Sunday, May 24, 2009

Such a Big Girl!



Campbell was officially one month old on Saturday. In celebration, she moved up to a size 1 diaper. She's such a little wiggle worm, though, that we've had to squeeze her back into the newborn size for at least a few more days. That's OK, though, b/c I'd like to use those diapers up! We also moved her into her crib on Friday night - she's so talky during her sleep it was keeping us up even more to have her in our room in the bassinet. We swaddled her up, put on the closet light and cracked the door, turned on the monitor, and headed to bed. The firs night went pretty well, and last night was great. Instead of her usual 1:30 a.m. and 4:30 a.m. sessions, she ate at 11 p.m., 3:30 a.m. and not again until 7:30 a.m. The consecutive stretches of sleep were much appreciated! Saturday night she was back to her old self, but it's still easier to get what little sleep we can with her in her own room.


We took her in for a weight check on Friday so we could have her one month weight for the baby book - she's right on track with her weight gain now: 8 lbs. 10.2 oz.

Sunday, May 17, 2009

9 oz in 7 days

Things continue to look up. Nursing just wasn't working for us, so I've started exclusively pumping during the day so we can still give Campbell breast milk, and then doing formula at night so I don't have to pump at 4 a.m. Added bonus - we can now monitor exactly how much her intake is, which makes me feel a lot better with her initial slow/no weight gain. And, when we went in for her weight check on Friday, she was up to 8 lbs. 4 oz. Yay!!

She's still a very sleepy baby - I told the doc we were waking her every three hours to eat during the day, and he said since her intake is measurable now we no longer have to do that. Yay!! again. She's doing pretty well at night - she tricked us last night after her 8 p.m. feeding. We assumed she'd be up again b/f 11, so we stayed up, too. Wrong. At midnight, we gave up and went to bed, and at 12:30 she promptly woke up. Sigh - should have gone to bed earlier ourselves! After that, she slept through to 4:30 and then again to 8:30, so that wasn't so bad. She's back down again now, so I'm off to run some errands while Dad looks after her.

My folks headed back home yesterday, and I will sorely miss them this week. Not only were they a huge help with Campbell, it was so nice just to have someone here in the house with me during the days. I'm so glad Garett works from home on Wednesdays to help break up the week...

I'm off to the store, then we're going to take Campbell for a walk. Good times!!!

Saturday, May 9, 2009

Friday, May 8, 2009

Hanging in There

Took Campbell back in to the pedi today b/c I was concerned with her not being back up to her birth weight - she's about 3.5 oz shy... He looked at my nursing log and looked her over, and didn't seem too concerned - he said most babies make it back by two weeks, but some it just takes a little longer... he suggested calling one of the lactation consultants to see if I could get any pointers, so I'm going to try and get an appt. early next week. I'll take her back in next Friday for a follow up weight check.

On the plus side, her jaundice is completely gone. Yay! But, now she has a clogged tear duct. :( It doesn't seem to be bothering her at all, but it's making her eye all goopy... we just have to massage the duct three to four times a day, and that should get it to open back up on its own - apparently it's a pretty common thing for newborns.

She's doing a little better at staying awake while nursing, and she actually woke herself up these last two times to nurse - once after two hours, once just under two hours, once just under three, so I think I'm going to try sticking it out with that at least until next Friday and see how her weight gain is...

She was up every two hours last night. Sigh. I'll be glad when she gets her days and night aligned...

Tuesday, May 5, 2009

Plum Worn Out

Baby girl is wearing us out. She sleeps fine during the day - too fine - we still have to wake her up to feed her every three ours or so - and sometimes it's just hopeless. We strip her down, take a cold washcloth to the head, hands, body, thump the bottom of her feet so hard she cries out - followed immediately by a return to sleep. Nursing her is seriously like giving her a sedative.

Except at night. When she decides it's time to be up. And be fussy. Sometimes for hours. And, is it possible for a newborn to be afraid of the dark? Because she'll sleep the day away in front of a window (indirect sunlight to help bring the jaundice down), or in the living room with the TV blaring. But, come nighttime, if we turn off the lamp b/f she's completely asleep - waa, waa, waa!!!

We ran her by the doc again today for a quick weight check, and she's only up 1/2 oz. :( As hard as we're trying to keep her nursing and give extra ounces of formula, I was really hoping she'd be up more. I've started taking Fenugreek in hopes that she'll be getting enough just from nursing and we can stop with the formula supplements soon... But, even with my worries about her eating and her weight, the one indication that she's getting enough nourishment that's holding strong - she's a pee and poop machine. She easily hits 8 dirty diapers, plus four to five wet diapers, every day. And, every time we go to change her, she gives us just a *little bit* extra while she's nekkid. Sigh.

We did newborn pics today, and they didn't go quite as well as I'd hoped. She was a little fussy, and didn't like us moving her into different positions. And we really wanted some cute nekkid pictures, but given her proclivity to going potty while diaperless, I was pretty nervous about them. Rightly so, it turns out - she ended up peeing on Garett, peeing all over a blanket and pooing on the outside of her diaper while I was taking it off, and peeing all over another blanket and in the photographer's bowl. We kept warning the photographer it was going to happen, but she wanted to give it a shot... It was a two-hour ordeal, but hopefully we ended up with come cute shots. We'll have proofs in a couple of weeks, which means birth announcements are going to take longer than I'd hoped, unless I just go ahead and do them with a photo we take, which I'm thinking about doing.

Speaking of, more pics soon - just don't have the energy to upload them to Flickr right now...

Friday, May 1, 2009

Good Day

Short and sweet update - Campbell's bilirubin number was down more than a point in a day, and she's up two ounces in weight. Yay! Garett's oral surgery went well - after we got through the initial clotting phase... he was supposed to have clotted in a couple of hours, but change his gauze for seven hours just to keep the wound clear. By 12 hours post-op, he was still bleeding, so he had to get up every hour last night to change the gauze. Thankfully, today the bleeding was under control, and Garett's been really great helping me with everything. We were all over the place today - Medical Center of Lewisville for the bili screen, Plano Presby for an unexpected doc visit for me (everythings fine, just needed to get checked out), back to the pediatrician for the weight test. Even though he's on pain meds and couldn't be driving, he was a real trooper and ran to all the places with me.

We're just going to keep doing what we're doing with Campbell, and hope her weight gain continues up and bili number continues down.