Hi All!

I have been keeping up with everyone's posts but not enough time to reply!! So hello to everyone and sorry that I'm not going to do personals, but seems to be a common theme here

We're getting at least 8 feeds a day, but not '3 hourly', I really feel blessed as the longer sleeps are at night time (touch wood!) where Henry will go at most 5 hours between feeds (usually one long 5 hour gap and then followed by a 3), by the time he wakes up and I wake up I realise that my BBs want to explode and pray that he will take both sides to deflate them a bit, cause they're so big he often doesn't though I let the other one drain a bit while feeding the other side so can go back to sleep. During the day he empties them fully by around lunchtime and in between I am massaging both to prevent another bout of mastitis. During the day he'll got 2-3.5 hours between feeds.

The time I take to feed varies...at night the feeds are very short...sometimes only 5-10 minutes of sucking (which sucks for my full BBs) and then I burp and try and try and try to get him to have more but don't suceed so have now resigned myself that he wants only a nighttime top up and I should go back to bed! During the day sometimes he'll have up to 30 minutes on one side but if he does that usually doesn't want the other. On average during the day he'll have a total of 20-30 minutes sucking on one but usually both sides...sometimes up to 45 minutes but then it's more a comfort for the last 15 minutes where he only starts sucking once I try to take him off

He never really cries except for most afternoons around 4.00 where he'll need to be cuddled lots but settles after about 15 minutes. I think I have it quite good?

He also has some stints of wide awake time too where he won't sleep at all between feeds (or sometimes between 3!) mostly in the morning - he has a bit of tummy time, lying in bed, cuddles with me and in the bouncy thing. I also noticed today that he's smiling more...I don't think it's wind anymore, he smiled everytime I wrapped him today and often does little smirks, very cute.

I have been meaning to collect what milk I let drain on one side and store rather than soaking a towel or nappy but haven't gotten around to it...a job for later this week I think.

I've been out and about today, I went to visit by work today so that was good and feeling very chuffed with myself for the big trip that we got home had a feed and then did a woolies shop in the Bjorn which was fun to wander around chatting away to him...was tired by this afternoon and did a wash not realising that somehow (???) a disposible nappy got caught up in the washing and went through the washer....you can't believe all the gel crap that came out of it....so awful. So that was cleaned up before my afternoon nap

Henry's 4 weeks today and talking to DH I feel better each week...I'm not worried about feeding anymore as he's gaining weight (360 grams in 8 days was last measurement!!) and now I'm just going to go with the flow.

I hope everyone is going well. Gosh I hope what I've written makes sense!!

Cuddles to all!

xx