Baby Days – The First Week

Baby Days – The first week usually goes in a blur of euphoria. Full of cuddles, visitors and generally staring at your brand new baby and this time round it’s been no different.

Freddie has completed our little family perfectly and is already so loved. Isabelle is already proving to be a very doting big sister and shows concern for him if there’s not somebody by his side at all times.

She’s been quite tearful this week which I think is a mixture of tiredness and excitement so we’ve had to be extra patient with her and make sure that we involve her in things.

As I thought, our lovely dog, Charlie is slightly confused and curious about this new arrival. Although he’s four he’s still quite a bouncy boy and likes to give licky kisses. He’s also quite clumsy when excited so I was a bit worried about him knocking the baby seat when people arrive.

He’s doing really well and we’ve made sure that we’ve given him attention as well as allowing him to have a little sniff of Freddie.

Feeding

Freddie was born at 1.24 and came out with an already rumbling tummy so within half an hour he was feeding, and pretty much did that on and off until about 5.30. After that he slept and showed very little interest all day long, repeating the all night feeding the next night.

Day three this changed and he didn’t feed from 5.30am until 2pm the next day despite numerous attempts at getting him to.

I was a bit worried about my latch so asked the midwife to come and watch me feed him. Of course, when she arrived at 2pm she just grabbed my boob, grabbed Freddie and plopped him on. Annoying!!

Since then the feeds have become a lot more frequent and not for so long which is a lot better.

My poor nipples though feel like they’ve been chewed by a rabid wolf. Thank god for lanolin cream. The latch still stings like a bitch but I’m still feeling quite positive.

Day five I stood in the bathroom after my shower and rinsed the bath out nearly gagging as I rinsed away what was the end of my nipple………

The rest of the week has been hit and miss with good feeds and bad feeds. He’s a fighter and it takes ages to get him to latch on which is so frustrating for both of us.

I’ve already got a good supply of milk which is so different from last time and the midwife mentioned donating milk, but I think I need we need to establish our own rhythm before thinking about things like that.

Midwife Checks

So far so good. He had his first post-birth weighing on Friday and is currently weighing 7lb 15oz which means that he only lost 4% of his birth weight. They allow up to 10% before there is any cause for concern so he’s doing well.

He was slightly jaundiced so he was checked on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. It’s going down so we don’t need to be worried about that.

On day eight he is only 40g below his birth weight so hopefully we’ll be discharged on Monday.

Nappies

We had the pleasure of our first poonami on his first day. It was spectacular coating all his bits and up his back. It was an absolute nightmare to clean as the meconium poo is like marmite and trying to clean it off is a nightmare, it just moves around.

Turns out that this is the way that Freddie Pooh’s. Full on bum blasts every time with the most horrendous smell for someone so small.

Sleeping

Obviously we’re not on any kind of routine as yet. He sleeps and feeds on demand but we have had a couple of three hour gaps which usually follow a marathon on/off feeding session beforehand.

I have been really naughty and had him in bed with me for the last couple of nights simply because I’ve barely been able to keep my eyes open long enough to persevere with getting him to settle in his crib.

You know the saying ‘start as you mean to go on’ but I’m more bothered about getting the feeding going at a nice and comfortable pace before adding another thing to get fretful about. I also know that co-sleeping is not for everyone but I’m happy to go with it for now.

However, by day six he slept in his crib at night and we’ve carried this on since.

Getting out and about

We had our first outing with Freddie and Isabelle on Saturday. Only to the hospital to check his jaundice and we managed to get out of the door and to the appointment on time. We felt like we deserved a mini fist pump for that!

We’ve been out a couple of times but it’s been tricky with the feeding but we’ll get there.

All in all it’s been an emotional week which has gone by so quickly. Isabelle has taken her role of big sister very seriously and gives him lots of kisses and cuddles.

We’ve had lots of visitors and spent a lot of time snuggling him and taking in his newborn smell.

At the moment Freddie had a full head of dark hair and green eyes. He’s still very curled up and loves to be cuddled. He’s a ‘hot baby’ and feels like a hot water bottle.

I’m sure everybody says it but this past week has gone so fast……Take your time Little Mister xx