Also, google "kangaroo care", and if you have the help, move you and baby into your bed, and don't leave except to pee. Nurse, sleep skin to skin with her latched on if possible, pump every 3 hours but mostly just nurse nurse nurse. <3

T'sMom, any chance you have thrush [did you or babe receive any antibiotics before/during/after birth]? I had the pain and cracked nipples of thrush, but my son's never showed any signs of it. ok, disclaimer first, I am not an IBCLC, but I have been there with my first son, and had the pain still with my second. DS1 lost weight his first month, I had to pump, supplement with formula and pumped milk, take fenugreek and that Rx that is no longer FDA approved in the states [i lucked out and got it before it became hard to get, but I always forget the name of it]. And my son was not content EVER to play while I pumped so that was always a stressful time. And I didn't have any support from DH who just wanted to give him bottles which I didn't want to do. I persevered, and by 3 months I had him back on breast milk exclusively. * I second the rec to make sure you see an IBCLC; some peds have nurses doing lactation consulting, but with minimal training. I'm not trying to be derogatory, I think it's great they're making the effort. But when a problem comes up, it's time to get out the "big guns" so to speak. Some insurances will cover lactation consultations. Have them weigh babe before and after a feeding to see whether she's getting milk and how much. Have them check her latch, and check your nipples for thrush. Get some good ointment for that crack. * Waking the babe is hard. Especially if they aren't getting enough nourishment. As someone else said, it's a vicious cycle. [and I was also on pain meds for my c/s the first week or so, which made him really drowsy] I was told to sit baby up and lie him back down repeatedly--like you might do to a baby doll to get her eyes to open and close, massage her jaw hinge, tickle under her chin, brush your nipple across her cheek. * Try doing 2 hours cycles during the day, and 3ish at night to make it easier on you. Also if you get a SNS, you can give the milk from the last pumping at the same time as you nurse which will save you time. And getting that extra milk might be "novel" enough to wake her up more. * Did the LC rent you a hospital grade pump? For increasing your supply they are imperative. * Oatmeal, beer, fenugreek [i've seen it at the grocery store in the herbal supplement section], check out Kelly's site and search for increasing milk supply for more tips there * breast compressions, breast compressions, breast compressions, can't repeat this enough. Remember though, breasts never "empty", but you do want them to get to the hindmilk on at least one side. That's dinner. Focus on getting a good feeding on one side, nursing til she's done, and THEN offering the second side. "Finish the first side first" I wish you all the luck in the world. It IS possible to do, but it can be hard. Eventually it gets easier, and it's so worth it. :grouphug:

Lisa, since you ask for prayers I'm assuming you're religious. Do you have a home church? Is there any chance your pastor has a discretionary fund that could give you a short-term loan to cover this until payday? Good luck. :grouphug:

Thanks. :) I am trying to start slow, and I know I don't have to follow the "plan" exactly. It's just... without having the books in front of me, I'm not sure what will work together? Which are better? I keep reading reviews, and looking at sample lessons, but since I can't get everything all on one page [i guess I need to take better notes] it's hard to make those final decisions.

So this is my first year homeschooling. I read WTM last year, and was really drawn to many aspects of it, but I had a newborn, and so my then 5yo went to public kindy. Now we've decided to try HSing. The now 6yo is excited by that; he didn't have a bad year, his teacher was great [enthusiastic, engaging], but it was still school: lots of sitting, waiting, busy work, homework, plus the stupid school calendar that had us in school from late August through mid/late June. :( Anyway. So I'm trying to decide what curric's to use. I'm definitely going to use SOTW. I really like that. In fact we started this week with that already. I had been planning to use AAS as a combined phonics/spelling, and maybe ETC to supplement, and maybe FLL, plus just lots of books from the library. But reading WTM again, I see that it recs the OPGTR, and to finish that BEFORE FLL [am I reading that right?], and to finish at least half of OPGTR before starting any spelling. So now I'm conflicted. I don't want to say money is not an object, but it's certainly one of my lowest considerations. OTOH, I don't want to throw money at curric I end up not using. DS [the 6yo, that is] knows all his consonant sounds, knows the short vowel sounds, and many long vowels. He knows some blends, and a few digraphs. If you're familiar with Fountas & Panell [sp?], he's comfy on a C level, and D is an acceptable challenge. I really like how FLL ties in the art, and I'd thought to start that later in the year when we were more comfy. I'm still debating on a handwriting too; I like the flow of D'Nealian or Italics, but so much is in Z-B [ETC for example], that I thought maybe I should just go that route. If it matters, I'm pretty much unschooling in science except what we pull from SOTW because that is a huge interest area for him, so I'll have no problem covering that just to satiate his curiosity. I'm leaning towards Singapore math, and maybe Mammoth to supplement. Art, music, PE/health as it ties to life and interest and comes up with other areas. Thanks!

I joined WW last fall to lose my baby weight. The thing I found most interesting about the program is that it doesn't immediately put you on a 1200 calorie/day diet. The points don't translate quickly, but a maintenance diet is around 22 points for the average woman, but when you first start out, your points is based on your current weight and activity level. So as a 195 nursing mama who was fairly inactive, I got 35 points a day! My point is not to suggest you join WW [unless that's what you want to do] but to say that suddenly decreasing your calorie intake like that is hard on the body. A slower decrease would still allow your body to feed what it's got and allow a calorie deficit.

Ok, I'm using Safari actually, so I apparently don't have a "recently closed tabs" option. But while I was looking for it, I found out that I can open up more history than I realized, and I FINALLY FOUND IT!!! It took a lot of browsing though. Here it is, in case anyone else was interested: http://farrarwilliams.wordpress.com/2010/05/26/our-ten-favorite-books-with-story-of-the-world/ Thanks!

I *think* it was someone here that posted a link to someone's blog where she had listed her top ten favorite books to supplement the SOTW Ancients curriculum. For some reason, I closed the tab the other day, and FORGOT TO BOOKMARK IT! Ack, and of course, now I can't find it, even though I scoured my history [must have opened it over a week ago?]. Does anyone know what I'm talking about? Thanks!

Wow, thanks for the tips! I'm going to make our own "back to school" supply list. I went to Target today for clothes [it's tax-holiday in my state], but was surprised they didn't have more pants/long sleeved items, no jackets or sweaters. Usually I'm complaining about them being too many seasons ahead, and today it was the opposite! Still managed to spend a ton on clothes for both boys and myself.

We are new to the homeschool world; in fact, I haven't even gone so far as to submit my letter of intent. BUT we are planning to start HSing our 6yo next week. He went to PS for Kindy last year, wasn't a bad year, but blah blah blah that's not what this post is about. It's school supply shopping season. New pencils, crayons, colored pencils, backpack, etc. Except if we HS, we really don't NEED most of that [we have some for home already, he won't really need a backpack]. I do plan to go out and buy a balance scale and maybe a globe [and of course order some curriculum stuff], but I feel a little wistful not to be going out and filling a cart with all those other fun school supplies. Anyone else? Is there a "list" of things I'm going to want that I might not be thinking of? Thanks!

I have no idea what's available at walmart, but my son likes licorice tea, "Tiger Tea" [i think the real name is Bengal spice, it has/used to have a tiger on the box, I think by Celestial], peppermint, or berry splash. The first 2 are sweet enough on there own that they really don't need much if any sweetener. I find that stevia makes my son have to pee a lot, so we avoid that now for the most part, but a little honey or agave syrup goes a long way. Hot or iced!

Oh, I'm ignorant too. My DH, much more tech savvy than me was on the phone with their tech support several times, and they couldn't figure it out. Frustrating since I was so excited.

Hi, I'm new, probably my first post actually, but since I just went through this, thought I'd share. The kindle and the nook do have a browser to go on the internet. It's "beta" on both--can't remember the reason why--a little slow and clunky, only works in the wifi mode [at least on the Nook]. I wanted to be able to read some mostly-text web pages in addition to the occasional ebook. That said, I ended up taking my Nook back because we couldn't get it to work with our wifi network. We never really did figure it out. It worked just fine at the B&N store where we bought it, but not at home. I couldn't even download books from their store. We could go to Google on the browser, do a search and get results, but couldn't get to any of the pages on the results list. We tried going to the BookNook site, no go. Trying to buy books it just sat there "spinning" at us. In 3G mode, we could buy books and stuff, but since the browser doesn't work in that mode, I couldn't access the web pages I wanted to be able to read, so back it went. I haven't tried a Kindle yet, but we're considering it or maybe waiting for an iPad, not sure. DH thinks maybe it would be good to get DS used to reading texts electronically, etc. Good luck! Kim