Truth About the Newborn Stage

The newborn stage is not my favourite, I'll admit it. As beautiful as a newborn baby is, and Rayya certainly is a beauty, the newborn stage is hard for me. I am very comfortable handling a newborn, and thankfully feel much, much more relaxed about her nursing and sleeping, etc. However, between the exhaustion of being up at night nursing, and the distressing cries of a newborn that come without explanation, I find it tough. This is not to say that this post is about complaining about my new baby! Oh no, definately not! I'd do this a MILLION times over again, just to have my babies. But it's simply me admitting that I do not handle the newborn phase well. I struggle with really embracing the moments, and at the same time wishing for them to pass.

Rayya is a fabulous baby! Of course, I compare everything she does to what James did - and she is a dream in comparison. The few nights that I have said were "rough" have really been a walk in the park compared to "rough" nights with James! Since day one Rayya has pretty much been on a 2.5 hour feeding "schedule", with a few bursts here and there were she nurses more. She nurses fast though, usually wrapping things up in 15-30 minutes max. (To me, that's fast compared the hour that James always took). She usually konks out and naps immediately following that, which I will switch around later to be awake time - but goodness, she's only 2 weeks old! She sleeps pretty well at night, with an occassional hour or so of just wanting to be awake - but happy! If that happens, I hand her off to daddy, who can sleep while holding her in a chair. I can't do that. She seems to handle my fast let-down reflex better than James, who had explosive poops throughout his entire nursing "career". Rayya handles it fine, and I of course am more experienced and use a few tricks to help her out. She loves to be bathed, and hasn't cried at all when getting bathed. She's bright and alert when she's awake, and seems to just now be interested in her soother. Until lately, I've been her soother! What else... um... she seems to have a bit of a witching hour from about 9:00pm - 10:00pm, when she just screams and cries - and then suddenly will just instantly fall asleep! I don't know if it's gas, or what, but it's pretty consistent every night. I never would have tried to keep James awake, EVER, but we do try to keep her awake during the evening for a while, because she sleeps A LOT. Last night was a typical night for her, down to sleep at 10:00pm, up to nurse at 1:30am, sleep, up to nurse at 4:30am, sleep, up to nurse at 6:30am and then slept until 9:30am.

Anyway, that's the latest baby rundown. I know it's a funny photo of her, I was trying to get one of her while she was awake!