Conrad’s blog

So we’ve reached the weekend of our first, slightly surreal week as a family of four…

After a night of not much sleep for any of us (except perhaps Jessica, who has got her own room) – with Conrad only wanting to settle in my arms and not sleep in his cot at all between 9pm and 2am and crying to put his point across – Friday night to Saturday was significantly better. The reason being that I realised (around 1.30am Friday morning) that Conrad was nice and snug from my body heat when in my arms but woke up from the cool of the bed linen in his cot as soon as I put him there. Out came the hot water bottle we used to put in Jessica’s bed in the early days, to warm the cot for 15-20 minutes before putting Conrad in it, plus a gro bag to keep Conrad nice and snug in transit between arms and bed, and it did the trick.

Conrad now feeds every 2.5 to 4 hours, between 70 and 100 ml each time. It’s mostly my breast milk now, as that’s come through now, but still through a bottle as Conrad’s not taken to breastfeeding yet. Saying that, he was the closest to latching on this afternoon than he’s ever been. Conrad is still slightly yellow (as you can see in the photos) and my midwife, who popped by briefly this morning, said not to worry about the breastfeeding but that Conrad would probably take to it once the jaundice has cleared. So I am trying not to worry, and also take my sister’s advice of making sure I relax when I try to breastfeed, in case Conrad’s picking up on me tensing up.

My midwife also weighed Conrad, who clocked 3.8 kilos on the scales. A slight weight loss since his birth but well within the acceptable 10 percent, I would assume largely due to the fact that we have not hesitated in giving Conrad a bottle. Whether he takes to breastfeeding or not in the end, ultimately the most important thing is that he’s getting fed.

Last night Conrad settled at 8pm, then woke up at 11pm, 3am and 5.30am. During the day, I stir him every 3 hours to see if he wants some food, in an attempt to help him adjust to our day/night routine and save more of his sleep for night time. He still sleeps most of the time, of course, and we’d completely forgotten what it was like to have a little person like that around. As Ian pointed out today, we sometimes almost forget that Conrad’s lying there in the carry cot in the corner, he’s so quiet…

Jessica is still fascinated with Conrad. She motions for us to lift her up to peer at him when we have the carry cot higher up on the grammophone in the corner of the living room (to try to avoid Jessica burying him in toys – she brings them over and offers them to him by putting them on him, so we have to watch her a bit) or when the carry cot is on the floor, she walks over herself to point and go: “Där! Där!” to show us this little person that we’ve obviously not noticed…

Thursday Ian’s Mum came over to stay with Jessica while Ian and I took Conrad over to the maternity ward at the hospital for his infant paediatric check. They checked his hips, spine, heart, etc., and noted the slight jaundice, but everything was absolutely fine.

Friday we took Conrad and Jessica out for the first time in the new double-buggy. We only went for a short stroll over to the park, for me to get some exercise and for Jessica to have a go on the swings. Later the same afternoon we had our first non-family visitors over to admire Conrad: our friend Cara and her little girl Daisy, about 2.5 months younger than Jessica.

Today, we had our second little outing with the double buggy, as we popped over to Ian’s sister Wendy’s new house not far from here. As Jessica was throwing various bottles into Wendy’s bath tub, pressing buttons on the oven in the kitchen, running around the garden throwing pebbles around and doing her best to hide her milk bottle in a bunch of ivy, Conrad had a leisurely afternoon drink and then chilled out in our arms. Sensible little man.

Gabriella

This entry was posted on Saturday, June 14th, 2008 at 9:56 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.