Hello all, this post took longer to get to than I intended, but here it is. Life with a newborn is completely chaotic, especially when the newborn in question refuses to be put down unless sleeping very heavily.
Anyway, J.R. was a model baby in the hospital. He slept pretty well the first couple of nights, only fussing a little bit here and there in his sleep. Of course, I woke up every time he did, so I was completely exhausted, but I made it through. Breastfeeding was really rough, he actually ended up giving me a hickey, because I was totally unprepared for that aspect of motherhood. No one told me that it was going to hurt like the dickens every time he latched on, and it nearly made me give up. But I muddled my way through each feeding.
Bryan got to hold him quite a bit while we were in the hospital, which was nice. He did a lot of the diaper changes as well, and quite a bit of the burping as well. J.R. did spit up every now and then, a yellowish mucusy spitup, but I was told that was amniotic fluid that he'd swallowed in utero. He actually ended up choking on it one night because he tried so hard to swallow it again when he was spitting up. Luckily, a nurse came in to take my vital signs while he was doing it, and she whipped him up out of his bed (I was leaning over him, holding him on his side and patting him pretty hard on his back, waiting for him to either spit it all the way out or swallow it) and turned him over, pounding his back so hard I was sure she had to be hurting him. She got him breathing normally again, took my vitals and left again. It really shook me up. It was the middle of the night, and I was already exhausted from lack of sleep, as well as just being overwhelmed by all the new responsibilities, and I started bawling when the nurse left the room.
J.R. also ended up having to go to the nursery for a while, because two receiving blankets swaddled around him weren't enough to keep him warm in the freezing hospital. His temp dropped to 97.1, and they wanted it to be 97.4 or more. He wasn't there for long, but it just added to my emotional upheaval. But the worst part came when J.R. wouldn't wake up for a feeding one night. He was sleeping really well, and I couldn't get him to wake up, he was sleeping so deeply, so I let him sleep. My nurse came in the next morning, and checked the sheet where we had to record when and for how long he breastfed each time. She asked when he'd eaten last, and I told her, and she got really concerned. She proceeded to give me a lecture on being very sure that we woke J.R. up for feeding no later than three hours after the last feeding. She pulled out a sheet that was on J.R.'s chart that we were supposed to read, but hadn't been told about. No one told us that we absolutely HAD to wake him up no matter what. Then the pediatrician came in later and told us the same thing, only in a much nicer way. I really liked him. We were told the same thing by a couple different people after that as well. I felt so incredibly horrible, and cried so hard. I was pretty peeved once I calmed down, because first of all, no one had told us about this sheet that we were supposed to read, and secondly, the only breastfeeding instruction I got was when I tried to feed J.R. for the very first time. All I was told at that time was how to get him latched on, and how long I needed to feed him on each side. One of the nurses had read us the first part of the instruction sheet we were given, but that had to do with the crib they had him in, and the safety rules surrounding it and his security clasp on his umbilical stump. J.R. lost about 7.6% of his birthweight while he was in the hospital, and the nurses made it sound like it was because he'd gone six hours between feedings. They managed to make me feel completely and totally inadequate as a mother, and like I was a horrible person, starving my child.
The nurse who helped deliver J.R. came to visit me one night (she worked the 7pm to 7am shift Friday to Sunday), and I broke down in front of her. I told her about all the issues with J.R., the lectures over his feeding, his weight loss, the choking incident (which happened right before she came in), and his temperature drop. She told me to look at J.R. and see how content he was. She told me I was a great mom, and he was doing fine, I shouldn't worry too much. She told me to feel free to put J.R. in the nursery for a little while if I needed time or sleep, and they'd bring him to me when it was time for him to eat. She really helped me feel SO much better after all the drama over his feeding gap, weight loss, and choking. I cried so hard after she left, but this time, it was tears of relief. I can't tell you how tired I was while I was in the hospital. It was so hard to watch Bryan sleeping so nicely in the chair they had in my postpartum room. I had to do everything in the middle of the night, because Bryan slept so deeply that I couldn't wake him up to help me out. I was so jealous.
But anyway, this is supposed to be about J.R., not me. After we came home, J.R.'s wonderful sleeping habits went completely out the window. Where he slept in his hospital crib just fine, he pretty much refused to sleep in his bed at home. He ended up sleeping on my chest for the majority of the night the first several nights. By the time he would get to a point where he was sleeping deeply enough for me to put him in his bed, I was so tired that I'd fallen asleep myself.
It took nearly a week to decipher the baby's cries. It was incredibly frustrating, because as soon as he would finish eating, he would be crying, and acting like he was hungry again. We tried a pacifier, but he was very ineffective at keeping it in his mouth, and to add, it made him not latch on correctly for breastfeeding for a day or so afterwards. About the only thing that would pacify him would be to put him back to the breast. That hurt so badly that I broke down, and very nearly gave up breastfeeding altogether. I finally realized that his cries were different before a feeding than they were after, and that after a feeding, he needed to either burp more or go to sleep. Only now, over two weeks later, are we finally getting into a sort of routine of feeding, burping, and sleeping.
J.R. already is showing traits of each of his parents. Physically, he's got my hair and face shape, and Bryan's chin and feet. He takes forever to fall asleep, like I do, but once he's out, he's out, and it takes a freight train to wake him, like his dad. Luckily, J.R. did not inherit my digestive issues, like my projectile vomiting and milk allergy. But oh, boy, does he have some loud gas!!! He certainly already passes gas like a man! And when he has a bowel movement, everyone knows it, it gets so loud.
The poor kid can't seem to get to sleep without being held and rocked. He fell asleep on his own in the hospital, but he hasn't done it even once here at home. But we're getting better about getting him to sleep. Taking him outside to walk around with him will do it if rocking him doesn't do the trick. Going for a drive works pretty well, too. He'll sit in his car seat and go to sleep, but he won't sit in his rocker chair in the house. I don't get it, but I deal with it. I can't get much done that takes two hands to do, except times like now, when he's down for the night. I should be sleeping, but I'm getting a little more sleep at night, since he's sleeping in his bed for two to three hours at a time after each feeding. Plus, I know I can make it up during the day if I need to, though he only sleeps about an hour per feeding during the day. He's actually staying awake longer and longer during the day. He nearly always falls asleep nursing, but wakes up when I burp him.
Wow, this has gotten really really long already. I'll end it here, and add pictures.
TTFN!!!
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