My baby is unreasonably accomplished.

I went into the hospital yesterday so that I could spend Shaughnessy's eight o'clock and eleven o'clock feedings with her. The nurses seem to think that doing the lick and sniff in the half hour before the feed is supposed to start is best, so I wanted to time it right. She was sleepy when I got there, but I changed her diaper and took her temperature before starting the first lick and sniff and she woke up and was nice and perky.

I'm going to start off each session without the nipple shield but then switch to it after a few minutes. I'm not really expecting her to get a good latch yet without it since she still needs to build up some strength, but I also want her to be familiar with me sans silicone barrier.

Her nurse wasn't there when I started, but when she came to check on us she told me that we looked like a textbook illustration of the football position so that was nice. I'd already started with the nipple shield but S-Girl was still kind of fussing around a bit, moving her head back and forth a lot. All of a sudden, though, she latched right on and started sucking. I could tell she was getting some milk because she paused a bit and seemed to be concentrating on how to coordinate this new aspect of sucking, but then swallowed and from there on didn't skip a beat!

The nurse came back and saw that she was sucking and seemed very impressed. We hadn't weighed her first so the nurse decided to see if any milk would come back up the feed tube, and sure enough it did! She also used the stethoscope to verify that there was swallowing going on (since it's hard to tell with her fatty little neck now), which there most definitely was. Through all this little Ms. Essie just sucked away, kind of ignoring all the fuss going on around her. In the end she really only drank about 5 cc's of milk, but she NURSED THAT BREASTMILK, BOOYAH! The nurse was impressed and wrote it in her chart as a mini-feed, not a lick and sniff!

I know. Babies nurse. It's not earth-shattering. But she's a month shy of her due date and seeing my daughter go from a 1000g baby with no body fat to a 2169g+ baby with thunder cheeks who can nurse like it's no big thang, well ... it thrills me. OK?



Phew. After her feed was over and all that excitement faded I cuddled her for a long time and she flaked right out in my lap, snoring her little snores and getting really warm and comfy and content. I had to put her back in her incubator so I could go eat something, but I had a feeling she was going to be a sleepy baby for her next feed and that the second lick and sniff wouldn't happen. I was right, and oh noes the horror instead I had to cuddle my baby girl for another long period of time, what a chore.

Then I came home to sickly Andrew who has been sick and not able to go to the hospital himself, sadness. His parental leave from work cannot come soon enough. Man needs a vacation and this summer looks like it's going to be the best of our lives!