Friday, July 1, 2016

Surviving My First Week

I survived my first week at work! It was good to feel productive and have adult conversations with some friendly faces. Surprisingly, I had no emotional breakdowns about being away from my baby. I think the easy transition was due to:
  • knowing that Lucas is in good hands with Daddy (I shudder to think of how much I'll freak out when he's in daycare!)
  • Nap training starting this week, which means there's a lot of crying going on during the day - can't say I'm sad to be missing that (big kudos to Jeff for taking this on!)
  • my boss and team taking it easy on me because it was my first week
  • returning the week before July 4th weekend - many people were out on vacation so work was slow
  • Lucas bottle feeding well when I'm not around
  • having enough downtime and milk supply to consistently pump more than Lucas needs while I'm gone (I worry about my milk supply when work picks up and I can't step away three times a day to pump)
  • Lucas sleeping much better at night, usually waking up only once to feed (for the first time in his life, he's managed to sleep through the night this week - twice!)
Given that some of these are temporary (Jeff staying at home with Lucas, the light workload before the holiday weekend, etc.), I do anticipate this whole working mom thing will get harder. And even with all these different factors to make it easier on me, there are still challenges. It sucks to come home and know that I have only 30-60 minutes to spend with my baby before he goes to sleep for the night. But I won't compromise his sleep and force him to stay up just so I have more time with him. He tends to wake up at 6am so I try to cherish those early hours with him (even if I am half asleep!). 

Breastfeeding also makes work challenging, even though I'm determined to go keep going for now. I can't rely on too much caffeine to keep my energy levels up. It also sucks to have to rearrange my schedule every time a meeting, lunch, or happy hour invite comes up that conflicts with pumping. I skipped a pumping to attend a colleague's going away happy hour and I'm already paranoid, thinking about how that could possibly affect my supply longterm. I also got a clogged duct on Sunday night, making my first day back pretty painful. I wasn't able to tend to it during the day, since it would make my coworkers quite uncomfortable if I was massaging my chest all day. Luckily, I managed to get two last minute appointments for ultrasound therapy and milk blister treatment so I'm on the mend. 

In the meantime, I'm feeling energized and refreshed even though I still wake up every 2-3 hours, as Lucas slumbers away through the night. Here's to an even better week 2! If I'm being greedy, I'd also love to throw in better naps and more sleeping through the night. :)