Weight watchers

We had Zachary's second pediatric appointment/weigh-in today. We've been watching his weight closely because he lost a fair amount of his birth weight. He was 5 lbs 7 oz at birth, 5 lbs 0.6 oz when we left the hospital last Tuesday, and 4 lbs 13 oz at our first pediatric appointment on Thursday. We've been following a pretty intense schedule of nursing, followed by bottle feeding to supplement, followed by pumping (to get the milk for the bottles). This routine has been taking between 1.5 and 2 hrs each time, and we do it every 3-4 hours.

Tiring as it is, it seems to be working. Today he weighed 5 lbs 3 oz, which means he gained 6 oz in five days! We have another follow-up next Monday, and hopefully he will have gained another 4 oz by then -- thus reaching his birth weight. We were told to vary our feeding routine a bit and lighten up on the nursing but increase the number of feedings and pumping. Nursing is very strenuous for him and he's just too young to be able to handle it, so our goal is to fatten him up for a bit to give him the energy to go to full-time nursing eventually.

We were also told that we need to put him on house arrest -- just like his mama was for the last five weeks of her pregnancy. Since he's still so small, we need to be careful about keeping him healthy. We're not to take him out (other than for doctor appointments) or have many people around him until he's at least 6 weeks old, so he won't be debuting until mid-December. Poor guy -- so anxious to get here early, and now he's not allowed to meet anyone until three weeks after his original due date!

Regardless, we're so happy that he's gaining weight and that our round-the-clock feeding seems to be working! Now if we could just shave a bit of time off of the routine so that we get a bit more rest between cycles. I'll have to put my analyst hat on to see where I can gain efficiencies in the process...