Day 2 at home

by Peter Fogarty
(Bucharest)

Close up of baby

This morning, I was really tired, and so was Doina and Irina, and so we spent the day relaxing, feedings and sleeping. Slowly the baby is eating more and more.

When you get up close to him, he will track you with his eyes. One of his eyes seem a little sleepy, but I am sure that this will fix itself.

As we are breast feeding, it means we have no real idea as to how much milk he is taking in a day, so it was another trek to the pharmacy, to see if we could buy some baby weighing scales - these don't come cheap - the cheapest I found was $100 but out of stock until tomorrow at the earliest - I did find a great set of scales which cost around $130 - which are working fine. You simply put the baby on, weigh it, then when you weigh it again, the little machine deducts the difference.

I am sure in the UK we would had a lot more visits to the hospital to keep a check of these events - even the doctors here recommend this machine. How normal Romanians afford such things is beyond me!

In 3 days, the baby has regained the 10% it lost after birth, so it growing quickly and well. It was well enough today to have its first bed bath... which resulted in a lot of screaming and crying, and then the baby went to sleep like a log.

The odd thing Romanians seem to have it keeping the baby like a straight stick as they are convinced the back of the baby will not form properly. I have resolved to arguing that the baby is happy, and instantly falls a sleep with me, as I let is slightly curl up in a ball as I gently sing to it. The Romanians on the other hand seem to march about until I decide that enough it enough and I rescue it and I return it asleep.

The other odd thing is when I stoke the child - it is always too hard and yet the baby sleeps and gurgles at my touch. I am sure this will be something I come back to looks of times - as Romanians are not the most tactile when it comes to new borns.

Tonight I am sleeping on the sofa for half the night, so I have lots of energy for taking care of the baby. I am lucky, I have another 2 weeks before I need to go back to school as I have one more week off, followed by a week holiday - he could not have been born at a better time!

Well night calls! I will tell you how tomorrow goes - tomorrow! Feel free to add comments to all my observations, as I would love to have an ongoing conversation with my visitors.