Reading this again after years have gone by, it amazes me all over again how scary and overwhelming those first few months can be and how sometimes, even with all the information out there, you can doubt yourself and worry about silly things. In hindsight I know I shouldn’t have worried so much. Let the poor baby sleep! When you’re a new parent you don’t have the luxury of trusting your feelings and knowing it will all be fine and that you should just relax a little. My kids aren’t babies anymore and I’m still learning to trust my gut and stay calm
Snippets from July 19th, 2009 (newborn)
Eating, pooping, sleeping… yep, it’s pretty much what my life is all about right now – I mean HIS eating, pooping and sleeping, not mine! There is just so much I want to tell you and it’s hard to arrange my thoughts in an orderly fashion. Can you believe he’ll be one month old on Saturday? Time sure does fly when you’re having fun. He has his check-up on Friday and I’ll let you know how it goes. I’m just so glad that I actually feel happy about going to the hospital and don’t have to dread further tests or invasive treatments.
The test results were only supposed to be in on Wednesday, but I just couldn’t wait so on Tuesday I phoned the hospital. I just phoned their main line and asked if the person could speak English. The lady could speak a little and I told her that I was looking for my son’s test results for congenital hypothyroidism. She asked if I knew the department number. I said I didn’t, but that he was a baby so it was on the first floor. She put me through to the pediatric department and once again I repeated myself to a nurse there. Then she asked, “Are you Emily?” I guess there aren’t that many foreign babies at the hospital. Then she said, “All results came back normal.” I didn’t want to get too excited so I made her repeat it a few times to be sure that she knew exactly what I was talking about. Then when I knew for sure I was so, so happy and relieved. I actually jumped up and down – even though I know that is not exactly recommended after a c-section!
Once again, I’m not sure how much time I have and I may end up having to write this in two parts, but for the moment Jay is asleep in his stroller looking oh so cute and gorgeous. Now and again he’ll make a little noise or cry or whimper, but I know he is just dreaming.
EATING
On the eating front things are going okay. I have started supplementing with formula, but not more than 2 bottles a day. The rest is breast milk. Although I’ve actually been able to pump more milk lately, I’ve been storing more in the freezer because I want to make sure I have enough for later when I go back to work and can’t use that time to pump anymore. The thing is, I can usually only breastfeed him during the night or in the morning. For some reason after that he starts getting really fussy and then I have to use my expressed milk and bottle feed. Actually, I’ve recently discovered the reason he gets so fussy and there isn’t much I can do about it. When I get my “let down” and the milk flows more, he just can’t take it. I think the force with which it comes out may even hurt him and probably squirts him right in the back of the throat. He’ll start sucking and then suddenly just freak out. I’ve tried pumping some out first and then he usually starts out fine and then at some point I guess more milk comes in and he freaks out again. The other day it was quite funny. He was on the left and it was going well and I was using the pump on the right. The next minute he started freaking out and pulled away and I looked down and saw that my breast was literally squirting milk (as in a steady stream like a hosepipe turned to full blast, not just a gentle trickle) all over the place and hitting him in the face and eye and just not stopping. My first thought was of precious milk going to waste so I took the pump off the right breast to catch the milk on the left only to have the right one start doing the same thing! It was downright embarrassing. I felt like Cow from “Cow and Chicken” who uses her udders like a weapon!! No wonder the little guy gets upset! I don’t know why he doesn’t have that problem at night or in the morning because I actually seem to be able to pump more milk then. Maybe he is extra hungry then and can swallow faster. I just can’t figure it out, but I’m hoping that it improves.
It’s a good thing I’ve been able to pump so much more lately because I have quite literally been throwing it away. Tonight I’d just spent a good 15 minutes pumping some out and as I opened the bedroom door to head to the fridge and store it for tomorrow, the pump fell out my hand and all the milk fell on the floor. I was so upset at first until I realized that you can’t cry over spilled milk! (ha ha). I always wash and sterilize the pump and yesterday I’d just finished pumping and in my mind I was thinking of what I had to do next. I guess I breezed over the part about storing it in the fridge because I walked straight to the kitchen, poured the milk down the drain and started washing it. Yes, I POURED IT DOWN THE DRAIN!! Can you believe it?! I must have been tired (or I’m having a case of baby brain).
Sometimes when he takes a bottle he gets fussy as well, but usually I find it’s either because he isn’t really hungry or because he is very tired. I also have to be sure I give him the right bottle and teat, so now I make sure I only use Dr. Brown or NUK bottles. They’re good because they have this special air flow system so the baby doesn’t swallow as much air. Sometimes it takes him a while to “get into the groove”, but once he has it and is merrily sucking away, he looks so adorable. He’ll often curl his toes and clutch his little hands together under his neck, sometimes even grabbing hold of his onesie. Sometimes, while he is sucking he tries to shove his fingers in at the same time and it’s so funny and at other times he makes this sound like “Hmmm” while he is sucking which is when I know he is thoroughly enjoying himself.
When I feed him with a bottle, I make sure he wears a bib because he can be really messy. Also, he does spit up now and then. It’s funny because the ones that Mom R sent are quite big and they hang down really low and make him look like he is wearing a little dress. And then now and then it’ll twist around to the back and then he looks like Superman in a great big cape.
On Saturday we decided to go to the store and just as we wanted to leave, Jay woke up and was hungry, so we stopped getting ready and I fed him a bottle. Everything was going along fine and he seemed fine. Suddenly he just started crying and shouting. I tried to get him to drink more, but each time he’d open his mouth to receive it and then would start screaming again. Greg came to help me and he gave it a try and then we burped him about a thousand times thinking that maybe he had a wind or something. Greg asked if the milk was fresh (after the last incident), but I’d only pumped it the day before so I knew it was fine. I was staring at the bottle and wondering why he wouldn’t drink. I suddenly wondered about the temperature (even though I knew it didn’t make sense because he’d been drinking a lot just a moment earlier). As I tipped it over to drop some on my wrist, I noticed that nothing wanted to come out. I studied the teat and there was this tiny little fiber (I guess from the washing sponge) that had gotten stuck right in the hole and so poor little Jay had been trying to drink, but nothing had wanted to come out! Of course, once I removed it, he happily resumed drinking. Afterwards we took a walk to the store and had lunch and some coffee there and then walked back and Jay slept the whole time.
POOPING
As I mentioned, I now supplement with a bit of formula every day so the number of his poops has decreased, but the strength of the smell has increased. Ha ha! It’s not too bad, though, because it’s only a small amount of formula compared to the amount of breast milk so he has no problem with constipation and the smell is bad, but not terrible. Greg is so funny when he changes him because he always makes up some little song about curry and is so expressive that it cracks me up. The other night (the first night after giving him formula) I was busy feeding him and he pooped. Usually, I can “feel” it because his diaper suddenly gets warmer, but this time it felt TOO warm and I looked down and it had come out the side by his leg and was on my leg! I yelled for Greg to come so he ran in and took Jay and changed his diaper while I dealt with the poo smeared on my leg. Greg ended up just putting him in a bath, but it was so funny because of all of Greg’s sound effects as he opened the diaper. I was laughing so hard!
Rusty Dog seems to have decided that aside from chief bodyguard dog, that he would also like to be chief diaper inspector. Jay may not be quite as new and exciting as he was at first, but now Rusty will often come to check out the diaper situation. When he gives more than a cursory sniff, I know there is probably a pee, but when he starts licking Jay’s leg, I know there is a big poop in there for sure!
SLEEPING
Now that is something my son loves to do! Remember I told you that if he slept for more than 4 hours, I needed to wake him up for a feeding? I would have to set my alarm because otherwise he’d just carry on sleeping. I mean the one day I woke up and realized that I’d been sleeping for over 6 hours and then I still had to wake him up! When they’re so little it’s important they don’t miss a feeding, but I’ve read online that from 4 weeks you can just let them sleep and they’ll wake you up when they’re hungry (actually it’s only the first 2 weeks that are the most important in terms of regular feeding at night). That suits me much better because not only does that mean I’ll get more hours successively, but also I don’t like waking him up because he is usually so sleepy and doesn’t really want to feed anyway and keeps falling asleep at the breast. When he wakes on his own, he feeds quickly and easily.
The other night (before I read that from now on it’s okay to let them sleep), I’d set my alarm. He’d gone to sleep around 12:20am and so I’d set my alarm for 4:20am. I woke up when my alarm went off and picked him up to change his diaper. He squirmed and scrunched his face up like he usually does, but didn’t open his eyes once during the whole procedure. Then I wanted to breastfeed him, but it was impossible because he was fast asleep and absolutely nothing I tried would wake him. I even got a wet facecloth and wiped his face. He’d respond, but still wouldn’t open his eyes and just continued sleeping. Greg said I should run his foot under cold water (I’ve since read NOT to use jarring techniques to wake them up), but it didn’t work anyway. So there I was busy googling it at the crack of dawn because I have to say I was rather freaked out. That’s when I read that it was okay to let him sleep and wake on his own. I tried their tips to wake him up and nothing worked so eventually I just put him back in bed. I couldn’t sleep, though. I think I needed to keep an eye on him to make sure he was still alive and breathing. Then an hour later he woke up on his own and proceeded to feed on and off for over an hour so I was rather relieved, albeit pretty tired the next day.
OTHER
Last weekend when we went to the park Jay was only 3 weeks old. We stopped at some store along the way first and when the lady that worked there saw him, she asked us how old he was. She was so upset when she heard and said I should be at home. You know in this culture the mother and baby should only leave the house once the baby is one month old. We just decided to tell others he was one month after that to avoid the unpleasantness.
I’ve noticed that Jay has started smiling a little when he is awake. They are very small smiles still and very fleeting, but I can’t wait for the first time I see a huge big smile. He also holds his head up quite a bit on his own when you sit him up and when he has his “tummy time” he can lift his head for a while and then turn it from side to side.
Okay, I’m off.
Lots of love
Em x