Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Our First Week as a Family of Three! - Part I

Wednesday, February 3rd
After delivery, Drake nursed for the first time and did fabulous! We spent more time with him and then moved to our postpartum room. My friend, Liz, happened to be working that night and got to be my nurse! It was so nice because I could really ask anything, and she was very informative. We had our first visitors:Kate happened to be at the hospital when we called. :-)

Grandpa Patterson
Grandma & Grandpa Williams got in the car as soon as they heard Drake was here and drove three hours to meet him!

Cousins Caden & Kali meet Drake

Emily & Melissa (Melissa will be holding her baby girl in less than 4 weeks!)

Getting his first bath from Nurse Liz!

We kept Drake in the room with us overnight which meant we were awake...a lot!

Thursday, February 4th
The pediatrician came first thing in the morning to evaluate Drake and let us know that he is perfectly healthy! It was a pretty quiet day with just a few more visitors:
Matt
Jean Ann
Becky
Momma holding baby Drake!

Our last night in the hospital, we decided to send Drake to the nursery so we could get a little sleep. :-) He did great and Jason and I slept pretty well, too!

Friday, February 5th
We spent most of Friday at the hospital waiting for the pediatrician and my OB to visit and discharge us! They finally both came just after lunch and we were on our way home by 3:45pm. Ready to go home!

A quick stop by Walgreen's for pain medication and then Jason let me take an hour and a half nap in my own bed. We spent the rest of the night admiring our new son and organizing all of the things you bring home from the hospital.

My plan from the very beginning was to put Drake in his crib overnight from the day we brought him home from the hospital. We fed, swaddled, and rocked him until we thought for sure he was awake and put him in the crib. I no longer got into my own bed, and he was screaming! We were up until 4:30am with him...between feeding, changing, rocking and putting him back in his crib Jason and I were both getting a little frustrated that we didn't know what was wrong or how to fix it! I know he hadn't been getting breastmilk yet, and he was pretty gassy, but I didn't want to give him gas relief drops because I wasn't sure on the dosing. We eventually tried a pacifier (which he didn't really seem to like), and I even made 2oz of formula. He ate about a .5oz of formula, but that didn't really do the trick either. Finally, Jason suggested changing him into just a onesie and swaddling him like they had in the hospital (We had him in his football sleeper and his legs weren't going into the leg holes after he scrunched them up.). This seemed to do the trick!!! He finally slept for a little while!

7 comments:

Jill said...

Amelia is almost 4 months old and we still swaddle her...it's the only way she will sleep. I'm thinking of coming up with a giant swaddler for when she's bigger...can you imagine swaddling a 4 year old!? HA!

That baby boy is so stinkin' cute!

Flack Family said...

Love the update!!! I just can't wait to give him a squeeze...so cute!!! Glad to hear that everything is going so well for you. Hope the big "C" went ok on Tuesday!!!

Shelly said...

Thanks for sharing the updates. I am enjoying following your blog and new family of three!

Caroline said...

You look like you are doing really well as a family. Drake is such a cutie.

twondra said...

Love the update in pictures...so sweet!

He is so cute!!

Anonymous said...

nice, i'm so glad your little guy is doing well!

The Simple Life ~ The Stokes Family said...

Swaddlemes are the best....I swaddled Jack until he was 5 months old....Works wonders. Also try nurse as much as possible during the day to get the feedings in and he might sleep a little longer at night! That is what I did and Jack was sleeping through the night at 8 weeks! Best wishes! Big fan of swaddling though.