Jake is now two weeks old today. It has been and still is incredibly exhausting, especially for Amy. Jake seems to breast feed for hours, but is still hungry an hour later. We have realised that he tends to feed for a short while then falls asleep on the boob. When asleep he continues to comfort suck. So now we have to make sure he is feeding by tickling his toes or stroking his wattle. It is quite stressful for both of us as we don’t want him to go hungry.
Amy is suffering from sore nipples. The Lansinoh cream helps to a certain extent in softening them but they are still painful. Today I bought a savoy cabbage. Placing a cool leaf on each breast is supposed to work wonders! Jake struggles to sleep at night even though he feeds like a beast! To calm him and ensure at least 3-4 hours sleep to keep our sanity intact we have complemented the breast feeding with a bottle of formula at night. Our midwife said that this is absolutely fine as long as baby is getting breast milk, which he does during the day. This gives baby Jake a good sleep and allows Amy and myself to rest a little more. A calm relaxed mother will give more milk and baby will pick up on this too and be calm himself :-).
Today was our first experience of projectile poo. We usually place a towel on his changing station but today it was in the wash. Jake was placed instead on the pristine towelling changing mat from Mamas and Papas. He decided to choose this moment to wee then poo and then poo three more times. As soon as we wiped away one lot another little snake of watery poo came out! We managed to stem the flood enough to put his nappy and cover on! What a beast!
It was a landmark day because we ventured out to Blackheath for a spot of lunch. Amy was worried that Jake would scream and be fractious but he couldn’t have been better. In fact we smugly sat there eating our pasta while all around other bairns were screaming away. We strolled round the village with Jake sleeping soundly in his pram. What an angel! Later I did a spot of shopping at Sainsburg’s in New Cross while Amy fed him in the car. He has been sleeping since we got back over two hours ago so I’m expecting some stirrings soon.