We were pretty excited to bring Sierra back out into the wild after being cooped up in the house for the past few days. I’m not sure why, but I feel good to be cooped up and just get into a routine, but I also know that isn’t the best for us so it’s good when a change in the routine happens.
Case in point, the baby’s first doctor visit!
I swear Sierra loves the Superman pose. She does this all the time!
Going outside the house is an interesting experience. We had to sit long and hard and figure out the logistics of doing so. First off, when I first booked the appointment, I should have chosen the 1:45pm slot and not the 11am slot! 11am is way too early considering we are running on lack of sleep. So we wisely moved it to 1:45pm. Our doctor’s office is across town so it takes a good 40 minute drive so it’s not like being back home in Kapuskasing where you can zip over there in five minutes.
Next up on the logistic front was the feeding. Quickly determining that feeding = sleepy baby, we decided to feed her immediately before putting her in the car. Great success! That kid was sleeping like a rock for the most part of the adventure. Even the nurse didn’t get much out of her.
The nurse was fabulous as she clued us into some good information…the baby had gained a little bit of weight since she was born! That was a sigh of relief because it shows that those late nights have paid off since we got enough food into her to not wither away. The nurse also let us in on the fact that since the baby seemed to be gaining weight, we could probably just wait until the baby woke up in the night instead of waking her every three hours (like we had been doing). Vero and I have visions of going to bed tonight and getting a solid eight hours sleep. Ha! I told her with our luck, we have conditioned Sierra to wake up after 3 hours and 5 minutes so we won’t get that much ahead. Here’s to hoping we get a little more sleep. I think it’s getting to both of us a little.
I didn’t realize this but people love holding newborn babies. I could see it in my Doctor’s eyes after a few minutes with Sierra and I said “Vero, maybe you want to let the doctor hold her?” And the doctor was ecstatic! Clearly they don’t get too many newborns coming in like the delivery room at the hospital where they probably get a dozen every day!
All in all, the baby looks pretty great on the health front and we will have a follow up appointment next week. It’s a pretty amazing feeling when you find out that the baby is doing a-ok.
We also got confirmation that I don’t have to install an air conditioning unit into the nursery which is welcome news. Not that I was totally against it…if the baby needs it, we’ll do anything. But the doctor confirmed our suspicions that lots of babies grew up without air conditioning and if our baby seems confortable in a house that is 25 degrees, then that’s great! But if she’s not, that’s when we should look into options of cooling her down. But I’m not crazy…I keep the curtains closed around the house and the fans going. Plus we have the air conditioner unit in the kitchen that I throw on from time to time.
Here I am thinking of a new career.
I’m going to call it a night on the blogging front. It’s nearly changing and feeding time again and I have to mentally prepare myself for the baby making me spending more money. Case in point, she waits until I change the diaper to poop immediately into it. Kid, I’m taking that out of your allowance!
2 replies on “Doctor Visit: Success!”
Glad to hear Sierra is doing so well. Did you get more than 3 hours last night? Hope you all got a little more, I remember that first few weeks just felt like 1 never ending day as the sleeps just felt like naps really. Don’t worry, you will eventually get longer rest periods. Take care!
Sleep has started to pick up on our end. She’s putting on some weight slowly so we’ve been getting off the ‘scheduled’ feelings (aka setting an alarm every three hours) and moving to the ‘on-demand’ feeding. This is leading to more sleep overall! Thanks for the words of encouragement!