Ok, so here is a quick post because for the first time in 3 weeks I have the house to myself (mum and dad have gone for lunch with a client of Dad’s) and Ryan is asleep. Rarely have the two events happened at the same time – except for very early on when all I wanted to do was sleep when I had a spare minute.
Ryan is now 3 weeks and 2 days old (not that I am counting – much!). He has settled well into his new environment and has got into a reasonable routine. Generally we find that he has a feed every 3 hours during the day and 4 hours at night. Obviously it’s not always perfect but generally he is a good sleeper at night. He is not so wonderful at sleeping in the afternoon from about 2pm ish, but he is not unhappy during this time. He just lies in his bassinette and gurgles away or has cuddles with Nanna or his mum. At first it worried me that he wasn’t sleeping, but given he is happily lying there, I would prefer he be awake at that time and sleep at night, so no complaints from me!
He is feeding well – predominantly breast-feeding, with Tim giving him a bottle of expressed milk generally around the midnight/1am mark which allows me to have a decent sleep. At times we also give him a little bit of formula as a “top up” if he’s hungry, complaining and has already had a decent feed. We think we are quite lucky that he will take either breast or bottle. It means we can be flexible.
For those of you that don’t know, Ryan had a little tongue tie at birth. Basically its the little bit of skin under your tongue that attaches to the bottom of your mouth. His was too short/tight which meant he had problems attaching to the breast and it may have led to speech problems in later life. The paediatrician diagnosed this as soon as Ryan was born and said to keep an eye out for it and said they would check how breast-feeding worked after a few days. We did have a few problems with breast attachment, so at 3 days old Ryan had a “frenectomy” where the “frenum” (or piece of skin) is cut with surgical scissors (without anaesthetic). The result was immediate and feeding was no longer a problem. Apparently when Ryan had the procedure done he didn’t even whimper and not even a drop of blood was shed. The paediatrician and mid-wife collected him and took him to have the procedure done, not really asking if I wanted to be there to watch – the implication was that it was best for me not to be there. I think they were right, I probably would have freaked out! Anyway, long story short, while we had 3 days of tongue tie Ryan had to take a bottle a few times so he’s now flexible about how he feeds.
Ok, a long ramble about the trials of feeding the little man, so I’ll save the sagas of nappy changing and bodily fluids for another post. Couple of points of humour/interest on the topic though:
- Tim was the first to be pee’d on
- Tim was the first to change a pooing nappy while Ryan hadn’t finished
- Babies can do number 1 and 2 at the same time
- Babies have no manners and Ryan can fart like a trooper
- Ryan’s belch can wake the neighbours
- Projectile vomit can reach from the change table to a white top
To keep you interested here’s a photo taken yesterday on his swing. He’s still a bit big for it, so only spends a few supervised minutes in it (plus the music drives me mad!!).
Ryan in his swing
