Thank you, everyone who offered advice on sleeping, eating, and bathing over the last few days!
On Tuesday, Noah called off his hunger strike. The teachers are working with him on learning to hold the bottle and practicing it with just a little help, instead of full on holding/not holding. He ate well, 14 oz at school, which is the high end of normal for him. He also had his first good nap at school, 2.5 hours! His previous school nap record was about 50 minutes, with 30 minutes being typical.
Then I messed with his schedule. Hopefully he won't hate it.
Last night, Noah and I went to our first La Leche League meeting. I wanted to go both to meet some other new moms, and to get support and ideas for managing my elbow/thumb strain problem with holding him while he nurses.
I'm not sure exactly what I expected -- all granola, all the time, formula is poison types, led by an aging hippie?
What I found was 15 very nice women, the majority of whom seemed like more grown up southern sorority girls. I mean that in the nicest way possible -- they were friendly, cheerful, and had perfect makeup. A few were more granola, all were married, no one batted an eyelash when I talked about Jill and our adoption. There were 7 moms with babies (and 1 preschooler), and 7 pregnant women, all due between next week and September, and the leader with her almost-six year old daughter. The leader was in her early 40s and had on a Prince concert shirt that I'm sure she's had for 20 years or more.
Noah was the size of the 8 month old. All the other babies were younger and much smaller. He loved the attention and grinned and cooed at everyone.
They had some useful ideas for me, including that I try nursing while lying down on my side, and that -- just as Noah is old enough to learn to hold a bottle, he can also hold me while he nurses. They also recommended chairs/pillows for elbow support, and possibly digging up my old wrist/thumb braces.
A few other women had questions, concerns, or things they wanted help with, and similarly useful advice came from both the leader and the other moms.
On the whole, it was a good experience, and I'll be going back again. And I recommend it to anyone looking for a little help or camaraderie.
