Time has amazingly flown. It feels as though I have just blinked and suddenly
AJ is a month old.
I would like to say that it has been all smooth sailing but it hasn’t. Even
with over a decades worth of child care experience, I’ve found myself
challenged like never before with this tiny human and while I knew that having
my own was not going to be the same, I’ve found myself in this funny middle
ground where I know what I’m doing but at the same time everything is new.
This is why I wanted to document this new journey. I wanted to be able
to share what life is like and show the journey that we go through as this year
is going to be a big one and that’s not just because AJ was due. We’ve got a
number of big changes happening in the next couple of months alone.
So buckle in as this is a long one!
Family Life
I’m currently in the middle of writing up my birth story, as well as
what happened each trimester, but we were not fully prepared for AJ to arrive.
My waters broke early on the 20th of January at 36 weeks and 5 days
and we were still missing the bassinet for the pram and hadn’t installed the car
seat yet. No one was aware that I was in labour until we sent off the
announcement that she was here and everyone was surprised.
The majority of AJ’s first week with us was spent in the hospital.
Originally it was because we were unable to get some at-home services due to
where we lived so the hospital suggested that we stay a couple of days so all
the tests that needed to be done could be done. On the day we were set to go
home we found out that she had lost over 10% of her weight which wouldn’t have
been a big issue as the midwives were sure they would just have us top up with
formula to boost her weight. What made us stay longer was AJ’s jaundice levels
being high enough that she needed night therapy. The first 24 hours she was on
a billy blanket in our maternity room but that only lowered her levels a little
bit and we ended up in the special care nursery for another 24 hours so she
could be under more intense lights.
Every second day of her second week was spent going back to the
hospital for follow up blood tests. After the second one it was suggested that
we got 48 hours on formula instead of just topping her up and see if that
helped. It did and it confirmed the doctor’s suspicions that she had breast
milk jaundice. We were given the all-clear to go back to breastfeeding but I
eventually decided to go exclusively to formula after a lot of issues trying to
get her to latch and many tears.
While all this was going on, we introduced Arlo and Daphne to AJ. Their
introduction requires their own post because I cannot gush about how well these
two adjusted to the new human in our house. They are so amazingly gentle with
her and protective. She just has to make a single upset cry and they are at her
side in an instant checking to make sure she is ok. She can’t go a couple of
hours without getting a sniff over by one or both of them and occasionally
Daphne is able to sneak in a lick or two before we’re able to get her to stop. Amazingly,
the two of them had a harder time adjusting to all the new items that we had in
the house for AJ than AJ coming home herself.
We are still slowly making our way through meeting family members. My
parents came down for my 30th birthday to meet her as did T’s
parents and both sets of grandparents are enamoured with the newest addition to
the family. AJ is the 10th grandchild on T’s side of the family so
she has a number of cousins who were excited to meet her. Fittingly one of the
first was the niece who managed to outdo an Aunt and a cousin in guessing what
her name was when I was halfway through the pregnancy. She was also talking
about swapping AJ for her little brother but in the end decided to stay with
her brother.
My brother, J, met her for the first time last week and I have never
seen him look so excited in his life. I shouldn’t be surprised as every time he
and our other brother, B, were at my parent’s house while I was calling Mum I
would always hear them call out “Am I an Uncle yet?”.
We still have a few close family and friends who haven’t met her yet
but it is only a matter of time before that happens.
Health
So, this is a category that I probably won’t always have in these updates
but because AJ is new and we’ve had a few health-related checks this month it’s
worth having in here.
Before I go any further, I will be very transparent – we are vaccinating
our daughter. I am an asthmatic, I developed it later in life after having
pneumonia, so making sure that I stay up to date with my vaccinations is very
important, for my professional life as well as my personal life. I make sure to
get my flu shot every year as well because I find that even if I catch the flu,
the shot lessens the effects of it and I get over it a lot quicker than when I
don’t get it. So, there was no question regarding whether or not we were going
to vaccinate AJ. When she was born, she was given her first two shots – Hep B
and Vitamin K – and she took them well with no sign of any kind of reaction in
the 24 hours after.
The one thing I was really keeping an eye on after her birth was AJ’s
head. We had to have assistance with a vacuum during labour and so for a few
days afterward she had a large lump that was bruised on top of her head. The
lump went down beautifully and we were warned that it could cause some jaundice
but because the area didn’t yellow, we thought we were in the clear until they
did some blood tests. A month later you can only tell that she had something
happen to her head because she had some marks that are still healing on her
head and it looks like she’s been scratched there.
I went into detail about AJ losing more than 10% of her birth weight
and her jaundice in the previous section so I won’t go over that again. We went
through all the normal newborn tests while we were in hospital and AJ passed
all of them beautifully. Everything came up clear but we were told that that
doesn’t mean that things won’t develop, just that at the moment she’s passing
them. Like most things, we have to keep an eye on them, especially in terms of
some family history health things.
This month AJ got her first virus as well. I will always be thankful to
my amazing friends who pointed out to my sleep-deprived self some abnormal
breathing after I showed them a video of her squeaking as she had always done. After
monitoring it and talking to another friend who had more experience with medical
things, we decided to err on the side of caution and went to the ER. The ER
doctors thought that she had Laryngomalacia, where the tissue above the vocal
cords are softer than normal and can flop back onto the airway, and a suspected
heart murmur and admitted us just to be on the safe side and to expedite tests.
However, an hour before we were taken up to paediatrics, AJ’s temperature started
to rise and by the time we were in our room she had a fever.
Because she was so little, we had to do a number of tests that included
a lumbar puncture and I can tell you now I have never felt so helpless than I
did while we were doing these tests as I wasn’t able to pick her up and
properly comfort her. She was then put on IV antibiotics and antivirals as a
precaution for 48 hours. Thankfully it turned out to be a virus and nothing
more. The doctor and I believe that what presented to me as hay fever
(only a sniffly, itchy nose) was actually a virus and AJ happened to pick it up
as well which explained the abnormal breathing and her squeaking. I’m still
kind of beating myself up about this as I can’t believe I missed it but
considering she was acting completely normal up until the night we were admitted
I’m trying to give myself a break.
With it being a virus there isn’t anything you can actually do to get
it to go away other than keep her fluids up and put some saline up her nose to
help move everything. She’s handling everything beautifully and right now we’re
pretty sure she’s going through a growth spurt as her appetite has increased as
it does when she’s having a growth spurt.
Feeding
Before AJ was born, I decided that I was going to do what was best for
me and for her to ensure that we were both happy and healthy. I had supported enough
Mum’s over the past decade to know that fed is best when it comes to babies and
I didn’t want to put my own mental health or AJ’s health on the line just to
satisfy my need to breastfeed.
We had a lot of problems trying to get her to latch deep enough. Then
we had to pause breastfeed and express to ensure that she was getting enough milk
to help her gain weight again before we had to do 48 hours on formula to see if
that helped her jaundice. We jumped each hurdle as best we could and once we
got the all-clear to go back to breastfeeding, I bought nipple shields in the
hope they would help and joined a breastfeeding group on Facebook.
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Over the next four days, I found myself getting more and more stressed.
It didn’t help that when I went looking for help with AJ’s latch on the
Facebook group that I had a woman tell me that I had done the wrong thing by
following the doctor’s instructions and should have just kept breastfeeding because
hearing that was going to help me so much. I got one good day of latching with
the nipple shield and their advice before I was back to the beginning.
In the end what ended out breastfeeding journey was the day she turned
3 weeks and I spend all morning trying to get her to latch using a nipple shield
only to have her knock it off as I was positioning her. By midday I was crying,
AJ was crying and I made the decision that we were done. My stress was
stressing AJ out and that wasn’t good for either of us. I knew that she was
going to be fine on formula and she transitioned without issues because we were
still using it to top her up.
Since moving her onto formula she has grown so much and become such a
happier baby. She is currently averaging about 80ml-90ml every 2.5 to 3 hours,
with the exception of when she is having a growth spurt as she will want to
feed every 2 hours and can eat anything from 70ml to 110ml.
T has been amazing with sharing everything to do with AJ and quite
often he will wake up to her cries before I do because he is a lighter sleeper.
He’ll then go downstairs and get her bottle as I wake myself up enough to get
her out of bed and by the time I’m all set up, T has returned with her bottle.
During the day we divide the feeding and everything else to do with her so AJ
is very comfortable being fed by both T and myself.
Sleeping
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That is not to say she doesn’t have her moments. I’ve found that she is
more likely to be unsettled during her growth spurts which often result in her
wanting to stay awake and just have cuddles in bed as her Dad and I watch a
movie in bed. However, after a while, I can give her a dummy and she’ll slowly
drift off to sleep in my arms before I’m able to transfer her to her bassinet. She’ll
then stay asleep until she is hungry next and will wake us up.
In regards to sleep for T and I we will hand off to each other. Some
night I will go to bed early and T will look after her until he goes to bed and
then we go to our normal night feeding routine. In the morning, I let T sleep
in as when I don’t go to bed early I will have a nap during the day so we hand
off to each other in those times. The only ones whose sleep routine hasn’t been
played with are Arlo and Daphne, who happily sleep through all of this and have
only shifted their positions on the bed so they could be closer to AJ.
Development
I’ve always found that the first month I often one of the slowest in
terms of development due to the fact that newborns sleep a lot. As a result, you’re
often finding yourself spending more time working out their rhythm, their
eating cues, and a thousand other things to help make taking care of them
easier than on watching to see what they’re up to development-wise. It doesn’t
make you a bad parent, it just means that you are adjusting to a huge change
that had happened in your life.
This past month for me has been no different even though I know what development
happens. It’s not like when I was a nanny as I would get a full night’s sleep
and come in able to recognise the development that it happening. Right now,
even though I’m aware of everything that happens in the first month, I’ve
basically been on default as I adjust to everything. That doesn’t mean I haven’t
been paying attention, just that noting everything down this month hasn’t
really been as high on my list as getting to a good rhythm has been.
The first month of life is a lot about the reflexes. Many of their
movements are caused based on their reflexes as they’re just not thinking
purposely with their actions. This will change as they get older. AJ’s reflex
movements are really good. Putting aside the issues that we had with latching,
she is able to feed very well (often being miss piggy and coming away with a
milk beard), she will root around for food and when the bottle is touched to
her cheek she will move her head in the direction the bottle in in. If you
place an object in the middle of her hand she will grasp it, providing she isn’t
too sleepy, and when placed on a flat surface she will put one foot in front of
the other, which is something she often does if her feet are touching my thighs
when I’m holding her.
She’s very good at searching out sounds. If she hears myself or T
talking she will either turn her head in the direction that she heard us or
will just use her eyes to search us out. While she is mostly seeing in
contrasts at the moment, she will track items she finds interesting, often a
person or Arlo or Daphne. She will also stare very deeply into your eyes while you
are talking to her.
In terms of loud noises not a lot startles her. Arlo is a barker so she
has heard him do this since before she was born and now when he barks, she
doesn’t even wake. The only time that changes is when he barks very close to
her head. We’ve found very few noises cause her to have that startled movement
but it does occasionally happen. I’m not too concerned about that as I would be
if she wasn’t searching out our voices when we talk. Its something I’ve noted
to maybe bring up with our doctor at her 6 week check-up but I’m honestly not
too upset that loud noises don’t disturb her.
She has very good neck strength for a baby that was 3 weeks early. When
she is on our chest she will very easily lift her head to look at our faces or
to turn her head so she can look in a different direction. However when you put
her on the floor, the extra gravity puts her back slightly so we’re starting to
have less tummy time on Mum and Dad’s chest and more on the floor. This does
become a little difficult as Arlo sees this as playtime so we usually time
some tummy time for when we’ve let them out to go to the toilet. On top of
doing more floor tummy time, we’ve started to do some of the songs that
Gymbaroo has on YouTube. They’re an amazing resource that you can use to help baby
start to learn about their bodies, music, and rhythm as well as a lot of other
concepts.
AJ is a very calm baby. As I said earlier, very little startles her and
she’s honestly very happy to just chill and hang out with anyone who wants to
hold her or in her swing. The only times you really hear her get upset is when
we have to change her, when she has to get out of a bath or when she is hungry.
That is not to say she is not a noisy baby. She coos and gurgles throughout the
day and while she is sleeping. I find the noises that she makes while sleeping
comforting as I know that she is ok, its when she goes silent that I have to
check to make sure that she is fine.
While I’m not focusing on getting her to fall asleep on her own yet,
she does already have the ability to self soothe herself to sleep if I place
her in her swing or bassinet and walk away to cook dinner or hang up some
clothes. Most of this self-soothing is done by sucking on her hands or a dummy
and I’ve discovered that if she is having problems trying to fall asleep in the
middle of the night, giving her her dummy and some gentle rocks helps her to
drift off.
If you’re looking to find out more information on your baby’s
development Pregnancy, Birth and Baby is a great website to go and have a look
at. For development only (for the first 12 months) you should go here. I found
this place a great resource throughout my pregnancy and while I was working out
how I wanted to give birth.
How are Mum and Dad?
We’re tired. I’m not going to sugar coat it, we’re tired. Thankfully we
handoff to each other so we can have time to catch up on sleep during the day
or just time to ourselves so it’s not as bad as what it could be.
I will say that since having AJ, I feel as if we have grown close (as cliché
as that is to say). I don’t know whether its because we’re now got less time to
spend with each other alone or if its something else, but we have been a lot
more physically affectionate. By that I mean there have been a lot more hugs,
kisses and butt slaps than there has been recently.
Really we’re enjoying the time we have together as T goes back to work
on the 2nd of March and that will be my first week doing the day
solo. We’re also just enjoying the calm at the moment as towards the end of
March and beginning of April we’ll be getting things ready so we can move, so
things won’t be as calm as they are now.
What’s coming up?
With the beginning of her second month, AJ actually has a busy couple
of weeks ahead of her. She still has a Great-Grandfather and Great-Uncle that
she needs to meet as well as an Aunt, so we’re hoping that we’ll at least get
to introduce her to Pa in the next week before T goes back to work.
The same week that T starts back at work, we’ve got two doctors’
appointments – the first is a follow up with the paediatric doctor we saw while
in the hospital to make sure that everything is ok with her following her hospital
stay. The second is her 6-week check-up and vaccinations. Considering how well
her first two shots went, I’m not expecting any reactions to happen but I’m
going to be making sure we’re prepared none the less. We have a cousin’s
birthday party that same week as well.
After all those things with calm down a little bit before we begin to
get ready to move interstate for the first time as a family unit. So her second month is looking to be a little
more active compared to her first month.
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