three hours

In the Fast and the Furious movies (anything you ever read that beings with this phrase is probably going to be terrible), Dom has a line so bad it is hilarious about how he lives life "a quarter mile at a time." We live ours three hours at a time, and that three hour cycle will dominate our lives for at least the next six weeks.

Jack is just north of the 5th percentile in weight for a nearly two week old. He is much higher if you go by gestational age, but overall he is pretty small.

Because of that he needs to eat at least every three hours. A lot of families can feed their baby on an as needed basis or a hybrid schedule between as needed and every so many hours (often four) but with a preemie you have to do at least every three.

So every three hours we have to wake him up, change his diaper, wam up saved milk, feed and burp him, Lelaine has to pump and fortify the milk, and then you have to soothe him to get him to sleep (he burns fewer calories when he sleeps, so sleep = good). He likes to take about half an hour to eat and it takes another half hour or more to do the other things. So at least one out of every three hours is spent just preparing for feedings, leaving at most two hours (or more likely 1.75) for us to eat, sleep, take care of other things, etc.

We are trying hard to do things in that two hour window that are either productive (running errands or cleaning) or similar to things I would normally do (watch TV, catch up on the news, go for a run), but it is hard to not just doze off along with Jack.