Got Milk?

Firstly - all is well. Baby Ruby is adorable and I'm in love with her. I'm struggling a bit with recovery as I lost a lot of blood in delivery and I'm still really weak and shaky and I cannot do much of anything before I feel like I might faint. Steve has been awesome. He's become my personal assistant, chef, house keeper, and a huge support for me all around. He goes back to work on Thursday and I don't know what I will do without him. Seriously, I have anxiety just thinking about it.


And now to the reason for this post:

Since coming home on Sunday we've been breastfeeding as planned - it's going ok. I think we're getting the hang of it (Ruby and I) and I feel optimistic that it's something we're going to be pros at.

My milk just came in last night (Monday night) and we had a marathon feed - which was much needed as I just didn't feel like she was getting enough from the colostrum alone.

Today Ruby had her first checkup at the midwife's office.

Her birth weight was 7lbs12oz (not exactly the bruiser we were told to expect) and her going home weight, a day later was 7lbs5oz. Today she weighed 7lbs even.

I expect that now that my milk is in she should start to gain weight. The midwife gave us a scale to take home and we have to weigh her tomorrow to see if she's starting to gain.

The thing is, she's a bit of a lazy eater and it's a lot of work for me to get a "full meal" in her. And sometime she sleeps and sleeps and sleeps and I have to wake her up to feed her and that usually doesn't go well. She would rather sleep than eat. When I feed her after having to wake her up, she is really uninterested and it's frustrating for me because I feel like I NEED to get some food in her. I was told by the midwife today that right now I do need to get 8 "good feeds" in her every 24 hours and then any other little mini feeds on top of that, until she starts to gain. Once she starts gaining, I can let her sleep when she wants to sleep and eat when she tells me she's hungry - which I am soooo looking forward to.

So I'm just wondering what is typical? How long does it take for a baby to stop losing weight and start gaining? I really want to only feed her when she's hungry but obviously I want her to be healthy and start gaining - so I press on.



Any input, advice, suggestions?