So things are improving in the Dozeman household. Henry has finally figured out when day is day and night is night. We're still not getting a lot of sleep but we're working with quantity instead of quality. According to most people with kids, we should just get used to this kind of sleep anyways.
Saturday we were grateful to have our parents here full time again. Lois spent the night and of course Henry was a perfect angel and didn't wake up every hour like he did with me on Friday night. Sunday we were starting to get the hang of things and sent the parents home for the afternoon. Mike and I made it through the night with little problems. Henry was a good boy and let us sleep about 3.5 hours straight and only kept us up for about 45 minutes before we had another stretch of 3.5 hours. We're adjusting but it's slow.
We're still struggling with breastfeeding. We have a crazy schedule. From 9 a.m. to 11 p.m. I will attempt to breastfeed. From 11 p.m. to 8 a.m. I will pump and Mike will feed just because it's faster at this point. When breastfeeding, it's a whole process for us to get it to work. First I use previously pumped milk to give Henry about 1/2 oz up front to kill the crazy hunger he has when he first wakes up. Then we attempt to feed and latch which takes a bit of time. Then when we think he's about done or he gets too frustrated to finish, I pump while Mike feeds him from a bottle the rest of whatever was left from my previous pump or he puts him to bed. I know it sounds complicated but we somehow have it down to a system. Unfortunately it seems like by the time we finish cleaning up from one feeding it's time to start over again.
Sunday we noticed Henry's diapers smelled really rancid. I didn't think they would start smelling until he started on solids. At first Mike thought I was nuts and then he started to smell it too. Finally we noticed the smell and Henry had a clean diaper so we were confused. Then, we smelled his umbilical cord. Oh. My. Gosh. Gross. The thing smells like what we will later hear and agree with, a dead mouse. Being the paranoid parents that we are we called the pediatrician after hours number and they told us to clean it with alcohol and make an appointment for the morning. We got an early appointment and took our stinky little man in to be checked.
Thankfully the cord looks fine and it's just a bit thicker so it's taking awhile to dry out completely. Because it is technically rotting flesh, that is what it smells like. Usually they tell people to leave the cord alone and let it dry out but with us we have to apply the alcohol with every diaper change until it dries properly. We will just have to live with the smell. It does improve a bit with the alcohol but it's a bit embarrassing to have our little guy stink and not be able to do anything about it!
After our doctor appointment we made another trip to the breastfeeding center and worked with their lactation consultant again. We were surprised and embarrassed to learn that Henry is not the problem - it's us. He's trying to feed and latch but we're making it hard for him and we're doing a heck of a lot more than we should to get him to feed. I was very frustrated with the lady got him to latch in less than 2 seconds when it takes me a full 5-10 minutes sometimes. We left with more tips and hopefully they will help us switch from the bottle-breast-bottle system we have going now.
We were very proud to make it through lunch at Steak and Shake with Henry. He slept through the whole thing and we were able to eat in peace. We did sit next to a family with two children and we watched one little boy tip over his plastic cup into his highchair table and knock the majority of it around splashing him and everyone around him before his mother could stop him. We're not quite ready for that phase of childhood yet... Baby steps.
1 comment:
Ewwwww. :(
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