I'm Catching On, Aunt Flow

Sometimes it just takes a little longer to figure out what's going on - and perhaps I can blame it on being a busy mother of two. I think I'm finally catching on to my body's schedule, and by figuring that out, I have effectively also figured out a few of my nursing issues.

Rayya started sleeping fairly long stretches at night around two months, possibly even earlier. It is not unusual to expect a five hour stretch from her, and I've been blessed with stretches up to nine hours! Some moms will wake their baby to feed after a certain number of hours, and I did so with James (though I usually didn't have to with him). I had previously decided that with this baby I wasn't going to do that. As many "old school" moms will tell you, "let a sleeping baby lie". I didn't expect to be getting that many hours, but I'm totally okay with it! As a result, my period returned a little earlier too, about two months ago. At the time of it's return, I was able to attribute a few nursing issues to the return of those hormones. Once I had finished the cycle, everything went back to normal. I can apparently ward off some of these issues by taking a calcium/magnesium supplement - instead of the herbs I was taking, which ultimately gave Rayya horrible gas pain, and I had to quite taking them - even though they were helping.

So a few weeks ago, Rayya started getting extremely distracted by almost anything while nursing. She would constantly try to turn her head while nursing, taking my nipple along for the ride. Ouch! I started to develope some pretty bad nipple pain, and was beginning to wonder if I'd be able to keep going. Well, a week of that and suddenly, the pain was nearly gone! What?! I was surprised at it's rather abrupt disappearance, but thankful none-the-less.

Last night Rayya was up several times in the night to nurse, and today I've noticed a significant drop in my milk supply. Looking back on my calendar it has all become clear!

The nipple pain I was experiencing happened exactly when I was most likely ovulating. Now, the drop in my milk supply is a good indicator that any day now Aunt Flow will come a-calling. As soon as she does, everything will go back to normal. On top of all that, Rayya's extra fussiness seems to be linked to her bi-weekly poop schedule (yes, she still regularly poops only every fourteen to sixteen days). At the end of the two week period, a day or two before "poop day" she is extremely irritable - and this irritability seems to grow over the week prior to "poop day". After "poop day" (which is an entire day of numerous, horrid smelling diapers), she is back to her happy self.

And thus, the cycle continues...