Dylan Henry Jones - Week 9

Wednesday - 25Apr12
Oh dear.  Is this the mind of a sane woman, going out into town and leaving me in sole charge of Dylan with nothing more than a room full of (unused) nappies and a freezer full of milk?  Only for an hour or so, but still!

On the plus side, verified that nappies do indeed make a cheap alternative to logs when the fire is nice and hot.  Just make sure that the door is closed.



Tuesday - 24Apr12
Some news to catch up on!  At the end of last week, we had a breast feeding lady come round to see if there was anything that could be helped with Dylan's feeding habits.  This was suggested and arranged by the health visitor, and as it happens, yes there is!  Some new positions were suggested (Dylan sitting up, rather than lying down) but more importantly was that it turns that Dylan had a minor tongue tie.  A tongue tie is a tight piece of skin connecting the floor of the mouth to the tongue.  Somehow, we got an appointment with a doctor to fix it (the tie is snipped) the same day.  It seems to have made a slight difference to the pain the Mother feels when feeding.  As someone has commented  "[breast feeding is] like someone slicing your nipples with a razor".

out to buy more nappies...

Other than that, we're whipping through nappies at a rate of knots - helped by Dylan deciding that he likes screaming so much that he wants to experience nappy changing twice just to continue his lung development!  He also doesn't much like his clothes being removed either.

We're doing our best to get out and about and we've had a couple of shopping trips (more nappies, oh, and cotton wool balls) but we met up with the NCT group on Sunday in a pub in Taunton and that worked really well.  Lots of useful information and stories were exchanged.  Quite scary is that Dylan is the second oldest there but probably the lightest at just over 7pounds (the largest is over 12).

In terms of Dylan's progress: he has gained weight since leaving the hospital and when he's awake (enough) is capable of getting a bottle of milk inside him.  This last bit is quite important is it means that there's less reliance on the feeding tube, so it may be able to come out which will be a relief as it's a pain in the bum as it gets tangled in everything.  And then the cat wants to play with it.  So we are now on a "demand feeding" strategy except for overnight when he gets a bottle at about 3am.  This started on Monday and it's already made a difference as we can get more sleep as I'm not feeding Dylan at 11pm and 3am and the Mother isn't expressing anymore.  It can still take up to 2 hours to sort Dylan during the early hours.

Warning: babies may cause drowsiness

Dylan and the Mother also have lots of outings planned: today was baby massage, there's a breast-feeding cafe "thing" as well as meeting up with various mothers from the NCT group.  Thursday afternoon we have a check-up with SNICU to make sure that Dylan (and us!) are ok.

One final point is that Dylan now has a new cousin in Germany.  Which is fantastic news.