Helpful bracelets

Good news! Ethan surpassed his birth weight by 7 1/2 oz. only 8 days after he was born (he was originally down 8% body weight in the hospital)- so things are going great! We found this info out because we had to go to the doctor to check out some nodules that popped up on his head that weren't there before. Evidently, because he has a cephalohematoma (big bad bruise on his head), as the blood reabsorbs, it can calcify around it, causing little calcified nodules around the hematoma; which although somewhat unsightly, are completely harmless and will go away in a few months. Okay, so that was my medical spiel of the day... :)

My good friend Samantha bought me such a handy and super useful gift- a bracelet that is numbered 1-12 with three dots in between the numbers for 15 min. intervals, and a little heart slider, to mark the last time I fed Ethan, and then you put the bracelet on the side that you need to start on for the next feed- it has been a lifesaver through my foggy mental state! I was also being super vigilant about keeping a log of his output per day, but after we found out he had already passed his birth weight, I got increasingly forgetful of where I left the paper we were logging on, and started asking myself and Michael if I really needed to keep it up.

I referred to "The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding"- lent to me by Julie and it reminded me that I can also just keep track by making sure he is eating 8-12 times a day (but at least 6 wet diapers and three stools/day- which Ethan always far surpasses :) ). My mom and I were brainstorming about an easy way to know how many times I've fed him without writing it down. I kind of stole this idea from Julie, but we ended up making a bracelet with beads with letters and spelled his name Ethan Everett, which is conveniently 12 letters! We tried different clips to mark in front of the letter after I feed him, and we couldn't really find anything that worked except a small bobby pin, however it completely works for me. Now I know how many times I've fed him, what time I fed him last, and which side to start on- all with some really helpful bracelets!!