Newborn Adventures

Kaitlynn is over a week old now! It's hard to believe how quick the time is passing, despite the little sleep these days. I can't complain much though because my parents have kept Connor with them in East Texas this week, so I've had this entire week to focus exclusively on Kaitlynn and her needs. I have to say (as I knock on some wood) that she is so far a great baby. She rarely cries (more on that in a moment) and just sleeps so much. In the past couple of days, I think she's had maybe 2-4 hours of awake time in each 24-hour day. I expect a newborn to sleep a lot, but we just rarely get the opportunity to see those blue eyes. I'm sure she'll snap out of it soon and then I may regret wishing for more awake time!

Today her umbilical cord stump fell off so we'll probably be giving her a real bath soon. She also seems to have developed a blocked tear duct in one of her eyes. It causes that eye to become matted with yellowish goop, kind of like conjunctivitis (pink eye), and we're supposed to massage her inner eye to encourage the tear duct to open up. Hopefully it'll clear up soon.

Thanks to several of you for your encouraging words about my challenges with breastfeeding. I'm disappointed to say that it hasn't improved. I actually hired yet another lactation consultant who spent a couple hours with us this week. I was going to try to give up the bottles completely, but I've since given up on that idea (for now). For a baby that rarely cries, it is SO hard to see how frustrated Kaitlynn gets when I try to nurse her. She screams like I've never heard before which of course makes me feel awful. So rather than stress both of us out, I'm just going to keep pumping and bottle-feeding for now so I can keep the peace in the house! I'll keep trying to nurse occasionally but I'm going to try not to feel too disappointed if we can't make it work. At least she's getting breast milk!

A quick pic with the self-timer.

A rare photo of Kaitlynn wide awake.

Here is where Kaitlynn sleeps at night, in a Moses basket right next to our bed. And the flashlight is for when I need to sneak a peek to make sure she's doing ok.A close-up shot of Kaitlynn's basket. Thanks to cousins Makenna and Madison for letting us borrow it!
Snuggled up with Dad.She curls up like a kitten!