Dalton has been eating and growing like crazy! He put on 12 oz in the one week between doctor visits, and was about 1 lb over his birth weight by the end of Week 2. He is definitely making up for the growth he didn’t do in utero.
Earlier in the week.
Later in the week
One side effect of this hunger and growth has been a once-or-twice-daily bout of projectile spit up resulting from overeating, gulping too much air, and wanting to pacify at the breast while my body is still adjusting to his intake needs. It is frightening to say the least when it happens, but apparently benign, and I’m already learning how to minimize the chances. Despite the troubles, I am happy with how efficient of a nurser Dalton is. He can get down about 2.5 oz in only about 7 minutes, even if he’s sleepy. His latch has also improved and all of my nipple soreness has now gone.
Now that Eric is back to work, night times are a little rougher, but thankfully Dalton is very good about going back to sleep after each feeding, making the amount of sleep deprivation way more tolerable this time around. In general, Dalton is down for the night around 7 pm and is up around 6am, with 3-4 feedings in between. The only exception this week was when his 4pm nap morphed right into his 7pm bedtime, so he was wide awake after the 1am feeding. Like Sonia did, he starts making grunting noises to tell me that he’s hungry, and I’m able to pick him up, change his diaper and get into bed to feed before he really starts crying. Sometimes, Eric can even sleep through it, but not often since he is still such a noisy eater! The bedtime schedule is a little hectic since Sonia and Dalton are wanting to go down at the same time. Daddy has ended up doing more of bath time on his own than before while I feed or put Dalton down, but I still make sure I’m there to sing to Sonia and put her down. The 7pm bedtime also allows us a little adult time before crashing ourselves around 8:30.
During the day, things are a little different. Once Dalton is asleep, he isn’t bothered by anything, but getting him down is way harder than I remember it being with Sonia. He also seems to be fussy whenever he’s awake and not feeding. Eric has even complained that he hasn’t seen him awake and not crying yet. I don’t think it’s to the point of calling it colic, but it is very hard on me not knowing what he needs. I know this part is trial and error, though, and eventually we’ll figure things out and get into somewhat of a routine. At the end of the week, we did start to try the pacifier, but that doesn’t seem to be the cure-all it was with Sonia.
Not having a routing yet has made the mornings very stressful since, with Eric at work, I have to figure out how to take both kids and the dog for a walk, and get everybody fed before the nanny arrives. It sure makes me thankful to have the help when she does get there. I really don’t know how stay-at-home-mom’s of two do it!