The First Few Days

Things have been completely insane since coming home on Sunday. I knew that babies sleep in weird intervals, and I expected to be up a lot at night. What I didn't realize is that newborn babies don't know night from day, which, in this case, has translated to "I don't sleep at all at night". Sunday night was especially difficult. We learned really quickly that we were going to have to forgo the bassinet and our bed for now and set up shop downstairs where we can access the pack n play. Shortly after that we learned we need multiples of everything, all the time. The first night she peed during a changing (all over daddy) and it went through her clothes and blankets (this has happened multiple times!). So we started bringing extra onesies and blankets to whatever room we're in and that helped for night #2.

E also has about 14 poopy diapers the first day, which was insane. We were changing her almost every hour. A was getting very frustrated and confused and we didn't realize how infants sleep, which is so differently from us. It takes them a while of being soothed to get into a deep enough sleep to put them down, so that was a learning experience that also helped for night #2. Sunday night we basically got no sleep at all.

Monday night we definitely changed some things. We had the lights on until we were ready for bed time, which we'd read was a good idea. She didn't poop as much so we didn't change quite as many diapers, which helped. She did pee through blankets again but we had new clothes ready right next to us. And I figured out that once we feed and change and burp her, if I hold her for a half hour or so, it's much easier to get her to sleep in the newborn napper. This technique bought me 2 hours of sleep from 2-4am, which was a total life saver. And I was able to let A get about 6 hours because he took over for an hour earlier and I got a nap. I also discovered that she is pretty good at self-soothing. She's way too young to cry it out, but sometimes she'll get really fussy, and she's been great about getting herself back to sleep. I only go pick her up if she starts really crying, because she really only cries if she needs something, which we're thankful for.

Breastfeeding has been tough because she was losing a lot of weight in the hospital and I had to give her formula, so now it's hard to get her to latch on. I always make her try before I give her a bottle because I do have milk for her, but it's harder than the bottle so she doesn't want to put in the effort. We're trying though, and I may buy a hand pump to give her that instead of formula at least.

I have to admit that things are much more difficult than I thought they would be, but we're learning a lot and we're learning fast so I think things will continue to get better. I think it's good that I didn't start out with expectations of her sleeping a ton. I am hoping to get her to a point where I can feed, burp, and change her, then rock her, and get that done in an hour, then get her to sleep for 2 hours. I think this is attainable and will help us to get some sleep and a good routine for her for right now while she has to eat constantly.

Things are improving and she's the most beautiful baby I've ever seen which makes things much easier to deal with. It's tough to really complain when I get to look at this every day.