Flying with an 18 month old AKA the Flight from Hell

The one and only cute moment of our journey

So I don’t know if I jinxed myself by being so worried about flying with my toddlers, or if it was just always destined to be an horrendous experience. As it turns out, I was completely justified in my pre-flight concern because the entire journey was a freaking NIGHTMARE!

The Curse of the Upper Lip Tie

When Little Miss was born 3 years ago, she refused to take my breast for the first 24 hours, and was fed my colostrum through a syringe. It was a pretty worrying time for me, wondering if she’d ever be able to breastfeed. After a day she seemed to get the hang of it and would latch on, but really, our first few weeks of breastfeeding were pretty awful. She’d scream and turn her head away whenever I offered the breast, and it would take a lot of persistence on my part to actually get her attached. Once on, she fed pretty well, so we (me, Mr McD and all the Dr’s and nurses we saw in those first weeks) all put it down to her being born 3 weeks early, and still a little immature. After the first 2 weeks or so we found our groove and things got much easier; we ended up having a wonderful breastfeeding relationship until she self-weaned at 16 months (by which time I was 4 months pregnant with the Stuntman).

When the Stuntman came along, I was prepared for a similar initial breast refusal, but in fact he wriggled and maneuvered his way up my chest like a newly hatched baby turtle, and attached himself to my boob less than 5 minutes after he came out. It was the most beautiful moment, and I remember crying and exclaiming “he’s doing it, he’s doing it!!” to Mr McD and my mum in the birthing suite, so excited was I that it seemed that he had this breastfeeding business under control.

The Stuntman, 1 day old

A few hours and several feeds later, I noticed my nipples were shaped like lipsticks with a weird line down the centre. It didn’t hurt though, so I wasn’t too concerned about it. I got the hospital’s Lactation Consultant to assess our latch, as well as a couple of midwives, and they all said it looked fine, and that if it didn’t hurt, I shouldn’t worry. The Stuntman was checked over by the hospital Paediatrician, given the all clear, and we were sent on our way home after one night’s stay.

The next few days and nights turned into a blur of excruciating nipple pain, endless puddles of vomit, and some serious sleep deprivation. The Stuntman was wanting to feed every 1.5 hours round the clock, and then vomiting most of it up before falling asleep for less than an hour, then repeating the whole cycle again. My nipples were cracked and bleeding and the poor little Stuntman just wasn't happy. It’s safe to say I was not having a very good time, and I’m pretty sure it was only my Placenta capsules that kept me from going over the edge.

I’d been seeing a lovely lady, Jo, throughout my pregnancy for some wonderful reflexology and massage (to deal with SPD), and she offered me a post-natal treatment as well, to get things back in alignment and re-balance my hormones. To my great fortune, she was also a very experienced counsellor with the Australian Breastfeeding Association, and offered to have a look at what was going on for us. After 2 minutes of watching the Stuntman feeding, she did a quick check and told me that she thought he had an upper lip tie, and potentially a tongue tie as well. The Stuntman at this point was about 10 days old, and had been assessed by 2 different paediatricians, my GP, several midwives at the hospital, the home visiting midwife, and a nurse at the Early Childhood clinic. No one had even mentioned a lip or tongue tie, and all had just told me to ‘work on our latch’ to improve the situation. As a second time mum, it was just assumed that I knew what I was doing and could work it out.

Within an hour of seeing Jo, I had an appointment for the Stuntman with a wonderful husband and wife team in Sydney who specialise in lip and tongue ties in babies. The Stuntman was diagnosed as having a Class IV upper lip tie as well as a posterior tongue tie. An upper lip tie is where the piece of skin under a baby’s top lip (‘maxillary labial frenulum’) is attached too tightly to the gum, and looks like this:

A Class IV upper lip tie. Photo courtesy of Dr Lawrence Kotlow

A Class IV upper lip tie means that the labial frenulum extends down between where the two front teeth will come in, and wraps around and attaches to the hard palette underneath.

We had both ties snipped then and there. It was a quick procedure performed by a surgeon (the Lactation Consultant’s husband), and, while I can’t say it was painless for the Stuntman, I think the worst part of it for him was being tightly wrapped and held down on the table while it was happening. There was some blood and some screaming, but I think I was in worse shape than him!

As soon as the procedure was performed, I was encouraged to pop him straight on the breast. Apparently breast milk acts as an analgesic and can also stop bleeding. The difference I felt on that first post-snip feed was amazing; there was still some pain as my nipples were in really bad shape, but it was only ‘surface pain’, and not the excruciating agony I had been experiencing up until that point. He had the longest feed he’d ever had, and actually fell asleep on the boob – something he had never done before. The consultant explained that he’d had to work so hard to feed before the snip, that he’d probably never quite gotten to that milk drunk stage. 

Milk drunk, at last!

We had to do some lip-stretching exercises over the next few weeks to make sure that the frenulum didn’t heal back onto the gum line, but that was it. This simple procedure actually changed mine and the Stuntman’s lives; without it I really doubt I could have continued breastfeeding (and certainly not still be going strong 18 months later!).

If you have any suspicion or worry that your baby might have an upper lip or tongue tie, I urge you to go and see a qualified Lactation Consultant for an assessment. Early correction can make a huge difference.

Some of the signs that a baby may have a tongue or lip tie that is interfering with breastfeeding include:

• nipple pain and damage
• the nipple looks flattened after breastfeeding ('lipstick' shaped)
• you can see a compression/stripe mark on the nipple at the end of a breastfeed
• the baby keeps losing suction while feeding and sucks in air
• the baby makes a clicking sound when feeding
• the baby fails to gain weight
• the baby cannot poke his tongue out beyond his gum or lips
• his tongue cannot move sideways
• the tip of his tongue may be notched or heart-shaped when he cries
• he may readily gag
• the tip of the tongue may look flat or square instead of pointed.

 (Source: Australian Breastfeeding Association)

I now realise that Little Miss also suffers from an upper lip tie, and that this was most likely the cause of our early breastfeeding issues. She also now has a small gap between her front teeth, and is unable to say the letters ‘f’ or ‘v’. She actually can’t move her top lip up off her front teeth enough to be able to touch her front teeth to her bottom lip (which is how you say ‘f’ and ‘v’). So it looks like we may have to get hers corrected too, but, at her age, the procedure is going to be much more of a big deal. A paediatric dentist will perform it, most likely using a laser to cut the frenulum. I’m somewhat reluctant to move forward with this, but I know I should do it sooner rather than later, or speech therapy might be required for her as well.

I wish I could say that this simple procedure put an end to all of our troubles, but unfortunately we then had to contend with milk over supply (due to the constant feeding), and a long road to discovering that his sleeplessness, fussiness and excessive vomiting was in fact due to a cow’s milk and soy protein intolerance (CMPI / MSPI) (Read my post How we came to be dairy and soy free for more background). 

Here are some great links for further reading about tongue and lip ties.

Mommypotamous has an awesome step-by-stepguide on how to identify a tongue or lip tie.

Dr Lawrence Kotlow is a world-renowned expert on lip and tongue ties (USA) and produced this Fact Sheet for new parents.

The Australian Breastfeeding Association has some great info on tongue and lip ties.

Personally, I’m almost convinced that there is some kind of link between a tongue and/or lip tie and CMPI / MSPI. So many mums of CMPI babies that I’ve spoken with have also discovered that their little one has a tie –too many to be a coincidence in my opinion! 

What about you - does your baby have CMPI and a lip/tongue tie? 
Leave a comment below!

Family Dinners? F*@k that!!

We’re not very good with family dinners in our house. I keep saying that we’ll start doing them regularly, but it rarely works out. The kids need to eat by 5:30-6pm in order to get through the dinner/bath/bedtime routine by 7pm, and Mr McD and I aren’t ready to eat then.

 

A family enjoying a civilised dinner (not mine)

Occasionally we give it a go, generally with disastrous results. Take our Boxing Day dinner for example. We had so much food on Christmas Day that we didn’t end up even putting our turkey in the oven, so I decided to cook it for the four of us on Boxing Day, with all the trimmings – potatoes, sweet potato, parsnips, carrots, peas, gravy and a couple of pigs in kilts on the side. Yum! I thought it would be lovely to have an early dinner with the kids so we could all enjoy it together. (I’m shaking my head in disbelief at my naivety as I write this).

Toddler tag teaming

We’ve had a pretty full on week. On Tuesday we had a friend’s funeral, which was heartbreaking, and then that same afternoon Little Miss came down with violent gastro, which was horrendous. I was working towards a major deadline I absolutely had to meet for a work project, as well as a million other little deadlines for various jobs leading up to the end of the year. Needless to say, I’ve been a bit stressed and emotional.

Normally, any one of these things would make me feel anxious and overwhelmed, but this was like a perfect storm of stressful events. Oh, and then our hot water tank crapped itself (again), just to make things interesting.  During times like this, I really need my sleep. I go a bit crazy if I’m trying to deal with stress and I’m sleep deprived as well. Sleep deprivation can then make me feel even more stressed and anxious, so this can be a really vicious cycle.

The kiddies haven’t been too bad with their sleeping lately, generally sleeping through the night, or at least not needing me to go into them if they do wake. But this week, just when I needed a good 6 or 7 hours a night, my two terrors toddlers decided to take it in turns to torture me each and every night.

Nature vs Nurture

I see a lot of families where the kids look like carbon copies of each other; they share the same face shape, or hair, or specific features, and you can just tell that they’re related. My kids couldn’t be more different from each other, they look nothing alike. Little Miss is the spit of her dad, and was born with a shock of dark, almost-black hair, that spiked up in a trendy ‘do’, just like D’s hair. That dark hair fell out around the three month mark, and she grew beautiful thick, sandy blonde hair, which is gradually going darker now, and is almost down to her The Stuntman was born with no hair at all (including no eyebrows), and didn’t really get much to speak of until about 12 months. He looks more like me, especially around the eyes. He’s now got some (very blonde) hair on top, but still not very much, not even as much as Little Miss had at birth. He does, however, have a lovely little rat’s tail that seems to be growing faster than the rest of his hair, so we might have to do something about that. Teamed with the fact that he has no hair at all on the sides of his head, the rat’s tail gives him an Eastern European footballer look that I’m not too keen on. He did grow some eyebrows though, so thank goodness for small mercies.

The Stuntman is a happy-go-lucky kind of chappie; he’ll smile at anyone and everyone, and will happily have a chat with all of the little old ladies that come up to talk to us (and there are quite a few). He loves other kids, and will run up to other little ones in the park and try to play with them, uninvited. Little Miss is much more reserved; she’ll hide her face in her hands when a new person approaches, or hide behind me, saying “I’m a bit shy”. She over-analyses and over-thinks everything, whereas the Stuntman is more of a do first, think later (if at all) kind of kid. He’ll launch himself off a slippery dip without a moment’s hesitation, where Little Miss will sit at the top thinking about it for ages, often changing her mind about going down altogether. Funny how two kids brought up in the exact same way are so completely different.

This weekend I was reminded again of just how different my kids are, when we went to our first swimming lesson. Now I know I should have started Little Miss earlier, but it just never happened. I was pregnant with the Stuntman by the time she turned 1, and I had no intention of splashing around in a swimming costume with my pregnant belly in front of a whole bunch of fit surfie dads (have you noticed that it’s mainly dads doing the swimming lessons?? Go dads!). So anyway, she’s now 3, so she’s too old for the class where the kid goes in with mum or dad, and she has to go in with an instructor. A stranger. A very friendly stranger mind you, who’s obviously been well trained in working with children, but a stranger nonetheless, and one wearing a swimming cap and goggles. So it was always going to be a struggle to get her into the pool, but hey, we live in Australia, so they have to learn to swim. I figured she’d see how much fun the other kids were having and want to join in.

I volunteered to do the class with the Stuntman, as he’s going through a super-clingy-only-wants-mummy phase (just for the past 15 months), and we figured it would just be easier if I went in with him. I was pleasantly surprised to see that all the other parents (read: ‘dads’) in the class were standing in the pool with the water right up to their armpits – I’d had visions of standing around in waist-deep water with everything on display, which had caused me more than a few moments of panic. But this was all OK; the water was nice and warm, and the Stuntman soon got the hang of things and was splashing about and kicking his little legs with the best of them. Big smiles all round.

Unfortunately, D and Little Miss weren’t faring so well. During the middle of a round of aquatic ‘wheels on the bus’, I heard a blood-curdling howl coming from the other end of the pool. Recognising that primal scream, I knew straight away that my poor Little Miss was not having a good time at all. I could just make out her little figure sitting on the top step of the pool, hiding her face in her hands, shoulders shuddering, with D bent over her trying to calm her down. I could see the instructor backing away from her towards the two other toddlers in the class, and a pool staff member rushing over from the front desk to see what was going on. The parents poolside were rubbernecking to see who was so distraught, and why. I was gesturing wildly to D, “Does she need me? Should I come down?”, but she calmed herself quite quickly, really. 

Some kids learning to swim
(not Little Miss)

She then spent the rest of the 30 minute class sitting on the top step of the pool, playing with some toys and point blank refusing to even look at the instructor, let alone go for a lap of the pool with him (which is what had initiated the howling in the first place). Quite an expensive sit on the side of the pool, that was. Plus we had to sign up for the whole month, so now we’ve either got to try again next weekend, or lose thousands of dollars (not really thousands, but bloody hell it’s expensive for what it is!). 

So I’ll spend the week talking to her, telling her how much fun it will be, and talking up the benefits of being able to swim (not drowning being the main one). And then we’ll do it all again next weekend. 

Something to look forward to!!

Stuck in a Westfield with two

“Well I don’t know why I came here tonight… I gotta feeling that somethin’ ain’t right…”

Trust your instincts when you drive into a shopping centre car park and feel an urge to drive straight out again. This week I decided, for some unknown reason, to take both kids to our local Westfield, which is currently undergoing major renovations. Last time I was there I vowed never to return, so I really don’t understand what possessed me to try again. But I did.

Trolleys: never around when you need one!

Being a Monday morning, and the first day that this centre had introduced paid parking (after three hours free), I assumed that the place would be relatively quiet and hassle free. I imagined that all the commuters that used to use the car park for free all day would have to park somewhere else, and there would be loads of spaces nice and close to the shop entrance for us. First mistake.

The place was mobbed. We drove around in circles looking for a park for about 15 minutes, and ended up parking on the rooftop car park, quite a walk away from the lifts down to the shops. Now I knew I needed to get groceries, so I really didn’t want to take a pram. I’ll just put the kids in a trolley when I get inside, I thought. Second mistake. After trudging about 400 metres from the car to the lifts, with the Stuntman on one hip, nappy bag slung over my neck, shopping bags around my elbow and holding Little Miss by the hand, we were faced with a sheepish looking security guard who quietly mumbled that there was a problem with the lift and that it would be two or three minutes. And when it did come, another security guard would have to press the buttons as they weren’t working. A nagging voice in my head said “turn around, go somewhere else, LEAVE NOW!”, but sadly, I ignored it. It’ll be OK, I thought. Two or three minutes I can handle. I really needed to catch my breath anyway. So we waited for the lift (about 10 minutes in reality), and then piled in with the 20 or so other shoppers who’d turned up in the meantime.

We finally got down into the shopping centre, and the Stuntman started his wriggly-limp-noodle act (where he goes limp, puts his arms up over his head, and basically wriggles out of my arms), and Little Miss promptly ran off. Here we go, I thought. Quick, find somewhere to buy them a treat, STAT. But first we had to walk past the ABC Shop, which is a trial on the best of days. Usually I’ll have at least one of them restrained in a pram or trolley, but this time they were both ‘free range’ and on the loose.

“Mumma, Mumma, look Peppa, it’s Peppa, it’s PEPPA!!!!” screamed Little Miss.  Yes darling.

“Uh! Ooh ooh!” exclaimed the Stuntman, excitedly.

“Mumma, Mumma, Peter Rabbit, Peter Rabbit, it’s Peter RABBIT! LOOK! LOOK!!!” Smile and nod, keep your cool woman. The Stuntman grabs a Tombliboo off the shelf and the whole display topples over. Oh shit.

“Come on, let's go, I can see an ice cream shop over there,” I scoop up the Stuntman over my right shoulder, and somehow lift Little Miss onto my other hip, bags still in tow. I’m now carrying an extra 27 or so wriggly, unwilling kilos, and trying to gracefully maneuvre my way out of the shop without knocking anything else over. This is relatively successful (i.e. we didn’t actually break anything), so once we are a safe distance away from the shop entrance I breathe a sigh of relief and let the kids down.

We now find one of those horrid shopping centre ‘rides’ (a Wiggles car in this case), which occupies them for a few minutes while I try to get my bearings. I have no idea where the supermarket has moved to – I don’t know which way I’m facing, there’s no natural light in the centre, no clocks. It’s like a giant casino, without any booze. I guess they hope that people will just lose track of time and spend hours and hours in there, handing over wads of cash at every turn. It’s horrendous, I hate it.

After a minor screaming match to get Little Miss off the Wiggles car, we finally make it to the supermarket. Hooray, a trolley! I wrestle the Stuntman into the trolley seat and strap him in as tight as the belt will go, grab Little Miss’ hand and start cruising the aisles. Everything is going smoothly now – the Stuntman is secure and entertained, talking to all the old people in the shop, Little Miss is having a good time grabbing things off the shelves and dumping them into the trolley, and I’m checking things off my list. We get to the checkout without incident and I’m feeling so pleased with us all that I suggest we go and have some sushi for lunch. Cheers all round; both the kids love sushi, so off we go to the sushi train. Lunch is also incident-free, and by this stage I’m wondering what I was so stressed about earlier. 

This parenting thing is easy really, just keep everybody happy! Don’t stress! Don’t yell! Offer treats and bribes! Chill out mum!

I now decide to tempt fate by swinging into a different supermarket just to check if they have any coffee pods (which were out of stock at the other place). I know I’m pushing it here, the kids are now fed and it is dangerously close to their sleep time. But I’m a glutton for punishment (and desperate for coffee) so we do a quick lap of the second supermarket (out of stock here too!), and then head to the lift to get back to our car.

“I’m sorry madam, this lift is out of order, you can’t get in, the stairs are just over there.” Umm, what? But I need to get to the rooftop car park on level 5. That’s on the roof. I’m on level 1. I have two very sleepy and almost-grumpy children and four heavy bags of groceries in my trolley. What am I supposed to do?

“Can you call someone to help you madam?” Umm, what?? Who the fuck am I supposed to call at lunchtime on a Monday to come and rescue me from this suburban shopping centre/hell? 

Steam is coming out of my ears by this stage, but I’m trying to hold it together and not swear at the man, if only for the sake of the kids.

Then this dickhead of a security guard sends me up to the next set of lifts up the other end of the centre, assuring me I can access the rooftop car park from that end, so off we trudge another 17kms or so (I may be exaggerating here, but it felt like a VERY LONG WAY!), to the lifts at the other end.

Of course, being the only effing lift working in the whole effing centre, there is a line of people waiting to get in that actually snakes past several shops and doubles back on itself. We wait in the queue for an eternity; Little Miss is almost falling asleep in the trolley, and the Stuntman is doing his best Houdini impression trying to escape from the trolley seat. While I have my back turned sharing an exasperated eye-roll with another mum he actually manages to get his legs out of the straps; as I turn around he is standing up in the trolley seat, reaching out for me. FUCK! I catch him just as he tries to step forward into thin air. 

There is no way I’m going to be able to get him back in the trolley seat . I’m now trying to steer a trolley with a sleepy toddler and four heavy bags of groceries with one arm, and holding a wriggly, writhing slightly smaller toddler with the other arm. Just for kicks, he decides now would be the perfect time for a breastfeed, and tries to help himself down my top. To keep the peace I'm now stand-up-breastfeeding holding him in one arm, pushing the trolley with the other. 'Awkward' is an understatement.

We finally get into the lift, and ride all the way up to the roof. But, as I had suspected, this roof doesn’t connect with the other roof, the one where our car is. I’m almost crying by this point, and take a few moments to try and calm down. I walk to the edge of the roof (no, I’m not considering jumping), and try to look down to see where the two towers of the car park connect. I *think* it’s level 3, so we go back to the lift and wait another 15 minutes or so for the lift to return, and get us down to level 3. Fortunately I’ve managed to get the Stuntman back into the trolley by this stage, so at least I’ve got two hands to control the trolley. I’m in a definite no-pedestrian zone here – running the gauntlet of frazzled shoppers backing out of car parks to get home for their lunch. But my goal is now in sight – I can see the giant giraffe head that my car is parked under. It just happens to be up on the next level, and the only way up is a steep, curved ramp that has two-way traffic and no pedestrian access. With no other way up, I position the trolley in the middle of the ramp (i.e. between the two lanes of traffic) so that we are as visible as possible to cars coming in both directions, and take the ramp at a run. Several people drive past, shaking their heads at me, looking disgusted. If I had a spare hand I would give them the finger, but it’s taking everything I’ve got to get this bloody trolley and my precious cargo up the ramp. We make it! OMG, I nearly cry with relief. 

Our car is just ahead, beckoning us home. I strap the kids into their seats, give them each a biscuit in the hope that it will keep them awake on the way home, and make our way to the exit. As we get to the exit barrier, the fancy new number plate recognition system tells me that I have overstayed the free three hours by 20 minutes, and I now owe $4. I’m pretty sure I burst a blood vessel in my neck at this point. I reach out to press the ‘help’ button, ready to explode, but the boom gate just lifts and we’re allowed to leave. Relief washes over me, tinged with disappointment that I didn’t get to yell at anybody.

Unsurprisingly, both kids fall asleep in the car before we get home. Surprisingly though, I’m able to transfer both sleeping children into their beds without them waking. Finally, a good result.

No more shopping centres for us for a while!

What about you? Do you love or loathe those big centres?

Wonder Weeks Hell

We are in some kind of Wonder Weeks hell at the moment. It's the fourth week of Leap 8 (Programs) and the little Stuntman has reverted to being a devil-child who cannot fall asleep on his own and cannot stay asleep for more than an hour, day or night. So I'm back to feeding, rocking, patting, shooshing and bouncing him to sleep, several times a night. My back aches, my shoulders ache, my heart aches because I cannot help him. Exhaustion is an inadequate description. The sleep deprivation is torturous - little black dots seem to crawl up the walls and the room tilts at odd angles. I feel drunk, or perhaps just hungover. I can't hold a conversation. I can barely hold my head up. Little things become big things as my perspective is all out of whack. A big black hole of depression lies just ahead, waiting to swallow me up. 

But at least there is light at the end of this tunnel. This leap is nearly over, and (fingers crossed), our lovely little boy who sleeps though the night will return. With some new mad skills to show off. Just three more days (and nights) to get through...

For those who don't know about the Wonder Weeks, they are 10 developmental 'leaps' that all babies go through in the first 20 months of their lives. Some clever researchers found that the development stages that all babies go through could be predicted almost to the day, so they charted these periods and called them The Wonder Weeks. 

These leaps are stages where babies' little brains go through an intense period of learning and change. New connections are formed and a greater understanding of the world they're living in is reached. Understandably, this can be hard for them to deal with.

The first signs that a leap is approaching are the three C's - crying, crankiness and clinginess. This, plus sleep disturbances (oh yeah!), changes in eating habits and changes in behaviour, can leave parents thinking that they've somehow brought the wrong baby home from the park. Knowing when the Wonder Weeks will occur can be a lifesaver for a sleep deprived parent. 

There's a book, a website, and yep, there's even an app for that. The Wonder Weeks app is a great help to me, as, although it can't do anything to change my baby's behaviour, it gives me warning of what's ahead, and also provides some advice on how to best help them get through this awful, horrible time. 

My mantra during Wonder Weeks is "he's not giving me a rough time, he's having a rough time."  Although that doesn't do much for me at 4am.

Three more days...