The biggest difference between Ronnie and Kirk so far is that she's nursing. Kirk was nearly a pound smaller and just didn't have the sucking reflex down at all. Plus since he was in the Level II nursery for a week I never got a chance to really spend time figuring it out with him. It was all about measurable amounts of fluid, breast milk or formula, to get him to gain weight. So it was kind of weird to have Ronnie in the hospital room with me and to be released before the full 48 hours were even up.
However, she's still small so jaundice is a very real issue. She's definitely yellowish in her face and halfway down her chest. Her extremities remain pink. But she's eating well and has been pooping the real breast fed baby poop instead of just the newborn meconium so the bilirubin is definitely being expunged. Just not as fast as we might like.
The homecare nurse came to check us out on Wednesday and found that Ronnie had dropped down to 5 pounds 8 ounces. She was down to 5lb 11oz when we left the hospital, and a weight drop is completely normal, but this was only 1 ounce off from the 10% birth weight benchmark. So the nurse suggested we bump up our first well baby visit to Thursday instead of next week. Ronnie was back up to 5lb 10oz at the clinic but who knows if that's because she had just eaten and she was totally hungry the day before. Either way, her weight is looking good and she's already grown a half inch in height. The doc wanted to have her blood checked though and get a bilirubin count. Since she was on the edge of intermediate and high levels, we took her in again this morning for the same blood work. This time it dropped, only very slightly, but at least it didn't go up. Jaundice apparently peaks on day 4 or 5 after birth so again, that all lines up. Doc decided that she should be fine over the weekend and doesn't need to have any UV treatment. At least it would have been an at-home option (they have some kind of a psychedelic light blanket now) so it's not like we would have had to take her in or anything. He'll check her out again on Monday.
Basically the weekend plan is lots of boobie milk and laying in patches of sunshine whenever possible. Nursing is very sweet but man alive do my nipples take a beating. Ronnie hasn't settled into any kind of feeding pattern yet so it's pretty much every 2 hours no matter what. She's gone as long as 4 hours between sessions but then she's also had at least one cluster feeding every day where she wants to eat about every 30 minutes for a good 2 to 3 hours. Those seem to be happening in the middle of the night so I need to start going to bed earlier just to combat that insanity. We'll figure it out. Strangely, all the trouble I had with Kirk is benefitting me now. I already knew about various techniques for latching her on, breaking the seal, getting her to swallow, and on and on. Only this time I can put that knowledge to use. I'll start pumping next week and then Mr. b can take some of the feedings. He's been awesome, changing all the diapers and doing nearly all of the Kirk care. But I know he wishes he could do more.
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3 comments:
You're such an expert mom this time! ;)
Bel - I hear you on the nipple thing! Alex is two weeks old now and even though he's really good at latching on, it's still been hard on the nipples. One thing that I've discovered is that it really helps to change nursing positions each time he feeds. That way he's not latching on to the same place each time.
I'm so glad that all is well with Ronnie. She's a lucky little girl to join your family. Hugs.
Hee, ana, lis keeps calling me an expert, too!
Changing positions definitely helps, mum, so I'm glad you know about that trick. I've got some lansinoh but haven't tried using it yet to see how much of a difference it makes.
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