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2006-06-19 - 8.35pm��previous entry��next entry
5 days old - photos and updatey stuff
Everything is going fine here :) Matthew is at that nice (but short-lived, if I remember rightly, hehe!) stage where he feeds for like 20 minutes and then sleeps for 2-4 hours, feeds for 20 minutes and sleeps for 2-4 hours, etc. I know we're ALREADY heading for the typical time for the first big growth spurt, and he'll nurse for England then, so I'm enjoying this while I can! He sometimes sleeps for 5 hours without waking, in the Moses basket as well, which makes me feel fidgetty! We are doing things a bit differently to how we did them with Arthur. I am putting him down a lot more than I did Arthur. I held Arthur ALL the time, and took him into bed with me from day one. With Matthew, we have been so anxious about setting up another 19 months of sleep deprivation that we've started out putting him down in the Moses basket every time he falls asleep. Sometimes we hold him when he falls asleep on us, but we are trying to put him down more. It's a bit different in that this time it means we are hands-free to give all our focus to Arthur (who REALLY needs it at the moment, he's so busy and demanding of our attention!). And we are already so tired from Arthur's busy days and occasional wakeful nights that I find that I actually WANT to put Matthew in his own space to sleep at night. I feel much more desperate for my own sleep this time around, and I know I don't sleep well without my own bedspace, so if Matthew is happy and settled enough in his Moses basket then I am happy with that too. Sometimes I feel a pang of wishing he had the closeness at night that Arthur had - co-sleeping is so lovely and natural for a baby. But he is perfectly happy in his Moses basket. He doesn't cry and protest in there at all. Now that I have a ton of milk, he is very easy to nurse to sleep, put in the Moses basket and stay there all nice and comfy until he next wakes for milk. So I guess it's okay. I miss him when he's not in my arms lately though!
I think I am really entering Babymoon time! At first, although I loved him and felt bonded to him, he was still sort of a little stranger who I didn't really know. Today and yesterday my feelings are so much more.... ENORMOUS towards him, or something. I want to be near him all the time. I want to be near him more than I want to be with Arthur sometimes, which feels odd and not-right-inside. But he's so new and I just want to spend ALL my time getting to know him. He's sooooo lovely! I love him so much. His face has taken on a new sweetness in my eyes since I got this extra surge of love for him, and I just melt when he's staring into my eyes or when he makes those sweet urgent snuffly sounds when he's searching for the breast as I get him ready to nurse. Something inside me just goes to pulp the instant I hear him make a sound or see his little face as he peeps around with his new eyes at everything. When he cries, even having a nappy change, my milk lets down. I just want to kiss his little face all the time, and I do, probably more than he is happy with, lol! He is just the sweetest little treasure, and I love him so much. I love Arthur no LESS than before, but I have really had a huge surge of love for Matthew this last day or two. *sigh* My lovely boys!
Well, of course, with all this sopping over with love for my new boy MUST come an increase in photos! :) So here are a few photos of my tiny man that I took today. I wish I had a few similar ones of Arthur from when he was a few days old, but the majority of good close-ups of Arthur started after he was a week old, so I'll compare more then. The most noticable difference between them is the nose. Matthew has a completely different nose to Arthur, and it's made even more apparent because each of them happen to have quite distinctive nose shapes. I was quite surprised, I have to admit, when I first laid eyes on Matthew as Neil handed him to me, and saw his nose! It just looked soooo different to Arthur's, and thus to anything I had expected, and I also couldn't particularly see a likeness to either mine or Neil's nose. Funnily enough, that's exactly what I thought when ARTHUR was handed to me after his birth too! Each of them have an unique combination of our noses that neither resemble Neil's nor mine, it's strange! But we can see the parts of each other's noses that make up theirs. Matthew's nose looks generally more like mine did as a newborn, and Arthur's a little more like Neil's did when he was a newborn, but neither of their noses look like ours actually DID look when we were newborns, it's odd!
ANYWAY! Photos :) Here he is, my little love, this morning during an alert time after a feed:
Matthew is SO alert! He holds his head up really strongly to look around when I'm sitting him up to burp him, and he does this thing with his eyes where he stares and stares as wide as he can, as though he's trying to take in as much as he can of his surroundings! He makes such sweet shapes with his mouth when he looks at me. He has started to do those lovely sleep smiles, and I love to catch a glimpse of one of them, because I can see how beautiful his little face is going to look when he starts smiling properly - it just lights up like Arthur's always has :) I think he is going to have a similar smile to Arthur. Lots of babies seem to smile like an open mouth shape rather than a turned-up-at-the-corners smile and it's hard to actually tell they are smiling unless you're their mother and you know that's their smile! Arthur has always beamed ear-to-ear, and Matthew's sleep smiles look the same :) They do have the same kind of mouth shape though, so maybe that's why.
He's stirring in his Moses basket next to me, so I hope he'll wake in a minute (he's been asleep 3 hours!) and I get to cuddle him and feed him and generally be all gooey over him again :) I miss him!
My milk supply has increased noticably today. Last night Matthew didn't wake and feed so constantly, he just fed from both sides and then he was zonked for 2-4 hours, and then he woke and fed on both sides again, etc. So I got some better sleep. I'm sure it's because he was a hungry baby from the start and he was working up my milk supply when it first came in, and now it's pretty stonking he has settled more between feeds. Arthur is taking plenty of milk from me too, at nap time, bedtime and any other time he asks for it in the day. I am starting to leak a bit more today, and also if one of them comes off the breast mid-feed, I drip onto my leg if I don't remember to put a muslin over my breast or something! No fire-hose action yet though :) Maybe I won't have that powerful a letdown this time?
Neil got a couple of photos of me tandem nursing my sweet boys! They are non-graphic enough to post here ;) They were taken when Matthew was 3 days old, on Saturday, while my brother and his fiancee were visiting us. I was chatting to them and breastfeeding Matthew, and Arthur wanted milk so he climbed up, and I moved Matthew's legs a bit, and he latched on! I love tandem nursing, it feels SO lovely to look down at my little loves and see them both attached to me like that, and hear them gulping and swallowing together, getting my milk into their little bodies. I LOVE it. I found a couple of tandem nursing blinkies that I really love so I added them at the side there - in fact I updated all my blinkies :) Anyway, here are the photos:
I love these photos (apart from my enormous wedge of leg there!) because when I look at them I feel such a surge of... I don't know... I just feel like Super Mummy or something, hehe! I feel so empowered and full of "Mummy" strength and so proud of what I'm doing for my little ones. The pictures give me a self-esteem-boosting image of myself as "Mummy". I like how happy and relaxed I feel in my mothering towards my boys, and that comes over in the photos I think. If I am having a moment of anxiety over my ability to mother my little boys, looking at these photos seems to give me the lift I need. I am just so thankful to be Mummy to my boys! I Am Mummy! :D It's such an awesome role to have! I love it so much!!
Oops, a few hours has passed! Arthur is now asleep for the night and Matthew has just had a huge feed too and is asleep in his Moses basket. I think he will stay there till we go to bed now.
Two new things to report - Matthew's cord stump came off last night, at only 4 days old!! Arthur was 7 days and the midwife told me that was good going :) So I was surprised Matthew's came off so fast! On my June due dates group, everyone is talking about cord stump care and they are all cleaning the cord stumps vigorously with alcohol!!!! Yikes! I mean, their doctors told them to, but oh my gosh, what crazy advice! I don't touch my babies' cord stumps with anything. I clean around them gently with a wet cloth wipe if they are a bit mucky looking, but I don't touch them. I use nappies and wraps that snap down at the front so the stump is exposed at all times, and we don't have any problems with them. Anyway I am really pleased the cord stump is off - it makes things so much easier. I always think it must be so uncomfy having that plastic clip digging into your tummy! It's easier to get a good snug fit at the front with his nappies now too.
Matthew's meconium is suddenly all gone too! I remember last time, because Arthur wasn't taking the breast and we weren't really supplementing, we were concerned about his poo and stuff. The midwives just kept asking us what colour the meconium was, to see whether he was moving things through as quickly as he should be. It seemed to take a while before it went from brown through tan and orange to yellow breastmilk poo. Matthew had brown poo yesterday and today he did some real nappy-testing poos, hehe! He filled lots of little nappies in a row around one big feed, and by the time he was done, his poo was yellow and seedy and breastmilky :) So that's good too.
He peed up the wall today, hehe! I was wiping one of the aforementioned poos off his bottom, with his little ankles between my fingers, held up in the air, and he peed, and his aim meant that it whizzed right over his body and hit the wall behind him, lol! Once I'd wiped that up and picked his little ankles up again, he did another round and this time it went all in his face and one of his eyes, poor lovey! Arthur did the same thing at around the same age, but he never did it more than once.
I love my tiny boy sooooo much! Before I put Arthur to bed, I was breastfeeding Matthew, and between sides he was lying in my arms soooo calmly and all alert, just looking and looking at me. I held him in front of me on my lap with his head cradled in my hands, and just sort of drowned in his gaze, or at least it felt that way. I could have stayed that way for ever and ever. I just talked to him softly and sang to him - you know that song that has the line, "You are so beautiful, to me..." I can't remember the title (maybe it's that?) or the artist, but anyway. I just sang that to him over and over. Man I'm such complete mush over that baby boy today! I must officially be in my babymoon :) Neil got Arthur ready for bed and when he came in to swap boys with me, I could hardly bear to hand Matthew over to him. I mean, I did want to be close to Arthur and snuggle with him and nurse him to sleep, but I didn't want to have to tear myself away from Matthew. I just feel intoxicated by him today, he's so precious.
Well, tomorrow we have two visits worth a mention. The midwife is coming again, and since Matthew will be 6 days old tomorrow, I should think he'll have his Guthrie (heel prick) test :( I hate that, his first time being stabbed with a needle and feeling someone hurt him :( But oh well. I will be right there to comfort him and breastfeed him when it's done, and then it will be over with. Arthur had a horrible time with it, because his heel didn't bleed well enough and the midwife was squeezing and squeeeezing his poor pricked heel to get enough blood out for the sample. Then in the end it wasn't a good enough one and she had to come back another day and repeat it. I hope it goes well for Matthew and he bleeds nicely! I will make sure his little feet are warm, as that should help. Did I mention that Matthew's feet are straight as anything?! I'm so pleased, as he had just as much chance as Arthur did of inheriting that darn curly feet gene. Arthur's next physio appointment is July 10th, and she's going to check Matthew's feet for me too, just to be sure they are 100% fine. But it looks to me like they are perfect, hooray! :)
Anyway, I am also interested to see what Matthew weighs tomorrow. I always love having my babies weighed! It's the biggest boost to my confidence of any of the baby checks they do, because it uplifts me over my breastfeeding when I see my little ones growing and thriving on just my milk. I love that! The feed that Matthew just had was quite plentiful, and I leaked much more than the last feed. When I was all lost in his lovely gaze, I had no idea till afterwards that I had leaked a HUGE patch on my top and all down onto my shorts as well! It must have just been the mushy maternal thing going on, making my breasts go crazy letting down their milk! I think it's probably time to crack open the box(es) of breast pads, which is a shame as I've enjoyed being pad-free for so long! I know I'll be in them for ages, but oh well. It's good that I have lots of milk for my boys.
The other visit tomorrow is from the GP! We had to phone the surgery to tell them I had a homebirth and to ask them to send a GP to do the newborn check on the baby. In hospital, the newborn check is carried out by a paediatrician before you're discharged, but if you give birth at home, a doctor has to come out to you and do it. I really like this! :) So tomorrow after morning surgery we'll get a visit from the GP (not sure if it will be one I normally see though), to do that check, which I'm looking forward to!
Okay I need to go and sew about FIFTY more cloth wipes on the overlocker, lol! We have been getting by okay on the wipes we have, but now that Matthew is producing breastmilk poo like he is, I know we'll start to run out. Pooey nappies take a lot more wipes than wee-ed in ones! Arthur's poo is much softer than it was before the birth too, which must be the effect of my milk, so yeah, need LOTS more wipes! I'm finding the most effective fabric to be towelling, so I'm going to just cut up some towelling that's on my fabric shelves (from old bath towels that were still soft and fluffy) and serge round a single layer for each wipe - simple as that. I think I have enough towelling to make about 20 or 30 wipes, so that will make things a LOT easier! Then after that I'm going to rest up. I have had a rotten headache all day, and two lots of painkillers haven't touched it. I have hayfever so maybe it's congestion or something. I don't know if I can take decongestants if I'm breastfeeding though. Allergy meds don't work on me anyway.
Okay I'll update again soon, and try to keep on taking photos so I can post more here! I'll start updating in my normal diary again soon too. Maybe I'll keep updating about Matthew here for the "newborn" period, till his 6 week check or something. That was originally my plan with Arthur, but I didn't have another diary set up yet, and we all got nasty flu when he was 6 weeks old, so in the end 6 weeks turned into 6 months before I closed this diary for a while and updated in a new one! But I think I'll leave this diary at the 6 week mark. It's a pregnancy diary after all. I absolutely plan to be back here again though! :)
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