3.8 kg / 8.38 pounds!

Taken Sunday

It's been a couple of days since I last posted and there is a decent amount to catch up on (Sarah's post about our walk on Monday notwithstanding)!

The big news, is that Margaret was weighed today and she came in at 3.80 kg / 8.38 pounds. The last time she was weighed on November 27th (last week), she came in at 3.49 kg / 7.69 pounds. So she gained 310 grams or .69 pounds in a week. I don't know if that's good or not, but I can feel every one of those grams when I pull her out of or put her in her crib at night. It's especially noticeable after she sucks down five and a half ounces of milk at 4:00 AM and I'm trying to lever her back and forth between my shoulders, my lap and the co-sleeper.


From Sunday

The last few nights, Margaret has been ramping up her milk intake during her 3:00 AM feedings considerably. We've rapidly gone from giving her just an ounce and a half to try out feeding, to three, to four and a half to, last night, five and a half ounces at once. We're told that this is in the realm of normal consumption but I can't help but feel like it's a lot of milk to be taking in, especially as sometimes, she has monster burps and it sounds like she's eaten so much she has trouble breathing. The tip of seems to be an almost whistling sound when she breathes after a big bottle feed.

A consequence of the increased feedings is that she is also taking increased amounts of time to feed. So last night, she was up from about 2:45 AM to roughly 4:00 AM. Part of this is because I started with only 4 ozs, then tried to put her down, then had to add an ounce and a half and even after that, she had trouble going down. Add in burping, diaper change, trying to calm her down, we begin to lose some of the time efficiency we thought we were building into her schedule. Add to that the fact that SAM is now getting up alongside Margaret and I to pump, and you've got a couple of pooped (and poopy) parents!

Personally, I feel more sleep deprived now than at the beginning. That's alright, though. I've got five and some ounces of milk in the bottle, ready for tonight. We'll see what she can do with that. If not, SAM is always there, but I do hate to fall back to that as the whole point was to give her a chance to rest herself and her boobs.


Sure, SHE looks well rested

One thing that we didn't fill you in on was our belated Thanksgiving dinner at my sister Joy's. Since her husband had to travel, we put off our Thanksgiving dinner by a week. There were over 30 people (including kids) over at Joy's house last Thursday and it was a FEAST. We had Turkey with all the fixin's including stuffing, mashed potatoes, yams, green beans, an incredible salad and something like 8 desserts. Yum!

I think though, that the sweetest thing, for the kids, anyways, was probably Margaret. In the early part of the evening, when the kids first got there, Margaret was mobbed like a celebrity. All the kids were great, though, all wanting to be helpful and loving and gentle. And while it looked like a mob of people from outside of the mosh pit, it was all very gentle at the center of it all. Sort of like a silent storm (except for when the kids all wanted to talk at once).


Here's SAM and Margaret feeding. Where's Margaret? She's in there!


Here's me burping her. You can't even see me in the sea of people!

Dinner was delicious, but Sam and I didn't actually get to eat together at any point during the evening. Margaret, chose that evening to do something she had never done before - feed for four hours straight. From, essentially, 6:45 PM until 11:00 she was either feeding or screaming to be fed. There were a few ten minute hiatuses here and there (a thirty minute one when all the kids arrived at 7:15 pm) but if SAM wasn't there feeding her, I had to be distracting her so she wouldn't scream her head off.

We understand that many babies have a growth spurt at 3 weeks and we believe that was what suddenly kicked in as that signaled the start to an incredible non-stop chow fest that continues even to today.

You can say this about babies, they certainly keep you on your toes!


The only place all three of us were together during dinner was in Samantha's bedroom where we fed Margaret