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Mar. 5th, 2009 09:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rivkaOMG the three-week growth spurt. It's killing me.
It's not just that he wants to nurse every waking moment. It's that the waking moments have also gotten a lot closer together, because he isn't able to sleep for very long before he wakes up hungry. I did absolutely nothing today except feed him, change diapers, and try to steal a few minutes of sleep.
On the plus side: he is noticeably fat, so much so that even I have stopped being neurotic over whether he's getting enough milk. He used to - used to! he's only three weeks old - have these frail twiglike fingers that I worried would snap when I tried to guide them through a sleeve cuff. His hands were so skinny that the skin was wrinkly. Now he has plump juicy sausagelike fingers, and his cheeks look like he's storing up nuts for the winter, and his clothes look less like he borrowed them from a second grader and more like they are his actual size.
He has started to make a slightly greater variety of sounds, which is fun. And he's started really looking around and focusing on things in his environment. Mostly, as far as I can tell, straight lines and areas of high contrast. Michael's birthmother sent a quilt made of big bold black-and-white patterns when Alex was a baby, and Colin really seems to enjoy it. He is surprisingly willing to have floor time and even tummy time on that quilt, when he isn't, you know, trying to nurse the chrome off a trailer hitch.
Six more days until the earliest experts say it's okay to introduce a pacifier. (Don't worry - or lecture - we intend to use it sparingly.)
It's not just that he wants to nurse every waking moment. It's that the waking moments have also gotten a lot closer together, because he isn't able to sleep for very long before he wakes up hungry. I did absolutely nothing today except feed him, change diapers, and try to steal a few minutes of sleep.
On the plus side: he is noticeably fat, so much so that even I have stopped being neurotic over whether he's getting enough milk. He used to - used to! he's only three weeks old - have these frail twiglike fingers that I worried would snap when I tried to guide them through a sleeve cuff. His hands were so skinny that the skin was wrinkly. Now he has plump juicy sausagelike fingers, and his cheeks look like he's storing up nuts for the winter, and his clothes look less like he borrowed them from a second grader and more like they are his actual size.
He has started to make a slightly greater variety of sounds, which is fun. And he's started really looking around and focusing on things in his environment. Mostly, as far as I can tell, straight lines and areas of high contrast. Michael's birthmother sent a quilt made of big bold black-and-white patterns when Alex was a baby, and Colin really seems to enjoy it. He is surprisingly willing to have floor time and even tummy time on that quilt, when he isn't, you know, trying to nurse the chrome off a trailer hitch.
Six more days until the earliest experts say it's okay to introduce a pacifier. (Don't worry - or lecture - we intend to use it sparingly.)
trying not to lecture
Date: 2009-03-06 03:54 am (UTC)So glad he's feeding well and putting on weight. Breastfeeding can be so much fun when the relationship works, and I'm happy you are getting to experience it this time.
Emma
Re: trying not to lecture
Date: 2009-03-06 02:44 pm (UTC)So I know that Colin may wind up using the paci more than we initially intend. My comment was more in defensive reaction to my nursing advice book, which explains that parents who use a pacifier stop trying to figure out what their kid really needs, instead just shutting them up with a plastic plug. (Why am I using a judgmental nursing advice book? Because there doesn't seem to be any other kind.)