Thursday, September 20, 2012

Zombie parents

These days, all Brian and I do is feed the baby and change the baby and rock the baby when he is fussy and sleep somewhere in the middle if we can even get a chance. The first week with Rhys at home with us was tough because I was doing what is called "Triple Feeding" which is basically me taking Rhys to my breast for 20 or so minutes and then feeding him whatever he will eat of my breastmilk that I express into a bottle and then pumping my breasts for 15 minutes. He would eat and then sleep for about 3 hours so after all was said and done including cleaning the bottles and pumping accessories, I would have under an hour and a half to rest....if we were lucky. Usually he would be fussy sooner than 3 hours. That was a tough time indeed for all of us. Brian and I were not getting any good sleep at all.

Luckily these days my milk has finally come in and Rhys is feeding off of me much better than he used to. I am now exclusively breastfeeding, with a pump or two during the day to make a supply for brian to use when he feeds Rhys in the middle of the night so I can get some shut-eye. Right now, Rhys is sleeping under my arm while I am typing this out. He only at for about 10 minutes or so, so I imagine that he will wake up soon enough and complain of hunger. In any case, I am so glad that I don't have to pump. Pumping and cleaning the pump took about 20 minutes or so and having him take a bottle of expressed breast milk took an extra 20-30 minutes too. These days I will just put him at the breast for 30 or so minutes and if he is full enough, he will sleep for a nice hour. I guess I still don't get much sleep because he wakes up a lot more often than he used to. He used to feed about 7-8 times a day and now he is eating about 10-12 times a day. I am still not as frustrated about him getting enough to eat as I was doing with the triple feeding so life is a little bit nicer than last week.

We weighed Rhys today and he came in at 6lbs 5oz. He has already gained his birthweight and is now starting to gain weight! The lactation consultant that we met up with yesterday told us that she doesn't see any problems with me breastfeeding. She said that in another week or so, he will be doing great on my breast alone. That was good to know. Actually, the nurse and the doctor were both very happy that Rhys was feeding so well on my breast. It made me feel like I was doing something right.

Hopefully they are right and Rhys will grow leaps and bounds in the next few weeks.

We have officially run out of the Mi Yuk Gook that my mom has made for us. Luckily she will be back in SD for the weekend to make all that again and stock pile us with yummy foods. yay!!

In the meantime...Chipotle??

Here are some pictures of Rhys with his eyes open.


Look at those big hands! He is gonna be a big boy!!

 

 

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