The Truth About Newborns

It's official. . . my babies do not like to eat.

Isn't that crazy??? All babies are born wanting to eat. . . at least, that's what I always thought. I went through all this with Kirsten already. . . she lost weight, didn't regain her birth weight fast enough, and I had to pump and try to get as much milk in her as we could. With Natalie, it's even worse! On breast milk, she just kept losing weight. She was born weighing 8 pounds 3 ounces, and at her 1 week doctor's visit she was down to 7 pounds 1 ounce. A whole pound less is a lot for such a little baby, and it has been stressful. She doesn't want to eat. . . she just wants to sleep!

Here's a rundown of why I feel so worried about Natalie all the time:

*She's on formula now, and she'll only take 1 ounce of it at a time. Sometimes she'll take a little more, but sometimes only half an ounce. Because she takes in such a small amount, we're supposed to feed her every hour and a half to two hours. Sometimes she wakes up hungry for it on her own, but the majority of the time we have to wake her up and force her to eat. Force-feeding a newborn a ton of times a day is hard!

*She has a really hyper-active gag reflex, and tends to spit up a lot of what she does eat. We have to keep her upright for a long time after each feeding, and we haven't been able to lay her down on her back very much at all. At her last weight check yesterday, the pediatrician recommended we add more powder to the formula to make it higher in calories. We tried that, and she was throwing up almost ALL of it. So last night we switched back to the regular formula, and she's been keeping it down much better. But it's still a constant struggle to get her to actually keep down what she does eat.

*The first day we put her on formula, she went a really long time with no wet diapers. She was also being really lethargic and sleeping constantly. At 3 am I called the on-call nurse at the doctor's, and the nurse was really worried and thought we should call 911 and have them take Natalie to the emergency room. She asked me a ton of questions about her and thankfully Natalie wet a diaper while I was on the phone with the nurse. So the nurse said we could wait and take her to our pediatrician in the morning, and then she ended up having several more wet diapers that morning. It was a scary night though, and I was so worried about her.

*Since we put her on formula, she's gained a little bit of weight back, but only a very small amount. As of yesterday, she weighed 7 pounds 2 and a half ounces. She'll go in for another weight check on Monday, and we are really hoping she'll gain a good amount over the weekend. She's been awake and alert more often, and seems to be doing better overall. I hope it continues!

All the blog posts I read from moms with newborns are so sweet and happy, full of only positive things and about how wonderful it is to have a beautiful new baby. But gosh. . . having a newborn is the hardest thing I've ever done. I think I forgot a little bit how difficult it was, and how exhausting it can be to worry so much about a fragile little baby. Kirsten is so easy now compared to a newborn. It's much easier to deal with the temperament of an almost-2-year-old than to feel the weight of the responsibility to keep a brand new baby alive and healthy. I know that other people have a challenging time with newborns too, but sometimes it feels like it's just me.

I have no idea why both of my babies don't want to eat, and can't gain weight on my breast milk. It's really frustrating, and I wish it didn't have to be this way. Natalie seemed to be latching on and sucking really well, and there was no way to know that she was losing weight until we saw the scale. It worries me to no end when I wake her up and she refuses the bottle, or takes only half an ounce of milk and then refuses to eat more. She's so sweet. . . I just want her to EAT!

Here are some pictures from her first sponge bath, one week ago. We had to wake her up for it, so she wasn't really too happy and started crying towards the end of the sponge bath.

At first she seemed to enjoy the warm water.

But she got more upset when we got her hair wet.

After the bath. . . all clean and wrapped up.

She was much happier after we got her dressed and put a blanket around her.

This is her grumpy face. . . the "don't wake me up and try to feed me" face. She does look pretty annoyed.

Sleeping SO peacefully.

I haven't gotten a picture of it, but I love watching her smile or laugh in her sleep. Her little smile is completely adorable.

I'm so grateful that we have Natalie, and of course everything we do is one hundred percent worth it. But gosh. . . nobody really tells you how hard this can be sometimes.