Parenting 101

Hi Kapus,

I am sure that by the time you read this, we would have endured a lot of lessons in parenting, but I must tell you the last week has been quite a topsy-turvy ride full of experiences

It started with the first night in the hospital which was an exceptional difficult night for Mumma. She was still recovering from her operation and was almost bed ridden. She was taking her food through a Saline bottle and a needle in her hands and had barely started to drink juices by the first evening. What's more was the fact that we had go feed you every 2 hours by waking you up.
You cried a lot for starters, which was expected, but your Mumma was in extreme pain while feeding and late into the night, she started to get terrible ache in her back because of gastric issues and some blood in her wound

Somehow, I walked around in the room, made up a dummy song and put u to sleep, but your Mumma's pain went on increasing and by 4am became unbearable. I had to then call the nurse and doctor on-duty and administer a dose of pain killers and she only felt a little better by afternoon the next day
So, while everyone was welcoming you into our lives, you Mumma endured a very rough time. But if you ask her what was the most painful part - she will tell you that while she remained bed-ridden, she hardly got a good glimpse of you as a 1 day old baby, and that hurt more than any thing else her body threw at her! - That for you is real Motherhood 

We got discharged on Saturday, the 20th of January and came home to a grand reception. The next few nights continued to be chaotic with both aaji's taking turns to help us out in feeding you

The second experience we had was with respect to your weight. It had dropped slightly by the time of discharge and we had to make sure it doesn't drop further. That meant even more sleepless nights!
We had to wake you up on most ocassions and post the feed, putting you back to sleep was a task. It took a few days for you to set a routine and soon, to our luck, you started to wake up every 2 hours and asked for a feed.
When we took you for a check-up on the 7th day, your weight had dropped to it's lowest, but after putting in an extra shift over the next few days, by day 10, it was back up, where it belonged

So, to summarize, here is a quick summary of your weight so far
Birth weight = 2.86 kgs
Day1 weight = 2.7 kgs
Discharge weight = 2.58 kgs
Week1 weight = 2.56 kgs
Day 10 weight = 2.74 kgs
The last weight gain brought a lot of cheer and good vibes into our lives and made the coming few days much much better

Another experience I want to mention about over here happened the day before we went for your week1 weight check. The morning was exceptionally difficult as despite of multiple feeds you simply wouldn't sleep!
We tried walking you around and I exhausted my entire knowledge of nursery rhymes and stotras', but you still wouldn't sleep. Infact you just cried and cried. Eventually, we started to run out of options trying to figure out what you wanted.
The only mode of communication you know was to cry, but it was upto us as parents to recognize patterns and signals and figure out what is wrong. On this occasion, while changing you daipers, I noticed your legs were turning blue again (like the hours after you were born). That's when we had to scramble and get you a sweater and multiple wraps and an hour after that you calmed down and slept...

That became an important part of our parenting experience

There was another occasion where you cried a lot and refused to sleep and that time we had to simply increase you feed from 20ml to 50ml plus breastfeeding

So, overall it has been an eventful week and the way you have progressed and shown your side of mischief, naani aaji made a prediction that in 2 months time you will start to turn around in bed and by your first birthday, you would probably even start walking!

Now it's up to you to prove her right. And when that happens, your Mumma and me will be the proudest parents around

Until next time...Sleep well please :)

Regards,
Dadoo