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Hello! My name is Joseph Woodrow Stevens and this is my Blog. It's called Rabbits' Blog, because that was the name Mummy and Daddy gave me when I was still in Mummy's tummy. (Apparently Daddy's sister wanted to call my Daddy Rabbits when he was born!)

Anyway, Mummy and Daddy write stuff down here about me, 'cos they seem to think it's interesting. I just like all the pictures of me, 'cos I'm gorgeous! I hope you like what Mummy and Daddy have written here. Let them know if you do. They'd like to hear from you!

Lots of love and kisses!

Joseph xxx

Friday, February 24, 2006

Joseph comes home


Yes, our boy is home.

In the end it all happened really quickly. One minute we were trying to get him to go 4 hourly and the next he had pulled out his tube, was feeding on demand and we were told he could come home. He pulled out his tube on Valentine's day so the nurses thought they would try him on bottle / breast feeds and not put another tube in. He managed and on the Friday we spent the night rooming in with him at the hospital (there is a room in the Neo-Natal ward where parents can stay overnight and get used to looking after their baby full time but with the staff available if there are problems). It was a good experience as it helped us to feel more confident about caring for him at home.

We brought him home on the 18th and we haven't looked back. Luckily we had already spent 7 weeks in and out of the hospital so had got used to a reduced level of sleep. Although that situation was not ideal the staff in NNU had taught us a lot about how to care for Joseph and we had had time to adjust to the idea of being parents without the responsibility. The staff there were truly amazing.

Joseph is mostly a good baby. He generally goes 3 - 4 hours between feeds and cries when hungry or being changed but not for effect. Craig and I are sharing all of the responsibility at the moment as he is on paternity leave. Part of me is really dreading him going back to work as then I will have to do much more and will have no one to keep me sane during the day. We are both tired and I am quite grumpy but we are muddling through and are very proud of our little boy.

Now all we have to do is work out how to eat some lunch, go to Tesco's and take him for a walk before he wakes for his next feed!

posted by Emma @ 12:28 PM   0 comments - links to this post

Sunday, February 12, 2006

1 Month Old

So our little boy has hit another milestone. Every day he is growing stronger and achieving more.

He had a bad day on Friday. He had been on 33 mls every 3 hours and was put up to 35 mls. Although this is a tiny increase it seems that he could not deal with it. He would get down to the last 2 mls with no problems and then take the last of the milk and throw up. He threw up all over his new clothes (projectile so it came out of his nose and hit his feet), his bed and his mother. Yes, I smelt of baby sick. What an experience!

He was put back on to two hourly feeds yesterday but today he is back on 3 hourly. We have been trying to get him to feed at the breast with little success. He has trouble latching so falls off as soon as he has had two or three sucks. I have had to have help to get him latched and he does well once he is latched. Today he had two tries at the breast and both times managed to get latched quite quickly and had a good feed. He fed so well that we did not need to top him up via the tube. This is real progress and puts him much closer to coming home. I was really proud of him and he seemed really content but we'll have to wait and see if he will be able to keep it up tomorrow.

posted by Emma @ 8:49 PM   0 comments - links to this post


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