The Journey of Parenthood…

Week Six Summary

Tess’s sixth week of life was from Thursday Sept 4th through Wednesday September 10th. She was 5 weeks old during this week!

Nursing: Oh boy. Nursing was CRAZY during this week. While we were on our trip to Orlando I reused the same bath towel a couple of times. It’d been SO LONG since I’d had a yeast infection that I forgot how easily I get them. Oops. I realized I had come down with one while on the trip so did some over the counter medicine to knock it out. However, this was also the time that my nipple was cracked, bleeding, and painful. Yeast and cracked nipple? Hello THRUSH.

I first started having shooting pain while nursing and thought it was just due to the damaged nipple (if you remember from last post I thought my issue was latch related so I was changing up positioning in hopes of helping). The shooting pain got worse and worse. First it just hurt while latching, then while nursing, then for a little bit following nursing, then it was just painful non-stop. Like bad enough where I couldn’t sleep.

I called my dr and Tess’s dr. And while I LOVE and ADORE my pediatrician…they gave me a hard time years ago when I thought Kye had thrush. Because he didn’t display any symptoms (just like Tess wasn’t either), the pediatrician didn’t want to give me meds. Ugh. When dealing with thrush, you can’t get rid of it unless BOTH mom and baby are treated. I finally got meds for her and I did a TON of research on how to best attack that junk!

I wrote an entire blog post about battling thrush and you can read it here! Be sure to check it out for all my tips and tricks. Of course I had all this going on the same week that Zach was traveling for work. BAD timing. Mrs. Charlotte was super sweet and took the big kids with her for a couple nights so I could just focus on my health and on Tess and getting us back on track. I was MISERABLE without all my kids at home with me. I didn’t feel right about them being gone. They are my kids and my responsibility, ya know? I was able to get rest and to really focus on the thrush but I was dying for them to come home and have all my kids under one roof again!

It was an emotional week. Being in so much pain and not sleeping well and still having to get up in the night to feed was a LOT for me to handle. I had a pretty decent emotional break down. I gave myself a day to just be upset and frustrated and then moved forward. It stinks that after three kids I STILL struggle with nursing. But it’s worth it to me and I’m thankful that I don’t let my difficulties stop me from something I believe so strongly in and enjoy so much.

I did stop tracking the length of time during her feeds this week. I had SO much else going on and I felt like she was eating in a normal length of time and I knew when she was done and such so I stopped worrying with the exact lengths of feedings. I still wrote down which side I finished on as I didn’t need to be trying to remember that while trying to deal with all the thrush stuff!

As if to remind me that nursing IS worth it…during one of her feedings she reached up and rubbed my face with her hand. Totally melted my heart!

All of my thrush army!

While in Orlando I weaned myself from my daily pump session at 10 am. I pumped a bottle each day for Tess at that time so my body stopped double producing for both the nursing session and the pump session I’d been doing. Once we got home I started my plan of pumping randomly each day in order to store up milk for Hawaii. It went really well and I was excited to see how full my freezer was getting!!!

I feel like this week was the week where things just “clicked” with Tess. She trusted me and when I’d go to get her up she was happy, rather than frantic to eat. She was also calmer during her feedings. I learned that when her body got stiff during the feeding and she’d unlatch it meant she needed to be burped. If she came off and sighed it meant she was finished eating!

She had a lot of bottles on the trip and did great but she had them all while outside so we found that she tended to continue to only drink a bottle when we went outside with her! It’s important for her to take a bottle with the BIG Hawaii trip especially…so we made sure she got at least one bottle a week.

Schedule: This week Tess was on the same schedule as the week prior!

7:00 Eat

7:50-10:00: Nap

10:00: Eat

10:50-1:00 Nap

1:00: Eat

1:50-4:00: Nap

4:00: Eat

4:50-6:00: Nap

6:00: Eat

6:50-7:45ish: Nap

7:45ish: Bath, ready for bed

8:00: Eat

10:30: Dream feed

4:00-4:30 am: Waking on own for middle of the night feeding

This week was the week everything “clicked” with her. She trusted me and I knew her better. I felt like I understood many of the ways she communicates and I felt much more confident in my ways of handling her with things.

Tess also really started knowing her schedule. She’d get sleep right on cue (gets stiff and fussy then yawns for her sleep cues) and she’d wake up happy when I’d go in to get her from nap I’d be greeted with an adorable grin. If she woke early on her own from naps she’d typically just grunt happily until I came in to get her. And the naps when I had to wake her? She was MAD! Made me think she’ll do well on the 3.5 hour schedule soon!

This week I had a lot of concerns about WHAT to do with her schedule. At this age I moved both Kye and Britt to the 3.5 hour. The newer version of Babywise says not to do that this young and everyone I talked to said not to do it until she was STTN. I was getting anxious about her STTN before our Hawaii trip and I felt a LOT of pressure (all put on by myself!) to get her STTN asap. There are about a million different ways to do the schedule. Which tweaks would work? Which wouldn’t? I debated and debated and appreciate all my friends who dealt with those debates during this week! Larissa was especially helpful in showing me her daughter’s schedules at the same age and I pretty much worked out how I was going to switch things up once she turned 6 weeks old.

Wonder Week: This week we experienced Tess’s first Wonder Week. I didn’t know about the wonder weeks with Kye and didn’t learn about them with Britt until I was in the middle of her second one. I’m not a big “app” person. Zach teases me for my lack of apps, but I just don’t like to have my phone filled with them all! However, I DO have the Wonder Weeks App and I HIGHLY recommend it to every single parent out there!

It is truly LEGIT. It tracks your baby’s age and will notify you how many days you have until their next developmental leap and what that leap will include. Basically when babies are advancing and developing, they tend to not sleep well. It’s such a blessing to know WHY they aren’t sleeping well and to know it’s just a wonder week and that it’ll pass and they will go back to normal 😉

Tess started not to sleep as solid and I wondered why so I checked the app and BAM! first wonder week 🙂  The app goes into more detail, but here is what Tess was experiencing in her first leap!



Sleep: As I mentioned, sleep wasn’t as solid at naps due to the wonder week. But it also wasn’t NEARLY as bad as I remember Britt being during her wonder weeks. I would have to hold Britt to sleep majority of her naps during leaps. But Tess didn’t require nearly as much of my attention. She had ONE really bad nap day and that was it! I am crossing fingers that all leaps will be this smooth 🙂

She started sleeping a little longer in the middle of the night, waking most nights between 4:00 and 4:30 to eat. One night she did sleep until 5:30 which was AMAZING! Also one night while Zach was out of town her Snuza went off. I had been so tired that I hadn’t fastened it well enough and it slid off of her. I was shocked that she just kept right on sleeping while I reswaddled her!

Inbetween breasts during one of her 4 am feedings she was awake and was looking away so I whispered her name. She turned her head and looked right at me and made eye contact with me and smiled SO BIG and starting cooing. It was PRECIOUS!

After another feeding I kissed the top of her head and she laughed and smiled super big!

Cashed out!

When naps were hard I did move her to the swing. Being so exhausted myself with Zach gone and with the thrush stuff…I needed MY rest so she HAD to get hers!

I leave her arms swaddled and unswaddle her legs so I can buckle the seat. I also move the swing into view of the video monitor!

Since she slept good in the car I used the “car ride” setting on the swing.

Growth: After our trip I packed up all of Tess’s newborn sized clothes and got all of her 3 month stuff washed and hung up. She can still wear the newborn sleepers and the dresses but all the onesies can’t snap! You can tell her length more when seeing her compared to Levi! It shocked me when I took this picture (on accident…) because she seemed SO tiny to me but Levi isn’t all that tiny of a dog!

Independent Playtime: I started loosely introducing independent playtime this week. I always use this playmat for all of my babies. I put them on the mat and then sit near them but out of their line of vision. I leave them to “play” for about 10 min. Tess instantly loved her play gym, just like Kye and Britt did! This is probably one of my absolute favorite baby items because it’s something they ALL love. And it’s also the big kids favorite thing to play with in Tess’s room. They love it at all ages!!! While Tess “played” I would clean up her room and such. She rarely got to do the full 10 min due to her short awake times but it was a good start!

Working on her grasping skills!

More About Tess:

Bath time continues to be her favorite. I love watching her kick her feet in the water and it’s an advantage of this tub over the ones we used in the past. Before, our babies couldn’t put their feet in the water the way Tess can! Here’s a video of those sweet kicks!

Her head control continued to get stronger this week and she fussed much less during tummy time. She rolled over for the first time the day before turning 5 weeks old! Here’s a video

She has not yet been a fan of the bouncer seats. She will last a couple minutes and then will fuss. I’m not sure if she gets bored easily? Or maybe just likes being in my arms?

Siblings: Both Kye and Britt continue to show a lot of interest in Tess. They are awesome siblings!!! This week Zach was out of town and I was dealing with thrush so Kye and Britt ended up staying with Mrs. Charlotte for two nights to allow me to rest and handle all the thrush stuff. I was an emotional mess without them and it really made me realize that I’m a mother of three now. Life is CRAZY but I LOVE it and I want all my babies with ME all the time 🙂

Kye loves to play peek-a-boo with her! Here’s a video

Kye asked if he could use my camera because he wanted to take a picture of the cute crab on Tess’s hiney haha!

We had some sister snuggles in Britt’s bed and she was so cute wanting Tess to hold her Donald Duck

Cracks me up how often they are doing similar poses in pictures!!!

Hat Party: Over the weekend we hosted the 2nd annual (I think it’ll be annual?) Crazy Hat Party in honor of Casey’s birthday. Everyone came over in hopes of swimming…but it rained 🙁 We all busted out our craziest hats (confession: I didn’t have time to find one for myself!) and Tess was in on the fun. It’s so funny to me how much my girls HATE hats as babies! Britt loves them now, but as an infant she cried anytime we put one on her. Tess is no different!

Cousin pics!

Carter does not appear to be very sympathetic hahaha

You can tell he’s thinking “ugh. Girls.” hahaha

More About Tess:

  • She had her last chiropractor appointment and I am a FIRM believer! She has NO gas issues at ALL anymore!
  • She also burps awesome and easily!
  • Her hair is super, super, super soft. I love to feel it and want to cut some off to keep the softness forever
  • I read that after the first wonder it’s very normal for babies to start pooping less often. In the past I’m used to constant poopers. But Tess is changing things up! She stopped pooping daily and had only one poop ALL week!
  • She has THE prettiest skin! RARELY any ache at all! She does typically get red on the side that she sleeps on but it fades quickly.
  • Her head is still a very pretty shape. I don’t want it to get flat or for her to lose hair…although I know both are pretty much out of my control! She does switch her head from each side when sleeping so I’m hoping maybe that will help prevent it!
  • Tess has some black hair fuzz on the backs of her ears
  • After her diaper rash cleared up I tried to go back to using the Vaseline at each diaper change but BAM! diaper rash came back. So I knew the vaseline wasn’t helpful! Before Tess was born I bought one tube of several different diaper rash creams. I know each baby responds differently to each cream. I decided to start with Desitin with her (the plain purple box). It’s the cheapest and if it worked then that’d be great to not have to shell out a bunch of money on Aquafor or Triple Paste! Sure enough, Desitin has been AWESOME (spoiler alert: she’s now 11 weeks old. I’ve used Desitin at each diaper change and she hasn’t had any more rash at all!)
  • Her hair is getting lighter and there is already more growing in!
  • Here is a video of Tess “talking” with me!

Love that grin!

Postpartum Update: With everything else going on…I also started my 24 day challenge! I obviously can’t do the full challenge because I’m nursing but I got my dr to approve certain products that are considered safe and I put together my own version of the “challenge” You can see which products I use here!

Zach and I did our pre-challenge measurements and pictures and it was very depressing for me. I keep trying to remind myself that when I had Kye I didn’t diet or anything for a super long time and I wore maternity clothes for several months after he was born! My pregnancy with Tess was JUST like mine with Kye. I gained the same way (allllll over) and I struggled to lose it. So I’m being patient but also was glad to start using products and eating healthy!

Zach was gone for much of this week and I got really down and sad. I felt lonely and I had a hard time stopping myself from crying. Having thrush really, really affected me. I knew I’d have to make a lot of sacrifices with having a third baby. I knew I wouldn’t be able to give my very best to ALL of my children at one time. I knew that, for the most part, I would be pouring into the baby and that others would have to help with the big kids. So when nursing wasn’t going well? I felt like a failure. It was the ONE thing I was really giving my very best to and I couldn’t even do that right?!?! It was a struggle. Lots of crying and a lot of just living in pjs and not bathing and feeling crummy. I gave myself the couple of days that I didn’t have the big kids at home to just feel YUCK and then I started feeling better from the thrush and was able to get back to life and was able to feel better about myself again!

Sibling Comparisons: During this week in Kye’s life I finally started doing weekly posts! Here is Kye’s week 6 summary. It is CRAZY to me that this was the first LEGIT week I started Babywise with him! I’ve been so hardcore for so long with Tess that I can’t imagine just trying to get started and am impressed with myself, looking back, that I was able to put in such hard work and was still able to have a baby sttn by 9 weeks old even with starting so late!  If you do look at that post PLEASE ignore the inappropriate bedding in his crib. It was also the time before my SIDS prevention awareness!

You can see Britt’s summary of week 6 here! It’s interesting that I also dealt with nursing issues with her during this week. With Britt I had to block feed because she was having green poop and I was overproducing! I had several friends with babies this same age who had issues with breastfeeding so I think it’s just a common time for stuff to happen?

I love looking back and comparing the kids to each other!

Emily Parker
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