One Week Old

I changed him, fed him, burped him, but our little monkey was still a little cranky. All that was left to try was "hot/cold" and he was already down to a onesie. So, into bed with nice and warm (and awake) Daddy.

The first week has been interesting. Daniel got dehydrated in the hospital. This resulted in two separate chains in events that were pretty painful for me. First, the doctor ordered two more lab tests in as many days and I had to watch my little man get his heel poked and squeezed for blood samples. Second, we were hoping to breast feed exclusively, but clearly I wasn't producing enough to sustain the baby. We gave him a bottle in the hospital to bring his fluids up. Just over 24 hours later, Daniel rejected breast feeding entirely, leaving me feeling like a complete failure on my fourth day as a mom. Ironically, my milk came in shortly after this occurred.

Resources online call this problem "nipple confusion" and the method of reversing it is time consuming and requires patience and persistence. I'm sorry and I do understand that breast milk is far superior to formula, but I only get to be a full-time mom for eight weeks. I want to spend quality time with my son, not waste it on re-training him to take my breast...particularly when he'll be feeding from bottles when I go back to work anyway.

So over the next three nights, we borrowed, rented, exchanged, and bought Medela breastpumps. So Daniel will receive the benefits of breastmilk, (which is all I really cared about), without all the fuss, for as long as it lasts. In retrospect, we'd have had to supplement with formula anyway. He's taking in 2-3 oz every 4 hours and I'm producing half of that. (And his appetite is growing.)

Also on Monday, after Daniel was accosted by the lab tech at Womans Hospital, we changed his diaper and found his circumcision bleeding. We took him to the doctor, who told us it was fine but to watch out for oozing blood. It continued to bleed for a few more days, but yesterday it was looking SO much better. We're still applying gauze and vaseline, but we think we'll be able to stop that in a day or two.

We've been having issues with gas at night. Because he's only drinking 2-3 oz every 3-4 hours or so, the playtex drop-in is a little difficult to collapse properly before feeding. We've bought a few of the Dr. Browns bottles to see if it would help with the gas and it actually does pretty well. Last night was much better than Wednesday night, when our poor Monkey was still upset by gas after 6 impressive burps.

The rest of the week has been pretty much as I expected...a chore here and there between holding, rocking, talking, changing, feeding, and kissing the baby. Aside from three days of musical breast pumps, the only unusual happening was my emergency dentist appointment. (I didn't have a chip repaired a few months back because I was pregnant...and now I need a crown because the tooth broke yesterday.)

Thankfully, we had my mom here to help me adjust to things like washing laundry and dishes several times a day. And baby sitting while I took care of things. She's going home today and I'm going to miss her.