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Baby's first outing
Nov. 20th, 2011 02:36 pmFriday was Raul and Lena's PhD defenses, which unfortunately we missed since they were during the final visit of the kraamzorg. However, I felt so much better during the day, and Gwen had been eating well and regularly, and sleeping soundly in between, so we decided we'd go out to the post-defense party. The timing worked out great; she nursed from about 9:00 to 9:30, then we bundled her up:
got on the tram, and went to Gollem's Proeflokaal, where we arrived a little bit before 10:00. Gwen stole the show -- everyone wanted to meet her and she impressed everyone by sleeping through the noise and the heat, never opened her eyes once. Lots of people were also very impressed that she was only a week old and already out at her first pub! :) I stayed for about an hour and a half, and then I headed out and timed the trip back home perfectly so that I arrived around midnight, right when I expected her to wake up next and be hungry, and she was right on schedule. I changed her diaper, fed her (both sides! doesn't often happen), and then settled down smugly for what I thought was a good night.
It was the worst night we've had so far. She didn't nurse again until 9:30am, and not for lack of trying. Around 9:00 Joel called the breast feeding center to see if it was possible to set up an appointment over the weekend (no), and also to inquire about pumps and whether we could get her weighed again; as soon as she finished eating we got up and headed over to take a look at things. Amazingly, and thankfully, while we were there, we were told that someone had cancelled their afternoon appointment and thus if we wanted to come back at 2:30 we could see the lactation consultant then. We weighed her (3.15kg, her lowest weight yet, though they did say that their scale is somewhat different from the hanging scale she'd been weighed on -- not sure if it under- or over-weighed with respect to it -- and they didn't seem too terribly worried though I was of course very unhappy). And wonder of wonders while we were there she nursed again, only 2 hours after her previous feeding so that helped assuage some of my worry.
The meeting with the consultant was very useful; we came away with one of those big U-shaped pillows (though I haven't been able to get it to work at home like the ones at the shop worked), a breast pump on loan, and a lot of advice. The consultant also looked thoroughly at her mouth and there's no sign of palate problems, or tongue-tie, and her pronouncement was simply that Gwen's mouth is small, and thus if we don't get lined up just right, the latch won't work. The good thing about this is that it's something that will only get better: Her mouth will get bigger whereas my breasts won't get that much bigger! And it's not like she'll develop congenital palate problems or tongue-tie! So we just need to keep getting through each day, and the pump will help with that. I don't get much at a time yet, only about 20ml, but that 20ml last night meant that we could feed her a bit, take off the edge (and hence the frustration when things weren't working quickly), and then have a bit more time to get a proper latch. The pillow has helped some, as had moving to the livingroom couch for feeding instead of trying to do it in bed, but it's still not very comfortable as I end up sitting hunched over, and I know it wasn't like that when I used the pillow at the store. When we go back tomorrow morning to return the pump, I'll try to figure out how it was different.
Luckily the rest of the day went well -- in the last 24 hours she's eaten like clockwork every 3-3.5 hours. We'll go back on Thursday to weigh her again. I hope things continue like this, but since we've generally had one good night and then one bad night, I'm bracing myself for another bad night tonight.
And then this afternoon Joel determined that our kitchen sink had been leaking for at least a few days, and this necessitated a huge cleanup and a trip to the hardware store (thank goodness it's open on Sundays!) to get some more pipes and stuff to replace some that were no longer usable (destroyed gaskets, cross-threaded attachments, etc.). Not exactly how he was intending to spend his afternoon...
got on the tram, and went to Gollem's Proeflokaal, where we arrived a little bit before 10:00. Gwen stole the show -- everyone wanted to meet her and she impressed everyone by sleeping through the noise and the heat, never opened her eyes once. Lots of people were also very impressed that she was only a week old and already out at her first pub! :) I stayed for about an hour and a half, and then I headed out and timed the trip back home perfectly so that I arrived around midnight, right when I expected her to wake up next and be hungry, and she was right on schedule. I changed her diaper, fed her (both sides! doesn't often happen), and then settled down smugly for what I thought was a good night.
It was the worst night we've had so far. She didn't nurse again until 9:30am, and not for lack of trying. Around 9:00 Joel called the breast feeding center to see if it was possible to set up an appointment over the weekend (no), and also to inquire about pumps and whether we could get her weighed again; as soon as she finished eating we got up and headed over to take a look at things. Amazingly, and thankfully, while we were there, we were told that someone had cancelled their afternoon appointment and thus if we wanted to come back at 2:30 we could see the lactation consultant then. We weighed her (3.15kg, her lowest weight yet, though they did say that their scale is somewhat different from the hanging scale she'd been weighed on -- not sure if it under- or over-weighed with respect to it -- and they didn't seem too terribly worried though I was of course very unhappy). And wonder of wonders while we were there she nursed again, only 2 hours after her previous feeding so that helped assuage some of my worry.
The meeting with the consultant was very useful; we came away with one of those big U-shaped pillows (though I haven't been able to get it to work at home like the ones at the shop worked), a breast pump on loan, and a lot of advice. The consultant also looked thoroughly at her mouth and there's no sign of palate problems, or tongue-tie, and her pronouncement was simply that Gwen's mouth is small, and thus if we don't get lined up just right, the latch won't work. The good thing about this is that it's something that will only get better: Her mouth will get bigger whereas my breasts won't get that much bigger! And it's not like she'll develop congenital palate problems or tongue-tie! So we just need to keep getting through each day, and the pump will help with that. I don't get much at a time yet, only about 20ml, but that 20ml last night meant that we could feed her a bit, take off the edge (and hence the frustration when things weren't working quickly), and then have a bit more time to get a proper latch. The pillow has helped some, as had moving to the livingroom couch for feeding instead of trying to do it in bed, but it's still not very comfortable as I end up sitting hunched over, and I know it wasn't like that when I used the pillow at the store. When we go back tomorrow morning to return the pump, I'll try to figure out how it was different.
Luckily the rest of the day went well -- in the last 24 hours she's eaten like clockwork every 3-3.5 hours. We'll go back on Thursday to weigh her again. I hope things continue like this, but since we've generally had one good night and then one bad night, I'm bracing myself for another bad night tonight.
And then this afternoon Joel determined that our kitchen sink had been leaking for at least a few days, and this necessitated a huge cleanup and a trip to the hardware store (thank goodness it's open on Sundays!) to get some more pipes and stuff to replace some that were no longer usable (destroyed gaskets, cross-threaded attachments, etc.). Not exactly how he was intending to spend his afternoon...
