Midwife visit at 11 days old (yesterday)

Midwife "M" came to visit us yesterday to check Lucy's weight. She weighed 3.51Kg, so although she hasn't fully recovered her birth weight, she is on the way.

We asked about a number of things, prime amongst which was whether we had to keep waking Lucy in the night for her feed. She said that Lucy should be weighed again in a week and if her weight is not increasing quickly enough we should start waking her every 3 hours.

Interestingly, Hayley and I heard this different ways. In the middle of last night Hayley started to get up to wake Lucy. She thought we had to start waking her straight away, whereas I understood it was OK to let her sleep while we had no cause for concern. After a quick 3am conference we went back to bed. Lucy woke half an hour later (5 hours after her previous feed).

We also talked about breastfeeding and strategies to allow expressed milk and/or formula to be used where it might be beneficial, e.g. to let me do a feed in the late evening to allow Hayley to get some sleep. She said that it was best for Hayley to do the feed in the night as this was good for milk production the following day. (We'll be giving her an EU quota next!)

We asked about the spots Lucy has and she said that was quite normal. She also didn't seem concerned by the red marks that appear on her skin, apparently where she has been held or been lying.

I asked about slings and she mentioned that some women do actually breastfeed their baby in a cradle sling. It seems hard to imagine. I think you need a black belt in breastfeeding to do that.