Saturday, July 25, 2009

Home Sweet Home

Dear Reader,

Too much to think, too much to say, it's been a week now. Myrtille stayed at the pediatrics during two days and she was moved back to Yukyin's side on Monday morning. She was getting better and started to take care of Myrtille, who started to be a bit painful... (baby you know?)

Quickly, it appeared to her that she needed to leave the hospital, nurses are nice, but some of them are "not that nice"... so she was getting fed up by those, but there were some very nice ones that helped her out with Myrtille. She started to breastfed her. We were a bit worried that Myrtille got used to silicone tits as she was on a formula in the pediatrics but thanks God, she started to feed on Yukyin's breast without too much issue.

A breastfed baby:
Breastfed Baby

They came back home on Tuesday and then started our endless days. Having a baby home is tiresome and no joke, it is way beyond what I imagined. From a 24h life cycle, we entered a 3h life cycle. In those 3 hours, Myrtille has a nap, a meal, a soiled diaper and above all, she reversed day and night. During the day, she sleeps right after her meal, during the night, she does not sleep and stay awake with her big eyes looking for people to take care of her. If she does not spot anyone, she'll cry... no ahem, she will yell...

Yelling is the only way for her to communicate. We keep learning one new thing per day. First day, the most obvious, she yells because she is angry. Then she yells because she soiled her diaper and she is feeling ashamed (uncomfortable). Then, she yells because she wants to poo and does not manage to do so. Another night, she was yelling because she did not manage to sleep on her belly. She yells because she wants to sleep, however, we tend to play with her until she literally freeze and fall asleep. She yells because she does not feel well on the changing table.
You'll understand that our home is a noisy house... when she is awake.

The other facet of the problem is that she is very very awaken by night and thus, we don't have a lot of time to sleep. When she is hungry she starts crying and then, Yukyin needs to prepare herself for the meal, after the meal, I need to wait for her to burp and poo and then, she can sleep... one or one and half hour and here we go again.

What she looks like every night:
Hmmmm

Anyhow, thanks for prayers, we are getting fine and hope we'll manage to get ourselves used to her or the other way around... Hehehe, right now, we are trying to keep her awake by day... so that we can all sleep at the same time by night.

Keep praying for us folks :)

Ah and a good piece of advice, if you are looking for a postnatal helper... call us to make sure you avoid our agent.

4 comments:

mindofconcrete said...

Val,

You were like that you wasn born ^^

Valutin said...

Mhhh... you are true... she looks a bit like me when I was younger.
But I had bigger cheeks and less hair...

Eugene said...

Aha... from these photos I can confidently say she looks like Yukyin. Sorry, Val.

Wish the both of you the best of luck. For a baby that young, it's hard to get her to stay awake all day so she will sleep all night. Some babies will sleep all night anyway, say from 9pm to 7am. Marin didn't.

Not sure if you want to start this habit but it makes life easier in the beginning. Just have Yukyin feed her in bed so she can drink while Yukyin and you sleep. When she's finished, you (Val) can wait a bit then change her daiper. I'm sure you notice by now she probably doesn't pee/poo until 30 mins or so after she finishes drinking.

Also, thought about using a breast pump? Would allow you both to take turns waking up at night, so at least one person can sleep.

Lastly, if you can fit one into your apartment, I suggest buying a rocking chair. Makes post-feeding burping/getting baby to sleep easier, and you can sleep to (sort of).

We feel your pain!

Valutin said...

Thanks Eugene,

We don't intend to use breast pump as the milk loose its antibodies when it enters the bottle. So, as far as she can nurse her, she will do it.

For the chair, I bought Yukyin a VIP chair, the one John has in his desk... very comfortable, with spring and all... so can use it as a sort of rocking chair. :)

Hope it will get better soon though.

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