Drunken Milk Face

After Palesa nurses, she makes this face of pure milked-out bliss.  She is either completely asleep or incredibly dozy, and her signature drunken milk face makes me laugh every time.

Elimination Communication... it is not potty training, but she goes in a "potty"

I guess I never imagined I would be one of those kind of mothers.  You know, home birthing, breastfeeding, cloth diapering, co-sleeping kind of mothers.  Well, we are all that and more.  Since Palesa was about 4 days old, we've been casually working on elimination communication.  I'm not an expert on this, but the concept is that by paying attention to the baby's cues as well as timing, you "offer" them an alternative to going to the bathroom in their diaper because no person, adult or infant, truly wants to be sitting in their own waste.

So, after nursing Palesa, we remove her diaper, and I hold her against my chest, butt dangling over some sort of tupperware container.  Every time we have "offered" her a container, she has gone to the bathroom.  I am making my best efforts to do this with her once a day, usually after her afternoon nursing session.

Babies go through a ton of diapers.  For cloth diapering, that means a lot of laundry.  Two days this week, we were out and about and missed the opportunity to do this with her, and she had two big blowouts (which means an outfit change in addition to a diaper change).  So, if we're able to catch her bathroom activities once a day and save one diaper, that really adds up. She's certainly not "potty trained" or anything, but it amazes me to think that even an itty-bitty newborn baby can go to the bathroom in a "toilet."

The Baby Whisperer in Action

 

Osei is the master baby whisperer.  He will swaddle her, and through a complex (and secret) process of movements and sounds, he will calm even a crying baby and woo her to sleep.  One of his key tricks is eye contact.  She'll look at him very intently, but soon go to sleep.  I maintain that he has a fairly easy job.  Palesa rarely cries, and her tears/fussiness is limited to her telling us she is either hungry or needs a dry diaper.  I think the mellowness of her birth experience contributes to the mellowness of her personality, because Palesa is thankfully one happy baby!  

She's also a fairly good sleeper.  During the night, she typically sleeps for stretches of 3-5 hours.  Since we are co-sleeping (even here in Colorado, she is sleeping in our bed with us), I wake up before she is fully awake even, and without hardly disturbing her, I'll just roll her over and nurse her.  Most of the time she falls asleep nursing, so I'll gently lay her down and we'll both sleep for a few more hours.  I can't really claim to be well-rested these days, but I'm getting enough sleep to function and feel good!    

Nipple Confusion

Last night Osei went to kiss and nuzzle with Palesa, and he realized that she may be hungry.  Yes, she is sucking on his nose.  Personally, I usually just give her my pinky finger when she wants to suck but not necessarily nurse.