Turns out being home with a newborn is not bad at all - at least compared to having a baby in the NICU.
Most of the time Ezra was in the NICU, my schedule was this:
6:15 a.m.: Wake up, pump, eat breakfast, get ready.
8:30 - 10:30 a.m.: At the hospital.
11 a.m. to 5 p.m. - Work. Pump at least one more time.
5:45-10:30 or 11 p.m.: At hospital. Hang out with Ezra, maybe talk to doctors. Eat dinner in the hospital cafeteria. Pump.
By 11 p.m.: Go home. Pump. Go to bed.
I did not go grocery shopping more than three times in the 9 1/2 weeks Ezra was in the hospital. No time. We ate a lot of hospital food.
Now Ezra is home and I'm on maternity leave. My schedule is this:
This is awesome. WAY better. I'm not really even getting much less sleep than before (we give Ezra bottles of fortified breastmilk in addition to nursing, so Ross can feed him for a 6-hour stretch with no problem).
Having a newborn is EASY compared to having a baby in the hospital. Am I busy? Sure. But I can actually get stuff done at home! And best of all, I get to hang out with this little dude all day!
Most of the time Ezra was in the NICU, my schedule was this:
6:15 a.m.: Wake up, pump, eat breakfast, get ready.
8:30 - 10:30 a.m.: At the hospital.
11 a.m. to 5 p.m. - Work. Pump at least one more time.
5:45-10:30 or 11 p.m.: At hospital. Hang out with Ezra, maybe talk to doctors. Eat dinner in the hospital cafeteria. Pump.
By 11 p.m.: Go home. Pump. Go to bed.
I did not go grocery shopping more than three times in the 9 1/2 weeks Ezra was in the hospital. No time. We ate a lot of hospital food.
Now Ezra is home and I'm on maternity leave. My schedule is this:
3 a.m.: Wake up and hang out with Ezra while Ross sleeps. This morning at like 5:30 I made a pumpkin pie baked oatmeal recipe I found on Pinterest since we had all the ingredients. (It was really good.)
~7:30 a.m. Make coffee.
All day: Feed Ezra, change diapers, do dishes, pump, clean the apartment, cuddle Ezra, put dinner in the crock pot, surf the internet a lot...
9 p.m.: Go to bed while Ross hangs out with Ezra until 3 a.m.
This is awesome. WAY better. I'm not really even getting much less sleep than before (we give Ezra bottles of fortified breastmilk in addition to nursing, so Ross can feed him for a 6-hour stretch with no problem).
Having a newborn is EASY compared to having a baby in the hospital. Am I busy? Sure. But I can actually get stuff done at home! And best of all, I get to hang out with this little dude all day!
Yay for all of the awesome progress! I'm so glad that you guys are home and settling in. Does Ezra need 24 hour surveillance for a particular reason? I might have missed that explanation.
ReplyDeleteKind of. We don't stand over the crib all the time or anything, but he's on oxygen and he pulls out the cannula sometimes. Usually he makes noise when he does that, but not always, and we worry about it. Plus, he's noisy with all his little baby sounds. We tried having him in our room the first night he was home and each of us only got about an hour of sleep between the sounds and the worrying.
ReplyDeleteI imagine everything will seem like a cake-walk after having a baby in the NICU. I do think your sleeping arrangement is superb and I'm quite jealous- sounds like a lot of sleep! Lovely! Also, I say, treasure this time. Because what I didn't realize is, you only have your first-born newborn once. Which sounds silly, but having a newborn later, it won't just be the 2 (or 3) of you- older kids make for a much different experience. All to say, I'm glad you're enjoying it!
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