Credit where credit is due

So I feel like many of my posts recently have been me whining about various things the boy does that aren't so good: boo hoo, he doesn't sleep, he eats too much, he's covered in zits, bitch bitch bitch. So it only seems fair that I also give him props for the good things.

First, I should say that overall he's really a pretty good baby. He's not a big fusser, and he only really cries when he's hungry (which albeit is rather often, but as long as I feed him, he's ok) He's been smiling for about a week and while they're not officially directed at me, they're more than the sleepy or gassy smiles of his first few weeks and they're absolutely adorable.

But the true kudos needs to be awarded for his behavior the last few days. Not only has he settled down on the eating front (now it's every 2-3 hours and longer at night), he's taking a bottle like a pro, he's taking 4 daytime naps (which is up from the 1 he was taking last week) and perhaps most importantly he's been sleeping really great at night. 3 and 4 hour chunks, and last night a FIVE hour chunk, which was brilliant. I know it's far too early to say we've officially turned the corner, but it does seem like this 6-week mark (which he'll hit on Tuesday) may really mean that things are taking a turn for the better.

He and I went out shopping yesterday, our first true solo outing that wasn't to the doctor. Jack slept pretty much the whole time and I felt like a normal person for the first time in a while. It was fabulous. The milkshake I drank as we shopped didn't hurt either. Here's a couple pics - hoping to post more soon as his acne seems to maybe be starting to clear up a bit (woo-hoo!) Here's two carseat pics (he's also doing pretty good with that too!)

Overall, good job Jack!

                  

One Month

So Jack is now officially one month old. I was talking to a friend and she put it best: "You can't believe they're ALREADY a month old and they're ONLY a month old" - it's like time has flown and crawled simultaneously this last month. Apologies for being a terrible updater last week - not only has continued his why-sleep-when-I-could-eat mindset, Jack has also developed a rather double whammy of baby acne and cradle cap, so he's not so photogenic at the moment.

He had his 1 month pediatrician visit and got the all-clear. He's now 10 lbs, 14 oz (though I seriously think he's gained another pound in the week since he went based on his eating) I'm pretty sure his lack of sleep comes from being really really overtired, and my resolution this week is to try and remember that he should really only be awake for like an hour before he goes back to sleep again, which basically means eat, maybe diaper change, and then start the go to sleep process. Any parents out there have any tips on getting them to go to sleep any quicker? I've been using the miracle blanket swaddle at night (thanks for the recs!) and he usually falls asleep nursing, but then there's those awful 10 minutes of waiting to see if he's really asleep before transferring him to his crib. At least half the time he wakes up about 8 minutes into the countdown and we have to start all over, which, if it happens 3 times in a row, can add 30-45 minutes to the process.

And because I'm seriously not sure I can keep up with all his nursing needs (the kid is ALWAYS hungry!), I'm thinking about maybe supplementing with formula, maybe just for one feeding a day. Anyone who's done this, how does it work? Do you nurse them and then give them a little formula at the end or what?

Going to try out first bottle tomorrow - I haven't been able to pump much (see above re: eats all the time) but I've gotten enough to give it a try. We'll see how it goes.

Here's a pic of him busted out of yet another swaddle. The boy will not be stopped.

Plastic Mother

Meeting Uncle Will

Well we made it to Rhode Island. Jack handled the 3+ hour drive relatively well, primarily because I decided to introduce him to a pacifier. I'm feeling totally guilty about it, but the kid is a sucking machine, and the fact that I wasn't going to be able to give him the boob during the car ride was kind of a recipe for disaster. So he grudgingly accepted the plastic substitute until we could stop in Connecticut and I could feed him. I've used it only twice since then, both times after he's nursed for over an hour and is still giving me the frantic sucking face. I know he's not hungry, since when I put him on the boob he sucks like twice and then just hangs out, and after that much nursing my nipples are not feeling their best, so I pulled out the paci and gave it to him. He sucks for like 20 minutes, falls asleep, and then spits it out and sleeps the rest of his nap. It seems like an innocuous aid, but I have visions of him being 10 years old and still needing it, and I feel like a totally inadequate mother for not being able to soothe him somehow on my own without relying on the plastic mother to help me. But what's done is done, and I'll just try and use it only when absolutely necessary. Any other veteran mothers who might be reading this, tell me you used these things and all was fine. I'm not terrible for giving it to him, right? Only time will tell...

RI has been delightful so far, other than the first night, when we had 2 not so pleasant experiences. Jack and I were asleep in my bedroom on the 3rd floor, and I wake up for some reason. There's a light on next to me on the bedside table, and I see this thing flying around my room. In my sleep-addled state, I think "How did a bird get into my room?" and then I realize it's not a bird, it's a BAT. Now, for any of you who have ever been in my bedroom in RI, you know that a) it is not a large room and b) because it has slanted ceilings from being on the third floor, there's not a whole lot of ceiling space for a bat to fly, which means it's flight path is way, way too close to my head. Readers of my Morocco blog may remember my previous bat incident, which scarred me for life, so I of course start shrieking and flailing around in my bed, dive to the floor and try to get over to the bassinet where Jack is sleeping. The bat keeps flying at us and I keep trying to swat at it with a pillow, at one point shouting at it, "You get away from that baby!" because the only thing more horrifying than an bat flying at you is a bat flying at your baby. I manage to grab Jack, who is totally nonchalantly looking around, calm as can be, while his mother is still shrieking. We get outside the bedroom and I slam the door behind us and go into the other bedroom. After feeding Jack (because bat or not, the kid still expects to be fed when he wakes up) I go wake up my dad and make him go kill it, which he does, and we return to the scene of the attack and go back to bed. 

Two short hours later, when the little man wakes up again, I feed him (again) and then he has a bout of projectile vomiting. I had never seen anyone, especially a baby, do this before, and let me tell you, it is FREAKY. First of all, that is WAY too much liquid to be coming out of something so little - I don't know how he even fit all that milk in there in the first place. To give you a sense of scope, he was laying in my lap and after letting loose this plume of vomit, I was completely drenched and he didn't have a drop on him, that's how far he shot it. It was like the Exorcist, totally weird and unnatural. So of course I look on the internet (at 3am) for what the hell this could be and after reading about GERD and stomach problems and all this other stuff, I get completely paranoid for the next 2 days, watching for any other signs of trouble, but there hasn't been any more instances of it, and he's still eating like a champ, so I think it was just a case of overfeeding and not burping enough. I've now turned into a burping nazi and I fear he's going to have a black and blue back at his next doctor's appt and I'll probably get arrested for child abuse, but at least the kid won't be gassy. 

Lastly, for your viewing pleasure, my mom bought me this thing that you're supposed to put over the baby's little penis that stops them from peeing on themselves. As you can see, it's absolutely ridiculous and Jack seems to realize this, since he kicks it off almost immediately every time. 

Routine?

Not much to report today - just an excuse to post some pictures. Last night was a pretty decent sleeping night for Mr. Jack, despite all expectations to the contrary. Sometimes he sleeps better when swaddled, sometimes (last night) he sleeps better when he can flail his arms around. He's broken out of just about every swaddle I've ever put him in, which is both a testament to his tenacity and my poor swaddling skills. Our friends got us a Woombie, which he really doesn't like, but perhaps I need to tough love it and force him in it another couple nights to see if it works. He struggles so much in it that I fear he's going to choke himself, but maybe that's just new mom anxiety and not an actual concern? For now, I'll keep using the swaddle blankets, since they seem to be the one that lets him consistently sleep the longest, even if he does bust out of them.

Tomorrow I'll be doing my first solo drive with him. Going into the city for a dr appt (mine). If you hear about a massive traffic backup in the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel because some crazy lady stopped her car to nurse her screaming baby, that's me.

Also, loving the I'm-pretty-much-asleep-so-my-facial-muscles-are-experimenting smiles as he lays there in a milk coma. Can't wait for the real ones...

Thrilled to be photographed with his mother

                        

Hormones!

So it's kind of a big cliche that pregnant women are super hormonal and can leap to the edges of the emotional spectrum with little to no provocation, but I have to say for the most part that I thought I was on a fairly even keel, emotionally, during my pregnancy and I don't think I was any more prone to wild mood swings than I normally am (for what that's worth). Now however, I have turned into a hair-trigger of weepiness. I was flipping through the tv stations and caught about 10 minutes of Cast Away - of course it was the 10 minutes where Wilson gets swept off the raft and Tom Hanks has to let him go - and I was literally bawling and had to change the channel. You might think, well sure, who doesn't cry when Wilson floats away, but it gets worse. I then proceeded to cry at a Family Ties episode where Alex was graduating from high school; the end of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade where Sean Connery calls him Indiana and tells him to let the grail go; and a Wonder Years episode where the dad has to come to terms with the daughter growing up and moving out. Pathetic. I don't really think of myself as a big cryer, so these bouts of teariness are disconcerting to say the least. I will go back to normal, right??

Went to the doctor again yesterday, mostly for a weight check to make sure he was back up to his birth weight. Turns out the little eating machine actually gained a POUND this week and has shot past his birth weight to 9 lbs, 12 oz. Even the doctor was a little shocked at the massive jump. Just like when we brought Black Dog to the vet and they gave my mom the pamphlet on dog gluttony, I keep waiting for the doc to pull out the infant gluttony handout, but she assured me that you can't overfeed a breastfed baby and that I should continue to indulge his overzealous eating.

In other news, my mom left on Sunday to return to RI. She's been here since the day before he was born, so she's had a hell of a two week stint here. I can honestly say that I don't think I would have gotten through the last 2 weeks without her, and I'm so glad she was here to welcome Jack into the world and get to know him in his first days. While I was still pregnant, I was talking with a friend of mine who already has kids about their relationship with their parents and how it change when there's grandchildren in the picture and she said something about how her mother drives her crazy and they have all kinds of issues but that no one will ever love her son the way his grandmother does. And I think that after seeing my mom with Jack, I totally agree. Needless to say, I had a big sobbing bout after she left. Jack didn't even notice, he ate the entire time Mommy was blubbering away.