Happy Two Months!

So excited to be at two months! Our big boy weighed in at 10 lbs. 3 oz. and 23 1/3 inches long at his 8 week checkup! And his head is 15 1/2 inches. His pediatrician says he is growing consistent along his growth curve, even though he's in the 30th percentile for weight and 70th for height (100 being high for his age, meaning he's taller than 70% of babies his age). Our long, lean boy! He's just starting to get too tall for his newborn clothes. I've heard one mother say that she cried every time her boys grew out of a size. I feel completely the opposite. I'm excited for each new phase, as I try to appreciate the current one.

His nighttime sleep still varies quite a lot. Last night he slept nice six-hour stretch, which is his longest so far. He does that maybe once a week. Lately it's been mainly four hour stretches, waking up around two or 3 AM to nurse. His pediatrician said, if we wanted to let him cry it out during the day to try to get him on a more regular schedule, we could, but at night if he wakes up, he needs nutrition. In comparison to some babies I've heard about, he's pretty good. But he's just sort of restless all evening long and if we can get him to sleep around 8 PM, he only sleeps for about half an hour then is awake until 10 or 11 PM. Wed evening, by 9:30 we'd been trying to get him to sleep for 1.5 hrs. Already nursed twice til he dozed off and given him a little bottle. But every time I put him in his bassinet, he woke up. It makes for a long evening.

We're trying to break him of the carseat because he's learned how to flip over while in it; doubt he'll do that when he's right next to my bed without me intervening first but...

Mommy hood is tough in ways I guess I could've expected but wouldn't have understood. I feel like my whole identity has been stripped away and I have just this small sliver and am trying to rebuild my life to what I want it to be, if that makes sense. I just feel different at a really base level as a person. Guess I'm just struggling a little there to figure out how to reintroduce things I loved, like alone time with Matt, or running, or alone time period.

I started back at work just 15hrs/wk two weeks ago. My original goal was to use my 12wks of saved vacay & sick pay to slowly go back to full time instead of taking 12 full weeks off. My office is really flexible and let's me call the shots, which almost makes it harder because I'm not very motivated, it's the slow period in my job right now anyhow, and I don't have childcare so I'm just trying to find hours in the day to tap in... but since Carsen doesn't reliably nap and only naps for an hour or less at a time, it's tough. I'm trying to figure out how to use my mom more to help.

Things are definitely easier than two months ago! But I hear that three months is a real turning point so I'm very much looking forward to that.

I joined a mommy Meetup group to try to meet other moms in town with young children. So far I've made maybe one or two new friends. One gal I met yesterday has a daughter who is only two days older than Carsen so it's nice to be able to compare and commiserate (and she heard that the hospital hadn't been as busy as when we delivered in as long as the nurses could remember; they had to use other parts of the hospital for labor/delivery cause they ran out of rooms. So what was going on in June 2012 to lead to so many Feb babies ;) And also my full moon equals lots of births theory holds true). I felt so bad for her though because she said her daughter cries and screams for at least two hours every evening, from around 6 or 7 PM until sometimes 10 PM. I'll take Carsen a little fussy and restless and wide awake over him full out crying. That sounds unbearable!

Nursing is a lot easier too. Can't say something I love to do though. I still worry about my milk supply because sometimes, especially in the evening, he still seems so grumpy after I feed him. I worry that's because he's not getting enough to eat any still hungry, as opposed to it's just his fussy period. I'm feeling better about supplementing him with breastmilk and/or formula. Try not to feel guilty about that, as if I don't have enough milk, or that makes me a bad mom. It's not a rational thing, I know.

He smiles a little each day but still not a lot. And he coos too. His neck is getting very strong and he can hold his head up pretty well most of the time. He can also put some weight on his legs when I hold him up. He's using his hands a lot more. Sometimes he pulls his pacifier out of his mouth with his hands and then sticks it back in. He also started sorta kneading (like a kitten or puppy) when he nurses. And he looks around a little bit more for us in a room. I'm excited for the giggling to start! He loves his baths and just silently looks around and kicks, as if in awe. It is amazing how much love we can feel for someone so little and young and helpless. The emotional roller coaster of parenthood is pretty incredible. And he's just so darn cute!

Ready to Resume "Normal Actvities"

We survived the first six weeks! I feel like we've reached some important milestone. After all, there were many things I had to abstain from until now, including baths (except sitz baths), and my office will only let me borrow up to six weeks advance sick pay had I needed to, and short term disability only covers the first six weeks. It feels like at this point then, we must be at some much easier stage where things will just go smoothly now.

Yes it is easier, but I feel like when EVERYone says "it gets easier," they mean even easier. At least on some nights he sleeps stretches of 4-5 hours. On Sunday night, he slept six!! That uninterrupted sleep helps tremendously. I felt so much different Monday morning than Tuesday morning after he slept four hours, was awake for two hours, then slept another two. I wouldn't even mind a middle of the night feeding if it followed five hours of sleep.

Unfortunately so far Carsen 1- wants to be held almost all the time and 2- doesn't seem to settle down at night til around 11pm, even if I start at 7pm to create a bedtime routine and try to get him to sleep earlier. He just fights it. Or sleeps for like 30 mins then wakes and fights going back down. It would really be nice at the end of the day to have that time with Matt. At least we've found that he sleeps well in his carseat, vs me having to hold him and worrying about the carefully placed blankets moving and suffocating him or me somehow moving even an inch and crushing him. It's far from ideal to have him sleep in his carseat but in his bassinet, he hasn't slept more than 2hrs at a time. I don't know why. I thought maybe it was too hard, or too cold, or not elevated and maybe he has acid reflux so against guidelines, we put a knit blanket under his bassinet sheet with it folded over more on one end to make it more elevated. That's a no no, even though he can't even roll over yet so I'm not sure how he could get himself into trouble...

I'm figuring out that parenting is a constant experience of trying to figure it out. Once you get through one phase, you're onto another that you have no idea how to handle. I'm reading so much but everyone has different advice.

For example, I started rereading "On Becoming Babywise," about getting babies as early as 8 weeks old to sleep through the night for 8 hours. These authors claim babies can sleep an hour per week old they are plus one. They lay out a pretty regimented sleep/eating cycle that has a lot of criticism for 1- being too strict/some babies won't adapt to it/some babies can't be flexible after adapting, and 2- endorsing having babies cry it out (which I've read that Carsen may be too young for; I certainly feel that way). I understand the premise that babies need sleep, then fed just after waking while they have a lot of energy, then need awake/play time, then should be laid down when drowsy but still awake so they can learn to fall asleep on their own and not use these things are sleeping crutches: 1- nursing, 2- being held, 3- pacifier, 4- being rocked. My question is: if I feel like Carsen is too young to have me let him cry it out (his pediatrician says he won't understand cause/effect e.g. "if I cry, Mommy picks me up" until he's like 3 months), how do I get him to sleep otherwise? Because if I put him down in his bassinet or playpen, he just ends up crying. Sometimes in the carseat too. I can get him to sleep sometimes in the front pack by walking around, but again, that's rocking...

I also read that babies his age should sleep around 16 hours a day and that they usually can't go more than 1 to 2 hours awake at a time. But nursing takes around an hour itself! I don't know how because he only nurses about 15 mins on each side but if you factor in burping a few minutes after each side and diaper changes, etc, it takes awhile.

Our days seem to go like this: 7am wake/diaper change/nurse/I force nap because I'm so tired, 9-9:30am wake/nurse/diaper change/dress/I eat/maybe pump if I get him to hang out in playpen/play, 11am ish try to get him to nap, 12-1pm ish wake him up to diaper change/nurse/play, try to get him to nap again but then it's shortly time to wake him again to nurse if I'm trying to nurse every 2-3 hours so not much sleep there, 3pm ish nursing/a little play/sometimes he naps around 4 or 5pm, 6pm ish nursing/trying to keep him from being fussy while we make and eat dinner/he tries to nap sometimes but it doesn't last long and/or he tried to take a really long nap starting around 3 or 4pm, 7-8pm nursing again and I try to start a bedtime routine with maybe a bath, a story, I try to get him to sleep but he fights it and fights it and fights it, we maybe get him to sleep for 30 mins then he's up again wanting to nurse, nursing again hoping he'll sleep after that, he fights sleep... this usually goes on til about 11pm when he'll finally settle down and sleep, 2-3am wakes up to nurse (a few times he's slept through), 4am doesn't want to go back to sleep, fights it, 6-7am wakes up to nurse. I tried to count it and it's only like 14 hours of sleep. His naps are usually only an hour because by the time he goes to sleep, it's been two hours since he started last nursing, meaning I'll have to wake him in an hour to nurse. Sometimes he'll try to take a much longer nap if I let him. Is 14hrs enough? Should I try to enforce longer naps? Earlier bedtime? I thought babies slept longer. He used to. I thought I'd have more time than a one hour nap every several hours during the day, and maybe some time in the evening. I feel like I'm always questioning if I'm doing things right.

Anyhow...

Carsen got to meet his Grandma Susan, who came to stay with us for a week. She was a big help, holding Carsen, teaching him new lullabies and Celtic songs, helping us with laundry and dishes and cooking. I felt so lazy. She even made batches of casseroles and cookies for us to freeze so we won't have to cook some nights! The weather was pretty crappy and Matt had to work the whole time she was here so we didn't get her out to see the sites but we had a nice visit. Carsen's not very interactive yet, but he's nice to hold.

I joined a Moms group through Meetup.com and I'm going to try to go to some of their events in the next few weeks to meet some other moms. It's hard that my friends who are moms don't live in town, and none of my friends in town have kids yet (except one, though her stepson is seven so not exactly in the same stage). It'd just be nice to meet some other women who have infants who I can chat with once in awhile, and eventually have some play dates. It gets lonely being home, even (especially?) with a baby.

Last week, I tried to start back at work. My original thinking was that instead of taking 12 full weeks off (which luckily I do have enough vacation (which is capped at 6 weeks) and sick pay enough to do), I'd take at least 6 weeks off then go back part-time gradually (like 15hrs for a few wks, then 20...) so that I wouldn't be back to 40hrs until sometime in the summer. My office is really wonderful in that they don't expect anything from me that I'm not willing to do. I can determine when I work, when I'll have a predictable schedule, when I want to take email back, when and which projects I want to take back... But that freedom sometimes makes it challenging because right now, I don't have a ton to do, but then it's also been more challenging to find even 3 hrs during the day to pay attention to work than I thought it would be. We'll see how it goes.

The other challenging part of parenting is, surprisingly, how it challenges Matt and my relationship. I find myself irritated and snippy, and since he's sensitive, that creates issues. It's tough to be on the same page with some basic things, like whether he's hungry or not, and whether I should breastfeed more or we should supplement him with a bottle of breastmilk/formula (since I don't have much expressed milk). Feeding him has been 80% of our issues with each other. And then being tired and not being able to be intimate in the way we want mixed in leads to a rocky road for us. Thank goodness my parents are really encouraging (even prompting) for date nights and wanting to babysit. Our first time out to dinner without Carsen felt like being carefree teenagers again! We felt so... free! Alive! Young! Until 8pm when we felt tired ;) I thought having a baby would bring us closer. Maybe that comes in time too.

First Smile!

He's been working up to it for awhile but here is Carsen's first non-poop-related smile, to Matt's turkey call.

Happy One Month

We made it to one month! It doesn't doesn't feel like it's been a really long time. But Carsen is doing well I think, and it is getting easier.

In the last week, he started making some changes. First of all, he seems to want to be held all the time. Whenever I put him down, it's only about two minutes before he starts crying to be picked up. His pediatrician says that you can't spoil a newborn and then it won't be until he's three months old or so he'll start to understand cause and effect. So right now he apparently doesn't understand that when he cries, it'll elicit a response from me. So I should feel free to pick him up and hold him whenever I want. Everyone tells me, hold him as much as I can, because the time will pass quickly when he wants to be held. But it makes it tough to get anything at all done. Not that I'm trying to keep my house clean, I mean more so things like making myself something to eat.

But he's also started to sleep more at night. This week he had two nights of stretches of four hours at a time on either side of the feeding. One night, he slept for five hours, ate, and slept for five more hours, although the last few hours were in my arms. His pediatrician said it was okay now to just let him wake me up to eat at night, so that's been interesting to see what he does. He tosses a lot at night though and that wakes me up a lot, so we may have to think about moving him into his crib in his own room soon. He sleeps in a bassinet right next to my side of the bed. I thought I would want him to sleep in his own room, but I'm finding myself hesitant to make that change. I like being able to hear him and look right next to me and see him sleeping. It's weird because I didn't think I would feel that way. I understand now why some parents like to cosleep.

We go back to the pediatrician this week for another weight check. She didn't want him to go all the way to six week appointment given how much struggle we've had with his weight gain. We'll see then how are breast-feeding is going. I just decided to assume that everything is fine, and that will make much less stress for me. I'm kind of irritated at the lactation consultants who keep suggesting I have low milk supply. When I read about it, it's actually a small percentage of moms who can't make enough milk for their babies. Oh, well actually, they suggested that Carsen is just an inefficient nurser. But he seems satisfied after he eats and generally seems fine to me, a bit of a sleeper...

The lactation nurses also keep suggesting that I might have postpartum depression. I find that really annoying. Having a newborn is stressful. Especially when breast-feeding doesn't come so easily. I'm always left second-guessing myself about whether or not he has enough to eat. Plus instead of working or having any life of my own, I'm now in this new life of just sitting around my house alone breast-feeding all day. Or what feels like all day some day. It's lonely and boring sometimes. I watch some daytime TV but it's really not interesting, because I've never been a big TV watcher anyhow. So I end up reading more about breast-feeding babies and that makes me have even more questions. Need to find a good novel or something to read. It's just hard to suddenly feel like my identity is changing, what I do in a day now revolves around someone else's totally unpredictable schedule. But yet, I'm dreading going back to work. It just doesn't sound interesting at all. I'm not sure what does. But I think that most new moms feel that way.

Last week after our last mommy and me, I was worried about it so I started pumping a lot more for one day to increase my supply, and we tried to supplement Carsen with a bottle of breastmilk. Sometimes he would drink it, but sometimes he would just suck on the nipple. And I pumped plenty. I read that average is about half a feeding, or about 1.5 oz. Also babies express more milk than a pump so it's not an accurate gauge of how much milk I have. Sometimes though, even after nursing, Carsen shows hunger signs- head butting, chewing fists, smacking lips. But I sometimes think he just wants to comfort nurse, ie he uses it to fall asleep for a nap. Or... Is he legitimately still hungry because he falls asleep as coping because the flow is slow or there's not enough milk or Carsen isn't nursing effectively? It's hard to distinguish.

I wonder when it is that all start to learn what his cries and all his motions mean. It seems like maybe I would by now but I still find him a little bit of a mystery. And this mother's intuition I'm supposed to have, when does that kick in? My wonderful mom friends have advised me just to go with my gut, what I think is right for my baby, because ultimately I should be the one to know. But it's so hard when I second-guess myself. Matt and I are working on what we think our game plan should be- Breast-feed him until I hear more definitively that that's not working for him to gain weight, and then we'll supplement him if he still seems very hungry after he breast feeds. And I'll try to pump, but it's pretty tough during the day when Carsen wants my attention. I might try to introduce a formula or mix the formula with breastmilk because if I only pump half of feeding, and we're sometimes supplementing him, I'll never have enough milk to actually leave him with someone so that I can go back to work or we can go on a date night.

We went on our first date night last week. Thanks to my parents for watching Carsen! It was great. We went to dinner and then to get ice cream. It felt like being a teenager again without any responsibilities, if only for two hours. It already seems like so long ago that we were just two. I think it was really helpful. Matt and I were feeling a bit disconnected from all the stress of having a newborn. It was nice to be able to have a quiet adult dinner.

So what is Carsen like, you might wonder. At first he was a very quiet and sweet baby. This week he is starting to find his voice a little bit so that's interesting. He's coming up with new cries and sounds he makes. He's generally a pretty sound sleeper, like his mommy, and when he wakes up, he's immediately starving, also like his mommy. It seems to take him a little while to wake up, still like his mommy, and he seems a bit groggy for a few minutes at least. He chews on his fists a lot, he hasn't learned how to suck his fingers and he seems to like the pacifier okay. He likes to suck a lot! He loves to be held! Some days he cries every time I put him down. He loves to be close. He'll fuss in his bassinet but when I pick him up and hold him, he'll snuggle in and go right to sleep and sleep for quite a long time. He's starting to look for Matt and me when he hears our voices and we're not right in front of him. He's starting to be able to see things further away from him and study faces a bit more. He loves baths. He has his fussiness, but I wouldn't say he has a fussy time during the day, and generally he only really cries when he wants to eat or be picked up. Still has lots of hair and Matt says he has some cowlicks. He looks a lot like Matt looked as a baby. He has very long fingers. I think he is the most beautiful baby I've ever seen. Someone told me that I would just want to sit and stare at him all day, and I thought there was no way, but I do!

Grandpa Jon babysitting

Ellie is bigger in size AND weight

Yep, that night he had