4 Weeks Old, Baby Blues, and Pumping

My little baby boy is 4 weeks old!! It feels like yesterday when I found out we were having a boy..

And now I get to wake up every hour to this precious face!!

It doesn't matter if you sleep 12 hours a day before your little one arrives... nothing can prepare you for the extreme sleep deprivation you go through. And to add to the raging hormones, or lack thereof, baby blues!

Around day 6 I developed some serious baby blues. Crying from 6pm, straight through the night, to 6am. This occurred daily. Erik thought I'd gone bonkers. How is it possible to be so excited and thrilled to finally have your baby here and hysterically cry nonstop!? 

My day usually went something like this:

5am: wake up, wipe away remaining tears and grab crying baby

5:15am-6am: feed baby

6am: change baby & chug extra large cup of coffee..wish it was spiked with rum

6:15am: shower 

6:30am-7:15am: feed baby

7:15am: change baby then rock/hold baby

7:30am-2pm: REPEAT feed baby, change baby, hold crying baby, baby naps for 30 mins

2pm: chug second extra large cup of coffee and day dream of sleep

2:15pm-6pm: REPEAT feed baby, change baby, hold crying baby, baby naps for 30 mins

6pm: bam. the tears start flowing.

6:15pm: have a discouraging conversation with Erik about non stop blubbering and fail to explain my lack of reason for crying

6:45pm: back to baby feedings, changing, holding & rocking

7:30pm: eye lids refuse to stay open and it's time to head to bed

8:00pm: in bed and it feels SO good

8:05pm: Boden is WIDE AWAKE and ready to party.

8:15pm-5am: Boden is reverse cycling and thinks I should too.

REPEAT.

I arrived at my 2 week appointment 2 weeks ago with dark circles under my eyes, no make-up, wearing my pajamas, a sleeping baby and a attitude to match. My doctor quickly instructed me that exclusively breast feeding wasn't probably mine or my babies thing. Time to break out the pump and hand the 2am feeding responsibility off to someone else. 

So the second I got home I opened my breast pump, boiled the parts and started pumping. Instant hatred. Who wants to sit with a plastic cone sucking milk out of your boob after you just had to sit and feed the baby! Ugh!

Needless to say, I pumped enough for that night. My husband stayed with Boden ALL night downstairs and fed him at all the feedings. I slept for 10 hours that night! And with that no more tears were shed. I've been pumping and sharing the night time feedings for about 2 weeks now and I have enjoyed motherhood more and more each day!