Luca went in for a Dr. check up today. We have only been home from the hospital for one night, and the pediatrician checked him out before we were discharged yesterday, but I guess they like to see them again right away to check their weight and go over a few more things with the parents.
We are taking him to Ellensburg Pediatrics and there are two female pediatricians there as well as a female nurse practitioner. We saw the nurse practitioner today (both of the pediatricians had checked him out while we were in the hospital and I liked both of them a lot) and I was not very fond of her. She was just very straight forward and almost a little harsh in her instructions to us. Maybe it is just the fact that my hormones are still completely out of whack, but I could barely hold back tears while we were in the office and I walked out of there feeling like the worst parent in the world! His weight was down to 7 lbs 6 oz, which means he has lost almost a whole pound of his birth weight and she was very concerned about this. She said it is very important that he start gaining that weight back and she gave us a 2 oz bottle of formula to feed him right there in the office. I know it is important that he get his weight back up, but everything I have learned about breastfeeding says that you are not supposed to give babies bottles/formula or binkies until they are at least 4 to 6 weeks old and you have had time to establish good breastfeeding habits. I was just so caught off guard though, and I because I was already so upset and thought I would just burst into tears if I tried to say anything, I went ahead and fed him the formula. He downed the entire bottle in just a few minutes! The nurse practitioner told me that I need to breastfeed him every two hours and then supplement that with an additional 2 oz of formula. (I would like to point out that my milk has not even come in yet, so he is still only getting the colostrum.) I told her that I was having a hard time getting him to eat for even 10 minutes on each breast without falling asleep, so I wasn't sure how I was going to keep him awake long enough to get a bottle down as well. She told me that I might have to tickle his feet, undress him and maybe even put a cold washcloth on his chest to keep him awake while he is eating. She also told us to schedule another appointment for tomorrow so they can do a weight check.
Needless to say, I felt absolutely terrible when we left the office and burst into tears the minute we got into the car. While I was pregnant, I read quite a few books on pregnancy and child care, I talked to tons of my friends about their experiences with infants, I took childbirth classes and along with just plain common sense, I felt like I was pretty prepared for caring for a newborn. However, walking out of that office I felt like a total idiot and failure as a parent. Tony tried to calm me down by reminding me that we have only had Luca home for less than 24 hours and that this was going to be a learning process for all of us. I knew he was right, but I still felt horrible. I'll update on Luca's weight after his appointment tomorrow.
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