Life With Lyla: Week Two
Hey friends!
I hope you are all doing well! Another week has passed with our sweet girl! Kent and I are learning fast how to survive on little to no sleep. Lots of caffeine for him, and don’t ask me how I’m surviving because I literally have no idea! Haha! I wish I were a coffee drinker in times like these, but I’ve never been fond of the taste. However, I’ve managed to power through sleep deprivation. I might be half asleep while showering or nodding off during a feeding session, but I know she will only be this little for so long so I am trying to soak up every minute of it.
Week two with Lyla had its ups and downs, but Kent and I did our best to tackle each obstacle as it happened. During this week, we found out Lyla was having trouble gaining weight. She was 8lbs, 13 oz at birth and dropped to 8lbs, 2 oz by her first doctor’s appointment. To combat this, her doctors recommended we start a triple feeding schedule. If you aren’t familiar with triple feeding consider yourself lucky. Every 2-3 hours, I was supposed to nurse her. Once nursing was over, I would then pump while Kent fed her a bottle of pumped milk. If she drank all the pumped milk, then we were supposed to supplement with formula. Essentially we were told to force feed her until she refused. They said this was supposed to help her recognize her hunger cues because before she was only eating enough to maintain her weight instead of letting us know she was still hungry. We did this up until a couple of days ago, and it was an absolute nightmare! By the time we got done feeding, we were lucky if we had an hour in between the next feeding. At the same time this was going on, I realized I had mastitis so I was absolutely miserable!
Due to Lyla’s issues with her weight, we had more doctor’s appointments than we initially anticipated. We were going every few days, if not more to ensure she was on the right track. On top of all this, I had requested to see a lactation specialist, and during one of our visits, she noticed that when Lyla cries, her bottom right lip goes downward. She informed us that when babies have an asymmetric crying face, it could be linked to a rare disorder that can affect their heart. Therefore, she recommended we get an echocardiogram as a precaution. Thankfully, the test came back normal.
Despite having all the medical stuff that came up, there were some really exciting moments that happened too! One of those was Lyla lost her umbilical cord! I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw the stub come off. This meant no more sponge baths (thank goodness!) and that we finally could give her a real bath, which she thoroughly enjoyed! :)
For the most part, Lyla is a very chill baby. She sleeps through most of her visits with friends and family. However, don’t be surprised if she occasionally toots on you. That’s her way of saying hello and that she’s comfortable with you, haha! Every once in a while, Lyla makes this small screeching noise that reminds us of a baby dinosaur. After a thorough investigation we can confirm Lyla’s noise resembles that of a dilophosaurus (thank you Jurassic Park for the intel!).
Daddy also learned this week that diaper rash cream should not be used anywhere except for on Lyla’s tushy! We noticed Lyla had some dry skin on her hands and feet. After bath time, I told Kent we could moisturize her hands and feet with some baby magic lotion. Unbeknownst to me, he thought using Destin would do the trick. So you can imagine my surprise when he told the pediatrician what he had done. Daddy now uses Aquaphor on her instead :)
That is all the stories and updates I have for week two friends! I’m excited to see what week 3 will bring! Stay tuned! :)
Love, Brandi