Wow. Well Griffin has been home for 5 days now, and life is definitely interesting! Day 1 and 2 were pretty normal, he was still on his 3 hour schedule from the NICU. He ate and sleep fine. Enter day 3. Wednesday morning he just decided to scream his head off during his 4 am feeding. I have no idea why. I burped him, changed him and waited. Eventually we finished and he slept. Weird. He proceeded to scream during every nursing session the rest of the day. Only during nursing. He still slept and was a joy during waketime. We took him to church Wednesday night and he did great while there. He slept on and off and didnt fuss. Then we came home. I tried to nurse. He just screamed and screamed. I just broke down crying. I couldnt stand hearing my baby boy so upset, and I felt so lost on what was wrong. All day he would start nursing on one side and nurse for like 3 or 4 minutes fine. Then he would come off and cry if you tried to nurse him anymore. (Any ideas why people?) So Mr.Pate had me go pump so we could try a bottle. He took the bottle fine.
Mr.Pate sent me to bed and took care of Griffin the rest of the night. He woke me up to pump when I needed to but just let me rest and completely took care of our child. The man is my rock. I got up for the 4ish feeding and pumped and fed that to Griffin. He did fine with it. So then at the 7ish feeding, I nursed again. He did ok. I had to take time in between each side and offer both sides twice, but he didnt scream his head off so it was improvement.
The rest of yesterday was unpredictable. He didnt sleep on schedule or eat on schedule. We are trying to roll with it, but it is so hard to when he was so scheduled in the NICU. We managed to leave for awhile yesterday and go to AT&T and Starbucks. He mostly slept while we were out, but when he did wake up he was still really good. Then we came home and the rest of the night was much better. We are going back to the nursing then bottle at the next feeding like we did in the NICU. Until he is better at nursing that is just what we are going to try.
He slept in between all feedings from 6pm on last night. He has done really well today too. I did offer him a bottle after one feeding today because he would only nurse for about 10 min total. I just wasnt sure he got enough. And he took 40 ml from the bottle, so I am guessing he did not get enough.
I am trying to just relax and remember that this is just week one of him being home. But I am anxious too because I go back to work soon and need to have things adjusted in the next 3 weeks. Ugh!
So anybody got any advice or encouragement for this first time mom?? Did anyone else feel this clueless when they got home?
I think if any new mom tells you they've never felt that way, they're fibbing! Babies are all different & unpredictable. We (mommy & baby have to get to know each other & learn what works.) Charli had her own schedule. As much as we tried to keep her on one, she decided hers was better. You just adjust & do what works best for baby & for you. Maybe sometimes those aren't the same, but there a happy medium eventually. It's hard because some ppl have those eternally content/on-schedule babies. Always made me feel like I wasn't doing something right. But I learned, babies are different & different things work for some & not others. (after Charli having many a meltdown & me having one with her) Hang in there & like you said, just roll with it. Charli changed schedules quite a few times along the way too. She was testing us I think. Can't offer any advice on nursing. One of my friends really wanted to nurse but her child just wouldn't do it. Nothing to her fault, he just wouldn't do it. So she pumped & bottle-fed. I know she felt bad for a while, but she knew she tried & she was feeding him which was the most important part. Good luck with that.
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