Ok, so the truth is that our baby is about 10 days old today . . . I’m not going to type for too long not because I am excessively busy – to the contrary, because we have friends and family helping out, and because I have an amazing husband who is involved each and every day in baby L’s care, I feel really well supported. But for some reason I don’t feel like writing a ton! One of my friends said that she would really miss if I stopped my doc2mom posts. No I won’t be stopping! I think that the transition to motherhood is a process and will continue all the way till baby is all grown up. There are so many different things to experience. But being a new mother truly makes me understand what people were talking about. How special it feels to be needed and essential to this child’s life. What it means to see your face and your husband’s face in the expressions of your baby (not to mention the faces of sisters, brothers, mothers, fathers). How it feels to have a private smile all for you. Baby is truly special!
He has been kind to us thus far. He cries only if he needs something – maybe he’s in a soaking wet cloth diaper (yes I have managed to carry out cloth as I desired to). Usually he wants some feeding. Breast feeding was initially a pretty big challenge for me but it gets better and better. I am shocked at how at times little L can go 2-3 hours without being fed – usually in the daytime. And then at night and sometimes in the wee hours of the morning he may want to feed on and off for two hours (or more than two hours!) at a time. It is somewhat unpredictable.
I am curious if he is on something like a 20 or 22-hour a day schedule right now. Each day his patterns are just a little different. He is definitely a little more comfortable through the night than he was about 4-5 days after birth. A few days after he was born he had these hours-long episodes of crying and finger-sucking that we just couldn’t break. Of course you must be thinking – she’s a pediatrician! Doesn’t she know that if he’s sucking his fingers he is hungry? Yes, I know, but I just couldn’t believe it. I thought babies are supposed to need to feed every 2 or 3 hours or so. Then I learned about cluster feeding – that seems especially prevalent in the breastfed babies – where they need several feeds in a period of time. We seem to notice this more with baby L when (a) he has slept for a long time or (b) just before he sleeps for a long time. It amazes me how after a particularly long and arduous feed, though, he sometimes emerges after a burp with lips a-smacking and fingers in his mouth. We suspect that eventually he will probably be one of those kids that just loves to be at the breast, but for now he is growing and needs his nutrition, so I will feed on demand, just as he has ordered.
Ok, time to check on the diaper laundry soon and the dishes – it is busy times with that. I like not throwing anything in the garbage but success with cloth diapering has been an experiment! Every other day I do a load of laundry, I think if I waited any longer it would not be too healthy for the household. But so far things are going really well! I just need to work on figuring how when and how to change him so he’s not completely irritated with me all the time. I think he really needs pretty frequent changes because he’s what they call a “super-soaker.” I’m tempted to buy some new diapers just for overnight purposes (maybe try sustainablebabyish’s bamboo fitted), though I do have some pocket diapers that I’m considering stuffing with Kissaluvs soakers overnight tonight, to see if he makes it a little longer. I feel so bad when I open up his Thirsties cover and find a soaking wet prefold. The flip side is that at least little L doesn’t have any leaks – which seem to be pretty prevalent with the heavy wetters, I’ve only had 1 or 2 instances with leaky poops or pees, but for the most part things stay contained in his PUL covers. I’m excited to try his wool cover soon when he’s a little bigger. Gotta figure out the lanolization process and then we should be set with that! Toodles!
Yay, I’m glad the diapers are working for you so far! It’s definitely trial and error for sure. I’m just excited b/c we finally had a leak-less night with cloth for the first time in months last night, hurrah.
I’m so glad that you guys are having an easy time of it so far. I wonder if what you’re thinking of as a 20/22 hour day making his schedule different each day isn’t just him working on getting his day and night straight. It takes a while, and until then, it’s pretty unpredictable. He’s utterly gorgeous, btw!