March is Pregnancy After Loss month. This is a month that we celebrate our pregnancies and birth after pregnancy of infant loss. A baby born after a loss is often referred to as a Rainbow Baby. At first, this is what I used to call my baby when I was pregnant, but now I have a love-hate relationship with calling him my Rainbow Baby.
When I was pregnant after my loss, I downloaded a pregnancy tracking app. I was more than paranoid and anxious throughout my pregnancy. When I signed up for the app, it asked me what I wanted to name the baby. Because I didn’t know the sex, I named (him) Rainbow.
Until my subsequent pregnancy after loss, I had never heard of the term “Rainbow Baby”, but I liked it. It was positive and I hadn’t had much of that since my twins’ death. As I got further along in my pregnancy I began to incorporate rainbows in his nursery, in his outfits, and I often referred to him as my Rainbow Baby.
I was still grieving my twins’ death. They were everywhere to me. But my living baby was my happiness. He was my pot of gold after the storm and at the bottom of the rainbow. My baby was going to survive. I held on to hope that he would be lucky and make it to the earth-side.
He arrived, healthy, strong, and beautiful beyond any imagination. My baby, my Rainbow Baby was absolute perfection and he was here. When we brought him home, he was wearing a custom onesie with a rainbow pattern, he had rainbow diapers, and his nursery had a few nods to rainbows. It was rainbow overload. When I look back at it now, it was ever-consuming.
After a while, my Rainbow baby and I grew attached to each other and the guilt began to rear is ugly head. My baby who had a name started his life in the shadows and past of his dead siblings. How would he feel growing up and knowing that he was “after” them.
Then began the love-hate relationship of calling him our Rainbow baby. When someone would mention the term Rainbow baby, I would correct them and remind them that he had his own identity. He is separate. My baby who I gave birth to after my devastating loss is a gift and an absolute blessing.
There is a place for the term Rainbow Baby, I whole-heartedly believe this to be true. This term of Rainbow brings hope and we pray for luck, especially after a a death. We need something to look forward to, something positive, something that brings us peace and love.
But I want to be clear, his life has nothing to do with their deaths.
He WAS my rainbow after the storm. But now he’s my sunshine, my little lover, and life is so much brighter with him in it (and coincidentally, his name means happy-go-lucky).
If your little Rainbow Baby gives you peace and hope and you will continue to call your little sweet your Rainbow, I encourage you to do so. If you feel the same as me by having a love-hate relationship with the term Rainbow Baby, I’m good with that too. It’s a constant internal fight to understand and organize your feelings of having a baby after your child’s or children’s death. There is no clear answer. This is your path and your journey, I wish you peace and love as you find your way.
Sorry, but I am not loving or even enjoying parenting my kids 24-7 during COVID-19. In fact, it sucks. Everyday, I feel more and more resentful, isolated, and frustrated. I tell my husband, I feel like a zoo animal. I am stuck in a cage and when we do go outside, we walk the same route. Over and over and over….
I see so many people on social media boast about how many lovely memories they are making. They claim that they are having so much fun together. Or How grateful they are to have this time with their kids. Showing off all their crafts and other BS that makes me feel worse….
No! Sit the Efff down, Karen.
Today and yesterday and the day before that and tomorrow, all I am trying to do is survive, while keeping my little people fed and watered. Trying best to not damage my kids and their kindred spirits and salvage my own mental health. I am doing this solo. It has not been fun for me, nor I suspect my kids are loving their crazy-ass mom at the moment.
No way am I looking for a pity party. I am just wanting to share my struggles because I betcha that there is another mom out there who is feeling just like me! Well, you know what sister…embrace the shit out of it because this is right now!
I don’t have the luxury of having my husband at home. He is an essential worker, so he is gone all day, 5 days a week. I bet that there are partners out there that are out of the home longer, with more kids, with worse off circumstances. You probably loathe me right now and my whining. Sorry, I’ll whine with you and we can complain and wallow in this parenting saga together!
I miss my friends. I long for the pretty stores to see the sparkly things I don’t buy and all the smelly candles. Even shopping on-line feels weird and different. And I don’t like it. I feel like I am playing SIMS and I am losing at the game of life!
You are not alone…I repeat, you are not alone with not enjoying parenting right now…
So, if you feel guilty, know you aren’t alone. If you feel like a crappy parent, I’m there with ya. If you aren’t loving every second, samesies. If you secretly wish school were back in session, I feel you, girl! Because I will be the first one packing a lunch and then taking a nap!
If you feel something, just feel it. These are weird times. These times are hard. Don’t let the Karen’s bring you down. Just take a deep breath and make bedtime early…at least that’s what I do. It is really, really, really hard to pour from an empty cup. Do your best, because at the end of the day, our kids (seem to) love us no matter what. Tomorrow is a new day. Fill up that mug with hot sweet bean-juice (or wine…I won’t judge) and take on the day like the queen you are! These times are weird and I think it’s ok to not enjoy parenting during Covid-19…
Boo-yah Mama!
Neither of my babies have been great nursers. Both of them went on a nursing strike between 7-10 months. If you have never gone through it, it is the most stressful, painful, annoying part of breastfeeding that I have at least experienced so far. My current baby went through a long one. Almost 2 months of squirming on the breast, biting, scraping (yes, and it hurts!), and screaming when my tater was near his face. Despite all of the tears from both of us, we made it through. I stopped my baby’s nursing strike. I don’t know why he refused or why he went through the strike, but I am going to share with you how we (because he and I are a team) made it through.
What I did:
- Kept offering the breast after naptime and throughout the daytime
- Pumped when he didn’t empty my breasts
- When he showed that he was frustrated, I took him off and didn’t force
- I gave him something to be distracted with (a blanket, a small toy)
- I followed up with a bottle of formula or breastmilk
- He needed time and I kept being annoyingly persistent
Kept offering him the breast:
My little guy has been on a routine since about 5 months of age or so. This predictability has helped me write this blog, but also give us both a consistent routine. I feed him after he wakes up for the day, after naps, and before bedtime.
This works for us.
When he went through his nursing strike, I would offer him the breast upon waking up. If he refused, I would stop and then change his diaper. I would then try again after the diaper change. If he refused, despite feeling frustrated I would offer him a bottle and then in the middle of his playtime, I would offer him the breast. There would be times where he would refuse or he would take a few sucks, and there would be times where he would drink for a few minutes. It was really touch and go.
Pumped after feeding:
More often than not, he wouldn’t empty the breast. I kept saying to my husband, “now I know what blue-balls feel like”. It was painful. My little guy would drink before my let down and then he would come off. I often had a breast pump or my hand pump available to catch what my guy didn’t take. It was so time consuming and quite frustrating, but I had an end-goal, which was to keep breastfeeding and to ultimately stop my baby’s nursing strike.
When he showed that he was frustrated, I took him off and didn’t force:
There was nothing more that I wanted to do than smush his tiny little face into my boob and make him drink. But that is not realistic and definitely not going to happen. Instead, I would try to calm him down and offer the breast again. When that didn’t work, I would change his diaper, and then try again. If that didn’t work we would abandon ship and try again later…until then it was date time with the pump.
I gave him something to be distracted with:
As time went on, I tried to be crafty. You know, outsmart the little bugger. I would give him a small toy, get him interested and then tip him back. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it only worked momentarily, sometimes it was an epic fail. Different times, I needed different craftiness, I would say rhymes and use my fingers, or I would make really awkward facial expressions while talking to him. Literally, I tried everything to distract him. It was hit and miss with him.
I followed up with pumped breastmilk or formula:
Sure this might defeat the purpose of all of my efforts to have him nurse, but I refused to allow him to be hungry. So I made this decision. If this is not an option for you, who am I to say it is wrong. This worked for me, so this is what I did.
He needed time and kept being annoyingly persistent:
This is where the success happened. Sure it took 2 months, I could have easily thrown in the towel, but just like anything, consistency is key to success.
Feeling like I tried a million things, something just clicked in his head and he’s back, he’s nursing. With help from a lactation consultant, my own research and persistence, we did it. It was a long and at times; stressful two months but we’re back baby!!
I hope that some of the strategies my experience of how I stopped my baby’s nursing strike can help you and encourage you not to give up!
Nap poops are real….also really annoying and super common. So if you’re reading this, I bet you are going through the same thing. I am going to tell you how I got my baby to stop pooping during naps.
Not that long ago my little guy went on a nap strike so he could fill his pants and not sleep. That time in his tiny life was fun….NOT! I needed naps to happen for my own sanity
I was pretty annoyed because I felt like he just waited until I poured that hot cup of coffee, then he would begin to wail. He was such a Grumpy Gus while in his crib. I would go in, change his diaper, and put him back down to sleep….without luck. He was even grumpier. He would stay awake for that entire nap. So that made things fun when it came to me keeping him awake until his next naptime. It was uber frustrating for both of us.
Naturally, when I am frustrated, I wanted to talk to everyone about it. A girlfriend of mine said “put him down earlier”. She continued by telling me that she has gone through this and she has a “trick” that is fail proof.
I was listening…
She told me to put him in his crib about ten to fifteen minutes before his naptime. Leave the window curtains open, turn on the light, throw some toys in the crib, and leave him in his clothes. She said I could put away laundry, stock diapers, or go downstairs and leave him to play for that time (remember the hot coffee?).
I thought she was nuts and that this was some sort of pipedream that I could get my infant to poop on demand. But I gave it a shot….
BAM! A big doodie on day one!
Seriously, what kind of witchcraft is this? I believed this to be some sort of fluke. So I tried the next day, and the next day, and the next day…all with the same result of having a big full poopy surprise waiting for me. I was so excited to show my husband our baby’s new trick! He was mind blown!!
I have now penciled “poop-time” into our daily routine. Right after breakfast, it’s time to have a poop party. After about ten to fifteen minutes, I clean him up and put him back down for his nap (his scheduled nap time) with clean and empty pipes. He wakes up fresh, rested,and ready to take on the rest of the day!
Of course, there are going to be times where we miss the mark, like he may not want an audience (I know how precious bathroom time is solo), or he just toots away without any poop production, or he has a small little smear after naptime. That’s ok because I usually cake on some bum cream before he naps anyway to avoid any sort of bum irritation.
If you are having any sort of pants-filling challenges with your child, give this a whirl. making these simple changes is how I got my baby to stop pooping during naptime, bringing back restful sleep for him and self-care time for me.
Let me know how you fair out. Enjoy those naptimes, the hot coffee, or trashy TV while your little one slumbers, because you know, it’s exhausting after a big poo-poo-a-choo.
