Goodness, time is flying!
Today marks four weeks since Elsie's birth. I was thinking about this last night: If I weren't keeping track of how many weeks she is on my blog, I would completely lose track and only be able to tell you about how many months old she is (which isn't even countable yet). I know that at some point, parents turn from counting weeks to months, but I'm not sure when that happens. Something else I'm not sure about is when she stops being a "newborn" and starts being a regular "baby." If that happens when she grows out of newborn diapers, then she is well past being a newborn.
Today was a rainy, gloomy day here in Auburn, but after Eli came home from lunch, I decided that I wanted to go out to the breastfeeding support group at the hospital. I've known about this group since the week after Elsie was born, but have had family here and other conflicts that kept me from being motivated to go. I was a little stir crazy today (though I got out of the house twice yesterday--lunch at Arby's with Eli's best friend, best friend's son, and best friend's mother and then FREE floats at Sonic in the evening), so I thought I would brave the weather and go. The lactation consultant had told me that it was a come and go thing from noon until two, so I left the house a little before one. When I showed up, there were only two moms there and they were on their way out...so I was alone, and Elsie was hungry. It was a little awkward. Then I realized that she had a diaper blowout in the carseat on the way, so I had to change her and feed her. And there happened to have a scale there, so I weighed her in her clean diaper.
10 pounds. 5 ounces.
No joke.
If she keeps putting on weight at this rate, she'll be about 37 pounds by the time she's a year old. Ha! I know that she'll slow down, but geez! What a picture!
Finally, another mom showed up while I was feeding Elsie, and it was someone I knew (vaguely) from the Sun Belt Writing Project. Her little boy is two days younger than Elsie and was 6 lbs. 6 oz. at birth, and just went over 7 lbs. today. He was so tiny! It's weird that Elsie was never that weight on the outside. He's still smaller than she was at birth! Anyway, this mom is having so much trouble with breastfeeding and I just had to say a silent thank you prayer that I haven't had any major troubles and that Elsie is gaining weight like a heavyweight champ! Anyway, I think I may go back next week.
We're surviving here in Alabama. Eli's home. Dinner is ready. I need a nap.
Cheers.
2 comments:
A healthy, happy, heavyweight champ!
Yes, praise God for the nursing and weight gain! I have a friend here whose first born was born a few days before Korben at a little over eight pounds and took over four weeks to get back to his birth weight. I was singing the silent praises, like you, that my little man was over 11 and a half pounds at a month old. Just shows how totally different we really all are from each other. My second born was a shrimp and slow gainer. I was *so* stressed out throughout his babyhood.
I don't know when they change from newborn to baby but I just looked back through Korben's pictures from Jan and he was definitely still a newborn then. I think it's when they start getting plump and stronger, holding up their head, smiling, interacting. My mom calls the pre-sitting stage the "slug stage" when they can just lay there... then their worlds get bigger. I've always been confused on the infant vs. newborn labels.
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