Apparently I have a lot to say about surviving one month with a newborn, so I’m breaking this update into parts, starting with Hudson’s personal favorite subject: eating.
I’m sure all new mamas say this, but HOW, how is it his one month birthday?!
The last month has flown by in a whirlwind of diapers, feedings and short windows of sleep. Getting to know the little human we made has been a lot of fun, and while of course the month hasn’t been without his challenges, I think it’s been better than either Jason or I expected.
We are so, so lucky to have gotten a relatively easy baby. Hudson didn’t take long to sort out his nights and days, is a great eater, and is growing steadily (and quickly!) thanks to the first two factors.
On Eating
People everywhere we go comment on how BIG he is for his age, and while he was big at birth (almost 9 lbs) he’s solidly above 11 lbs now, due to eating well and often. (And oh man, is it often.) I feed him immediately after he wakes up, which is really the only option because he wakes up grunting, snorting, flailing and eventually screaming until there is milk in the mouth. This little production every 2.5-3 hours has led to us affectionately calling him our little piggy – a nickname I’m sure his future self hopes does not stick around.
To date, he’s been exclusively breast fed — something I’m really proud of and frankly more than a little shocked by. I thought breastfeeding would be a challenge, and it has been, just not in the ways I expected. The two things I worried about most turned out to be not a problem for us: his “latch” was good right off the bat and my supply is high enough to match our little tank’s demands. The surprising part for me has been just how much WORK breastfeeding is. In the hospital, he was so snuggly and sleepy, breastfeeding was really a blissful, snuggly experience. He’d latch on, go to town for 30 minutes while I gazed at my amazing baby adoringly, and then we’d both pass out. Yeah, that lasted all of 1.5 days in the hospital.
As we’ve gotten settled in at home and he’s gotten more alert, feeding him has become comparable to a wrestling match. He is still latching well once he gets going, but in the beginning he’s so wound up about the prospect of eating it often takes a while to get his hands out of the way and for him to stop wiggling around enough to get started. And then he gets so excited he’ll come on and off multiple times for the first fifteen minutes or so, and we’re starting all over.
He also eats so quickly (a lactation consultant in the first week was shocked to report that he took down 3 oz in under 10 minutes!) that he’ll often cough or even start choking if we don’t stop feeding him every 5 minutes to make him slow down and encourage a big burp.
Then, there’s the diapers. I think we haven’t quite figured out the balance of when to change him because feedings are often a 2 change process, sometimes 3! (And four on one really, really rough night.) I can’t bear to think of him eating in a dirty diaper but the um… dirtying process? seems to be a multiple stage event and I usually rush to change him before he’s finished and we’re back at the changing table in no time. During the day, this is less of an ordeal, but at night that second change feels like the end of the world. Don’t mind me and my dramatic hormones.
And finally, there’s the herculean effort of keeping him awake. Huds seems to have two general settings: GIVE ME FOOD, and GOOD NIGHT. Once we get through the first half of the feeding, he’s exhausted all of his energy and becomes a hilarious, comatose rag doll. At that point I switch from frantically burping him and trying to keep his ninja hands out of his face to tickling his toes, singing in obnoxious voices, and stripping off his clothes — anything to keep him awake. If I fail in this task, he doesn’t get enough food to fill up his little belly and I can be SURE that his next nap or sleep will only be about an hour long… and that is NOT a cycle I’m looking to perpetuate. If we do it right, we’ll get a good 2 hour nap or 3 hour sleep at night, but more on that later.
One thing that’s majorly helped on the sanity front is the introduction of the nightly “Dad bottle.” I’ve been working on building up a small supply by pumping, and J’s taken on the last nightly feeding and bath duties so I can get a few hours baby-free at the end of the day, and a head start on sleep. On the weekends when he doesn’t have to get up for work, he’ll switch to take a middle of the night shift or the first one in the morning so I get a really long stretch of sleep — and yes, he is a saint.
Thankfully we seem to have avoided the hilariously-named malady nipple confusion, and the bottle has actually helped provide some insight into just how much our little piggy is eating. He’ll usually take down about 5 oz at night – which means if he’s doing that at every feeding daily, he’s at least at 40oz, well above the average range. Knowing that the amount babies eat varies throughout the day, I think it’s realistically more likely to be 30-35oz daily, but we’re still at the top of the range and it’s comforting (I think?) to know that I’m not totally delusional feeling like he’s eating a TON and all the time.
So yeah. Adding up all of these factors, feedings are easily an hour long and feel like an Olympic event. I’m hoping that in coming months we’ll come to a happier medium, but I know I should just be grateful that it’s working somehow. And I am! Just surprised by the reality of it all. And hey, after basically zero strength training in the latter half of my pregnancy, I’m probably working up some serious mom arms. #brightside
Up next: an update on sleep, glorious sleep.