As the days drew closer to my due date, I had very little idea of what a typical day was going to look like once Ajay really did arrive. I didn't know and looking back there isn't any amount of research or reading that could have prepared me for just how demanding the first few weeks with a newborn and subsequent months with an infant could be. We went from no schedule at all, to a schedule, to a period of "I don't know what the hell is going on", to now with what I would describe as more of a routine than anything else.
I delivered via C-section on a Wednesday afternoon and checked out on Sunday. I stayed in the hospital the maximum time allotted. I could have checked out on Saturday, but Ajay and I were having a rocky start with breastfeeding, so I want to focus ALL day on Saturday working with the lactation consultants to help make sure we could figure it out once we were on our own. So anyway, the first four days in the hospital you are broken in baby boot camp style. You are feeding every 2.5 hours and a good feed takes about an hour, because the baby is learning and mommy is learning and these things just take time. In short, mommy does not get any sleep for about 72 hours.
Then, we came home on Sunday and for the next week it is more of the same. Feed the baby every 2.5-3 hours. Feeds take about an hour. Then, the baby usually sleeps for the next 2 hours and is up to feed again. Ajay was jaundiced, so we couldn't let him wake on his own to eat. Basically, jaundice secretes a poison in the body and makes the baby very drowsy. It is very common, but can be very dangerous if not managed properly. So, that was us for the first 2-5 weeks. Eat, sleep, poop, repeat. By week 3, the pediatrician gave the go ahead to put ajay on a feeding schedule, per se. He said every 3 hours during the day and let him go as long as 5 in the night. By week 4, I was thinking, "heh, easy as cake. I got this." Then, by week 5, hell broke loose.
Week 5, Ajay was going through a rough time. We didn't really have any kind of routine for the nighttime, so Ajay was up all the time. It was tough because daddy works long hours and gets home late most nights. I was trying to make it so that Ajay could be up for when daddy gets home, but it was just messing things up. Ajay had no idea what to expect and couldn't comprehend the idea of night=sleep. He was starting to learn how to break out of the swaddleme blankets and that was only making things worse. So, I got my Moms On Call seminar password out and watched the 0-3 month online baby seminar. And watched it again. And watched it again. And again. And again.You get the point? And so a schedule was born. My good friend, Stacy, who introduced me to Moms on Call, also gave me her swaddle blankets and I learned to swaddle nice and snug so that he could get a good night's rest and nap really well.
Our schedule from about Week 5 to 12 weeks went something like this. Ajay wakes about 6 or 7 am, I am feed him and we play. Then he may go back down for a cat nap. Up again to eat at 9am and then every 3 hours from there on out. So he would be eating 9a, 12p, 3p, 6p, and last night feed @ 9p. Then, he would usually sleep for about 5 hours and then be up to eat at 2a, and sleep another 5 hours for the feeding cycle to start over again. After he would eat he would stay up for another 30 minutes, then nap for about an hour and half, then up to eat and repeat.
Then, I am not sure what happened from 3 to 4 months, but he was pretty much nursing all the time and playing and maybe taking 3-4 30-45 minute naps and sleeping about 8 hours at night. It was chaotic and I didn't like not knowing what to expect. So, then I got out my moms on call book, Guide To Basic Baby Care to see what it said for routines for 4 month+...and I think I am going to have to write that in another post...this one is too long and the baby needs to be fed!
Sunday, July 31, 2011
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
I'm A Poop Doula
"I'm a poop doula", I thought to myself as I picked up the phone to tell Arvind, "Ajay had a big poo and it was nice and smooth." Naive mom, checking in again. I had no idea how much thought I would have to put into my baby's bowel movements. Time, frequency, texture/consistency -- you name it, I've had to log it. No pun intended, haha.
Ajay is an interesting pooper (I am sure he will thank me for this post later in life). When he was first born, I heard he had the meconium poops -- they are black and tarry. The reason I say that I heard he had them was because I did not change a single dipe in the hospital, it never occurred to me. The nurses said he was pooping fine and that he had to get the meconium out so that he wouldn't get jaundice or something like that. Well, he was jaundiced anyway, despite our best poop efforts.
Another interesting thing I learned about newborn poop was that breastfed baby poo has a more pleasant smell than formula poop. Hmm, nice to know, considering we planned to exclusively breastfeed, we get the pleasant poo. After the meconium, comes the seedy mustard poop. I swear it looks like diarrhea, but we were told not to be alarmed with the consistency. He had seedy mustard poos that looked, literally, like seeds in the diaper. Someone please explain that to me. Then, we had cottage cheese mustard poos fairly regularly in the first 4-6 weeks. I'd say maybe 3-4 times a day. Then he slowed down to about twice a day for a couple of weeks. The poos were still runny, though. The just after his 8 week check-up, he was every other day. And finally, from about 8 weeks to 16 weeks, my boy was a once a weeker. Let's talk about this for a second. When he was only going once a week, the poos were still soft, so he definitely was not constipated. In fact, you can read all over the internet that it is very common for exclusively breastfed babies to poo only once every 7-10 days. Common? Looking back, I think we got lucky.
Then, at almost 5 months old, when we started solids we got to see firsthand what constipation was. He ate all the bananas and in no time he was backed up. He had to strain and strain and strain and what he produced was, well, interesting. First, it was shaped like a hamburger patty, but colors varied between yellowy banana color and some greenish color to almost a tarry black - it was speckled. I think it looked like a crab patty. Mmm, chew on that. So, we had to stop the solids and give him some prune juice and finally get things going again.
Well, he still gets backed up on a fairly regular basis. Which is why I like to think of myself as a poop doula. First, I had to wonder when he was going to poop because he was only going once a week. Now, I know he is going to poop, but I have to check consistency and texture. Nowadays, when he gets constipated, I can tell, because there really are little hard pebbles coming out and I get so excited when he has a nice, giant, soft poo. Oh, what my life has become and I wouldn't trade it for the world. Well, I guess I gotta go -- there's probably a diaper that needs changing around here.
Ajay is an interesting pooper (I am sure he will thank me for this post later in life). When he was first born, I heard he had the meconium poops -- they are black and tarry. The reason I say that I heard he had them was because I did not change a single dipe in the hospital, it never occurred to me. The nurses said he was pooping fine and that he had to get the meconium out so that he wouldn't get jaundice or something like that. Well, he was jaundiced anyway, despite our best poop efforts.
Another interesting thing I learned about newborn poop was that breastfed baby poo has a more pleasant smell than formula poop. Hmm, nice to know, considering we planned to exclusively breastfeed, we get the pleasant poo. After the meconium, comes the seedy mustard poop. I swear it looks like diarrhea, but we were told not to be alarmed with the consistency. He had seedy mustard poos that looked, literally, like seeds in the diaper. Someone please explain that to me. Then, we had cottage cheese mustard poos fairly regularly in the first 4-6 weeks. I'd say maybe 3-4 times a day. Then he slowed down to about twice a day for a couple of weeks. The poos were still runny, though. The just after his 8 week check-up, he was every other day. And finally, from about 8 weeks to 16 weeks, my boy was a once a weeker. Let's talk about this for a second. When he was only going once a week, the poos were still soft, so he definitely was not constipated. In fact, you can read all over the internet that it is very common for exclusively breastfed babies to poo only once every 7-10 days. Common? Looking back, I think we got lucky.
Then, at almost 5 months old, when we started solids we got to see firsthand what constipation was. He ate all the bananas and in no time he was backed up. He had to strain and strain and strain and what he produced was, well, interesting. First, it was shaped like a hamburger patty, but colors varied between yellowy banana color and some greenish color to almost a tarry black - it was speckled. I think it looked like a crab patty. Mmm, chew on that. So, we had to stop the solids and give him some prune juice and finally get things going again.
Well, he still gets backed up on a fairly regular basis. Which is why I like to think of myself as a poop doula. First, I had to wonder when he was going to poop because he was only going once a week. Now, I know he is going to poop, but I have to check consistency and texture. Nowadays, when he gets constipated, I can tell, because there really are little hard pebbles coming out and I get so excited when he has a nice, giant, soft poo. Oh, what my life has become and I wouldn't trade it for the world. Well, I guess I gotta go -- there's probably a diaper that needs changing around here.
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