Last Weeks News...

I can't believe LL is now three weeks old, time is flying and I have forgotten what it feels like to have a bump and be pregnant, it feels like she has always been with us.

The health visitor came last Tuesday which was nice and straightforward, she weighed her again and she has gone up to 8lb 15oz so has exceeded her birth weight by 3oz.  Considering that we have been struggling with breastfeeding I am really pleased that she is now above her birth weight.  Go us!

My mother in law has been visiting all week last week to help me with Mads and LL as I can't lift or do much after my section, we have been having a nice time and it has been nice to have some help.  We have been out and about a bit, we went out to lunch and to my Mum's salon on Wednesday and I had a treat on Friday morning as she looked after Mads while LL and I went out for lunch with a friend of mine.  I am getting her to be a lady that lunches early!

LL loves to be swaddled just like her sister, and is in fact similar to her in many ways at the moment.  She grunts and makes so much noise at night, just like her sister did too, which means I find it really hard to get to sleep!

She still loves to curl up her legs and go to sleep on your chest but I have noticed that as the days go by she gets a bit less curled and is starting to straighten out more. I cherish her snoozing on my chest as I remember how quickly it changes.

She is still sleeping so much during the day and is barely awake- it is lulling me into a false sense of security as I remember suddenly one day Mads was just awake constantly!

She developed her first cold this week, both Mr E, Mads and I have had it so she was bound too.  Friday night she was struggling so much to breathe easily and so she ended up sleeping in our bed all night.  On Saturday we went out and bought one of those bogey suction thingys and Mr E was most disturbed as he didn't realise that you had to suck the other end!  We hope she gets better soon as colds are no fun.

Sleep...

Sleep is broken and one night we will have a good night (2 feeds) and then we will have a run of a few bad ones.  We generally go to bed around half ten and I feed her, and she will generally go until twoish before feeding her again.  She then stirs again around 4ish.  Sometimes she will then sleep until just before 7 when we wake up her sister as Mr E goes to work, but more often than not she will wake at 5 and 6 and not want to go in her cot. These are the worst because then you can't really get back to sleep before we have to be up again.  I have taken to putting her in our bed any time after 4 if she wakes up and then she sleeps but I don't really want to get into this habit!

I think a lot of the sleeping patterns lie with me, I am so tired in the night times that I don't spend as much time trying to keep her awake to feed her so she only really snacks, and I don't spend as much time burping her as I do in the day.  Therefore she is a bit more unsettled.  I ought to try and force her to stay awake to have a really good feed but she is so sleepy that I just give in for an easy life, hence her waking again a bit later.   We will see how we get on in the next week or so.

As much as I am tired, I know it could be a lot worse and I am pleased that at less than three weeks she is only waking 2 or 3 times in the night.  And secretly I must admit I do like the night feeds, they don't stay little for long and I love getting her out her moses basket in the night and snuggling her tight.  It feels like it is just us against the world. I just wish I could stretch her out to 3-4 hours instead of the more frequent 2 hours.

Food...

Breastfeeding is going so much better, I am now not sore at all on one side and the other which is my weaker side to hold her, I am still slightly sore when she latches on but only for a few seconds. I am pleased we got through the inital horrendous pain.  We still have our challenges, she is a real snacker and only feeds for 10 minutes at a time doing tiny sucks, so I do have to really tickle her and blow on her face in order to get her to drink more as I was told by the breastfeeding counsellor that tiny sucks mean she isn't taking much milk.  Because she doesn't suck properly often, I do worry about my supply.  

She is cluster feeding more in the early evenings from about 5pm until 9pm but it varies and some nights she is still fast asleep.  

Now the pain has gone, when she sucks and feeds well, I do get that rush of hormones that you get, I look down at my little baby feeding and feel so happy.