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2008-01-22 - 9:23 p.m.��previous entry��next entry
Ten days old, and photos of my 3 boys again! :)
Nathan is 10 days old! I can't believe he's 10 days old already, it's crazy. It feels like the FASTEST 10 days, but also the lonnnngest in existence, like each day has been a week long. I can't imagine he was ever NOT here, but at the same time I'm amazed that he's already been here for as long as TEN days!
And - ding! - right on time, from about 5pm yesterday, Nathan started nursing like NEVER before. I know the growth spurt times are roughly 10 days (my other boys were a few days early for this, both of them having a non-stop nursing marathon from about 7 days old), 3 weeks, 6 weeks, and so on. I thought that mayyybe he might not really have very noticable growth spurts because my supply is high for several nurslings. I don't think I noticed Matthew's growth spurts as much as Arthur's, and I put that down to tandem nursing. Anyway, NOTICABLE this time! ;)
By late evening he was going, ooh, about 30 minutes between feeds! I didn't get to lie down in bed till 3.30am because if I lay down even with him on my tummy, he stirred and ultimately woke all upset and rooting, even if he'd only just dozed off on the breast 15 minutes earlier.
Did I mention, I have a concern with Nathan's feeding? If I lie down to nurse him tummy-to-tummy in bed, at the end of the feed there's always a HUGE soaking wet patch under his head (about the size of his head, and through a towel folded into quarters, to the mattress!). I also noticed that sometimes I could hear liquid in his nose, like he was breathing watery fluid back and forth. Sometimes he would "nose-choke" on it, and it made me anxious, but I couldn't figure out what it was. I put the big wet patches down to me being leaky, or Nathan loosening his latch when he got sleepy, or something.
He also did this when I breastfed him across my body, holding him horizontal (the traditional position, you know the one?), but NOT with the "rugby" hold (under arm). Finally I stayed awake to watch him nurse while we lay tummy-to-tummy in bed, and saw that milk was dripping from his nose! He was nursing happily, and I guess his angle at that moment meant that he wasn't bothered by the milk in his nose - there was no sound of it rattling back and forth for the moment - but it was dripping heavily out of the nostril nearest the mattress, about 1 drip per second or maybe a bit faster. That's NOT GOOD, is it? I can't think why it's happening but it makes me worried, in case there's something wrong with him to allow milk through his nose like that.
It also made me wonder (in hindsight) if it had anything to do with the not-much-weight-gain thing. It was the day he was weighed and hadn't gained much that I saw the milk dripping from his nose, which scared me into NEVER nursing him horizontally since, and thus he hasn't "lost" any more milk while feeding. It was a significant amount of his feed I think, each time I nursed him in that position.
But also, thank you for the wise advice in my notes about maybe giving him hindmilk (after nursing one of the older boys) instead of the foremilk! I did this as well, after the midwife visit, hoping it might make a difference.
Anyway, anybody have a clue about the leaky nose thing?! It worries me a bit, because I did the same things with my other two babies and NEVER had that issue with them. His palette is intact and all that, so I don't know why the milk is escaping through his nose in such VAST quantities.
Sooo it is KILLING my back to nurse him constantly around the clock, sitting upright all the time holding him underarm! Also my wrists are not happy tonight, especially the right one, from supporting his head at my breast. I have to twist my wrist to do it and hold it for YEARS (slight exaggeration) without a break, with all this constant nursing! Last night I had to keep giving Nathan to Neil to hold for a few minutes at a time so I could lie down and rest my back before Nathan got irate and screechy and I had to sit up to nurse him again! By about 3.30am I finally figured that I could lie on my side, prop Nathan's head on my lower arm, and nurse him side-lying from the opposite breast. Dead arm, but YAY - sleep while nursing!! And no leaky nose :) I'll be doing the same tonight. I got so scared to nurse him lying down before because I knew I would go to sleep and not hear if he drowned on breastmilk or something.
Anyway, his super frequent nursing has continued all day today and I am feeling really drained and tired out. Also a bit headachy, so I'm probably not drinking enough, though I'm trying! I'm snacking and eating okay too. I love breastfeeding him, so it's all good! And my nipples are not falling off yet, so it's okay! ;)
The midwife came today and weighed him again, and he weighs 5lbs 15oz - a gain of 6oz since the last weigh-in 3 days ago, and finally above his birth weight, yay! I would have eaten somebody's hat if he hadn't gained weight, even if it was all piled on during last night alone, hehe! I'm so glad he's gained weight and the pressure is off. I mentioned the leaky nose thing to the midwife but she hadn't encountered it before, so couldn't help. She suggested I ask my GP, but I'm soooo not going to the (germy) GP surgery with my pre-term newborn! The health visitor is coming for our first appt tomorrow so I'll ask her too. Failing that, maybe I can phone the doctor and talk to her?
A midwife will come to us the day after tomorrow and weigh Nathan again, and do our full discharge if they're still happy with him, yay!
Nathan is on Neil's chest at the moment, and has been there maybe 45 minutes (quite a good break today!) but he is stirring and squeaking and making scrunchy faces, so I think I will have to leave this entry for a bit - maybe I can set the laptop up next to me and continue one-handed for a while? But that would probably drive me CRAZY with how sloooowww it is (I usually touch-type at speed with both hands!), so maybe not. Anyway, off to nurse my sweet tiny! Back if there's a break, later!
Back, but maybe not for long. Poor baby has a red bottom :( It looks so sore. He has been in disposables a few times today so maybe that�s it? We don�t normally have awful trouble with sore bottoms with cloth. We just put him in an XS fuzzi bunz (which is enormous on him!). I think we have run out of newborn disposables now so it�s cloth all the way (unless Neil caves and buys some more!), yay! Nathan is sucking Neil�s little finger at the moment, while Neil watches CSI and stuff that I don�t want to see! If he is cross about that I will put him back to the breast, but he�s had 3 sides so far, and my breasts are hoping for a lil break, just a little one. I am thinking it will be another long night for nursing, so I�m trying to drink plenty of water at the moment!
I have started looking at newborn sleepsuits on eBay. *sigh* I won a lot of 3 Next sleepsuits for 99p yesterday. We�ll never find that darn box in the loft because Neil isn�t going in the loft to look for it. Mind you, he has a lot on his plate at the moment, and very little time or energy! But still, I�m so frustrated about it. I can�t look, it�s too much exertion for me right now to go in the loft and sort and shift stuff. So if Neil doesn�t, the clothes won�t get found, till long after Nathan has outgrown them. It is SO daft to have to buy a load more clothes when I already HAVE a huge overabundance of them in the loft! Especially with the zero � that we currently have. So daft. But hey ho. He must have things to wear, especially sleepsuits/vests � they are just WONDERFUL and so easy.
I bought a Coorie sling yesterday!!!! Yay! I have lots of slings, and I know I said last entry that I don�t do well with slings, but right now it would just be GREAT if I could have something easy peasy to put on in an instant, comfy to wear and comfy for the little one, and easy to take off again when I want to sit down. Nathan is in my arms all the time, alllll the time, which I actually LOVE and don�t want to change as such. But yesterday I was sitting on the sofa looking at the hideous mess that is our living room (no visible carpet, NONE, for all the toys, laundry, nappies, etc strewn over the whole room) and feeling kind of depressed that I had to sit and LOOK at it, and my kids had to play in it, and I couldn�t just put the baby down for a moment to clean it up at all. And right at that moment, Arthur surveyed the room and said to me, �Mummy, this room is really messy. I think we need to do a Five Room Rescue!� (that�s the 5-minute Room Rescue from FlyLady!) and then he started picking things up, and said to me, �Can you help me with the Five Room Rescue, Mummy?� and I couldn�t :( I hated that I couldn�t. Maybe in hindsight I could/should have sat myself down on the floor with Nathan in one arm and just tidied the bit next to me with the other arm. Arthur loves to have company when he wants to do housework, and I hated that I couldn�t really do that for him, OR remedy the horrible mess. If I had a sling that I could literally pop on and put the baby into in seconds, I would have been able to use it and say, �Yes, Arthur! I would love to help you!� and get up and TIDY right away. So I realised a sling like that would be useful to have. I do have a Hotsling but didn�t get on with it too well when I bought it for Matthew before he was born. He lay WAY too low in it as a newborn and needed significant boosting with rolled up towels and all sorts. And it wasn�t comfy for very long. It also seemed kind of stiff fabric compared with the soft stretchy fleece of a Coorie pouch.
Sarah�s mum (Sarah�s my brother�s fianc�e) sent us �20 in a �congratulations on your new baby� card this week, and so I went to the Coorie website and found that if you buy a �seconds� sling, it costs �20 including postage! The seconds items have a mistake on the seam so that there�s a bit of raw edge showing on the outside of the sling, but it doesn�t affect the use of it at all. I got one in Earl Stripe � multicoloured! I can�t wait for it to arrive! I measured myself to be a size 2. I know I�ll get smaller but not for a while, and it�s really when I have a newborn that I�ll want to use it, and I�ll always be at least a size 2 then! ;) Anyway so that�s good!
Also, remember last entry I mentioned that I thought the camera had been left on because the batteries were dead? Well, no. It wasn�t the batteries. New batteries were put in, and what do you know? The CAMERA is dead. As a Dodo. No life in it at all. I have no idea what happened to it, because it doesn�t look like it�s been bashed or spilled on, or anything. But I have no camera! And I have a new baby!! I MUST HAVE A CAMERA!!! Or else I will lose what sanity currently remains. So Neil and I remembered that my grandparents gave us �50 each for Christmas! We were going to pool it and spend it on a crockpot � I had the very one picked out and everything, but then Neil�s brother gave us a GREAT crockpot for Christmas!!! So we didn�t spend G&G�s money. Yesterday I bought a Kodak camera online for almost all of our pooled money. I would love a GREAT camera but I don�t really care what it�s like right now, so long as it takes photos of my beautiful boy(s) and it�s here asap! Ideally I wanted one that was slightly better than my old one (since it WAS very old), and this one should definitely be better :) So I�m excited about that too! I have loved spending money on big things without actually spending any of our own non-existent money! Yay!
So when the new camera turns up and I have loaded the software and figured out how to use it, I�ll start taking pictures again and post them here. I hate that there�s a gap where I can�t photograph Nathan! I have been using the camcorder a bit here and there, but it�s not the same! Thankfully for my diary, I still have some photos (uploaded from my camera just before it snuffed it, thank goodness!) that I haven�t posted here! I only posted up to Nathan�s �3-days-old� photos, and I have two from when he was 5 days old, and then a bunch from 6 days old of all 3 boys together.
Here are two photos from when he was 5 days old, both taken during the evening. Neil and I take turns to hold him on us so the other one can type/play a computer game/pee, etc. Here he is on Daddy (look at his wittle face! All scrunched up and it reminds me so much of a certain type of cute lil doggie but I can�t think what type (is that bad to have compared my newborn to a dog?!)), and on (very tired) Mummy:
I think I mentioned last entry that Arthur suddenly wanted to hold Nathan one evening for the first time � that was when Nathan was 6 days old. Since then he has held him a lot, and asks to all the time :) Anyway, so he asked, and we put Nathan on him while he sat on the sofa, and Matthew was instantly eager to climb up and sit with them, so I whipped out the camera and took a bunch of photos! I can�t figure out which to post and which not, so here they all are:
My sweet little boys!! I am so blessed to have THREE BOYS! I know I have said it already, but hey, you�ll have to get used to it because I feel pretty sure I�ll be saying it a lot from now on! I hope I get lots of good photos of the three of them together (when the new camera arrives) because I just love photos of my three boys! Looking at them just makes me feel so BOWLED OVER with sort of surreal disbelief that I even HAVE three children, and that they are all boys, but also just sooooooo proud and so thankful for them.
And, d�you know? Call me crazy (or don't bother - I already know it after all!)but I am missing pregnancy (these last couple of days � about the same as when it started after my other two as well!), and reeeeally looking forward to doing it all again! *sigh* I just love it.
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