Several of my friends were a little surprised when we came home on Friday after having been induced and delivering Thursday. Well, friends, our hospital is what they call "baby friendly". Some of this is good. VERY good, in fact! The nurses encourage you to do an hour of skin to skin with baby and attempt to nurse during that time (if you plan to nurse) and encourage alone time with mommy, daddy and baby (no family unless you request them to come in). These are GOOD things!
Then, there are the bad things. Theres no longer a nursery. So, not only do you get to keep baby with you in your room 24/7, but there are tests that must be done on baby that are done in your room.
This equates to NO sleep for Mom and Dad. If theres not a nurse checking the baby, theres one coming in to get my vitals or ask to see my bottom (again!). Oh, helpful hint to any first timer's out there... you can ask to "defer" the checking of your bottom and they'll leave you alone until shift change. YESSSSS!
So that first night was spent basically holding Lainey and letting her live on the breast. Thats where she was comfortable and thats what allowed us some sleep!
On friday, her hearing test was completed (she passed, PTL) and her PKU was done. They also weighed her prior to discharge and she had dropped from 7lbs 9oz to 7lbs 4.3oz. Which was fine! So after having a lactation consultant come in and discuss breast feeding (separate post on that) and Dr Sheth cam in to check her, we packed up! Dr Sheth noted that Lainey was tongue tied so we headed straight to her office to have Michelle (our PA there... we LOVE her!) clip her little tongue and again, work with a LC to get the latch corrected, etc.
And finally, home!
Mama had gotten Rhyan off the bus and we picked up Mack from Jeff's parents house on the way home. Mama and Rhyan had cut our grass AND fixed dinner! SO SO helpful and nice!
That first night was interesting. I've typically had the kids in my room for a day or two at most in the bassinet part of the pack and play and then send them off to their cribs after a couple of nights of no sleep because I hear their every wimper. But in our new house, our pack and play wont fit in our bedroom! Which I hadnt thought of! So we tried putting the swing in there instead.
Long story short, she ended up in bed with me. I'm a bit shocked myself! But she was definitely in the "second night delight" phase where all she wanted to do was nurse non stop anyways, so it was ok. Not safe. Not a good long term solution. But we were in survival mode!
The very next day I went to target and got a rock and play for her to sleep in. It was small enough to fit beside me and I could get to her easily! Seemed like a great solution! She seemed to like it on that first night, too, and it was easily portable which was nice!
Those first few nights, though, were rough. I was still nursing and we were struggling with latch and supply and she was wanting to eat constantly those first couple of nights and then it became less and less (again, i'll do a separate post on my nursing experience, but basically her little body was shutting down and she was sleeping non stop b/c of lack of calories). But having her right there during all of that worked out pretty well!
I was also pretty much feeling back to normal! I was just barely sore but got around fine!!!I couldnt believe it! I wore some super tight postpartum panties I had bought when still preggo and they really helped my stomach to contract faster for sure!
This go round, I did NOT worry about a schedule at all for the first week at ALL. I just fed her whenever she cried or woke to feed her if she slept past 3 hours. I held her kind of non stop :-) And soaked her in!
We also had several dr's appointments for weight checks which i'll include in the breast feeding post. But here are some sweet pics of our sweetie coming home from the hospital and beyond!
A screen shot of her hospital picture! In the baby ford scrubs, of course!
Her waking up faces :-)
Heading to the dr for a check up!
Baby feet/ toes are the BEST!
Lainey's first grins! Gas grins, milk grins, whatever you call it... its so sweet!
I'm telling you... those first two weeks, I held this baby! a LOT!
Her first outing was when she was 11 days old... to chick fil a for family night! Baby Lainey, meet baby cow! HA!
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