Hooray....we did it!!!!

Zoe was weighed on Wednesday when I went to mothers group and she'd gained 170g in a week. I was so happy that she'd finally had the right weight gain. Its taken until she was 4 weeks old to achieve it, but at last I feel like we are on our way.

Her length had also increased by 1 cm and her head circumference by 0.5 cm. She's still around the 50th percentile for both of those. The nurse at our mothers group said the key thing about the growth charts is that the baby needs to keep tracking along an upward trajectory, not be aiming to change percentiles.

In other words, if you are on the 3rd percentile, its ok to stay there as long as you keep advancing up that percentile. This made me feel a lot better, as it seems we aren't aiming to get Zoe to the 50th percentile, just make sure she keeps gaining at the right rate.

Our goal now is to keep maintaining this weight gain and then start to think about how we can eliminate the top-up feeds. I am really reluctant to decrease them because I don't want her to go backwards again.

I had a follow up appointment with the GP today in which I was going to get another Motilium script, but I decided to cancel. I think my milk supply is fine now, and only being limited by the top-up feeds so I decided no more Motilium. I was even leaking breast milk again this morning - surely a good sign. I've got a herbal preparation to help breast milk supply from the naturopath so I will try that for a week.

I don't think the natural way is better or worse than the drugs. I think they are both pretty hit and miss but I may as well try the natural option and see what happens.

I just need to work out how to decrease the comp feeds so my supply can increase without sending her weight gain downwards. We are going to wait another week to see if the weight gain is sustained before making any changes.

The Zoe-led routine is working well too. It's much easier to see what kind of phases she passes through from day to day. For instance, yesterday she was very sleepy. I even went to a Mums and bubs pilates class and she slept the whole way through it - brilliant!! And last night I took her to my monthly book club group, and she mainly slept through that as well, apart from some time at the start to charm everyone who had a hold of her :-)

We had a good night last night as well, with her having a feed at 10.30pm and 2.45am and then not again until 7.30am and straight back to sleep after each feed. It worries me a bit when she goes nearly 5 hours without waking for a feed, but my fears were laid to rest this morning, because she just wouldn't go back to sleep at all.

I spent from 7.30am to 12.45pm either feeding her or trying to get her back to sleep. In the end, I put her in the Baby Bjorn because I was so frustrated and not being able to get anything done, and it actually worked. After a bit of grizzling, she fell asleep and I then managed to get her out of it and into her bed without her starting up again. I think I'm starting to get the hang of this mothering thing!!