time off work this summer. First is Lexi's graduation in a few weeks; then he gets 3 or 4 days off over 4th of July weekend (we are going camping); he is doing a team relay race (running) the last weekend in July and then taking the next Sat/Sun off to celebrate Katya's b-day (not sure what we are doing for that yet).

Despite being tired I am loving life with my two girls. Some days are better than others of course, but I am taking the tantrums in stride and enjoying Katya's age more than ever. I am also eating up all the snuggle time with Reagan since I know how fast the first year goes. They don't stay babies for long, which is a plus for some parents but not me. I love the baby stage!

Yesterday we had a freak severe thunder storm in Portland. There was even a brief tornado warning and several trees did come down around the metro area during the storm. It was not too bad in our part of town. Katya did not even notice the thunder and it was short lived. That's about it!

Katya and her favoirte movie

Katya's current favorite movie is "Annie." This video clip demonstrates how excited she gets about it. The camera work by me is pretty poor but it is still a cute clip. If only there was audio (the videos are taken with our camera)!

Katya says "Ha-gin" for Miss Hannigan (the lady who runs the orphanage); "Daddy Waa" for Daddy Warbucks; "Brown Hat" for another character who often wears a brown hat. She says "Aani" a lot including, "Bye Annie," "Uh-oh Annie," "Night night Annie" at certain parts during the film.

She is putting more and "sentences" together. Yesterday she told me "all done phone" when I was calling Craig and she apparently did not want me to be on the phone. She tells me "all done" a lot when I am doing something that she doesn't want me to do, like pumping. Some other cute things she says is "daner" (danger); "ary" (scary)and "Owie." She likes to talk about her owies. She has fallen outside quite a few times lately and gotten some scrapes. She was also playing with Craigs bike pedal and the bike fell on her. Super scary and I felt terrible that I let that happen. She likes to point to her scrap and say, "Owie. Daddy. Bike. Scary." She also says "poop" and tells me if there is dog poop on the lawn that I need to pick up. The other day she told me that she had pooped and then said "change." She is constantly surprising me with new words.

Katya and Reagan updates

Katya continues to do great without her binky at bedtimes. She doesn't even ask for it; instead she asks about "Bing" which is the swings and wants to be told that we will go to the swings tomorrow. Silly girl!

We are on day 3 with no morning bottle. The first day she woke up happy and did not ask for it (which is why I decided not to give it to her). Yesterday she woke up cranky, crying and wanted her bottle. Craig gave her milk in a sippy cup but she wanted it "hot" so he warmed it for her. Today she woke up happy again (this really seems to make all the difference) and never mentioned it. She also slept in late so I had been up and had breakfast all ready for her. I put her in her highchair as soon as I brought her downstairs and she had Cheerios, an orange and warm milk in a sippy cup. She did want more milk at the end of the meal and I gave her cold milk which she was fine with.

Committing to Reagan's naps has meant that I have not left the house for 3 days. She is only wake for 1hr on average and often gets sleepy after only 30 mins. By the time I change her, feed her and play a little she is ready to be swaddled and soothed back to sleep. This makes it pretty impossible to go anywhere. I don't mind running errands in the evenings but I really wish I could take Katya to the park everyday. Today I had our stroller all ready to go and when the girls got up I had them dressed, fed and out the door to the park. But of course Reagan got tired and ended up falling asleep in the Bijorn. That was fine except when we got home and I tried to put her down she woke up. So her morning nap, which is usually her best nap of the day (4hr) is totally interrupted.

What I plan on trying on nights Craig is home is have dinner on the table at 5pm, eat quickly as a family and then get Katya to the park for 30-60 mins before bed. We can take turns taking her and her bedtime is 7pm now so it should work. That is if Craig can get home at 5 which is hit or miss.

Thats all for now! Love, Brenda