Hallo, this is Sarah Schmid again.
The first 14 days after the birth are over.
Here is the little one. Already quite big.
No. At least a little bigger.
What happened the following days after the birth?
The first two nights he was breastfeeding most of the time.
But when the milk came in the 2nd and 3rd day
he started sleeping really well with two or three breastfeeding breaks.
Instead he drank very much in the evening.
So he would breastfeed for two hours in the evening--more or less without a break.
They even have a smart sounding word for it: Cluster feeding.
So it is normal that babies do this.
He also gained some weight.
He has now 3930 gramms on our kitchen scale.
So he already gained 750 gramms in his first two weeks of life.
And if you look at it on the growth curve it looks very good.
Here, this are the curves where you can enter length, weight and head circumference
and see, if the baby is developing well.
And that's what he is doing.
What you fill in on one end partly exits on the other end.
I started to practise elimination communication soon after birth.
I'll show you how I do it.
Most of the time, when babies wake up they need to pee.
When he wakes up or gets fussy I take him
I take the diaper off.
I'm still using disposal diapers.
Potty under, baby on top.
Then I make a cue sound: psh-pshhh!
He understands quite fast.
He knows: Now I can. And if he needs to then he does it.
The practical thing about boys is that you see when they need to go.
With girls it's a black box more or less.
But with boys you can estimate quite well.
And that's how he does the pee and the poop into the potty.
Not always but most of the time.
Especially pooping works reliable.
Pee I catch in about 70 percent I would say.
At night I don't stress much about it.
I notice how he starts squirming. But he does not really wake up. Then I know: He needs to pee, he is peeing now and then continues sleeping.
The disadvantage with boys is that they can spray over quite a distance.
It is not always so easy to direct the jet.
But with a little bit of practise it'll work.
As I said I'm still using disposal diapers.
In the beginning the breastfed baby has quite many stools and they are quite thin.
And I noticed I have to put new elastic bands on my diaper covers.
After having used it on three of my kids they have become stretched.
It's easiest if you start in the first weeks of life.
Babies feel from the beginning when they need to go
and make themselves noticed. They grunt and squirm and even cry.
But if you don't react but let them pee into the diaper then they just let got.
They get used to that this is how it is. And then it is like this.
Isn't it, little one?
Breastfeeding started well, too.
Since I breastfed throughout pregnancy--
only on the backburner because I could not bear more--
but my nipples are in good shape because of it.
So it was no problem to just continue.
He overcame the fall pretty well. I think you see that he looks quite healthy.
Your commentaries on this have been quite diverse.
By the way I did not drop him on purpose
as someone speculated.
And I was not distracted by the camera or something else
and I did not have secret wishes of someone holding my hand.
I didn't do it this way just to be cool
but it was exactly the way that felt right for me.
Although I did not plan on dropping him, of course.
But in that moment I was captured by the birth process so much
that I simply didn't think about it.
I've already given birth to four children while standing up
and also caught them
or I went down to squat in time
so somehow it was not on my screen.
In that moment I was briefly shocked
but I also knew stories where the same had happened
where the baby even dropped in the shower, the cord was torn off and all that.
All these stories went well so I did not worry much.
I was more annoyed that the cord had torn
because usually it is stressed that you should wait until the cord stops pulsating.
Anyway it was like this.
What is interesting to observe on the baby....
The umbilical cord fell off on the 5th day with him.
But he has an umbilical granuloma.
It is like a flesh-colored knob in his navel.
Like a rest of the umbilical cord that did not fall off.
One of our other kids had this, too.
We just put a little bit of salt on it
and then it will quickly dry.
I'll show you, what it looks like now.
It turned dark now.
There you see, that it is dark.
At first it was pink, flesh-colored.
It has dried up now and will fall off quite soon.
The pediatrician (in Germany) will usually use silver nitrate to etch it away.
But this can also etch healthy skin.
Salt works well in most cases, though, and comes without side effects.
In the UK the doctors also advise salt and only if this does not work, they use silver nitrate.
What might be interesting as well....
It is very common, almost all of our newborns had this:
a tear duct stenosis.
You see that the eye is a little sticky.
You can just wipe it clean with a wet cloth. Here you see it a little bit.
It will grow away. In the beginning the tear duct can be so small that the tears don't run off smoothly.
The skin keeps peeling off--which is also normal in newborns.
They loose the skin from when they were in the womb pretty fast.
How did things go for me?
The first days with a newborn are not really my thing.
I'm rather pregnant or give birth but after that....
good when it's over.
Hormonal changes, hot flashes....I sweat like a pig
nerves on edge, you are overly sensitive....and if the husband causes stress you get plugged milk ducts.
That's what happened.
So I stayed in bed, slept a lot and eventually everything was sweated out
and slept away.
Now I'm doing better. The hot flashes have decreased to a minimum.
My husband has started working again.
This week my mom is still there, cooking for us.
Next week I'll have to manage everything myself again.
Postpartum bleeding has almost disappeared.
Directly after birth I needed two of these pads.
Then I changed and one was enough.
The next 3-4 days I used these sanitary pads.
These were easily large enough.
Since then panty liners do it.
It's only very little now.
It is a little different for each woman how much it'll bleed and how long.
With the first child it was stronger and lasted longer.
With the other kids it decreased quickly.
But it does not decrease continually,
at least with me on some days it will be clear and almost gone while on other days it gets more and darker again.
It decreases in a wavelike pattern.
In the beginning I thought this was because I overworked
but even if I stay in bed sometimes there comes more and then again less
and one day it is gone.
My belly has almost reached normal size again.
You can also feel the uterus getting smaller again.
You feel for the fundus like you can do in pregnancy.
One day after the birth you feel it right under the navel
and then it goes rather fast. After ten days the uterus disappears behind the symphysis.
So you can follow the involution in real-time, if you like to.
There are various exercises to promote involution.
It's a little difficult for me to participate in a course like this with six kids and to organise it all.
What I like to do and also did in pregnancy
is a kind of belly dancing, swinging my hips
which activates muscles that otherwise get too little attention--is my feeling at least.
Otherwise my daily life holds a quite varied movement program.
Breastfeeding works fine, as I already told you.
I tested nursing pads, as I promised.
I'll start with my favorite disposal nursing pad.
The brand is called Lansinoh.
Each pad is wrapped separately, because they absorb moisture so well.
It's like a diaper for the breast.
These absorb everything. So you can just let it run while breastfeeding--they will catch it all.
The shape is comfortable, not very bulky
but since they absorb milk, the milk stays in there and after a while it smells sour milk.
So you have to change it rather often
and it is a throw away story that comes with quite a lot of waste.
For each its own little bag.
But these are better than others. Others fuzz and.... I've tried several.
With these I am the most satisfied.
Of the cloth nursing pads you can buy I tested these.
Well, at least they are made of cloth.
They are rather bulky
a plain surface--where at the breast you would need something more conic.
Conic....do they call it this? Well, you now what I mean: breast shape.
They don't absorb much, but hold off something
and get out of place easily because of their shape.
They are pleasantly soft, though.
Then I have these crotcheted nursing pads made out of sheep's wool.
I got them from Jasmin who lives close to Dortmund. Thanks a lot, Jasmin!
These are not bad at all.
They have a great fit because they are crotcheted in this form.
They don't absorb much, so you have to put something in here when you brestfeed--a muslin nappy or the like.
Otherwise when the milk ejection reflex sets in, the milk will run down under the pad.
So the clothing stays dry here, but it flows down underneath.
Beside this they are perfect and they smell nicely of sheep's wool not sour milk.
At the moment I use these. They are really good.
What else I find useful when having a new baby....
This is the second baby where I use this practical equipment:
A triangular cushion.
You often breastfeed sitting up and sit or half sit a lot with the baby on your breast.
I got this at the waterbeds supply.
This is really worth a mint especially for the back.
Otherwise you get quite tense in your back after all this breastfeeding.
But this way I can nicely lean back and be comfortable--even in the middle of the night if it needs to be
for burping the baby.
This was my update.
Now he is sleeping.
Until later. Bye!
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