Didn't get much time to write over the weekend. We were pretty busy trying to get stuff finished before my return to work. Saturday saw us heading out to the hospital. As seems to be common with new babies the bes laid plans of how the morning should pan out so that we arrive at the hospital on time went down the tubes quickly. We did make it on time but it did involve a lot of rushing around. We managed to head to Starbucks for a hot chocolate and a cake after the visit as the baby was still sleeping. The checkup went fine and the baby is gaining weight quite rapidly. Mommy has decided that we should up the amount of formula that we're giving the baby now. This has pros and cons. On the plus side she sleeps much better at the moment as she's a bit bloated. The con is that because she's a bit bloated she's more likely to be sick while being burped. This only seems to happen when I burp her so either I'm being more aggressive or she's still got trapped wind from not being burped sufficiently on the previous feeding. Either way, we had a bit of a mishap on Sunday with this. We were settling down in the evening to watch a film and I was feeding the baby to try and get her back to sleep. I was burping her just at the end of the feeding and she was sick all over my legs and on the sofa. So instead of watching the film we had the joy of stripping off the sofa covers and trying to get them clean. I think they're OK but I guess I'll find out when I get home tonight.
Aside from that nothing much of note over the weekend. Much work was done to the house and the downstairs is all but finished.
Monday, 22 February 2010
Thursday, 18 February 2010
Day 13
Today we took the baby into town to be registered. She was very well behaved giving mommy another chance to try out the pram before I go back to work. As it was raining we had a chance to get the pram in and out of the car as well which was a bit of a struggle. Given our car isn't exactly small the boot space does leave something to be desired. Anyway we managed it and the baby only woke up when we put her in the car to come home. I had to stop to register with the local doctors on the way home so I had to leave mommy in the car trying to keep the hungry baby amused whilst I filled in endless forms.
Mommy has been reading a book which suggests that formula fed babies are easy to overfeed. It's difficult to know if we're falling into this trap as we've been advised to just feed her whenever she asks for it as she's so small. We've been doing that but we tried her with a dummy yesterday evening and she actually seemed just as happy to have that instead of being fed an hour after her last feed. I think the dummy may be the way to go before we fall into the trap of overfeeding. She is gaining weight nicely and as long as that continues we won't worry too much one way or the other I think.
Meanwhile, work on the house is getting near to completion. I've emptied all of the boxes in my study and I just need to build some storage to put it all in now. Otherwise I think it's just getting the snagging bits of painting done and the odd curtain pole or two and I can call it a day until the weather picks up and I can start doing stuff outdoors.
Mommy has been reading a book which suggests that formula fed babies are easy to overfeed. It's difficult to know if we're falling into this trap as we've been advised to just feed her whenever she asks for it as she's so small. We've been doing that but we tried her with a dummy yesterday evening and she actually seemed just as happy to have that instead of being fed an hour after her last feed. I think the dummy may be the way to go before we fall into the trap of overfeeding. She is gaining weight nicely and as long as that continues we won't worry too much one way or the other I think.
Meanwhile, work on the house is getting near to completion. I've emptied all of the boxes in my study and I just need to build some storage to put it all in now. Otherwise I think it's just getting the snagging bits of painting done and the odd curtain pole or two and I can call it a day until the weather picks up and I can start doing stuff outdoors.
Wednesday, 17 February 2010
Day 11-12
Day 11 was time to make it up to my inlaws that they didn't get the baby over the weekend. As Nanny has Tuesdays off work we decided that they could have her for the afternoon. That gave me and mommy some time alone to do decorating and housework and have a bit of a break. The baby was well behaved all day. When we got her home she was pretty hungry so we fed her. It was also pancake day so we thought that as she'd just fed she'd probably sleep for a while. Sadly, that wasn't to be.
The only thing that stopped her crying was being walked around while mommy made the pancakes. I tried putting her on her new playmat to see if that would pacify her but not really. I think the baby has some issues about animals dangling infront of her face as she wasn't very impressed with the ones on her rocker chair either! Hopefully she'll grow to love them. So between pancakes I had to come back to the baby and keep her entertained. Once we'd eaten we fed the baby again, which must have been only an hour after her previous feed. She's still tiny so if she wants to eat we feed her. She's gaining weight very nicely at the moment so it's obviously a strategy that's paying off.
Anyway, the baby needed a few smaller feeds through the evening but when it came 3am and time to wake her up, she couldn't be stirred. She only took half a feed from me. When mommy woke her up at 7 am for another feed she again only took half the feed. By the 10am feed though she was back up to full sized feeds.
We had the health visitor from the local doctors today (day 12). She wanted to come and examine the baby and do the hearing test. Well, for the hearing test the baby has to be quiet. That's great but our baby associates being awake with being fed so once we'd woken her up she immediately wanted feeding. Fortunately you can do the hearing test whilst the baby is eating so we tried that. Unfortunately the hearing test machine wasn't working. The health worker wasn't sure if it was the machine or if our baby has waxy ears. We'll try again next week.
Once the nurse had left we took the baby out for her first visit into town. It took a while to get the pram set-up but we managed it eventually. She slept the whole time we were in town and mommy wasn't very gently with her in the pram either. We met our neighbour on the walk home who stopped to chat and to coo at the baby. That's obviously when she woke up and smelled a bit stinky so we rushed her home only to find no mess. We were starting to get a bit concerned about that as it's been a couple of days now since she left us a present in her nappy.
As she was awake she naturally wanted feeding so mommy fed her. About half way through we heard the tell-tale wet, squelchy sound that means she'd had a poo so mommy went off to change her. I left her to it and for the next 10 minutes all I could hear was mommy moaning about how disgusting it was and pleading with the baby to stop. It seems that as soon as the nappy was off that's when the baby decided she wasn't finished pooing. Mommy ended up holding a wet wipe under the baby to catch what she could. I think the changing mat and mommy ended up with more poo than the nappy. After that she finished her feed and reluctantly went to sleep. They're both downstairs sleeping now.
The only thing that stopped her crying was being walked around while mommy made the pancakes. I tried putting her on her new playmat to see if that would pacify her but not really. I think the baby has some issues about animals dangling infront of her face as she wasn't very impressed with the ones on her rocker chair either! Hopefully she'll grow to love them. So between pancakes I had to come back to the baby and keep her entertained. Once we'd eaten we fed the baby again, which must have been only an hour after her previous feed. She's still tiny so if she wants to eat we feed her. She's gaining weight very nicely at the moment so it's obviously a strategy that's paying off.
Anyway, the baby needed a few smaller feeds through the evening but when it came 3am and time to wake her up, she couldn't be stirred. She only took half a feed from me. When mommy woke her up at 7 am for another feed she again only took half the feed. By the 10am feed though she was back up to full sized feeds.
We had the health visitor from the local doctors today (day 12). She wanted to come and examine the baby and do the hearing test. Well, for the hearing test the baby has to be quiet. That's great but our baby associates being awake with being fed so once we'd woken her up she immediately wanted feeding. Fortunately you can do the hearing test whilst the baby is eating so we tried that. Unfortunately the hearing test machine wasn't working. The health worker wasn't sure if it was the machine or if our baby has waxy ears. We'll try again next week.
Once the nurse had left we took the baby out for her first visit into town. It took a while to get the pram set-up but we managed it eventually. She slept the whole time we were in town and mommy wasn't very gently with her in the pram either. We met our neighbour on the walk home who stopped to chat and to coo at the baby. That's obviously when she woke up and smelled a bit stinky so we rushed her home only to find no mess. We were starting to get a bit concerned about that as it's been a couple of days now since she left us a present in her nappy.
As she was awake she naturally wanted feeding so mommy fed her. About half way through we heard the tell-tale wet, squelchy sound that means she'd had a poo so mommy went off to change her. I left her to it and for the next 10 minutes all I could hear was mommy moaning about how disgusting it was and pleading with the baby to stop. It seems that as soon as the nappy was off that's when the baby decided she wasn't finished pooing. Mommy ended up holding a wet wipe under the baby to catch what she could. I think the changing mat and mommy ended up with more poo than the nappy. After that she finished her feed and reluctantly went to sleep. They're both downstairs sleeping now.
Monday, 15 February 2010
Day 9-10
Today is day 10 but I've a little more to add about day 9. I was on middle of the night feeding duty last night, as ever (when can I go back to work?) and the baby decided that she wanted to be awake. No feeding and back to sleep for her last night. I was up at quarter to 2 to do the feed. That took about 40 minutes before I decided to change her to try and get the last bit down. Well no sooner had I changed her than she did a big poo and I had to change her again. I did manage to get her to finish the bottle but no sooner had she fallen asleep than she woke up again and decided that she wanted more food. So I gave her a top-up feed. Almost as soon as I'd got back into bed she was awake again. As it was now almost 4 am I made mommy wake up. She changed the babys nappy and sure enough she was fast asleep in minutes. Typical!
Anyway, today was day 10 and it wasn't all that eventful during the day. We took the baby out to visit a friend who had driven mommy to hospital while she was in labour. He seemed very pleased to see us although we had to interrupt his work unannounced so that he could see us. the rest of the day has been spent trying to get the baby to sleep and to feed both of which have proven a little tricky today. I've just come from a big event though, babys first bath. We're seeing the midwife tomorrow so we were intending to leave the first bath until after she'd been but the baby had other ideas. She threw up quite a lot over her bedding and herself and so mommy decided that it was best if we washed her. We tried just using the flannel but she still smelled of sick so we decided to have a go at bathing her in the sink. This was reasonably successful, a decent amount of screaming but she was washed and clean smelling.
We decided that it was more or less feed-time after that so I fed her so that mommy could have a rest. The baby was pretty hungry but didn't seem to be getting much down her before falling asleep. I had a feeling something else was about to happen. Sure enough just as I was thinking I could put her down for a while she managed a big poo. Off I went to change her and no sooner had I cleaned her up than she pooed again on the chaning mat. Needless to ssay, mommy wasn't very impressed as she'd just cleaned the changing mat from all of the sick. Anyway, we got her cleaned up and I handed her to mommy to see if she'd take some more of the feed she abandoned to have a poo. Hopefully she was just making room for the rest of it! I've decided to come to my study to write this post and to upload some baby photos. Any old excuse. I wait with baited breath to see what's awaiting me on my return.
Anyway, today was day 10 and it wasn't all that eventful during the day. We took the baby out to visit a friend who had driven mommy to hospital while she was in labour. He seemed very pleased to see us although we had to interrupt his work unannounced so that he could see us. the rest of the day has been spent trying to get the baby to sleep and to feed both of which have proven a little tricky today. I've just come from a big event though, babys first bath. We're seeing the midwife tomorrow so we were intending to leave the first bath until after she'd been but the baby had other ideas. She threw up quite a lot over her bedding and herself and so mommy decided that it was best if we washed her. We tried just using the flannel but she still smelled of sick so we decided to have a go at bathing her in the sink. This was reasonably successful, a decent amount of screaming but she was washed and clean smelling.
We decided that it was more or less feed-time after that so I fed her so that mommy could have a rest. The baby was pretty hungry but didn't seem to be getting much down her before falling asleep. I had a feeling something else was about to happen. Sure enough just as I was thinking I could put her down for a while she managed a big poo. Off I went to change her and no sooner had I cleaned her up than she pooed again on the chaning mat. Needless to ssay, mommy wasn't very impressed as she'd just cleaned the changing mat from all of the sick. Anyway, we got her cleaned up and I handed her to mommy to see if she'd take some more of the feed she abandoned to have a poo. Hopefully she was just making room for the rest of it! I've decided to come to my study to write this post and to upload some baby photos. Any old excuse. I wait with baited breath to see what's awaiting me on my return.
Sunday, 14 February 2010
Day 8-9
It's starting to get a bit too quiet here. The baby has really taken to this while formula thing and she's feeding well, sleeping reasonably well and pooing like a champion! Mummy got a bit concerned yesterday that the baby was pooing a bit too much and might have a lactose intolerance but the midwives told her that it's probably not a problem but to keep an eye on how things progress.
We're gradually increasing the amount of formula that we give the baby and dreaming of the day when she can go 4 hours between feeds so we only have to get up once in the middle of the night. Speaking of which, I had the 3am feeding this morning. I changed the baby first to wake her up, fed her and put her back to bed. Well that all seemed too easy. She started crying almost as soon as I got back into bed so I went and picked her up to try and get her to sleep. About 5 minutes later I put her back down and as soon as I got into bed we heard a loud squelchy fart. So I had to get up again and change her. Then the nappy bin was full so I had to change that too. All in all it took about an hour and half or more to do the feed in the small hours this morning so I was not amused.
She is cute though, our little poop factory.
We're gradually increasing the amount of formula that we give the baby and dreaming of the day when she can go 4 hours between feeds so we only have to get up once in the middle of the night. Speaking of which, I had the 3am feeding this morning. I changed the baby first to wake her up, fed her and put her back to bed. Well that all seemed too easy. She started crying almost as soon as I got back into bed so I went and picked her up to try and get her to sleep. About 5 minutes later I put her back down and as soon as I got into bed we heard a loud squelchy fart. So I had to get up again and change her. Then the nappy bin was full so I had to change that too. All in all it took about an hour and half or more to do the feed in the small hours this morning so I was not amused.
She is cute though, our little poop factory.
Friday, 12 February 2010
Day 4 - 7
It's been a slightly crazy time here and we're both a bit sleep deprived. The baby was diagnosed with a tongue tie which apparantly is farly common. It's a condition where a small piece of skin attaches the tongue to the bottom of the mouth but it comes too far forwards on the tongue. This has caused the baby problems with feeding as she can't push her tongue forward enough. So we've had to top her up with formula but the combination of that and the fact that mom hasn't been producing milk explains why the babys been constantly hungry and not sleeping. It's amazing that just a small amount of formula made her a lot happier and sleepier. We've been constantly increasing the amount of formula each day and she's doing a lot better now, a lot less dry skinned and a lot calmer.
We had the tongue tie corrected which was just a quick snip that the midwife did at a clinic. It was very quick and the baby seemed more upset about being stripped down and pinned to the table than she did about the cutting. Unfortunately, mommys milk hadn't come in for a couple of potential reasons so even now that her tongue is corrected she isn't breast feeding. We're trying to help things along with expressing but it remains to be seen whether it's going to make any difference at this stage.
Great-granny came to visit today. She has two great-grandchildren now but ours was the first that she's met so far. The visit went well and the baby was very well behaved and so was great-granny.
The trouble we have now is that the sleep deprivation from those first few days and the middle of the night feedings are catching up with us now so we're not getting much done. Hopefully we'll get into our own routine soon and start to be able to do some stuff around the house, maybe even start going out.
We had the tongue tie corrected which was just a quick snip that the midwife did at a clinic. It was very quick and the baby seemed more upset about being stripped down and pinned to the table than she did about the cutting. Unfortunately, mommys milk hadn't come in for a couple of potential reasons so even now that her tongue is corrected she isn't breast feeding. We're trying to help things along with expressing but it remains to be seen whether it's going to make any difference at this stage.
Great-granny came to visit today. She has two great-grandchildren now but ours was the first that she's met so far. The visit went well and the baby was very well behaved and so was great-granny.
The trouble we have now is that the sleep deprivation from those first few days and the middle of the night feedings are catching up with us now so we're not getting much done. Hopefully we'll get into our own routine soon and start to be able to do some stuff around the house, maybe even start going out.
Sunday, 7 February 2010
Day 2/Day 3
I guess this is going to be a recurring theme. I didn't get to the computer at all yesterday to post a day 2 update so this is combined with today. Mother and baby were discharged from the hospital on day 2, which was great, except that the house still isn't quite ready to receive them. Everythng should be good for Tuesday though so we're pretty close.
The baby had a bit of jaundice when we were discharged but it seems to be clearing up nicely. I think Mummy was pleased to get released from the hospital because most of the other mothers were snoring and farting all night the night before keeping her awake. They both did really well on the first night on the outside. Baby fed well and Mum was patient with her encouraging and we even got 4 or 5 hours sleep between feedings.
Day 3 was a different story though. Baby has still been feeding well but whenever she's taken away from the breast she cries and looks around for it. When we put her back she feeds for a few seconds and then gives up and starts to fall asleep. I guess she's getting enough food but she just won't settle between feedings. That said, she's down at the moment so Mummy is taking the opportunity to catch some sleep. Meanwhile, daily-daddy has to prep the dinner, do the laundry and try to catch up what's going on on the Internet! Hopefully she'll be down for a couple of hours and then ready for another feed. Mummys milk should be coming in soon which hopefully will make the feeding a bit easier.
I'll let you know.
The baby had a bit of jaundice when we were discharged but it seems to be clearing up nicely. I think Mummy was pleased to get released from the hospital because most of the other mothers were snoring and farting all night the night before keeping her awake. They both did really well on the first night on the outside. Baby fed well and Mum was patient with her encouraging and we even got 4 or 5 hours sleep between feedings.
Day 3 was a different story though. Baby has still been feeding well but whenever she's taken away from the breast she cries and looks around for it. When we put her back she feeds for a few seconds and then gives up and starts to fall asleep. I guess she's getting enough food but she just won't settle between feedings. That said, she's down at the moment so Mummy is taking the opportunity to catch some sleep. Meanwhile, daily-daddy has to prep the dinner, do the laundry and try to catch up what's going on on the Internet! Hopefully she'll be down for a couple of hours and then ready for another feed. Mummys milk should be coming in soon which hopefully will make the feeding a bit easier.
I'll let you know.
Saturday, 6 February 2010
Day 1
Or more strictly the start of day 2. My first baby, a little girl was born yesterday afternoon at 2.30. I missed the main event but only just. Then again, my wife only just made it to the hospital in time. I'm just grateful that the Princess Royal hospital in Haywards Heath didn't lose it's maternity unit otherwise I think she would have been born in my wifes friends car!
The baby's pretty small but seems to be doing well, took reasonably well to feeding and seems quite happy with the wold. As we're in the middle of a house move I haven't found anything to connect the camera to the PC yet so no pictures for a little while.
The baby's pretty small but seems to be doing well, took reasonably well to feeding and seems quite happy with the wold. As we're in the middle of a house move I haven't found anything to connect the camera to the PC yet so no pictures for a little while.
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