Schedule? Routine? Schedule? Routine?

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!

Choosing A Pediatrician

I read in the "What To Expect" book that you are supposed to go ahead of time and choose your pediatrician. Then, you are supposed to interview them before the baby is born and finally, take the baby for their first visit about 3-5 days after you are discharged from the hospital. Well...procrastinator checking in. We didn't do that. I did, however, ask a trusted friend  who had just had a baby recently for a recommendation. We went with her recommendation.

We were discharged from the hospital on a Saturday and told by the in-house pediatrician to make the first available appointment the following week. Ajay had lost more than 10% of his body weight and was slightly jaundiced, so they wanted us to keep an eye on him. Well, when we called our pediatrician, he wasn't available until Wednesday and we needed to get Ajay in, asap. First mistake. We took Ajay in on Tuesday and he saw one of the other doctors in the practice. Well, this doctor prescribed supplementing with formula and I was devastated. We'd been working so hard to get things going and I wanted to make sure that Ajay and I were able to continue breastfeeding. I knew that supplementing would not only hurt my supply but it was unnecessary. But with the doc not on my side, I had no leg to stand on. Arvind thought (but has since been re-educated) that formula was somehow superior. It was awful. We were supposed to bring the baby back in a week to get his weight checked, but we were snowed in and so had to actually wait an extra couple of days - I think it ended up being 10 days in all. We were supplementing with one feed a day. I hated it.

When we got our appointment with the recommended doctor, Dr. Dixon, I was so relieved. He checked Ajay out, thought he looked great. Told us we could stop supplementing and just let Ajay call the shots. Feed every 3 hours during the day and go as long as 5 hours in the night. He seemed to have no lack of confidence in my breastfeeding ability. It was then and there, that I understood why it is important to choose a good pediatrician. The pediatrician should act as the baby's advocate and should have similar beliefs and principles as the parents. I wanted to breastfeed, I did not want to supplement. I should have had a doctor who believed the same. Oh well, what's done is done. You can't turn back time, but you can make good decisions going forward. Thankfully, Ajay is now almost 7 months going strong and while we've had our hiccups, the breastfeeding relationship is also going well.

So I guess my advice would be to make sure that your pediatrician is on the same page with your parenting styles, i.e. breastfeeding, co-sleeping, cry-it-out, vaccinations, etc. so that together you all can make the best decision regarding the health and well-being of your child.