031207 - UK

Today we had the change to miss one another Neil and I. For the first time I went to the hospital on my own. I was lucky with a parking near by and I still have my resting place next to Mary Ann. The nurses helped me today instead of Neil. It was important that Neil had a day on his own, I thought. Especially since it’s so close that we have to be hospitalized with her. He will soon have a lot of tasks. I’m afraid the snow is coming soon. That represents a lot of extra challenges for me going out. So if Neil should stay home it better be now before the snow comes.
I got a good routine with her now. I gently wake her up when I come in the morning. We take her to the changing table and “have a word”, as Neil calls it. We tell her that now it’s time to wake up because she has to eat to grow. We give her a lot of kisses and have her in a seating position. We try to hold her focus in different ways, so she stays a wake. I sit her in front of me after the change with the nursing pillow round her. I don’t give her the blanket or duvet since I don’t want her to be comfy. She has to feel that now it’s working time. I find it difficult to make her eat. Strictly it’s most difficult to make her open her mouth and have her tongue down from the roof of the mouth (the palate). She eats well enough even though she spits a lot of milk out. But she is so strong in her muscles around the mouth that it makes it very difficult. She keeps her mouth tight together. I try the trick, to gently pull her lower lip down. Normally the babies’ tongues will come down shortly after. But not with Mary Ann. It takes so long time and then the milk gets cold. In the time for the milk to warm again, she has fallen back to sleep again. It’s always a dilemma. Should I have the milk warm again and she falls a sleep or should I just give her colder milk? Tonight she had her last milk cold and she took it all. So I triumph her in the end in spite her strong willpower!
She is now 2055g so I guess she does eat some of the milk.