no use crying over SPIT milk!

Our first few weeks home with baby sister were a breeze - easy peasy lemon squeezy (don't forget the mac 'n cheesy!) 

Then I had to go and open my BIG mouth, and start bragging to the hubs about how I had this newborn malarkey down pat. 

*sigh. Silly Momma!

The weeks of squirming, gassy, I-can-scream-like-a-banshee baby that followed this over-confident bluster, serves Momma right! 

Please DON'T spew on my Moby!

Enter the dawn of a new (baby wearing, ball bouncing) era - MOBY Mommadom ..... but that's a whole other blog in itself! 

The moment where typical third (i.e. best behaved) baby evolved into the 'baddest' baby on the block (or at least in the Bisett household) was somewhere around day ten.

I'm not logging each day's events down in a journal or anything like that - remember, this is our THIRD baby - I just recall asking our pediatrician about it at her two week wellness check.

OK, I know. I've said this before; What Mother would refer to her own baby as the 'baddest'?



However true this may be, relative to the boys, it is a bit harsh (the alliteration worked out real nicely though).

In any case, these things are impossible to measure fairly. For one thing, I think our brains are designed to forget those tougher times, and romanticize the memories.

More often than not, I'll be trying out a 'new' calming technique (like crazy deep lunges, or some fancy off-beat foot work accompanied by a vigorous bounce and scoop shimmy), in an attempt to keep her highness happy, when suddenly there's a 'click' in my brain and I find myself thinking,

'Ohhhh, I remember when little man (x) had me doing this, only he had to have Cobbler Cobbler, Where's my Shoe? on repeat' 

or,

'Didn't little man (y) have us doing this (whatever 'this' is) for hours when he was the same age - accept without the fluffy blankets?'

Then there's the environmental factor. 

The circumstances surrounding each of our newborns have been so very different. Often my little lady just wants a bit of quiet feeding time or mat play, but middle monster will rarely oblige. I'm not surprised she gets pissed off. He's got both siblings on either side hacked off with him! At only 18 months, his (pesky piggy in the) middle kid role is already perfected.   

I digress! Back to that moment when nurturing our newborn got a bit more complicated than: 

slurp, burp, cuddle, sleep, poop..... aaannnnd repeat....... slurp, burp, cuddle, sleep, poop.....

One magical evening, we (baby and I) were lying side by side on Momma's bed, lisening to Jewel's Lullabye. I was 'oohing' and 'aahing' and kissing her sweet nose, when suddenly, my little angel turned all 'exorcist' on me.

from this..........

.........to this!

It started with a dainty (very lady-like) burp, not unheard of following her grub - definitely not enough in itself to break the romantic spell - however, with the burp came a pretty big blob of white fluid. It shot up and out of her mouth, clearing her pretty onsied body, and landing on the sheet a foot or so away. It didn't even touch her! She, and her pretty pink onsie were bone dry.

That SPIT must have been catapulted UP with unfathomable force...

The weirdest thing was, she didn't flinch. The regurgitated milk came from nowhere (well from inside the baby, obviously) and she didn't seem in the least bit concerned about it, unlike Momma who was, admittedly, FERREAKED OUT! 

See, this was a first for me. I'd heard about babies spitting up, but never seen it with my own eyes.

Neither of my boys were spitters. All those beautifully handcrafted burp cloths, given to me at my first baby shower, were still stacked unused in the closet. I hadn't the heart to get rid of them - even if they were the most useless of my useless (and there was a LOT of useless) baby paraphernalia!

They'd come in handy for wash cloths eventually, once we were done with childbearing - and the hand-stitched sentiments were forgotten! 

I'd just about gotten over that projected milk 'spit' when the little angel opened her mouth again.....

What I witnessed next belies belief - and definitely defies the laws of physics! There's absolutely NO way on God's Earth the volume that spurted out of her could ACTUALLY fit inside her. If I had a jug the size of a baby she would have filled and spilled it!

I'd never seen anything like it in my life! Torrents of milk came wooshing out of her (oh so casually) parted pretty lips!

Any of you seen the movie Aliens? If you have, you probably already know where I'm going with this. I was going to embed a You Tube video here, but then I thought it might be just that little bit gruesome and violent for a Mommy blog....

Ah, screw it.

It didn't stop there. There were three consecutive wooshes! I picked her up in a panic, on the third woosh (I was too stunned to react during woosh 1 and woosh 2), which only made things worse - as I inadvertently rolled her head back causing her to gag a little.

Ironically, I'd wanted to lift her up before she drowned in her own spit.

Jeez Mom! Before meddling her head had been safely sideways - perfectly placed for puking.

I am not exaggerating when I say there was a PINT (at least) of breastmilk pooled on my bed sheets. The impermeable plastic liner on Momma's mattress (imperative for co-sleeping with a potty trainer!) had prevented it from being absorbed, hence we could actually see ALL of it.

I don't know at what point I'd started screaming for the hubs, but he was right there beside me, staring in awe at the wasted milk puddle on the bed.

Momma was the only girly in the room making a fuss. Baby girl is what they call a 'happy spitter' (Google revealed to me later).

SPITTER? How could anyone in their right mind call that SPIT? 'Happy PUKER' seemed to fit the bill much better, which is how I described her to the pediatrician a few days later...

He was amused and completely unconcerned. Baby girl was womping on the pounds, even with 'losing her spit' once a day...

But, despite the good Doc's reassurances, I was a bit concerned that she might be over-eating. Her Momma doesn't have an 'off' button, why should she?

I've always been a 'feed on demand' kinda Momma. It's impossible to overfeed a breastfed baby, right? Isn't that what THEY tell you?

I'd been so sure of this theory in the past (even when baby boy #1 started to take on the shape of a sumo wrestler, after eight weeks, and we didn't see his neck for the next six months); however, with this one, I was starting to have my doubts.

Anyone would if they'd seen how many gallons of milk my girl was sending back to the kitchen each week (after all the effort Momma puts into prepping Madam's meals!)

Perhaps she was a pacifier baby (I considered with some skepticism). Just because the boys preferred a booby pacifier to a real pacifier (they are male after all), didn't mean she couldn't have a shotty of a dummy, if THAT'S what she really wanted.......

I consented to give it a go (albeit begrudgingly).

Daddy pulled out a basket of dummies that we'd kept hold of for the last three years (just in case) and tipped them out on the bed beside our wide-eyed newest arrival. They were all different shapes and sizes. I didn't have a clue where to begin.

This might sound ridiculous to most of you pacy wielding Mommas out there, but this was a new and uncomfortable concept to me, not because I'm a dummy hater or anything like that, but we'd always managed without them in the past.

I felt like the rug had been pulled out from under me, and I was right back at square one. I didn't want to go a different route for this third baby. Of course I'd do it, IF that's what was best for her ..... I didn't have to like it though!

"Hmmmm, let's tryyyy... that one!" I pointed to a dainty looking pink one. We hovered it near her lips. Nothing.

"She's not interested." I said.

"Give her a chance!" Daddy said.

When eventually she opened her mouth a little I popped it in. She popped it right back out.

'Abandon ship!' a voice screamed inside my head, and I listened. My intuition had always come up trumps in the past, IF I made sure to listen...

'Stick with what you know!' The voice continued.

Well, that - as they say - was that. Done deal!

Phew! At least we'd tried (sort of).... 

I was very relieved to see those paccies go back into the bathroom closet (just in case we ever needed them again....)

Anyway, perhaps the spitting up has nothing to do with her being a greedy little bugger...

She doesn't like to burp - our little LADY - and she cries when we persist. The most we ever get for our troubles is the daintiest of belches. It's more like a deep exhalation. If we don't listen really close we miss it.

Definitely NOT her Momma's daughter! Don't worry boys - we'll have her burping the alphabet before you can say Dr Seuss!

We've started working harder to get a burp out of her following each feed - to no avail.

And so, baby girl continues to spew daily. It comes without warning - never at the same time of day, keeping both Momma and Daddy on our toes. Sometimes she holds all her milk for a few days, and just as we start to think she's grown past that sticky stage... BAM. She gets you good!

In spite of our once-a-day 'spitter', those damn burp cloths are still useless! Even our receiving blankets are a little small to catch (or mop up) the fall out. A bath towel does the job just fine if there's one to hand, but we find that more often than not she catches us with our pants down....

A few weeks ago, on a cool overcast evening, Daddy took baby girl outside to calm her on the swing. He came back in with his shirt dripping. The forecast had given something like a 60% chance of rain - (it often skips us when it's 100%!)

I took one look at him and jumped for joy - our late Summer drought had let up - it was finally raining! We wouldn't have to call in Waterboy after all!

Slow down Momma. It wasn't even 'spitting' outside. Baby girl was the one doing the SPITTING - all over Daddy.

Daddy got of lightly tonight!!!

On closer observation Daddy had a DRY sleeping baby curled up on one side of his chest. The exposed side of his chest, however, was sopping wet through and stuck to his skin.

OK, so I was sad it wasn't raining, but HAHAHAHAHA!

Poor Daddy.

I continue to be gobsmacked at the sheer volume of spit up. Not just that the little baggage is able to hold it all somewhere inside her bitsy bod like a Mary Poppins bag, but that Momma's ta-tas are able to produce THAT surplus alone, daily! Never mind the white stuff she's managing to keep down.

I haven't pumped since the first baby. I was lousy at it and, after seeing the amount of milk our little madam likes to spurt out, now I know just how lousy I was!

Three years ago, it took three days to stock up a measly 6oz! Our girl is ditching three times as much on a daily basis! It just goes to show you how effective their little latch and suckle technique is!

If only I could catch and bottle the stuff she spews, Daddy could feed it back to her later while Momma got some Zzzzzzs!

If you've never been lucky enough to have your own Happy Puker here's a HILARIOUS compilation of baby spit up captured on film. I laughed 'til I just about puked myself! Thank God for the internet.