Being Momma G: Day 12

Sean had one of the most unsettled nights on record, but thankfully, I was able to handle most of it by myself, albeit through tears.

The little man woke at 3.30am for a feed, and I bravely attempted to breast feed on both sides. The left side was stinging too much for me to continue, and with the little man screaming his little head off, I had no choice but to wake Jonathan to help. Jonathan gave Sean a bottle while I expressed what I could out of my very hard and sore left breast, with a small expression from the right, which came to a whopping 100mL. To the untrained eye, that may not be much, but when you take into consideration that a full milk expression from both breasts have in the past yielded 70mL, 100mL is a lot!

Sean did not settle well after that feed, so we gave him some more milk. Mr Greedy Guts drank the lot before he was finally willing to sleep. I recall the skies were getting light by the time Sean finally went down.

We didn't get up to much today - just hung around at home and waited on Sean hand and foot. He really is our little prince, who is so utterly gorgeous and adorable when he's asleep, or awake and happy.

Just after every feed, when Sean is in a state of total bliss with a full tummy and a clean nappy, that's the happiest time of all. Sean is really focusing on both Jonathan and I now, and holding our gazes as we look deep into each other's eyes. During this happy time, we talk to him, sing to him, make faces at him, give him kisses, let him know in every way possible how much we love him. This time is fleeting, and it is so precious to both of us.

Sean can go from total bliss to "talk to the hand" in a split second, as all babies can do when they go from happy and awake to the start of their sleep time. In a blink of the eye, Sean will go from a lovely floppy baby who's happily holding your gaze, to a screaming baby with jerky arms and legs, eyes tightly shut and face all screwed up. That's when he's not so adorable. And even less when he's been kicking and screaming for 30 minutes.

We spent most of today persevering with breast feeding. We have been getting it right mostly, but on that odd occasion, Sean has still hurt me. We just need him to be patient, and not so hungry that he'll chomp down on anything. We'll keep on keeping on, and hope that we get it right before Jonathan goes back to work next week.