Monday, September 25, 2006

6 Weeks

Jordan will be 6 weeks old tomorrow and I can’t imagine where the time has gone! Do I feel like a mother…no not really..but then what is a mother meant to feel like. Do I feel like Jordan and I have bonded? Yes, I’m lucky as I have a photo of the exact moment when I fell in love with my little boy..it is this one…he is a few hours old and it was the first time he looked at me.


The last day or so I have found myself kind of grieving…yes grieving…my little boy is growing so fast, his cheeks are nice and chubby and I’ve noticed that his clothes are getting a bit too small for him…he is currently still in size 0000, while some are still big there are a few jumpsuits (rompers) that I will have to pack away in the next week or so. The prospect of packing away his tiny little clothes is what is making me grieve, I want to cherish this time and remember how tiny he is.

Yet..and yet there is a part of me that is excited to have him grow and I also long for the day where he is sitting and can play a little more. Or finish a story book, currently I can only read a few pages until he gets bored and falls asleep or he starts fretting.

I’ve been kind of MIA over the last few weeks because I’ve been trying to introduce a routine…one dictated by me and not Jordan. There are some good days and bad days.

I tried the “demand and supply” routine with the feeds and Jordan was all over the place, drinking 150ml’s at one point then two hours later drinking only 50 ml’s. So I decided to try and stretch Jordan out to 4 hourly breaks between each feed, then offering him 150ml’s. It works sometimes and other times he demands a feed after 3.5 hours but will drink the lot. So we compromise.

I want to share some of the lessons that I have learnt over the last 6 weeks, they are not world changing but they may help someone else in a similar situation.

The most important lesson I have learnt is to follow my instinct…my gut instinct. After the Health Care Nurse suggested we change formula’s to a ‘Gold’ version I noticed that Jordan was a times very unsettled. He seemed to be in pain. I asked her a few times if we should change formula’s but she didn’t advise it as he was happily putting on weight.

Last week I decided to change to one that is advertised to be easier to digest and after 2 days I have a much happier Jordan. I was granted my first real smile this morning. He no longer wakes up screaming with his knees to his chest in pain and he no longer cries when I’m feeding him. But I feel so guilty that I didn’t follow my gut instinct before now.

The next lesson I have learnt is that if I need to sit down and hold my child while he sleeps then that is what I need to do and I’m not spoiling him nor ruining him by letting Jordan sleep on my lap cradled in my arms.

Persisting with the bath routine at “bed time” has paid off big time…after Jordan goes to sleep at the end of the day he has a good 5 to 5.5 hour break between feeds. I believe that it has everything to do with the bath lotion we use, massage, routine, songs and the clothes he wears to bed.

I also need to admit something, lay it out for the whole web to read. My son has me firmly wrapped around his little finger. He cries for a little bit and I go and check up on him. I have had to resort to letting him “cry it out” but I hate it and I don’t last as long as Tim does. But if Jordan gives me a little smile or reacts to my voice in anyway (like he did just now) then I’m willing to lay down anything at his feet…
 Posted by Picasa

2 comments:

Bugsy said...

This is a beautiful post hun - thank you so much for sharing it with us.

Eggs Akimbo said...

Tha's gone so quick! He is lovely.