Finally some pictures!

Though babies are notorious for mixing things up I feel empowered because I think I have made some headway in at least reading my baby if not figuring out HIS schedule.

Two nights in a row he has gone down right at 10:00 pm- then slept for approx. SEVEN AND A HALF HOURS!!!! Yee-haw- that is awesome! Then...... (that's right, it gets better) he goes down again and sleeps for about THREE MORE HOURS!!!

I am in day two of tracking naps and playtime and feedings so that I can better predict what he might want or see if a pattern forms- yippee! It's very exciting for me.

My baby is happier than he has been in awhile (pictures to prove it!) and I credit it all to swaddling, blacking out the windows in his room and keeping track of what he did the day before. I have such a hard time remembering little things from day to day that writing it down is the only way I could have possibly predicted his 11ish nap today. But I looked at yesterday and saw it and went ahead and swaddled him around 10:30 and now he's been asleep (or at least quiet in his crib in a dark room) for almost two hours! Yesterday it was only 30 minute naps and several attempts- we'll see if it's longer naps and fewer attempts today- that's my hope. :)

I've been putting lots of different clothes on him because they're so cute- and I worry that he will grow out of a bunch of his outfits before he even wears them. I have these teeny little "real" denim overalls that I put on him day before yesterday but the metal fasteners close to his face seemed impractical for napping so I took them off again. But they were super cute while they lasted......

I also have a teeny little polo shirt! He liked that better but he got upset later that day (pre-tracking mind you) and I had to take it off- he gets really hot and sweaty when he's screaming.

I want to put up his 8 week portrait but my computer is being ornery with photo uploads- that's right- you should be grateful for any that I managed to get up here- because it's been pretty annoying.

Anywho- I feel better equipped and better rested and so I feel like a better mommy. Now that I feel pretty confident about keeping him reasonably happy all day- his 7:30 pm meltdown doesn't seem quite so bad. Last night I just made sure he was good, swaddled him and put him down in a dark room to decompress for a few minutes from his stimulating day- and then Jack went in and got to spend some sweet quiet baby and Daddy time. It was great- best meltdown ever. :)

Operation NAP

So, if you've been reading you may have picked up on my daily nap struggle- there have been times that it really seemed like I'd made a breakthrough but then I'd be back to square one again. Well, yesterday was no fun and I ended up letting him nap on me for a while because he would breastfeed, fall asleep, get put down in his crib (swaddled or not) and be up about 2 minutes later crying- every time.



So, today after EIGHT attempts to put him down for a nap he is finally asleep! I think it's just going to be a rinse and repeat kind of process for him until he gets used to it *sigh*- but I did put some black mat board in the window to block out nearly all the light and I think that's helping.



Saturday I went on my first solo outing!- meaning that for the first time in nearly two months I was more than 20 feet away from my son! I went on a little shopping jaunt and got some clothes at Old Navy, some glue at Hobby Lobby, and boxers at Walmart, I also picked up lunch at Chik-fil-A for Jack and I - it was really pleasant.......for me.

Jack and Max did not have the greatest time but I breastfed him as soon as I got home and he was okay again.



I'm trying out a different pacifier tonight and that might make a difference. I am leaving again tonight to watch a show over at Selah's house- I have been MIA for weeks from our weekly fashion show fix tradition. We have been watching ANTM and/or Project Runway with each other at her house every week for a couple of years now. But it is timed right when Max needs to start the 3 hour process of winding down for the evening and he is quite often pretty cranky right beforehand.

Seven weeks old

These are a week old- will have current pics up soon- his 2 month appt in coming up- I'm excited to see how much he's grown- it seems like he's already as big if not bigger than his 2 months older cousin.

swaddling Houdini

Swaddling is still great- however- I have come to discover that not just any swaddle will do when it comes to my mighty Max.


I looked online and discovered a way of swaddling which seems mean when you're doing it- instead of wrapping each inner blanket corner around the body with baby's arms straight against their sides- you wrap the blanket corners around the baby's arm and then tuck the rest of that side underneath the baby's back. After you get this straitjacket type wrap in place you wrap again with another outer blanket in a classic swaddle style to keep them warm enough. It seems awfully restrictive when you do it, but my little guy slept for longer than he has in many weeks.

The next night that I did this he slept for nearly SEVEN hours!!!! Wow. I am a fan.

Yay swaddling!

I am a first time mum and mine had twins and doesn't remember a whole lot from our little bitty days- my sister gave birth two months before me so I've been garnering lots of knowledge watching and learning from her experience. HOWEVER- her little sweetie is a sleeper- (much like her mommy when she was young) and consequently my sister dear is not facing the same challenges as I am in at least this one respect.

Some of my earlier blogs may indicate or allude to some of the difficulties I have had with my little bear and his sleepy times. Well, let me tell you dear readers- I believe I have had a major breakthrough! I have started swaddling again and it has made a world of difference last night and today- my son took a two and a half hour nap today! That's over twice as long as his one-time-only longest nap EVER. Other than that- a "good" nap for him has been about 30 minutes! He's only been having those occasionally- like maybe one every couple of days (You can imagine how much house-keeping I've been able to do). So- yippee! I may be able to start having more of a life and a routine soon. I am very excited.

A note on swaddling though- the blankets that I have for this purpose are a bit too small for my tall little guy. Also, I am interested in the most efficient method possible in nearly everything I do (some call it laziness :) So I am in the drawing board process for making my own swaddling "tube" that I could just pull up and down from the bottom for diaper changing purposes. There are many permutations of swaddling garments out there- but not one like this. So far I am working with long sleeves from husby's unwanted shirts- but am hoping for some pants legs to work with soon. Will keep everyone posted.....

One step backward? Two steps forward?

Sunday night was rough.
10:30 pm - Max goes down for the night the first time- pretty average

2:30 am - Max wakes up and I go in and start our normal nighttime routine (feed, change, feed again, put down) But I get stuck on repeat for almost 2.5 hours because as soon as he hits that crib mattress he is flailing around awake again.

4:45 am - Jack wakes to see someone sitting up in his bed and is terrified until he realizes it's his tired nub of a wife looking at the baby monitor trying to will her baby to sleep.

4:47 am - Jack (even though he has to be up for work around 6 am) relieves me for baby duty and comes up with the cool idea of aiming a fan at Max's mobile for him to stare at since he isn't sleeping.

6:30 am - It becomes apparent that Max is not going to commit to sleep or being quiet and Jack puts him in his electronic rocking swing in order to give me some sleep before he leaves for work

8:20 am - Max wakes again after two blessed hours of uninterrupted sleep on my part

8:30 am - I decide I need more sleep still and take him to bed with me to side nurse and nap a bit *

11:00 am - I decide to get up after having been awake for a little while- Max continues to sleep for another hour or so.

*I don't think I can do this anymore because it gives me really bad dreams of him coming to some kind of awful harm due to my negligence or misdeed. I haven't decided if I'm going to write those down or not- they're pretty traumatic.

So- all this leads me to last night- through my observations of him and some stuff that I had read online I decided to try swaddling him to see if it would help.

He slept for 4 hours, ate, then another almost 4 hours (this second stint is the really cool part- he has had problems with it for the past several nights if not more), ate, then another hour and a half! I got to "sleep in" until 9! Yippee! Then he happily played on his mat for 30 minutes or so- so far today is a much better day than anything last week.

I wonder a bit about swaddling him again- because it felt like progress not to- but sleeping better for both of us has to be more important right? His blankets are a bit small though- his feet stick out the bottom- so far he doesn't seem to mind. He actually acted relieved to be wrapped up and didn't struggle or anything- I think his arms are what's really bothering him.
I don't know if it's having slightly more control but not full control that is waking and frustrating him or if it's one of those regressions that happen right before some new milestone or if we're silly and should have been swaddling him this whole time.
Whatever it is- I'm glad that something helped.

6 weeks!

So, he's now 6 weeks old and I've gotten the go-ahead on all regular activites from my doctor so I'm pretty much back to normal- yay!

His sleep patterns are getting a bit kinder in that he didn't make me stay up for 3 hours in the middle of the night last night- so I'm hoping this is a return to normalcy and not a break from it.

The other night he was real cranky and seemed a little hot so Jack and I gave him a quick bath- he really enjoyed it and it calmed him right down- we made sure to get some cute pics- which is what this post is mostly about anyway.

He's been making all kinds of cute faces- it's hard to capture them- but sometimes I get a little lucky- we'll see if I ever manage to get him smiling.....

But his little curly tongue, big fat tongue and crooked yawn are pretty good too

We took him on his first stroller ride around the neighborhood the other day and it was a big success- he doesn't really like his car seat too much so we folded up a big puffy blanket in there and he was happy-chappy- he stuck out his tongue the whole time like a little lizard tasting the air.

Success!

So, last night we were trying to have Jack be totally in charge of baby-duty to see if I will ever be able to leave the house- I realize that we are being a bit soft and that if I left Max would probably eventually relent and be fine with whatever- but neither one of us wants to do tough love on a 5 week old.
Max was NOT interested in the bottle Jack offered at all and Jack got a bit discouraged since he had done so well with it the first time. The novelty has worn off and Max's verdict on bottle feeding with Daddy is: NOT as good as breastfeeding with Mommy.
We basically had a normal evening after that- Jack tried the bottle a few times with no success.
However- we were also trying for Max's first solo night.
He took a bit longer to go down than normal- really not long at all though- in this process we discovered that he would take the bottle from Jack again if it were warmed up. So- that's good information- but he breastfed for a long time- then had a full bottle and still wanted to breastfeed- so pumping is going to be a big part of my life if I ever want to leave the house. It seems he likes to eat. :)
But the end result is that Max slept just like he always sleeps- except that he was in his own room by himself in his crib! So this is great- I don't have to paranoidly worry about animals at night (they wouldn't do anything to him- but in the dead of night when you hear a weird noise- or no noise at all you start to have crazy thoughts)- I don't have to be so careful about making noise in the bedroom- and we can have a bit more space in there again.

He even slept through the loud thunder and Thor's louder barks!

He is his parents' child though- he slept better after I turned up the fan a bit and put it up higher on a shelf instead of on the floor- I think he's used to being a bit colder at night and also having good air circulation.

Exciting times though- he changes a little everyday it seems.

Mommy Mythbusters

Myth #1: Breastfeeding won't hurt if you are doing it "correctly"

Anyone who tells you breastfeeding doesn't hurt is selling something- breastfeeding is wonderful and I wouldn't trade the experience for all the tea in China- but the Lactation Consultant lied. It hurts first because your nipples aren't used to it, then because it's happening so frequently, then because you're healing, then it hurts only when your baby latches on, then it doesn't hurt while you're doing it- but you're still really sore anyway- THEN you start pumping and that's a whole other pain ballgame. Don't get me wrong- it's not bad and yes, if you're doing it "wrong" there will be more pain than otherwise- but this painfree thing they try to feed you is nonsense. It has been 5 weeks now and they still hurt enough that I have to be careful with my towel after showering.

Myth #2: Your baby's face won't freak you out at some point

Okay, so admittedly this is not a popular myth- but I know no one warned me.

My son has baggy eyes- it's really very cute but every now and then- they look a little creepy in the half light at night when I'm nursing him. It reminds me of the Thriller video:

I have not truly captured the horror on film- as it has only happened in the middle of the night when I don't have enough light to take a picture.

Incommunicado

So, I just posted a "really" old entry and feel like it is outdated- I sometimes take a little while to add pics and I don't like to post text without visual aids- you know? So now I feel the need to put up more current info:

We are still working on the napping during the day thing- but I put a little fan on low in there this afternoon and he has been in there about 10 minutes so far with no fussing to speak of- keeping fingers crossed because he's not in a sleep sack or footed onesie or anything- but I think the fan may be the secret- he is mine and Jack's child after all- and we can't sleep well without a fan going.


The last two nights have been totally swaddle free!- which is such a relief- it just saves a lot of time and frustration since he was always busting out of the swaddle anyway.



He is getting slowly but surely better at car trips- it's all in the timing and I'm working on that- so far it seems if you can catch him napping or in play mode when his tummy is nice and full he is able to make it about 20-30 minutes in the car sans meltdown- I haven't tried any further distances yet....



He is now 5 weeks old and it really does seem like he's bigger- his aunt Selah and uncle Bryan make Hulk jokes about him all the time- they anticipate him "lapping" his older cousin any day now- we'll just have to see.