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Thursday 12 June 2014

No longer a newborn!

I've been trying to write this post for 3 weeks now but something always seems to come up.  Anyway our little one is now 7 weeks old! Perhaps it was the fact that she was 2 weeks over due, but she has been alert and smiling at everyone pretty much since day 1.  She is in awe of Jazz  who loves to sit and hold her and talk to her whenever she gets the chance.  Charlie is alittle less interested but we expected that.  She seems to live in a little world all of own now that she's nine.

Anyway - to bring you up to speed since Bonnie's birth ...
My mum stayed for two weeks and was a great help, especially helping with the girls, cooking, shopping or just being someone else to settle or burp Bon when I needed a break.  She drove the girls to and from school which was a big help but she was a pretty nervous driver so this made me nervous!  It was nice that she had time to bond with Bonnie but after two weeks of disruption to the girls routine and sleeping arrangements we decided it was time for us to figure out how to do things on our own.

I recovered from the surgery pretty quickly, but breastfeeding was and has been a problem.  The problem is with me, not with Bonnie.  She has no trouble latching and will pretty much take anything you put in her mouth without issue thank goodness.  But unfortunately my supply is pathetic and despite trying everything under the sun to improve it, my body is just not coming to the party (as usual!).  Bonnie dropped more than 10% of her birth weight because of it, so we were forced to start supplementing the day after we left the hospital.  All the trouble I was having trying to settle her suddenly disappeared once she started on the formula, and I realised I'd essentially been starving her without knowing it.   I got input from a lactation nurse and was breast feeding, then topping up with formula and then pumping to supplement the next feed which was all ok while my mum was here but it became much harder once she left.  I have two other kids to worry about and Scout is hardly ever home, so having to do all of that for each feed is pretty exhausting.  I've been taking Motilium which is what mothers who adopt get put on to bring on their milk, but even this has had a minimal effect.  Anyway ... it's been awhile now and I'm persisting with it but it's been hard.  Occasionally I feel like things are improving but then it all seems to go backwards again. Thankfully our little one is still humouring me and will breastfeed for a bit each side before she gets frustrated and I have to go make her a bottle.  When I do get time to express I get hardly anything so I really have no clue what she's getting from me, but as long as she continues to be happy taking the breast, I'll continue to offer it.  I just have to be content knowing that she's at least getting something from me, even if it's not much.  And she's almost back on track with her weight and doing really well now, so that's the main thing.

In terms of sleep, we have good nights and bad nights.  Sometimes I find myself dreading the evenings but I really shouldn't complain cos she doesn't cry a lot unless something is genuinely wrong.  When she was about two weeks old she started getting a cough which was pretty distressing for both of us, so we had a few nights sleeping together on the couch, but when she's not sick, she sleeps pretty well in her cradle overnight and will usually go for 3-4 hours between feeds.  We have had the odd occasion where it's been less and other times when it's been more but generally she's pretty consistent which helps ... Especially when trying to time pick ups and drop offs for the girls etc.  

The evenings seem to be the hardest because I'm juggling the needs of all three girls.  Scout tends to have to work late, till 9 or 10pm, so I'm on my own and it tends to be that time of day when Bonnie is wanting the most amount of attention.  The amount of times I've burnt the kids dinner is rediculous.  It gets a little crazy when I've got two kids fighting, a baby not settling or wanting to be fed and dinner burning in the stove.  Unfortunately my brain just doesn't seems capable of dealing with that many things at once so I really need to be a bit more organised and cook dinners earlier in the day.  I have used a sling a few times in the evenings to keep baby happy and both my hands free.  Sometimes it works and other times it doesn't.  But all in all I think we're doing pretty well.  She's a pretty low maintenance kid most of the time.  She travels well in the car and doesn't mind the car seat.  She loves being bathed and doesn't mind getting her nappy changed.  Like I said - she really only cries if she's over tired or something's wrong.  I even took her to the movies with Scout and the girls yesterday and she barely made a peep.  I had a bottle ready for her but didn't end up needing it - just put her on the boob (which was actually harder than expected in the dark!) when she woke up and she was happy.  

Anyway - as usual I have more to write about but if I try to I'll never get this post up!  Our friend did some pics of Bonnie for us at 2 weeks so I'll attach those and save the others from around the home till my next post :)

                     

                      

                      


Thursday 12 June 2014

No longer a newborn!

I've been trying to write this post for 3 weeks now but something always seems to come up.  Anyway our little one is now 7 weeks old! Perhaps it was the fact that she was 2 weeks over due, but she has been alert and smiling at everyone pretty much since day 1.  She is in awe of Jazz  who loves to sit and hold her and talk to her whenever she gets the chance.  Charlie is alittle less interested but we expected that.  She seems to live in a little world all of own now that she's nine.

Anyway - to bring you up to speed since Bonnie's birth ...
My mum stayed for two weeks and was a great help, especially helping with the girls, cooking, shopping or just being someone else to settle or burp Bon when I needed a break.  She drove the girls to and from school which was a big help but she was a pretty nervous driver so this made me nervous!  It was nice that she had time to bond with Bonnie but after two weeks of disruption to the girls routine and sleeping arrangements we decided it was time for us to figure out how to do things on our own.

I recovered from the surgery pretty quickly, but breastfeeding was and has been a problem.  The problem is with me, not with Bonnie.  She has no trouble latching and will pretty much take anything you put in her mouth without issue thank goodness.  But unfortunately my supply is pathetic and despite trying everything under the sun to improve it, my body is just not coming to the party (as usual!).  Bonnie dropped more than 10% of her birth weight because of it, so we were forced to start supplementing the day after we left the hospital.  All the trouble I was having trying to settle her suddenly disappeared once she started on the formula, and I realised I'd essentially been starving her without knowing it.   I got input from a lactation nurse and was breast feeding, then topping up with formula and then pumping to supplement the next feed which was all ok while my mum was here but it became much harder once she left.  I have two other kids to worry about and Scout is hardly ever home, so having to do all of that for each feed is pretty exhausting.  I've been taking Motilium which is what mothers who adopt get put on to bring on their milk, but even this has had a minimal effect.  Anyway ... it's been awhile now and I'm persisting with it but it's been hard.  Occasionally I feel like things are improving but then it all seems to go backwards again. Thankfully our little one is still humouring me and will breastfeed for a bit each side before she gets frustrated and I have to go make her a bottle.  When I do get time to express I get hardly anything so I really have no clue what she's getting from me, but as long as she continues to be happy taking the breast, I'll continue to offer it.  I just have to be content knowing that she's at least getting something from me, even if it's not much.  And she's almost back on track with her weight and doing really well now, so that's the main thing.

In terms of sleep, we have good nights and bad nights.  Sometimes I find myself dreading the evenings but I really shouldn't complain cos she doesn't cry a lot unless something is genuinely wrong.  When she was about two weeks old she started getting a cough which was pretty distressing for both of us, so we had a few nights sleeping together on the couch, but when she's not sick, she sleeps pretty well in her cradle overnight and will usually go for 3-4 hours between feeds.  We have had the odd occasion where it's been less and other times when it's been more but generally she's pretty consistent which helps ... Especially when trying to time pick ups and drop offs for the girls etc.  

The evenings seem to be the hardest because I'm juggling the needs of all three girls.  Scout tends to have to work late, till 9 or 10pm, so I'm on my own and it tends to be that time of day when Bonnie is wanting the most amount of attention.  The amount of times I've burnt the kids dinner is rediculous.  It gets a little crazy when I've got two kids fighting, a baby not settling or wanting to be fed and dinner burning in the stove.  Unfortunately my brain just doesn't seems capable of dealing with that many things at once so I really need to be a bit more organised and cook dinners earlier in the day.  I have used a sling a few times in the evenings to keep baby happy and both my hands free.  Sometimes it works and other times it doesn't.  But all in all I think we're doing pretty well.  She's a pretty low maintenance kid most of the time.  She travels well in the car and doesn't mind the car seat.  She loves being bathed and doesn't mind getting her nappy changed.  Like I said - she really only cries if she's over tired or something's wrong.  I even took her to the movies with Scout and the girls yesterday and she barely made a peep.  I had a bottle ready for her but didn't end up needing it - just put her on the boob (which was actually harder than expected in the dark!) when she woke up and she was happy.  

Anyway - as usual I have more to write about but if I try to I'll never get this post up!  Our friend did some pics of Bonnie for us at 2 weeks so I'll attach those and save the others from around the home till my next post :)

                     

                      

                      


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