Breastfeeding

So I was thinking about breastfeeding and how convenient it is that I never have to prepare any bottles - total bonus there. And then I realized just how big a bonus that was! If I had to get out of bed, go downstairs, warm a bottle, listen to Kiernan scream the entire time, and finally get to feed him, I would be up in the night WAY more than I am and I'd have to wake up far more fully than I do. So yay to being lucky enough to have had no issues with breastfeeding and not have to deal with bottle warming - especially in the night :)

Dats a big baby

Ok, not really, but Kiernan is certainly trying to catch up.

The public health nurse came by this morning and weighed him again, and he's 7lbs 11 oz now. Since he had gone down to 6lbs 9 oz by Sept 15 that's an impressive increase - he's gaining twice the average amount that a baby gains :) Not that I'm surprised by the amount I'm feeding the kid. He'll be filling out those skinny little arms and legs in no time flat!

Sleep is for wusses

Kiernan sleeps really well at night one in about every 3-4 nights. This weekend were two of his off nights so Eric and I got very little sleep. Saturday night he "perked up" around 11pm and one or the other of us were up with him until 7am. It was a really rough night and by about 5am I was convinced something was wrong with him - a fever? a cold? SOMETHING! But, as we've discovered in the past, Kiernan can almost always go to sleep withthe sun coming up so around 7 he started to drift off.
I'm starting to get very good at being able to sleep when I can though... sometimes in odd an unnecessary sleeping positions. Last night Eric woke up and asked me if everything was ok because I was sitting up in bed. I said ya... he asked if I was holding the baby... I looked down and realized I wasn't. I was just sleeping sitting up in bed. I think the baby started to stir and I sat up thinking I was going to have to get up and feed him but then he got quiet so I thought "I'll just wait a second before getting up" and when he settled back down again I must have just fallen asleep there... sitting straight up. :) I thought it was bad I fell asleep nursing or rocking the baby almost daily, now I'm falling asleep sitting up without being in a chair or even holding a baby!

Snooze

We borrowed a bassinet for Kiernan to sleep in in our room until he's a couple of months old and we're ready to move him into his own bedroom. We knew there was a light and some other functionality to the bassinet but every time we looked to figure out where to change the batteries it never seemed straightforward and it kept getting postponed. Yesterday Eric took apart the bassinet and put in new batteries and we discovered it had a vibrating mode. Kiernan seems to really like the vibrating mode so yay for that. When we put him down we turn it on and if he starts fussing we turn it on. It vibrates for about a minute or two.
So... during the night... everytime Kiernan fussed, I hit the button and Eric dubbed it my snooze button. I buy myself another 5-10 minutes of sleep before I actually have to wake up, get out of bed, and feed the little guy. I even do it in an automatic reach out and whack the button way same as you would with an alarm clock. :)

My little turtle

Kiernan cracks me up - he has the best facial expressions (all still involuntary but still) and there are so many of them that he's getting all kinds of new nicknames:

Turtle: he has a long skinny neck and his eyes are still bugged out a bit and he cranes his neck and makes this old man faces and he TOTALLY looks like a turtle to me.

Fish face: the boy loves to nurse... everytime he comes near me, if he is remotely hungry and in a lying down position, his mouth starts opening and closing like a fish... seeking his dinner. Depending on how hungry he is fish face can also appear into your neck.

Bill Cosby: you know the face.... Kiernan makes it. He is a fabulous Bill Cosby impersonator - too bad it's not the kind of thing you can capture in a photo.

Smiley: now I know this is most likely all gas, but the kid smiles a lot and man is it adorable - I can't wait until he starts doing it for real!

Not the blog post I had planned to start with

I've had daydreams of all the fabulous posts I was going to start my blog off with... I even have a list on a post it notes of all the fabulous little things I wanted to share when I started off my blog. Instead, I haven't had a moment to blog until now... and I'm writing about something interely different than I imagined. Oh well.

So the other day we started noticing discharge from Kiernan's umbilical cord "stump" - that and a bit of an odor. They tell you in the hospital that there will be an odor - after all it's rotting flesh (ew. gross. yuck.) but that if it was a strong smell then to have it checked out. When, pray tell, do you decide if it's more than just a bad odor and now a strong odor? I called the doctor's office and said "there is a bit of an odor and a bit of goopy discharge, is this normal?" thinking it probably was and they would tell me to spazz down and just relax. Well... they wanted to see him. And it turns out he does have a bit of an infection :( Blah... my poor baby.

I don't think that he feels it. And the doctor says that it's a really mild infection, hasn't spread at all and isn't likely too, and gave me some ointment to put into the "wound". The doctor also gave me a lecture that I wasn't to feel guilty because it wasn't something I had done that cause this (which is good because I did sort of feel like I must have done something wrong even though I've been trying to follow all direction I've been given). So that wasn't fun... but oh well.

On a more positive note - I was right to think this kid was a good eater and that we were doing well with the breastfeeding because he has already put all his birthweight back on and more and weighed in at 7 lbs 2 oz yesterday (he had gone down to 6 lbs 9 oz by the time we left the hospital). He's going to be a big guy in no time - which is good because he looks silly in all the clothes I have because even if they are the right length... they're big and baggy.