Adventures of Lil' Popeye: September 2014

I had these wonderful intentions of blogging about Lucy every week - not only to document her growth but to communicate with so many family and friends that don't get an opportunity to see her often.

As you can see, it's been more than 14 weeks since Lucy was born. Fourteen weeks and three days to be exact. I have a feeling this is what parenthood is going to be like for a long time, if not forever.

A daze.

A punch in the face.

A fight that couldn't be won.

For as great as labor was, the first few weeks were very difficult. Lucy was 8 pounds when she was born and lost a normal amount of weight in the hospital but at her 5 day check up, she lost more despite a 6 hour cluster feed the night before. She did end up sleeping for 5 straight hours that night. I'm sure the pediatrician thought I looked like I got hit by a truck but he didn't make a peep. I could barely bring myself to get out of bed because I was still in a sleep daze. He did, however, say that newborns should not be cluster feeding for 6 hours straight and then sleep for 5 hours sleep. He recommended we feed every 3 hours, even if it meant waking her up. She should be limited to only 15 minutes of feeding on each side and after that, if she was still hungry, to be supplemented with breastmilk or formula. He suggested we use a syringe to feed her. A syringe and a newborn do not go well together. In fact, it's like oil and water. Newborns can suck from a nipple but not from a plastic syringe very well. The doctor and nurse said it would be a good "daddy activity" but the way we saw it, we needed two people for the escapade. Our doctor didn't seem concern about her weight loss because she was strong and didn't know any signs of jaundice. He was already impressed with her neck strength. We went back two days later and she lost more weight. Now she was down to 7 pounds 5 ounces. They say your hormones are raging after the birth of a child and until that moment when we weighed her, I thought I had been doing well. I was teary-eyed and so bummed that my hard work wasn't paying off. He said to think of her weight gain like a game...sometimes it's just one point or two seconds that can make or break it. He, again, wasn't concerned about her but just thought she needed one more feed a day (4 oz). We were to feed her every two hours. If you aren't familiar with what that actually is, it means you start feeding every two hours regardless of how long it takes her to eat. So if you start at 9 am, you feed again at 11 am. We got rid of the syringe and gave her a bottle if she was still hungry.

After a handful of check-in appointments, she was back to birth weight at 4 weeks. It was a very long 4 weeks.

So many people have told us that when they bring their kid home they say "what do we do now?". Since we carted her off to the nursery while at the hospital, our first night together was not a pleasant one. She was NOT at all happy to be in the world - using her lungs to scream for what seemed to be an eternity! We tried having her sleep in the Moses basket, the bouncy seat, and even the changing pad we put in between us in bed. We didn't want to squish her. She did pretty well in her bouncy seat and if it got really bad we put her in the swing to let her calm down and fall to sleep. New babies and sleep are like golf rules - play it where it lies. Let them sleep where they are. I wish I would have known about the "rock and play sleeper" earlier because it was the contour of the swing but was taller and easier for a rehabilitating lady to pick up her child from in the middle of the night.

Daddy - the swaddle king

It was the wee hours of the morning and I was looking up books on how to console unhappy babies.
There were a few books listed and luckily one was carried at our local library. The next day Grant went to the library, read the book, and quietly became the SWADDLE KING and forever our lives were changed. CHANGED. We were able to swaddle her and she would instantly be calm.

So many people offer parenting advice and I don't have any to give other than saying swaddling worked AMAZING for us and it still does if she's being wicked.

What seemed to be an endless fog finally lifted after about 10 weeks. It was then we had a good ebb and flow to our day. We learned that baby girls can pee on you just as much as baby boys. We learned the newborns (or perhaps just ours) tooted a lot when pooping. And we learned, like clock work, when we changed a wet diaper it was no more than 5 minutes before she would dirty another diaper. We learned that we had such a wonderful support network who brought up delicious meals and visited with us in those early weeks. If you were one of those people, thank you for giving us the gift of nutrition and time (30-60 minutes of not prepping a meal means SLEEPING). In all honesty, I really thought I'd be making homemade pizza for us on a weekly basis after Lucy was born. To give you an idea of just how foggy or punched in the face by parenthood I felt, I did not make homemade pizza until last week....yes - 13 weeks later.

She hit her 4 week growth spurt as expected and fed for nearly two days straight. I didn't seem to notice a growth spurt at 8 or 12 weeks. A handful of weeks ago she started smiling. Last week (13) she rolled from her tummy to her back. She giggle one time this past week (13). Yesterday (June 29th) she really giggled. Like a lot.

Lucy: 6 weeks old

One of our favorite things so far is the morning wake up time. Since Lucy is swaddled, we slowly open her blanket and she stretches her arms and legs so far it nearly doubles her length. She gives us the Jabba the Hutt face (multiple chins, squishy eyes) followed by the biggest smile. She loves bath time and has since I learned (after the very first bath) that the water could be warmer. I didn't want to burn her delicate skin! Turns out, babes like really warm water. She constantly folds her hands, as though she was born with good manners or a devilishly good scheming ability. By 13 weeks she was grasping at toys and rattles, now she firmly holds them in her hand. She isn't a fan of pacifier but will take one every once in awhile.

Every week that passed, I told G that I wasn't sure how people went back to work. And I'm still not sure and it's been 14 weeks. I never thought I'd be one to say this but if I could get paid to stay home (or just not have any school loans to repay), I'd stay home in a heart beat. I'm just so thankful of how perfect our timing was to have Lucy arrive where I could take extended maternity leave and not go back until fall.

I'm juggling a part-time at-home job I started in March. Yes, I started a new job the month our first child was born. Not the most ideal timing but that's how it shook out. I wanted something to keep me "busy" (HA!) and something to fill in the gap financially since I had to take my extended maternity time without pay despite the fact that I had enough sick time. Now that she has more of a schedule, it's MUCH easier to work part time. The first month or two - not so much. It felt nearly impossible to respond to emails because as soon as I opened my computer, she'd start crying.

She's a baby. I hear that's what they do - be fussy. and be cute.