Avalyn turned 1 month old

Avalyn turned 1 month old ~2 weeks ago!

 

We are thankful that she's growing up really well despite a not very smooth sailing start. At 36 weeks and 2 days, she was born pretty small at 2.28kg and she was 3.316kg at 4 weeks 6 days old. She has also grown from 45cm to 49.5cm.

 

Right after the delivery, I managed to nurse her but she was soon sent to the special care unit as she had low sugar. She was put on drip and fed formula milk for 1.5 days. During this period, I nursed her twice. After she was discharged from the special care unit, she roomed in and nursed furiously throughout the 2nd night. Things seemed to go well after we went back as she was drinking every 3 hours like she did at the special care unit.

 

However, we were told that we should bottle feed her so that we can monitor her intake when she went for her jaundice test at the polyclinic. I was worried but decided to continue to nurse - pick her up every 2 hours and breastfeed.

 

Unfortunately, our sleepyhead didn't take it very well. She fell asleep too quickly and didn't drink enough. At the 2nd polyclinic check, she lost weight and was weighing 2.1+kg and doctor advised bottle feeding again. Instead of fulfilling my wish to nurse her till she enter infant care, I started pumping and bottle feed her 30ml of expressed breast milk every 2 hours.

 

She was drinking well and our hard work paid off! She gained weight and was weighing 2.4+kg at the 3rd visit. She's now taking 60 ml of expressed breast milk every 2-3 hours. I was overjoyed and I didn't mind if she wasn't nursed like I wish as long as she's growing well. Her jaundice took a while to go off but she's all well now!

I'm also thankful that my milk supply kicked in fast and going strong. I guess having experience helped me a lot this round. I started pumping 3 hourly before moving on to 4 hourly. It was tiring to juggle pumping and bottle feeding so I let my confinement auntie help to feed most of the late night feeds.

 

 

Her days are made up of lots of milk feeds, morning bath, poos and pees. During the first month, she slept for most of the day and was a quiet baby. She slept in another room with the confinement auntie and we kept our room door closed so that that Emma won't be awake by her cries. For now, I sleep with her in another room after putting Emma to bed.

 

As days passed, she became more awake and a loud crier. Things are slowly settling down to a routine but we are still feeding mainly on demand. Thankfully, her "on demand" is mostly drinking every 2 hourly with some exceptions in the early morning and evenings.

Her biological clock is nicely tuned by 4th week. During the first month, there were times she took longer time to fall back to sleep in the middle of the night. Now, she usually fall back to sleep right after her night feeds. But, she tends to get fussy around bedtime.

 

Juggling with two can be challenging at times and we are still learning. May we have more wisdom, strength and patience, as we always prayed for!