Monday, December 24, 2012

Pineapple Newborn Summary: Week Six

This is a summary of the sixth week of Pineapple's life. She was 5 weeks old.


Nursing
She started out the week by nursing on the right w/o the nipple shield. An entire nursing session - so about 30-35 minutes. I'm gonna keep trying to get her to nurse w/o it but I'm not pushing it just yet. I told myself I was going to wait until she reached GV's birth weight but she's there and I don't think we're ready.

I'm using a MBF to nurse Pineapple at home. Now that we have the big car (a Trav.erse) I can feed her in the back seat with more privacy than the previous car (a Se.ntra). I been using the MBF because Pineapple can't seem to nurse w/o getting milk everywhere. This week I took the MBF to some playdates because I didn't want to hassle with trying to nurse her while holding her, my bo.ob, keeping her latched, keeping my boo.b covered up and wiping up all the spilled milk. The MBF is really the 3rd hand I need when BFing.

Friday we went to the park between two outings where I needed to feed Pineapple. I took a bottle and the Calma nipple. Pineapple hated it! It took a while to get going and she leaked a lot. Eventually she took the bottle but it took about 45 minutes. Sunday I took it again for her feeding that fell during mass and it wasn't any better. This time I took a regular nipple and just switched before she got really agitated. After all we were in mass and she needed to eat (quietly).

Waketime
She's so much more alert now. Her eyes watch everything. She usually makes it about 10-15 minutes after a feed before she starts yawning.

Naps
Naps are anywhere between 1-2 hours. But unfortunately she wants to be held most of the time. It seems to be the only way she can sleep. So I've been trying to transition her to the bouncer or swing. She doesn't really like either but she started out doing about 5 minutes in the beginning and at the end of the week we got some naps in it (as opposed to me holding her the entire time. I did get to take a shower one day when she napped for a bit in the bouncer (in the shower room).

Night Sleep
This is going so much better. She stretched to four hours just fine. Now I'm waiting for her to reach 11lbs which is when I feel okay with letting her sleep as long as she wants at night. I should mention that at night she sleeps in the cradle just fine. I can place her in a bit drowsy but still awake and she'll nod off on her own.

Swaddle
Still using the swaddleme blanket. We received two but for some reason I can only find one. I'm going to need to wash it soon so I might have to go back to a regular blanket swaddle.

Baby Acne
It's a little worse this week. GVs came on so suddenly it just seemed to appear one day. With Pineapple it seems to be building up a bit more each day. Can't wait till it goes away!

Spit
Pineapple has started spitting up. It's annoying because I'm never prepared for it. Of course it started up the week after her one month appt and we don't have another appt until next month.

Outings
Tuesday we had a playdate. I was only half an hour late. I don't think we'll ever make it to anything on time with the three of us. Wednesday was my OB appt. Everything is all healed up. Strangely I'm looking forward to returning to my exercise classes. We also went to the mall in the afternoon. And I had a MNI with my moms group on Wednesday night. I did take Pineapple but she wasn't the only newborn there! Thursday we went to a cookie decorating playdate and Friday we went to a preschool concert for Chicklet. After she was done with school we went out to eat. It was surprisingly easy considering Chicken and I were technically outnumbered. 

Sunday just Kevin and I went out! We went to IH.OP. Our favorite restaurant. We had an hour before Pineapple's next feed, GV was asleep and both myMom and Wiki were around so we quickly took off. We made it back in time.

Big Brother
GV is really acting so much older now. He's feeding himself and behaving in public. I was a bit worried at our playdates because a couple of times he was picked on by his friends and I don't think he realized it. But maybe it's good that he didn't retaliate and thought it was just part of playtime. Today at the Christmas Eve children's mass he walked up to join the other children at the altar and listen to the priest and then came back when dismissed with no issues. He's not a baby anymore :(.

Schedule
During the day I'm letting her decide her next feeding time as long as it's not over 3 hours. At night we're going 4-5 hours between feeds. Usually we'll do a feeding in the 8pm hour and then again in the 10pm hour. She'll nurse once or twice in the night but most times she'll nurse at 6am and then at 8:30am to start the day.

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