Ethan's first couple weeks home was in a lot of ways a huge relief but also a very hard adjustment. It was awesome to have our whole family in one spot and I didn't feel so torn between two places. Charlie had plenty of time off so he stayed him another week after we got Ethan home. I couldn't have made it without him and our friends and family for sure. Any time you add another kid you have lots of adjustments but Ethan came with a few more than a "normal" newborn. We had to keep very close track of how much he ate, which meant the dr preferred us to use bottles, much to my disappointment. At first bottles seem easy right? not so much...I felt like I was constantly in the kitchen washing and filling bottles or pumping milk to fill the bottles. We had to add a little newborn formula to his bottles to bump up the calories and nutrients. I longed for what I was used to, snuggling on the couch or bed, nursing my baby anytime he wanted. But this wasn't that way at all. Every oz had to be recorded to make sure he got what he needed to gain the weight. We had almost daily appointments with his dr and lactation and blood draws to check his blood sugar. So we had a new kind of stress.
Eventually with a lot of perseverance we were able to get Ethan to gain enough weight that the dr gave us the okay to wean to breastfeeding only. And I was soooo happy that he actually did it! I started slowly by only nursing him at night (easier anyway when I could just do it in bed and not worry about bottles) and every couple days I'd increase the nursing and decrease bottles.
Brendan and Carter adjusted very well to their new brother. Brendan just loves him to pieces and can't get enough of him. Carter likes him, but he is a little more preoccupied with the typical almost 3 year old boy type stuff.
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| 2 Weeks old |
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| 3 Weeks old |
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