A Week at Home

Emerson's first two weeks were filled with outings and road trips, but we spent most of this third week at home. After her doctor's appointment last week which showed that she was still below birthweight, the focus this week was our new feeding schedule. By the doctor's orders, we are feeding every 2 to 3 hours (day and night). A typical feeding includes breastfeeding for 20 minutes, bottle feeding 2 ounces of breastmilk or supplemental formula, and then pumping for another 20-25 minutes. With this schedule, it has been difficult to plan going out. We have been blessed with many visitors though to keep us company. On Friday, Cathy came to hang with us for the day and to go with us to our lactation appointment. The appointment revealed a lot. It seems that it takes Emerson a lot of work to get a mouthful of milk. She continues to try to breastfeed, but with such slow progress, she often falls asleep. She then feeds quickly from the bottle, because the flow is much quicker. She doesn't have to work her mouth that hard to get the milk from the bottle. We are continuing to feed in the three stages, but I am hoping for some answers this week. It is very time consuming and exhausting. We have another appointment today with the pediatrician and an appointment on Wednesday with the lactation consultant. On a positive note, at Friday's lactation appointment, Em's weight was up 7 ounces! She is still shy of her birthweight, but we are definitely heading in the right direction.

While at home, in between feedings, we did some tummy time, and Emerson also helped with our Christmas cards.

Our one big outing this week was on Saturday to the Yadkinville Christmas parade. Boomer's school is close to Yadkinville, and the Forbush band, cheerleaders, and ROTC were all participating in the parade. It was a chilly morning (mid 40s) so we were sure to bundle up. I tried out the Mobi wrap for the first time, and it seemed to work well -- Emerson slept the whole time. The parade was a fun way to kick off the Christmas season. Emerson even met Santa and Mrs. Clause!