Mrs. Schwartz's Kitchen: Addison, Month 1

So cliche, but I cannot believe our baby girl is a month old! Well technically 6 weeks old but I'm writing about her first month! Time sure does fly when you are up to your elbows in yellow grainy mustard poopy diapers. :)

Overall, things are going so so great! As I mentioned in her Birth Story post, Addison (Addie) had a touch of jaundice and we had to have that monitored pretty closely. We used the Billie Blanket for one night and had a doctor's appointment the next day.

Her levels were checked and we were told that we didn't need to continue with the blanket but we should monitor how much we were feeding her since jaundice is "cured" by babies pooping it out. So, I pumped and we measured the breast milk to make sure she was getting enough so she could keep pooping it out.

(At the doctor, clearly stressed out)

We went to the doctor a day or so after (the first days are such a blur at this point) and her levels were just fine. But, then when they weighed her, she ended up loosing 10% of her body weight since birth.

This was the Friday before Labor Day and the doctor said if it was a regular weekend, he would tell us to come back on Monday but since it was a long weekend he suggested that we go to urgent care for a weigh-in.

We did. We hauled all of our butts into urgent care on Saturday of Labor Day weekend and sat there…for 3 hours! Just to get a little weigh in. Everyone was hacking and sniffling in the waiting room so we hid in a corner and bathed in hand sanitizer. We really didn't want our week old, healthy baby getting sick from this. Ultimately, her weight was just fine and we were on our way home to take naps.

Another thing we had to tackle this month was figuring out how this little girl likes to sleep.

Bundled to the max since we just gave her a bath and the nurses said that babies loose a ton of their body heat after baths when they are tiny. So, I bundled her up real good.

After a few nights of bundling her hands in, we figured out that baby girl loves her hands and gets real ticked when they are swaddled in. The third night at home after listening to Addie grunt all night, Aaron said "why don't you try putting her in the sleep sack with her hands out." I thought he was crazy and said "babies this little don't like to have their hands out…" After she cried for a solid 2 minutes (that's a long time for her), I popped her hands out, we haven't looked back since. Daddy was right. He knows his girl.

Morning Nap

At three weeks, Aaron went "up north" to go hunting and my mom, Nana, came to stay with us. I was so great to have her with us! Addie decided that she would sleep through the night that weekend and hasn't stopped since. She sleeps from 9:00 or 10:00 to 5:30 or 6:00. Pretty amazing stuff.

The first night she did it, I woke up on my own and the sun was coming up, I freaked out thinking that she was dead and immediately jumped out of bed to see her still snoozing away in her bassinet.

Although she sleeps through the night this little one is the LOUDEST baby I have ever met. She grunts and moves around arms and legs flying around to get comfortable. So, while she sleeps through the night, we do not. Might be time to send her to the nursery…I'm not ready yet.

To help all of us sleep, Nana and Papa took our dog, Rem for the first few days. We were happy to get him back and that he has been so good with Addie!

Another thing we had to figure out is feeding/eating. As I mentioned, Addie had a slight case of jaundice and so I had to pump to make sure she was getting enough to eat. We "dropper" fed her with a small syringe that we slipped into her mouth, next to our pinky. What a joke! We did this on and off for the first month! I ended up getting mastitis twice in the first two weeks so I pumped and pumped and we fed her using the dropper method. Have any of you had mastitis!? Mamas are not kidding when they say you feel like you got ran over by a truck. It is the worst. I sat in our living room chair and cried for about an hour out of complete exhaustion and helplessness. I couldn't even hold Addison I hurt so bad.

During my 12 hour nursing break…

But with some meds, tons of pumping and…

Cabbage, yep, cabbage IN my bra, I was back up and running. Well not running, let's not kid ourselves, I was back up and nursing.

Not going to lie, nursing was no easy feat between the supplementing, mastitis and learning what the heck I was doing. I had a consultation in the hospital and three phone consultations to figure out that Addie's latch wasn't quite right. Once we got that figured out, and the mastitis under control, things got much, much better!

We also had a lot of sweet visitors that came bearing gifts of snuggles, presents for me and the baby and FOOD! Our friends and family are awesome cooks.