Leaky Braucet

The rotten-milk smell that began when I was in the hospital persisted until about month number 2. That is, it was in my sheets and in my clothes as long as there was milk on them, which was often. I was leaking all over the place. I was going through bra pads like crazy. They would get lost every time I took them out to feed them (Ilan would get upset about finding them all over the house-- or other people's houses if we were sleeping over somewhere) and so I would just pop in some new ones.
The smell went away by about a couple of months. I guess the consistency of the milk had changed significantly enough by then. My breasts were still leaking, though. If I went a little too long between feedings, or as soon as he started sucking on one nipple,the other one would start to gush. This led to some embarrassing incidents. I learned to use my scarf or the nursing apron over my shoulder to cover the spreading stain.
Even today, at nine months, the leaking continues. Sometimes it's like a fountain. All he has to do is get in the right angle and open his mouth.
But at least the smell is gone.

Nine Months

Avi Ohr will be nine months old in a couple of days. The weather has been really hot and he sweats a lot. I feed him water sometimes from a bottle but breastfeeding is probably still the better option. Anyway, he still really loves it. We're in a routine now, though it's definitely not an optimal one. I nurse him in the morning when he wakes up and then I feed him breakfast a little while later. After that, he plays for a while and then signals to me that he's tired and he wants to go to sleep. Signaling, by the way, doesn't mean holding up a handmade sign. It means being irratable and sometimes, if I've missed that sign, he just nods off in the middle of the living room floor. Most of the time, however, naps are when we snuggle up and have another feed. That's how he drifts off to sleep. Sometimes he sleeps for twenty minutes, and sometimes for three hours. Mostly it's somewhere in between. The rest of the day is more or less a variation of the same cycle: eat, play, sleep. I try to put himto bed at around 9:30 but sometimes he gets tired a little earlier and sometimes a little later.
Then comes the night-time. For a few months, he was sleeping through the night. But for a couple of months now we've been on this cycle where he sleeps until midnight or one and then wakes up and wants to be held. The easiest thing for sleepy me to do is just feed him until he falls asleep again and then put him back in bed. Then he wakes up agian around 4. Again, I take him out of bed and feed him, only this time I often fall asleep before I get around to putting him back in the crib. So he is used to waking up in bed with us.

Hi Mom

Somewhere around three or four months, Avi Ohr started a funny habit. He would be snuggled into me and sucking away when all of a sudden he'd crane his head backwards as if to scope out the room. He'd look back at me, smile, and resume suck suck sucking. It was really cute.

Later on, I thought that maybe it was a sign of refusal, like what they tell you to look for before you start feeding solids to your baby. It started at around the same time that some babies start eating, so who knows?