The First Few Weeks

My husband and I were expecting our first child to arrive sometime around December 27th, 2011. We ended up with an appointment on the 19th to schedule an induction for the 20th, because our doctor felt Farrah was getting too big for me. Well, Farrah had other plans. My water broke around 2:30 a.m. on December 19th. About twelve hours later, we had our precious little girl. 7 pounds 6 ounces and 21 inches. Of course we were very excited to take this sleepy little baby home. The nursery nurse went over everything with us; cord care, what temperature was too high or too low, feeding, etc. and sent us on our way. We followed our "directions" or we thought we did. When it came to feeding, we were told to feed her every 3 hours during the day and 3-4 hours at night. She was taking about 2 ounces when we left the hospital. The nurse told us if she took it all, to slowly increase the amount. Here are some mistakes we made.

• Mistake #1 We feed her every 3 hours on the dot. We woke her every 3 hours, even during the night. We did not know the nurse did not literally mean every 3 hours until friends and family found out what we were doing. Thankfully they told us to feed her when she woke up during the night not to wake her every 3 hours on the dot (no wonder she was so unhappy during those night time feedings!).
• Mistake #2 Farrah continued to take all of her formula, so we continued to increase the amount. We did not realize we should not increase it past a certain amount.
  
• Mistake # 3 We did not know about GAS DROPS!
  

The first few weeks were a blur. We had a baby that slept all day and cried all night. When we stopped waking her to eat during the middle of the night and let her wake on her own, things got a little better. But, the crying at night was still horrible. So, to the Internet I went. I decided she might be crying because of gas. Her poor belly would be so tight at night (when she cried nonstop). We called the doctor's office and spoke with a nurse. The nurse did believe gas could be the problem and recommended gas drops with each bottle. She also told us the gas was probably being caused by us feeding her too much. I can not remember exactly how much we were feeding her, but I think it was around 3 ounces. (Boy does that sound like way too much 3 months later!) She explained that Farrah's stomach was only the size of a half dollar, and we were over filling it causing her gas and pain. You can not imagine how horrible we felt. We were the reason our sweet girl was so uncomfortable. We thought we were doing what we were supposed to do. With scaling back the amount she was eating, giving gas drops with every bottle, and eventually changing to sensitive formula, our sweet baby stopped crying so much and slept a little better.

We should have asked the nurse more questions instead of just listening to what she said. I guess we were just excited to take our new addition home! I had read What to Expect When You're Expecting, but I never thought about reading anything about actually being at home with a baby. I was just trying to get through a pregnancy. What lessons did we learn? Ask questions and read, read, read!