Journal
Sign guestbook
Arthur's Mummy's Diary
Matthew's Belly Gallery
Nathan's Belly Gallery
Benjamin's Belly Gallery
My Fertility Friend Chart
2008-02-15 - 11.00pm��previous entry��next entry
One month old, growing, not-sleeping, and pics of the boys
All. The water in my body. Has exited via my nipples.
Seriously.
I am so tired and thirsty allll the time. I don't want to change it, but it's hard work. I think (read: hope and PRAY) that Nathan has been having a growth spurt these last few days. Today is about the 4th (5th?) day running that he has not slept an hour in one block, day or night. When he wakes, he wants to nurse. Before he falls asleep again, he wants to nurse. He sleeps maybe 20-50 minutes at a stretch, and is tired again within an hour of waking. Yeurgh. Like my other babies, he is a FAST eater. I don't think that has to do with my babies, more to do with how FAST my milk flows! The poor things don't get much choice in the speed of their meals! Ten minutes is a "good long feed" for my boys. I nurse them several feeds in a row on the same breast to be sure they get a balance of hindmilk, but I always offer side 2 after they're done with the first side.
Anyway. It is really hard only getting sleep in 40 minute blocks! I soooooo hope it's a growth spurt. His sleep in general has not been good from day one really, so I think that is just something to deal with, this time around. Arthur was not a good sleeper, but Matthew was great in comparison! I am going to work HARD on Nathan's sleep with him, if he's anything like Arthur. I absolutely can NOT repeat the shenanigans we had with that boy!
Something else that is worrying me re. his sleep - he is tummy sleeping. He will SLEEP on his tummy, as opposed to NOT on his back. Well, he probably will sleep on his back, but only with a lot of work and sleeplessness for me, and crying and crying for him. I am going to embark upon it anyway, because I'm nervous as anything about SIDS. I guess in that capacity, I'm actually glad he's waking so frequently right now. Matthew slept on his tummy from about 6 weeks old, and I worried for the next year! I'm hoping that he'll be easier to "train" to sleep on his back if he's still so young.
I put his cot together today!! We are still sleeping downstairs - me on the sofa, and Nathan in his Moses basket (on his tummy), next to the sofa. I try to remember to put him back in his Moses basket after feeding him in the night, because one night last week at around midnight, I nursed him on the sofa, reclining. Next thing I knew, I shifted my arm slightly in my sleep and then heard a soft "ker-thump" sound! I immediately startled awake and sat bolt upright and breathless, thinking, "My baby!" I was so disorientated that I couldn't remember where he should be and what we'd been doing, or what time it was (it was 3am!). I frantically swung round to look over the edge of the sofa, and there he was, my precious baby, face down on the FLOOR! Thank God we have a thick carpet! I think I yelped aloud, "My baby boy!" and went to grab him up off the floor, and that's when he started to CRY and CRY and CRY like never before. I felt sooooooooooooo terrible! I picked him up and held him close and kissed him all over, and checked him every 5 seconds to see if he had any red marks showing yet. But he had none. I still have no idea which part of him hit the ground. He had no lumps or red marks, and seemed fine. My poor sweet lovey, sleeping peacefully in mama's arms and then neglectfully dropped onto the floor! I still feel horrible about it. I'm just so glad the sofa is low and the carpet soft. I have been extra careful not to get sleepy nursing him on the sofa at night, and I put a pillow to support my arm too.
Anyway. A friend from church came round to help Neil get the kingsize bed frame down from the loft, and put our bed together!! We took it apart when Arthur was about 8 months old, I think, because we were co-sleeping and he was getting waaaay too mobile for a high-up bed! Even with a bedguard on the side. We've been on our mattress on the floor ever since, and now that he and Matthew are in the same room (at last! But with Neil on a single mattress on the floor for now), it's finally time to put our bed back together again! It's HUGE. It just fills the room right up, I had forgotten!
Anyway. So that's up, and I put sheets on it today. I put Nathan's cot up next to the bed, pushed right up against it, and put the Tiny Love Symphony mobile thingy on the side. Matthew loved that when he was tiny! Nathan's cot is soooo much smaller than Matthew's, as Matthew's is a cot bed. I have never really seen a normal cot before. It's so tiny! It seems like he'll outgrow it before he turns one or something! How do any kids stay in their cots till they are 2 or 3?! Standard cots are so small. But perfect for my little baby boy right now!
So we are almost ready to move back upstairs to sleep at night. The room isn't quite ready so I think we'll be downstairs again tonight, but hopefully tomorrow. I have a feeling we'll disturb the boys more, but hopefully they'll get used to it after a few nights. They seem to be waking less now, even with Nathan crying LOUDLY (he really does have some good lungs on him! Not like when he was first born!).
Right now, Nathan is sort of sleeping (fussing, then quiet for 10 mins, then fussing, etc) in the Moses basket in front of the dishwasher in the kitchen! He gets annoyed, it seems, in the late evening, and cries a lot. Not like the other boys did of an evening, nothing like that. Just cranky, and almost impossible to settle to sleep. I think he must be overtired/overstimulated, but I have no idea how to calm him down to sleep once he hits that, nor how to prevent it happening in the first place. He just wakes, nurses, and gets burped and changed. And then maybe nurses again. And then back to bed, except not. So I can't think how that little session could have overstimulated him? But he seems that way anyway, and last night I had to walk/pat/jiggle/shhh him for two hours before he would finally go to sleep. And when he DID go to sleep, I just put him in the Moses basket on his tummy (awake) because *I* was knackered and needed a break for a moment. He cried SO hard for maybe 60 seconds (yes, I just sat there while he did it, tsk) and then all of a sudden stopped and went to sleep in a matter of about 3 seconds!
It's crazy how even if you've had a couple of babies within the last 3 years, you STILL haven't really got much of a clue what you're doing when the next one comes along! How is that?! It's annoying! Surely I should have earned some "experience points" by now?! Tsk. It's frustrating me.
BUT, otherwise Nathan is doing wonderfully! He is a month old already, I can't believe it! Five weeks old tomorrow. His first month went so fast. I know all the rest will too. I am excited about each of them to come!
I registered Nathan's birth on Valentine's Day. That was the first appt they had for over a week, so I took it! I planned to take him with me to the Registry Office, but was running late and it would have taken too long to change him and get him into the car, etc. So he stayed home with Neil and the boys, and I went alone. Which was nice. The registrar noticed I had left my baby at home with my husband, and said I should go for a coffee and relax a bit! She asked if I had any other children, and I said yes, two. She asked how old, and when I said, "Three, and 20 months." her eyes went wide and she said maybe I should go shopping as well as having that coffee, and tell my husband it took AGES at the Registry Office, haha! At the end she asked me how the older children had taken to the baby, and in my answer I mentioned "he" for both the older two, and she looked all shocked (?!) and said, "They're ALL boys?" She said I should definitely go and relax after the appt before going home, haha! But I didn't. I didn't even have a coffee (hate the stuff anyways). I got in my car and drove straight home to my little ones, where I latched two of them to the breast within seconds of walking in the door!
It's SO HARD, this early stage with three little boys, and hard work to breastfeed all three, but I gladly CHOOSE it. I gladly return home to them instead of wandering around the shops for a couple of hours. I just love them. They drive me CRAZY at the moment (Arthur and Matthew mainly), but man I love them.
And then, the same day, the Health Visitor came and weighed Nathan - his first weigh-in since he was 11 days old! I had been itching to get him weighed, as it seemed like way too long since I knew how heavy he was. I was so curious to know! He seemed so much rounder, especially in the face (he has two chins now, and his second one is bigger than his first, hehe!), and has outgrown ALL his tiny baby clothes now. He is stretching the length on his newborn sleepsuits now, although they are still a little baggy around the body. And alllll the breastfeeding. So I knew he was growing, but I wanted to know how much!
I also was very excited that the Health Visitor was coming on Valentine's Day, because if I had still been pregnant, I would have been 40 weeks and 4 days pregnant that day. And that is the gestation that Arthur was born at. He weighed 8lbs 1.5oz. And Matthew weighed 7lbs 11oz at 41 weeks. So I wanted to have some sort of comparison weight at a similar gestational age, to see what Nathan might have weighed in comparison to his brothers, and how much he might have weighed had I given birth at my normal time to do so. At the 21 week scan, I was pretty sure Nathan had the same kind of build as Arthur, from his measurements. Not like Matthew's at all. So, from that, I figured he would be a similar weight to Arthur at birth (at term), or maybe even a bit heavier.
Before he was weighed on Thursday I guessed that he might be 8lbs 3oz. That was my official bet! :) He weighs more! He's 8lbs 8oz! Wow! So he would have been my heaviest baby, I think. I am even more glad that he came early, lol! I think I would have had a pretty bad tear (I always have a 2nd degree tear - did I mention that about this time around?? I can't remember. I really must write a proper birth story - there is so much missing here about it. I had less of a tear this time around - they told me I would because the baby was smaller. They thought I'd got away with a 1st degree tear, but on examination it was found to be 2nd degree into the muscle. And a small labial tear (owwwwww). I had 3 stitches, which is waaaay less than the other times! And they gave me no trouble and healed up great, as always, which is good!). Also, I am sure I would have had a lot of discomfort leading up to the birth, and perlenty more stretch marks. Thank you Nathan, for coming early! ;)
I'm SUPER proud, because he has gained over 2.5lbs in 3 weeks, and that makes me feel great about my breastfeeding.
I have to make my postnatal appointment with my GP for 6 weeks postpartum, so that's a week from now really! I must get that done. I think all is well with me. My stitches have disappeared and I have no soreness. I am only having very light, brown spotting now, which isn't changing from day to day any more. I hope it completely goes away soon.
Nathan would normally have his 6-8 week check too, but the Health Visitor told me that they are delaying all his checks by 5 weeks, since that's how many weeks he was early by. He was actually FOUR weeks early, well, four weeks and one day. But because of the one day, they are counting him 5 weeks early. Which seems a bit unnecessary to me! But oh well. Anyway, so I have to delay making his appt till he's more like 11-12 weeks old. That's ages away! I feel a bit bummed about that. I love things like baby checks and weigh-ins! She told me that the one thing that DOESN'T get delayed is the vaccination schedule. That's the ONE thing I had planned to delay, given his early arrival. So I think I still will. I'll get the reminder letters (you know, the ones with the certain "tone" to them!), but I'll ignore them. I plan to have his early vaccinations done as I did for the other boys, but not till he's 2 months past his due date, not 2 months old. That will be April some time. As I did last time with Arthur, I will have Matthew's MMR done (delayed by 9 months - I have had a TON of reminder letters in that time!). And Arthur's MMR booster probably, all at the same appt. Fun fun.
No smiles from Nathey yet (I CAN'T seem to help the "ee" sounds on the end of names! Somebody stop me!), but he's still too little for it, gestationally speaking. I can't wait!!
He's stirring, so I must go. I have lots of photos that I'm gradually working through putting them on Photobucket, etc. I can't figure out resizing them very well, so I'm using Photobucket to do it, and there are only 4 size options there. I'm choosing the biggest size - it's too big for this diary page really, but the next size down seems TINY! So, big it is, for now.
The photos I'll be posting for a while are ones from Nathan's first 2 or 3 weeks still. I'm trying to catch up. He's so much chubbier now than he was in these photos! Here are a few of the boys together when Nathan was 2 weeks old (and still looking like a little old man without much chub!). I fiddled with some of them and made them black and white. I am one for fiddling with things! ;)
And this one was taken a few days earlier than the above set, I think. I love this one :)
Have to go now, Nathan is definitely waking up! Hope to get back here soon with more news and pics, and a proper long-winded birth story eventually!
Recent entries.....
Babies 7 and 8! :) - 2016-01-10
Babies 6 and 7! - 2013-02-17
Baby #5 !! - 2010-04-03
Nearly 3 months postpartum! - 2009-10-05
6 weeks old already! - 2009-08-25