Update – Riya 8 Weeks

These first 8 weeks have flown by but also taken forever.  It has gone by in a blur, but yet there are awesome moments that still stand out.  I have not really detailed much of the first weeks of Ri-Ri’s life, so this shall be it.  🙂

The Lord does not give us what we cannot handle, and He clearly knew that Seth and I would really struggle with a baby with colic and thus He has blessed us with 2 very easy children.  Thank you Lord!!!

One of the first nicknames that we gave Riya was “Frowny Frownensen” as that was her default look!  When she wasn’t frowning she was squint – ha ha.  At least things have improved for her since.

Once we left hospital Riya really did not put on much weight at all.  We went for the first weigh at 5 days and she had only put on 40 grams .  This is apparently bad as a minimum of 20 PER DAY is “required”, but we still had 7-10 days for her to regain her birth weight…  We weighed her at our very helpful clinic every 3 days or so and not much difference.  After drinking Blackthorn Elixir and taking herbal tablets to increase milk supply (which work wonders but make you smell all herby) and undressing her or wiping her with a cold facecloth to keep her awake while feeding, she was still not gaining nearly enough.  After a call to the Pead it was decided that I had to top up on the feeds with formula.

This made all our lives easier as I was feeding her for as long as she would drink (literally an hour or 2 EACH feed) to try and get her weight up.  But now I only had to do 15 minutes a side and then top up.  We were all much happier as we were all getting a bit more sleep 🙂  The next weigh brought huge smiles to all our faces as she had gained perfectly!!!  Finally she was on track.  And boy was she!

After such a slow and feeble start, she now weighs as much as Kyla did at 8 weeks, this is remarkable as Kyla was 200 grams heavier at birth and ate and gained like a trooper in her first 8 weeks.  She is also 56.5cm now where Kyla was only 55cm at 10 weeks!  Riya now mildly resembles the Michilin Man and she is just too cute…

We were very blessed again with Riya.  She too is a sleeper – for now.  From about 3 weeks she was doing a 6 hour sleep stretch at night and at the beginning of this week she made it 8 hours in a row for 3 nights!  This means that we are currently only getting up for one feed at about 3/4 if things go well!

A couple of times while she was sleeping on my chest, she would suddenly break into the biggest grin and even chuckled a couple of times.  Too precious!  I was eagerly anticipating the first real smile for ME and not because the fart she was about to make gave her relief.  As per the previous post, it happened on her 6 weeks birthday although there were fleeting attempts before that.

On the exact date of her 8 weeks, we went for her first injections.  Oh deary, deary.  Upset is an understatement and bad reaction is too.  She was miserable, her legs were sore and she cried more than she had in her whole 8 weeks of life over the next couple of days thereafter.  We gave her Panado and rubbed out her legs with Arnica which helped.

The various faces of Riya-Ray:

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