It is hard to believe that Delaney will already be 3 weeks on Friday! We watch her grow in both size and personality on a daily basis. The first day home was terrifying, overwhelming and emotional, and each day since has had its own challenges and rewards. She is feeding and sleeping like a little champ, and we getting better at recognizing and anticipating her needs, at least some of them . By her 2 week appointment, she had already exceeded her birth weight (she started at 7 lbs 10 oz, left the hospital at 7lbs 6 oz, and reached 8lbs by her 2 week appointment). She is very strong, both in body and spirit. We watch her with awe, amusement, pride and an indescribable amount of love.
Remarkably, Delaney put herself on a 3-4 hour schedule right away which looks something like this:
- She wakes to feed (and by “wake to feed,” I mean going from peaceful, sleeping baby to screaming-her-head-off, hyperventilating, must-eat-NOW baby in under a minute). We change her diaper, typically resulting in more hysterics.
- It takes about 45 minutes or so to nurse, which is 15 minutes of “active feeding” per breast, meaning that when she is just hanging out there or falling asleep, it does not count. She is also a “challenging burper” so we spend a great deal of time trying to get a burp out of her, often with no success. Over the shoulder burping was a lost cause from the beginning, so we are trying other, more aggressive, techniques. The first day we were barely patting her back. Kim, our night nurse, laughed and told us we weren’t going to get anywhere with that. Now, you can hear us pounding her back from another room. We’ve quickly come to realize that she is not as fragile as we initially thought. We are doing one bottle feed during the day and one at night, and the bottle feed takes MUCH less time- about 10 minutes. Brice does these feeds since I need to be pumping at around the same time, and we both felt it was important for him to do these bottle feedings as bonding time with Delaney (and a break for me). Bottle feeds, while more efficient, are more challenging since they go so quickly, she doesn’t quite realize she is getting full, so when we stop to burp her at various times, she goes into hysterics again, making burping even more difficult. We started off at 2.5 oz, got to 3 oz at 2 weeks, and are currently at 3.5 oz as of 2 days ago.
- After she eats during the day, we have “activity time.” Obviously she isn’t doing a whole lot in terms of activities at this point, but we do tummy time either on our chests or on her mat—and she’s already lifting up her head and moving it completely from one side to the other, call family on Skype, sing songs, play with her arms and legs, tell her stories, read books (her current favorite is the Sassy photo album with black and white contrasts), go for a walk (we LOVE our BOB stroller), take tours of the house, sit outside, but mainly just talk to her since her sense of hearing is the first to develop. This is our favorite time, but is also the shortest time, lasting only 15-45 minutes or so. At night, there is no activity time; right after she feeds, she goes back down to sleep again.
- At the first sign of sleepiness (crankiness or yawning), we swaddle her and get her ready for her nap. We then put her down to sleep, turn on her Sleep Sheep (her favorite setting is Ocean) and she sometimes have a few minutes of “quiet alert,” meaning she is calm and just staring into space, presumably thinking about how awesome she is, and then drifts off to sleep. By putting her down to sleep while still awake, we are hoping to promote some sleep independence.
- She then sleeps for 1.5-2.5 hours, and the whole cycle starts again!
Delaney loves:
- Eating
- Staring at faces
- Bathtime with Dad
- Sleep Sheep, Sleepy Bear, Soothing Seahorse (we have 1 upstairs, 1 downstairs, 1 on her changing table and 1 on her carseat) and other noise—she actually has appeared to sleep the soundest in a noisy room of people
- Her infant car seat, including car rides and walks in the stroller
- Being swaddled and also breaking free from her swaddle
- Trying to eat her hands
- Getting mani/pedis
- Her Sassy photo album
- Holding our fingers
- Her family!
Delaney dislikes/is not interested in:
- The pacifier (she was pretty miffed once she figured out nothing was coming out of it despite rigorous sucking)
- Waiting for more than 10 seconds to feed
- Diaper changes
- Hats
We could not live without:
- Kim, our night nurse. She has been AMAZING! She came every night for the first week and comes every other night for these last 2 weeks. Her philosophy is to train us to be confident and comfortable parents by the time she leaves, and she gives us daily “goals” to achieve. The first ones were taking Delaney out for a walk or taking her to a restaurant (sitting outside). We then graduated to putting her in the car and going somewhere (I took her to my parents house and surprised them). A few days ago her day time naps were in her crib while we used the monitor. Tonight we will graduate to having her sleep at night in her room by herself. EEEEEKKK!!!!
- The huge arsenal of burp cloths
- Summer Swaddle Pods
- Fisher Price Rock N Play Sleeper
- I have a love/hate relationship with the breast pump, but I could not live without it. My milk supply came in fast and furiously—our freezer is quickly filling up with milk. I am pumping about 8oz in less than 10 minutes, and sometimes even after a full nursing, I can pump an additional 3-4 oz. Meanwhile, Brice is having dreams with the whoosh-whoosh sound of the pump in it.
- Her huge bathroom, which houses her changing table, bath station, bottle/pump cleaning station and tons of storage.
- Nursing pillow (I’m using both My Brest Friend and the Boppy, depending on what I can grab the fastest when she’s hysterical)
- Video monitor—although I’m hoping we eventually get over the need to watch it the entire time
The joys of being a new mom are overwhelming, but there are also many challenges. The first week was very difficult, physically and emotionally. I was in a lot of pain, both from childbirth but also from breastfeeding/milk coming in. I had heard so much about breastfeeding being difficult, and I had worried about her being able to latch and having enough supply. Neither of these were issues at all, however engorgement, nipple soreness, neck and shoulder soreness and just the fatigue from the constant demands of breastfeeding were what made it so difficult. While I did not feel any “baby blues,” I was an emotional wreck—I don’t know who cried more, Delaney or me. At one point she spit up and I panicked and then started crying because I had panicked. A few days after getting home, I also started to come down with the horrible cold that Brice was still battling, so I was very sick and congested, and in an effort to not infect Delaney too, I wore a facemask while breastfeeding, which made the task of learning how to breastfeed even more difficult. This was all compounded by extreme fatigue that all new parents battle. The sickness, pain and hormonal roller coaster have all completely subsided now, and although I have not yet learned how to “sleep when the baby sleeps,” I am getting better at going back to sleep when Delaney goes back to sleep at night. Meanwhile, the first night we were without Kim, Brice was up every 15 minutes to check on her. He is getting better and even slept for an hour the other night without waking to check her! Besides the fatigue, I'm really feeling great. Getting out every day, even for a walk, a meal or a well-timed mani pedi has really helped. Most importantly, having the support of an unbelievable husband, a skilled night nurse and extremely generous and thoughtful friends and family who have run errands for us, brought us meals, walked Dakota, gone grocery shopping, sent us gifts, and just been there for us, has made the experience much easier and more special.
I would say that we are taking it one day at a time, but it’s more that we are taking it one 2-4 hour cycle at a time. Although I still feel like we really don’t know what we are doing, one thing that we KNOW we’ve already mastered is loving Delaney with our whole hearts.
