Week 1

Whew. What a week it has been! I'm actually marveling at the fact that it's been a week already...time has definitely become more fluid and hard to track. I find myself unable to remember when events occurred. Tuesday? Wednesday? I just don't know. I'm happy to report though that all is well.

We were discharged from the hospital on Sunday morning, and have been taking care of Cameron at home since. When we left the hospital, Cam was down 6% from his birth weight. (Some weight loss is normal, as babies are born with excess fluid to tide them over until mom's milk comes in.) We had an appointment with his pediatrician on Monday to check for jaundice and weight loss. The jaundice was not too bad, but he had slipped down to a 9% weight loss. This was of concern because the pedi has a cutoff of 10% before they want to intervene and supplement with formula. We were sent home with an appointment to return the next day for another jaundice and weight check.

Fortunately, feeding has been going very well. It put a bit of pressure on me knowing that I had to make him eat enough and gain weight overnight, but he came through with flying colors. He had gained 5 ounces by the next visit, and the pedi was thrilled. Now, we just have to make it back up to his birth weight by his 2 week appointment. And the pedi thought that jaundice wasn't going to be a big issue for us. The slight yellow tinge to his skin will likely subside on its own in the coming days.

Sleep (or lack of it) is proving to be the biggest hurdle so far. We're making do. But it's hard when we have to wake him up to eat every 2-3 hours. Feeding takes 30-40 minutes, plus the time for a diaper change, burping, and soothing back to sleep. All that adds up to about an hour. And the 2-3 hour window starts from the beginning of the feeding, so even if he wants to eat only every 3 hours, that's only 2 hours of sleep (max) for us in between. But I wouldn't change it for the world. :)