I was prompted to write this because just last night, your dad and I were remembering the very first days of bringing you home and how we managed your care. I found that I had forgotten so many details, and that was only two months ago!
I don't want to forget the everyday details of what it's like to have you as such a wee baby, so here's an attempt at an accurate depiction of your day-to-day right now.
Right now, you have reflux, you have very stubborn thrush, you have a head tilt and flat spot on the right side of your head, and you eat every three hours (except for a 4-5 hour stretch you sometimes attempt at night). These things affect our day to day in various ways that show up in this rundown.
3am I get up from a luxurious (lol) 4.5 hour sleep (10:30ish-3) and pump. It's the end of your dad's night shift and now you're all mine to take care of until he's off work at 5:30pm.
I pump and listen for you to be stirring on the monitor. Usually you sleep soundly enough that I can finish my task, put away all the pump parts and milk, and have a few minutes before your eyes pop open and you need me. Depending on when you last ate, I may just pick you up and go sleep with you on the couch to try to get you to 6am when I need to pump again and be up for the day anyway. You always sleep soundly on someone, you are a snugglebug.
Sometimes it's already been more than three hours since you last ate, so I warm up one of the bottles from the fridge and you get a 4am bottle. I give it to you on the couch with the living room lights down low, not talking to you, just quietly filling you back up so it's easier to encourage you to try for one more sleep without much activity. It doesn't always work. Sometimes you're ready to party after that bottle no matter how calming the environment. At that point, we do some very mellow bouncing and singing to zonk you back out.
I try to keep you and I on the same schedule for the day, I pump while I give you a bottle every three hours. It took me a couple weeks to get confident in this setup, but once I got it down, it was the most convenient shortcut I've found yet. You lay on the Boppy Lounger next to me on the couch and I hold the bottle for you. We have become pros. We are an unstoppable force.
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So it's 6 or 7am depending on how the early morning went.
You eat/I pump.
You burp.
You cheese.
You coo.
You sneeze.
You are held upright for at least twenty minutes to try to prevent your reflux from bothering you. If it does, we bounce on the exercise ball. It's exhausting, but you stop crying, and that's the goal.
If you feel good, you lay down under your play mat and watch the butterflies spin above you or listen to me rattle your toys. We do tummy time to help strengthen your shoulders, chest, arms, and back. You're kinda whatever about it. Sometimes your reflux discomfort ends our play time and exercise prematurely. Sometimes I can put you in the bouncer chair and that's elevation enough for your tummy and throat to be comfortable for the rest of play time.
All the while, I am waiting with burp cloth in hand to catch your icky gross reflux spit up during play time. We call it "cheesing" and it's....fragrant. And chunky. Like...dude. Recently I've changed my entire diet to see if we can balance out your tummy. Lots of possible irritants have been eliminated but it'll be a couple weeks before we may see changes. You take two different probiotics a day to help fix your baby guts, too. My greatest hope is that I get to experience a whole day of you feeling good. Right now, you swing wildly between horribly uncomfortable and sad to being okay throughout the day. Reflux and whatever is going on with your baby guts is gnarly, I wish you didn't have to experience it.
Your first nap is when I get to eat breakfast as fast as possible as I listen for you on the monitor. Sometimes you unsettle and have to be resettled (usually just a pacifier replacement) for a solid 30 minutes. Sometimes you go down with only one little blip. It's different every day and I just go with it. Some days I get all my steps in by speed waking back and forth between your bedroom and the kitchen during your morning nap settling.
I'll walk into your dark nursery and feel around your mattress for the pacifier, then search in the dark for your mouth with a finger. You generally automatically give me a big wet baby lick and I know I've found where to put the pacifier once again. If I left my finger there for a moment longer, you'd vacuum it into your ridiculously strong little suction trap. The things we do.
Between periods of resettling you, I guzzle coffee, water, and food and then unload and reload the dishwasher as quickly as possible. I'm still in my robe and slippers at this point because who has time for a costume change during a baby morning? Not I.
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It's 9 or 10am.
You eat/I pump.
You wave your arms and kick your legs and look around the room with the bottle in your mouth. You're. So. Cute.
You burp.
You cheese.
You get held upright for 20 minutes in various different ways.
You get probiotics.
You cheese.
Then we do physical therapy. We stretch your neck and turn your head to the left in different ways for several minutes while bouncing on the exercise ball to distract you from the odd sensations. Our goal is to help you loosen up your muscles on the right side of your body so that your head doesn't roll to the right exclusively when you sleep as it has resulted in a flat spot. This preference for the right could be due to the placement of your feeding tube when you were in the NICU, though the nurses did try to change it up when they had to replace it. But perhaps the preference was already decided by that point. Whatever the case, we're working on your wonky little noggin and neck every day and consult with your PT monthly.
You cheese.
You do tummy time if you'll tolerate it.
You coo and wiggle and call out at random intervals and it's the best thing ever.
Then it's naptime. You've been awake for 60-70 minutes by the time you're yawning and looking zoned out again.
We go to your nursery and change your diaper. I wrap you in the swaddle sack nice and snug. You sometimes protest, but it doesn't last long as I pick you up, turn off the light, make sure the sound machine is on, give you a pacifier, and gently rock you in the dark for just a couple minutes before your eyes start to get heavy and your breathing gets very relaxed. I lay you down and you stare at nothing, contentedly nomming on your pacifier. With the tiny bits of morning light eeking their way between the black out curtains, I can see your eyes shining and your pacifier bobbing in the dark. You're so cute it kills me.
The unsettled/resettled routine commences once more for however long it takes.
Once you're down, I take Penny out to the backyard to chase the morning birds and go potty. Then I slam out another chore, whether it be folding laundry, straightening the kitchen, what-have-you. The coffee has hit by this point and I feel unstoppable! I may even put on clothes!
On some days, when your tummy is just no good for you, you wake up from a nap halfway through simply inconsolable with crampy gas (we hope this resolves with diet changes) I do everything known to man to get you comfortable again, but sometimes I just end up rocking you for the rest of your nap because it seems to help you feel better. This is when I have to let go of the rest of the chores and be content to hold you in the dark.
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It's 12 or 1pm.
I start a load of laundry while you're awake because the clunky but effective washer is obscenely loud so close to your bedroom and it works better to run it during your waking hours.
You get your thrush medication.
You eat/I pump.
You burp.
You cheese.
You are held upright for 20 minutes in various ways.
You cheese.
We play on the play mat and watch the butterflies spin.
We do tummy time.
You cheese.
We do your stretches.
Then it's naptime again.
Some days, your tummy makes you so uncomfortable that we can't do anything but eat, burp, and bounce on the exercise ball for thirty minutes. I'm looking forward to when your reflux days are a thing of the past.
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It's 3 or 4pm.
When I wake you up from your naps (if you didn't wake yourself up), my favorite part is watching you streeeeetch once your arms are free from the swaddle sack. You use your whooole body to stretch and I can recognize some of my own favorite stretching bends and reaches in your routine. Sometimes your stretches make me want to do some of my own with you. So I do. If the stretch is sooo goooooood, you blow a drooly raspberry. It's the best.
You eat/I pump.
You burp.
You cheese.
You are held upright for twenty minutes in various ways.
We play on your play mat.
I take approximately three million pictures of you doing...well...nothing. But I can't delete a single one. Blasphemy.
We do stretches.
You cheese.
We prep for naptime. This is your last nap before it's your daddy's turn to be the baby guy for the night.
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Somehow throughout the day, I eat a truckload of food, I drink an olympic sized swimming pool of water, I store the pumped milk after each pump, I try to keep the bottle dishes in check, I take care of little necessary life tasks. On hard days when your reflux is bad and it's making it hard to catch a tiny break, I ask for help if your daddy isn't super busy with work in his home office. It's a lifesaver to still have him nearby and he is happy to step in.
Depending on how things are going, you may take your second morning nap strapped onto me for a long walk through the neighborhood. These are my favorite days. I love getting outside and feeling your head gently bumping against my chest in the carrier as you snooze away in the sunshine. You sleep very well in the carrier as long as I'm on the move.
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At night, your daddy takes care of the routine and I can pump without having to feed you at the same time. I can shower and eat dinner without racing to get back to you. I can draw for a little bit to wind down. I can go to bed right after my 10pm pump and your daddy takes care of putting you down for the night and then is the go-fer for any of your night wakings. You attempt a longer sleep and then get a bottle once you've given a shout over the monitor. You have the funniest hungry shout. It's so distinct compared to all of your other sounds. It's a sharp and curt "WAH!" and we know exactly what you mean.
At 3am, it all begins again.