It's almost been two weeks since I had Brooklyn but it still feels like yesterday at times. I have to admit to having a touch of the baby blues, although it is passing. I definitely cried every night at the hospital when I was alone with Brooklyn and then once we were home, I cried every time Waylon had to leave to go to work. It was hard to see him go. A lot of those first nights I was able to spend with my parents, however, it was still sad for me to see Waylon go off to work and have to leave me and his new baby girl behind. The crying has definitely slowed down and I have settled into a calmer state of mind at night when it's bedtime. I was definitely scared the first few nights and couldn't sleep well and had to have Brooklyn where I could see her when I opened my eyes. Lucky for us, she doesn't sleep wonderfully at night so she frequently wakes me up with doesn't help with the sleep department but does help in the worry department.
So far we have had a couple of REALLY good nights where she slept for 3 and almost 4 hours at a time in between feedings but most of the nights have been pretty hectic with very little sleep. Last night, for example, I couldn't get her to calm down and sleep at all. Every time I laid her down to sleep, she would start her grunting and flailing her arms and legs around and fuss a lot. I would then pick her up and try to soothe her to sleep again and set her back in the pack and play and she would start her thing all over again. She also projectile vomited in her bed, which she did earlier at church yesterday also. So I had to change her blanket since it was soaked with spit up. This went on for about two hours (not the vomiting but the not sleeping) until finally I picked her up and laid her down on my belly, facing me and we slept that way for the rest of the night. Now, I never intended on letting her sleep in bed with us b/c I'm worried about the smothering and all that, however, I just couldn't take it anymore and she seemed so upset and uncomfortable that I just finally was happy she found a position she could sleep in. We slept like that with no problems and she didn't budge the whole night once she was on my belly. I also slept well and kept my arms around her and they didn't move either. She may eventually be a belly sleeper once she's big enough and I'm comfortable enough with letting her sleep that way (several weeks from now). The frustrating part is she sleeps like a rock during the day!! Then at night, she's fidgety and moves so much she wakes her self up constantly. Hopefully this will pass soon.
We went in today for her follow-up newborn screening for PKU. It was really hard to see her crying so much when the nurse was squeezing her heel to get the blood out. I had no idea they needed so much! I held it together but there was a point when she was crying the loudest I have ever heard her cry that I almost started in with her. I'm glad that's over and she's now sleeping (grunting a little) in her bouncer.
I wanted to post a few pictures from the day we had her. The first picture is me the morning we left for the hospital. It was about 5:15am and we were finishing up getting everything packed and loaded in the car. Then we took one of our faces. :-) Can you tell we were tired?? The one after that was right after they got me all hooked up and settled in my L&D room where I would spend the next 12 hours leading up to my c-section. After that is a shot of me with her when I FINALLY got to hold her 2 hours after having her. I think I had just breast fed her for the first time which is why the sleeve of my gown is hanging off me. The next picture is of Waylon holding her after I fed her the first time. The last 4 or so pictures are once we were home. You can tell a big difference in my face and how much the swelling has gone down. Brooklyn was napping after having a bottle in the one of her laying on my bed and the really close up one of her face we took at the doctor's office for her first follow-up visit. The tiny bit of jaundice she had when we left the hospital had gone completely away and she gained back almost all of her weight. She had gotten down to 8.10 when we left the hospital on Saturday and was back up to 9.3 by Monday. She likes her milk!
So there you have some pictures and some more info on how we are doing. I have to admit that I haven't had a strong desire to blog these days. Hopefully that will come back to me. It's hard to get things done when your focus is on a newborn and you're completely disorganized!
I'm going to do a separate post on my experience with breast feeding vs. bottle feeding soon and the decision I came to...stay tuned!
6 comments:
Loved all the pics! I feel your pain on the sleeping front too! Riley was very much like that when she was first born. Do you swaddle Brooklyn? I know that helped my boys a lot during the first couple of weeks when they would do the startle thing with their arms the worst and I wasn't ready to put them on their stomachs to sleep yet. I didn't know how effective swaddling was with Riley. Also, Riley liked to sleep during the day and not so much at night too so one thing I did to help that was make sure that when she slept during the day it wasn't completely quiet, her bedroom door was open and the room was brighter. Then during the evening I would do the same routine at bedtime, giving a bath, dressing, etc. then her bottle all with the lights turned as low as possible (I tried to feed her bottle in the dark, and until she got her days and nights switched back, I would even feed her in her bedroom in complete quiet) in hopes that the dark would send the signal that this is the time for longer sleeping. I don't know how much any of that helped or how much she just figured it out for herself, but she got things straightened out fairly quickly. I hope she starts settling down a little more for you at night soon!
I totally agree with the swaddling advice! We got a velcro swaddle blanket for lan that helped him sleep a little better...but ava hated it SOOO much, we pretty much started her off on her stomach after that didn't work. But she is our 2nd and I know it's different when it's your first. Sorry you're so tired!! At least they're so cute to make up for it :-)
I totally understand how you felt/are feeling with the baby blues. I was a complete basketcase after Garrett was born. Everything made me cry and I practically had a panic attack each night when it was time for him to go to bed. But I was just stressed out that it was going to be a terrible night and we wouldn't get any sleep. Thankfully all of that definitely subsided by the time he was about 8 weeks old.
Something that I've done with both my boys since day one is to have a sound machine in their rooms. At night it helps because the house isn't completely quiet and it's a familiar sound that they hear at naps and during the night. For Cooper, it helps drown out the loudness of Garrett during the day.
We're looking forward to seeing you guys tomorrow!
hey! i love the pictures! I like the little perryman family at the top of your page! very cool!
I second the swaddling and the white noise machine. Swaddling was a huge hit with katelyn and Madelyn.The fidgeted for a bit after I swaddled them but then they would sleep so much better! I also got one of those wedge things for Madelyn that kept her from rolling or anything and that seem to make her feel even more "cuddled". The white noise machine is fantastic and a MUST! Even if you have to put a static-y radio station on your radio.That is like white noise too. The same bed time routine is also very helpful. I fed my girls their bed time bottle in the rocking chair in their room and read them a couple of stories while we did that. I usually swaddled them before I gave them their bottle so I could put them right down in the crib when they were done.
I'm glad your baby blues are getting better. I'm afraid that from now on things will seem more emotional anyway since you've had this life changing experience and you love that little creature so much! Loved the pictures. She's just adorable
Swaddling definitely helped with Quinton. Another thing they told us to do was to wake them up during the day and not let them sleep until they woke up. This seemed to help us get longer periods of sleep at night.
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