Wordless Wednesday

How did that happen?

Next week we will be celebrating Darcy's first birthday and truthfully I'm in all kinds of denial about it. I mean how can he be ONE already? But I really should pull my head out of the sand and acknowledge this little milestone in all our lives. He's gone from a dark haired newborn to a blonde hair blue eyed baby/toddler in what feels like a blink of an eye. 

He's got 6 teeth and has crawling down pat, I'm not expecting him to walk anytime soon as all of his siblings started walking between 14 and 16 months. He loves to laugh and he enjoys being the center of attention. He really does bring all of us so much joy. 

We are having cake tomorrow afternoon to celebrate his birthday a few days early because B will be working on his birthday but no doubt there will be more cake and presents on his actual birthday so we can celebrate it with a bang. 

But now if you can excuse me I'm off to cry in the corner about my baby turning ONE. 

Wordless Wednesday- The Darcy Edition

Celebrating MY breastfeeding success

So if you spend any amount of time on Facebook you would have noticed by now that it was National Breastfeeding Week last week and if you didn't, well then you must have been hiding under a rock.

But anyway, it's made me look back on my breastfeeding journey so far and take a second to celebrate the fact that my breastfeeding journey with Darcy has been my most successful to date.

With Caden I only made it to about 8 weeks when the pain of my letdown and cracked nipples got the better of me and we switched to formula and pumping. I think I managed to pump until he was 3 months old and then we switched to formula full time.

Fast forward 15 months and my journey with Mahli started, this one lasted a lot longer and she was breastfed until 8.5 months when she started to refuse breastfeeds. I had started work when she was 4 months old so I think we both did well to get to that point.

And well my journey with Ethan was a completely different story. He was breastfed until 6 weeks of age when I was diagnosed with postnatal depression. I was put on medication that wasn't compatible with breastfeeding and that was that.

So this time round I was determined to give it a red hot go and Darcy seemed to be on the same page from the get go.

He had a pretty perfect attachment right from the very beginning and I had enough confidence in what I was doing to correct it when it wasn't 100% right. The only issues we have had in our breastfeeding journey was unbelievable painful letdowns until he was 12 weeks old.

Yep, you read that right! Even with perfect attachment there was pain. So many times you hear that breastfeeding SHOULDN'T hurt if you are doing it right. But I want to say that it can and does, it is something that both you and your baby have to learn and get used to.

After speaking with a few lactation consultants and lots of support from B I managed to overcome the painful letdown when he was around 12 weeks old and it been pretty much smooth sailing from then on.

I'm not sure how long this journey will last, but right now we are both happy doing what we are doing.

9 months

Well actually he is 9 and a half months now but he coincided turning 9 months with three weeks of screaming so I've barely had time to shower lately let alone write a blog post.

He now has 2 teeth and taunts me by sleeping through the night (wakes at 5ish) a few nights then has a week of nights full of overnight wakings in a row. Those nights wouldn't be so bad if I wasn't dwelling on the times when he did sleep through.

He loves to laugh at his siblings and adores them all. The feel the same about him, I am sure that will probably change when he starts getting into more of their stuff.

He isn't crawling yet, but has been rocking on his hands and knees for a few weeks. As I said, he likes to taunt me a lot :P

But even though he isn't crawling he does manage to get around by just rolling about the place. He is pretty fast too.

And that's pretty much what 9 month old Darcy is like- happy (apart from those hellish three weeks of screaming), full of laughs and interested in the world.

Fourth Baby...

Since Darcy was born I've been surprised by the amount of comments about his birth order in our family. Yes, he is our 4th child but NO this doesn't make him or his birth any less important than our 1st.

I guess it all started with the fact that B wasn't able to be there for his birth. I was met with comments about me being an old hand at this birth thing so I didn't need him anyway... This is so not true. I do wish he would have been there for the birth of his 4th child. It was just as special as the birth of his 1st.

And well the comments have kept coming, and not just the comments really. But the lack of acknowledgement from family and friends too. I guess that might come down the digital age that we live in now and well, Facebook too. Yes they may have liked a picture or typed the words congratulations on a Facebook post , but there were markedly less phone calls and text messages than when the other three kids entered the world.

There were only a handful of cards received in the mail too. And that makes me sad. I've kept the cards from when the older three were born and can notice the gradual decline as our family grew. But little Darcy received a grand total of FOUR cards. FOUR.

I just wish he was welcomed a little more into this world by our extended family and friends. Don't get me wrong, some of our family and friends did acknowledge his birth more than enough. It's just the ones that didn't haven't gone unnoticed.

Did you notice that as your family grew the excitement and well wishes decreased? 

*Please note that I realise that these comments are made with the best intentions, but sometimes they just hurt.

I'm Still Here!

Just popping in to say I'm still alive, I'm just slowly plodding along and struggling to fit everything into my days. So needless to say the blog is getting a little neglected and I'm completely okay with that at the moment.

Darcy is going great, we have sort off fallen into some sort of routine and he is doing really well.

The other three have been a bit out of sorts but are slowly coming around and settling in to our new normal. It has been a bit of a rough transition since I was sick for 3 weeks after Darcy's birth but I am on the mend now so I should be able to give each of them the attention they deserve.

Hopefully in the next few weeks I'll have some time to share Darcy's birth story too. It was an eventful one!

Until then,

Wordless Wednesday: The Darcy Chronicles