Wow, I was looking down at my little boy this morning while feeding him and then looking up and the pictures on the tv of him right after birth and I am amazed by how much he has changed. The last week has really been incredible. He is so much more aware of the world around him and so much more interactive. It is truly a delight to play with him or expose him to new things. He even has favorite things with different people. With Charles, for instance, he will mimic his facial expressions. On the flip side of this amazing development is that Logan has almost completely lost his ability to fall asleep on his own and has trouble keeping himself asleep as well. This is not uncommon at the age he is (6 ish weeks from his due date), so we just have to adapt. I was feeling frustrated that things weren’t working the way they used to but I realize he is going to constantly change and we need to be willing to adapt as well. It is now stressing me out less than things are “off” but it is still a lot of work to figure out what works for him now, because ultimately he needs to sleep!
I have spent a lot of time reading the Healthy Sleep Habits Happy Child book. It has a lot of wisdom and it at least gives me a structure to work from. I think, as a sciency/engineer person, I feel like I should be able to figure this out and have it down, yet there are so many things that don’t make sense. I remember watching my sister-in-law Tara try to scientifically figure out how to make Luke sleep better and finally realized he didn’t fit the mold of any of the books. I remember thinking I should prepare myself to not feel frustrated if my child doesn’t work like the books say. However, it isn’t that simple. I feel like making him happy and healthy is my job and when he is crying hysterically and super tired, I feel like I should be able to figure out how to make it stop. I realize this isn’t totally true and furthermore, that it might take us a while to figure out the formula that works for him. We know what isn’t working for sure: tossing him in the crib awake (which used to be fine). We need to help him fall asleep and that usually involves some combination of the 5 S’s. The most sure fire is rocking/bouncing him in the chair we have in his room, while sh-ing and usually starting with the pacifier (oh and swaddled!). We are hoping we can then move him to the crib but have had limited success. Thankfully during the work week, Julia can just hold him while he sleeps and this allows him to sleep really well. We can do some on the weekend, but we also want to spend time with each other and eat, so we have to balance these. We also still rely heavily on the bouncer, which he seems to take well to as long as he isn’t super pissed off. Overall, I think we are making it work but there is still a lot of adjustments.
I have some new decisions to make about our plan forward. I was reading that we need to be more consistent with how we soothe him. We used to toss him in the crib and come back when he cried, but the book says to have a consistent routine which includes soothing (ours didn’t except for 2 short house laps, which barely counts). The author recommends that you either always soothe a consistent amount of time (and ideally in a similar way, but there is some variation, especially for different people), or that you always soothe until very asleep, but that you pick a plan and stay with it. I’m not sure which one yet. I’m leaning towards the second because I personally would rather spend 30 minutes soothing the first time and then have an hour to myself of him sleeping soundly, but we haven’t even demonstrated that this works. Over the next week, hopefully we can experiment a bit more and settle on an approach. I think I need to accept that we have a long road ahead (like all new parents) and that we had a really easy first 5.5 weeks and now we have to actually do the hard work and we’ll figure out how to get things just as peaceful as they were before (or close).
Working is still going well and Julia is an absolute dream. I can’t imagine dealing with Logan this last week on my own. I would have never eaten, used the bathroom, or pumped, and he would have never slept. It is so nice to have a team here (she can eat while I feed him, for instance). I still have been able to get about 6-7 hours of work done each day, which is pretty good.
Despite having trouble sleeping, Logan seems to be settling more into a schedule, though it fluctuates an hour here and there. His nighttime feedings are 12-1ish, 5ish and 9ish. Then usually 11, 2, 5, 7. He tends to go less than three hours during the day for a total of 7 feedings, but sometimes, if he goes 3 hours, it is only 6 feedings. Since he has been sleeping worse, it can be hard to tell if he is hungry or tired. We used to go by whether he rooted on me (arched his back to try to get to my nipple), but he seems to be doing that more now when he wants comfort (aka when he is tired and can’t sleep) or just because. Charles has been having to adjust even more to all these changes since he only sees him for one awake cycle, but he is picking it up as he can.
Logan had his first walk outside yesterday, which he seemed to enjoy quite a bit. We’ve been doing it several times over the last day and it seems to calm him, entertain him, or put him to sleep, whichever he needs more. Assuming it isn’t rainy or super wood smoky outside (my neighbor seems to be out of town right now), then we’ll probably do a walk most cycles.
On a funny note, Charles and I have been having great conversations at night when one of us is asleep. Several times Charles has asked me why I’m in the living room, which is confusing because all times we were in the bedroom. I on the other hand, apparently always dream about holding Logan (I don’t get enough during the day!), and so Charles will ask me about him and I will answer from my dream state. Sometimes I get away with it, but last night I said “hi” in a cute baby tone to my dream-Logan and it was a dead give-away to Charles that I was asleep, whoops!
Monday, February 18, 2013
Sunday, February 10, 2013
Logan is 6 weeks old already!
Note - thought it was time to change the blog name on the web, though I can't change the address...
Well we have hit the mythical/dreaded 6 week mark. Everyone says that it gets better after 6 weeks (but people also don’t mention that right around 6 weeks can also be the most difficult). Overall, we are surviving and enjoying seeing all of the changes in Logan. He is becoming so much more aware of the world around him and able to interact. He is stronger, bigger, and much louder! He cries with tears now, which are awful and I have dubbed “tiny tears of torture.” He has more smiles and more reactions to stimuli (tickling works now). He is such a different baby than the little guy we brought home drowning in his newborn sleeper and being dwarfed by the carseat insert (he’s in 3 month clothes now and we had to remove the insert and adjust the car seat straps). I am so proud of how he has grown and changed and can’t wait to see what the next six weeks brings. Charles and I couldn’t be more in love with Logan and are so excited to have the privilege to raise him!
So now to the details…
Logan had a quick trip to the Doctor yesterday because his parents were being overly cautious, but now we know his weight – 9 lbs 14 oz, and his height – 23 inches. He is such a growing boy! He is still very lean for his height. The newborn stuff is SOOO short on him and the 0-3 month clothing is mostly too short as well. Most of the 3 month stuff we have (courtesy of Kevin and Tara) is very wide as well as long and you can just about wrap it around him 1.5 times. There are a few onesies though that are long and skinny (just like him) and since we are often doing laundry, for now we are using these almost exclusively. We also have a great stock of thin zip up sleepers and swaddles. This is pretty much all he wears at this point. We have some nice fleece sleepers for when we take him out. He is even in size 1 diapers now that he is bigger (plus he eats like an older baby and so therefore his output is larger than those newborn diapers could handle).
Logan is so strong in tummy time. He went from really screaming a lot during tummy-time to seeming to love it now. As soon as you put him down he will start lifting his head and moving his legs. At some point he will get tired and fussy, but he will go for 10-15 minutes before this happens, and usually we can put him back down after a quick cuddle. Unfortunately he is so into this that he doesn’t rest much on his tummy. We tried to have him hang out skin-to-skin with Daddy this morning and all he did was squirm around and I think was irritated that Charles was boney and not particularly flat. Charles missed his morning cuddling ;(. Logan has rolled over 3 times now. He did it twice back-to-back yesterday. He also can hold his head far up for minutes at a time. He is also much more able to move his head on his back and will almost always choose to have his head looking over his right shoulder. We were able to keep it on the left for a while, but since it is so easy for him to move it now, that lasts about .1 seconds after setting him down.
Logan has had a bit of a weird week in terms of his schedule. Some of this is probably because I have been having some major problems with my milk supply and some is because he is at the 6 week mark. He seems during the day and evening (not night thankfully) to wake himself up a lot and have a hard time falling back asleep because he gets himself amped up. The feeding is getting slightly better, although it is a bit of a feast or famine situation (I was desperately low in supply and now back up where I have to pump to drain milk off to keep it from disappearing again). I would rather the feast, but something more stable would be great. I have to spend a lot of time feeding and pumping and it doesn’t leave a lot of time for anything else. However, skipping a pumping has terrible consequences for my supply, so I do what I have to. I am realizing now that it is a little better that feeling like I couldn’t provide for Logan’s needs was one of the worst feelings I have ever had. I feel for all the mamma’s who struggle with supply. Overall we are hoping that fixing the food and him getting another week older will help him return to his schedule of sleeping really well (right now sleep is hard to come by which throws off the eating even more and tires out mommy and daddy).
This was our first week with us both working. Our nanny, Julia, also had her first full week. I couldn’t possibly be happier with her. She is AMAZING with Logan and is pleasant to have around. She is already quite in love with Logan (how could she not be) and is so patient when he is fussy. She is also great about getting stuff done around the house (more than she even needs to). My work week was not as productive as I had hoped with all the feeding/pumping, but without Julia, I wouldn’t have been able to pump and things would have gotten bad in the milk department. It has also been great to not have to catch up on laundry each night or try to find 5 seconds to sneak into logan’s room to put stuff away or change sheets (she can go in there and get stuff done while I am feeding). It has been a little hard to hand him off for play time and go work/pump/eat (I usually combine the 3 post-feed), but I am glad I am working and since the feeding has to happen, I have to miss some play time. When we are doing more bottles, I may choose to play a time or two during the day for my breaks. I am thankfully not too busy at work (although poor Charles is), so that has helped my transition.
My health is doing okay but a night with 3-4 hours of sleep really sets me back for a few days. I would say I average between 6-7 hours most nights, and this is workable for me at this point. I am reducing my prednisone and am almost back to 10 mg. This week I also had my diabetes test and I am negative (yay). Women who have gestational diabetes (which I may or may not have had) can develop diabetes, so they always check.
Overall it has been another amazing week. We have fallen behind a bit in terms of pictures, but I promise to get more up and some videos soon (it is so hard to find the time). Logan’s waking up so time to go feed him!
Well we have hit the mythical/dreaded 6 week mark. Everyone says that it gets better after 6 weeks (but people also don’t mention that right around 6 weeks can also be the most difficult). Overall, we are surviving and enjoying seeing all of the changes in Logan. He is becoming so much more aware of the world around him and able to interact. He is stronger, bigger, and much louder! He cries with tears now, which are awful and I have dubbed “tiny tears of torture.” He has more smiles and more reactions to stimuli (tickling works now). He is such a different baby than the little guy we brought home drowning in his newborn sleeper and being dwarfed by the carseat insert (he’s in 3 month clothes now and we had to remove the insert and adjust the car seat straps). I am so proud of how he has grown and changed and can’t wait to see what the next six weeks brings. Charles and I couldn’t be more in love with Logan and are so excited to have the privilege to raise him!
So now to the details…
Logan had a quick trip to the Doctor yesterday because his parents were being overly cautious, but now we know his weight – 9 lbs 14 oz, and his height – 23 inches. He is such a growing boy! He is still very lean for his height. The newborn stuff is SOOO short on him and the 0-3 month clothing is mostly too short as well. Most of the 3 month stuff we have (courtesy of Kevin and Tara) is very wide as well as long and you can just about wrap it around him 1.5 times. There are a few onesies though that are long and skinny (just like him) and since we are often doing laundry, for now we are using these almost exclusively. We also have a great stock of thin zip up sleepers and swaddles. This is pretty much all he wears at this point. We have some nice fleece sleepers for when we take him out. He is even in size 1 diapers now that he is bigger (plus he eats like an older baby and so therefore his output is larger than those newborn diapers could handle).
Logan is so strong in tummy time. He went from really screaming a lot during tummy-time to seeming to love it now. As soon as you put him down he will start lifting his head and moving his legs. At some point he will get tired and fussy, but he will go for 10-15 minutes before this happens, and usually we can put him back down after a quick cuddle. Unfortunately he is so into this that he doesn’t rest much on his tummy. We tried to have him hang out skin-to-skin with Daddy this morning and all he did was squirm around and I think was irritated that Charles was boney and not particularly flat. Charles missed his morning cuddling ;(. Logan has rolled over 3 times now. He did it twice back-to-back yesterday. He also can hold his head far up for minutes at a time. He is also much more able to move his head on his back and will almost always choose to have his head looking over his right shoulder. We were able to keep it on the left for a while, but since it is so easy for him to move it now, that lasts about .1 seconds after setting him down.
Logan has had a bit of a weird week in terms of his schedule. Some of this is probably because I have been having some major problems with my milk supply and some is because he is at the 6 week mark. He seems during the day and evening (not night thankfully) to wake himself up a lot and have a hard time falling back asleep because he gets himself amped up. The feeding is getting slightly better, although it is a bit of a feast or famine situation (I was desperately low in supply and now back up where I have to pump to drain milk off to keep it from disappearing again). I would rather the feast, but something more stable would be great. I have to spend a lot of time feeding and pumping and it doesn’t leave a lot of time for anything else. However, skipping a pumping has terrible consequences for my supply, so I do what I have to. I am realizing now that it is a little better that feeling like I couldn’t provide for Logan’s needs was one of the worst feelings I have ever had. I feel for all the mamma’s who struggle with supply. Overall we are hoping that fixing the food and him getting another week older will help him return to his schedule of sleeping really well (right now sleep is hard to come by which throws off the eating even more and tires out mommy and daddy).
This was our first week with us both working. Our nanny, Julia, also had her first full week. I couldn’t possibly be happier with her. She is AMAZING with Logan and is pleasant to have around. She is already quite in love with Logan (how could she not be) and is so patient when he is fussy. She is also great about getting stuff done around the house (more than she even needs to). My work week was not as productive as I had hoped with all the feeding/pumping, but without Julia, I wouldn’t have been able to pump and things would have gotten bad in the milk department. It has also been great to not have to catch up on laundry each night or try to find 5 seconds to sneak into logan’s room to put stuff away or change sheets (she can go in there and get stuff done while I am feeding). It has been a little hard to hand him off for play time and go work/pump/eat (I usually combine the 3 post-feed), but I am glad I am working and since the feeding has to happen, I have to miss some play time. When we are doing more bottles, I may choose to play a time or two during the day for my breaks. I am thankfully not too busy at work (although poor Charles is), so that has helped my transition.
My health is doing okay but a night with 3-4 hours of sleep really sets me back for a few days. I would say I average between 6-7 hours most nights, and this is workable for me at this point. I am reducing my prednisone and am almost back to 10 mg. This week I also had my diabetes test and I am negative (yay). Women who have gestational diabetes (which I may or may not have had) can develop diabetes, so they always check.
Overall it has been another amazing week. We have fallen behind a bit in terms of pictures, but I promise to get more up and some videos soon (it is so hard to find the time). Logan’s waking up so time to go feed him!
Sunday, February 3, 2013
Our Baby Logan is 1 month old!
Logan had his 1 month birthday this week, and today is 5 weeks old. I remember when people told me that the first 6 weeks were the hardest that it seemed like the 6 week mark was so far away, but now he is just cruising toward it and things are already easier and easier (though not without some bad days and moments).
I can’t believe he was born a whole month ago! It has been a truly incredible month with this little guy and he has changed our lives in a million wonderful ways. When I am holding him, I just can’t imagine my life without him. I can’t wait to learn what he is thinking and feeling, but I already feel like we are seeing his beautiful and sweet personality and I’m so in love! When he smiles at me or coos it is such an amazing feeling. I like that both Charles and I seem to be getting better and making him and keeping him happy and it feels so good to know that he is growing well and developing perfectly!
We had his one-month checkup last Wednesday and he was 8 lb 14 oz and 21.5 inches. He was born 6 lb 10 oz (then lost to 6 lb 2 oz), so he has gained 2 lb 10 oz (probably more by now)! He also is 2 inches longer than birth. His newborn clothes don’t fit well anymore (when his diaper is full they are really tight). He was pronounced healthy and perfect. The only thing for us to work on is that he has a preference to turn his head one way when he sleeps, and it is already causing a little flattening on that side, so we are putting him the other way in the crib so that looking at the mobile and light require turning his head the other way. He seems to not care which way his head was, so he’ll leave it however we put it. I feel a little bad we didn’t start turning earlier, but apparently can fix, so after a week or two this way, we’ll start alternating the side.
We have been given the green light to not wake him to feed so I can let him sleep as long as he wants. We have basically been getting close to that already but once or twice we woke him at the 5 hr mark (from the start of the last feed). I don’t think he’ll sleep much longer than 5.5 hours at first, but I think he likes to sleep at night so we might get even longer soon.
Charles has really hit his stride with Logan over the last week. He has always been great with him but now he seems to have the magic touch to keep Logan happy, especially when it comes to going to and staying asleep. It is awesome having Charles there to work his magic when Logan is resisting nap time. It is also so much fun to see Charles be so confident and so easy going with him. Logan is so lucky to have Charles as a father.
His schedule remains super important to him in terms of his overall happiness. He eats, plays, and sleeps during the day and for 3 cycles at night (usually the 8pm ish feeding, the middle of the night feeding and the 6-7 am feeding) he just eats and then sleeps. During the day he usually goes about 3 hours between feedings, but if he goes long cycles at night sometimes he makes up for it by eating more frequently midday. If we mess up this cycle by holding him too long instead of letting him play or taking him somewhere in his car seat, then it ends up not being great. When he is held or in the car seat, he tends to want to fall asleep and then he isn’t quite tired enough to stay asleep but is also groggy and fighting the sleep so he doesn’t get good quality sleep. As fun as it is to cuddle, we are learning to limit it to little chunks so that he gets what he needs.
He loves to play and is getting stronger and stronger at tummy time, including some exercising without crying. He still has sessions where he just lays on his stomach (which is fine too), but I would say he is up to doing a good minute or two of effort in 75% of the tummy time sessions. Most excitingly, he rolled over from front to back on Thursday. He was trying to eat his fist while on his tummy (involves moving his head to his hand instead of the other way around, for some reason) and he overshot and got his head on his elbow area. Once he was that far over it took one good leg kick and he rolled. It was super exciting. I’m not sure he will duplicate it soon, but he clearly has some good skills.
His other new superpowers are that he is definitely social smiling at us from time to time and he is great at tracking objects with his eyes (if he feels like it). I’m looking forward to seeing him continue to develop over the next month.
I go back to work tomorrow and our nanny, Julia, starts. It will be quite an interesting week of adjustment for all of us, I imagine. I am thankful that I work at home so I can continue to train Julia as we go (although we gave her the crash course today), and I don’t have to go all day without seeing Logan (which might kill me at this point).
I can’t believe he was born a whole month ago! It has been a truly incredible month with this little guy and he has changed our lives in a million wonderful ways. When I am holding him, I just can’t imagine my life without him. I can’t wait to learn what he is thinking and feeling, but I already feel like we are seeing his beautiful and sweet personality and I’m so in love! When he smiles at me or coos it is such an amazing feeling. I like that both Charles and I seem to be getting better and making him and keeping him happy and it feels so good to know that he is growing well and developing perfectly!
We had his one-month checkup last Wednesday and he was 8 lb 14 oz and 21.5 inches. He was born 6 lb 10 oz (then lost to 6 lb 2 oz), so he has gained 2 lb 10 oz (probably more by now)! He also is 2 inches longer than birth. His newborn clothes don’t fit well anymore (when his diaper is full they are really tight). He was pronounced healthy and perfect. The only thing for us to work on is that he has a preference to turn his head one way when he sleeps, and it is already causing a little flattening on that side, so we are putting him the other way in the crib so that looking at the mobile and light require turning his head the other way. He seems to not care which way his head was, so he’ll leave it however we put it. I feel a little bad we didn’t start turning earlier, but apparently can fix, so after a week or two this way, we’ll start alternating the side.
We have been given the green light to not wake him to feed so I can let him sleep as long as he wants. We have basically been getting close to that already but once or twice we woke him at the 5 hr mark (from the start of the last feed). I don’t think he’ll sleep much longer than 5.5 hours at first, but I think he likes to sleep at night so we might get even longer soon.
Charles has really hit his stride with Logan over the last week. He has always been great with him but now he seems to have the magic touch to keep Logan happy, especially when it comes to going to and staying asleep. It is awesome having Charles there to work his magic when Logan is resisting nap time. It is also so much fun to see Charles be so confident and so easy going with him. Logan is so lucky to have Charles as a father.
His schedule remains super important to him in terms of his overall happiness. He eats, plays, and sleeps during the day and for 3 cycles at night (usually the 8pm ish feeding, the middle of the night feeding and the 6-7 am feeding) he just eats and then sleeps. During the day he usually goes about 3 hours between feedings, but if he goes long cycles at night sometimes he makes up for it by eating more frequently midday. If we mess up this cycle by holding him too long instead of letting him play or taking him somewhere in his car seat, then it ends up not being great. When he is held or in the car seat, he tends to want to fall asleep and then he isn’t quite tired enough to stay asleep but is also groggy and fighting the sleep so he doesn’t get good quality sleep. As fun as it is to cuddle, we are learning to limit it to little chunks so that he gets what he needs.
He loves to play and is getting stronger and stronger at tummy time, including some exercising without crying. He still has sessions where he just lays on his stomach (which is fine too), but I would say he is up to doing a good minute or two of effort in 75% of the tummy time sessions. Most excitingly, he rolled over from front to back on Thursday. He was trying to eat his fist while on his tummy (involves moving his head to his hand instead of the other way around, for some reason) and he overshot and got his head on his elbow area. Once he was that far over it took one good leg kick and he rolled. It was super exciting. I’m not sure he will duplicate it soon, but he clearly has some good skills.
His other new superpowers are that he is definitely social smiling at us from time to time and he is great at tracking objects with his eyes (if he feels like it). I’m looking forward to seeing him continue to develop over the next month.
I go back to work tomorrow and our nanny, Julia, starts. It will be quite an interesting week of adjustment for all of us, I imagine. I am thankful that I work at home so I can continue to train Julia as we go (although we gave her the crash course today), and I don’t have to go all day without seeing Logan (which might kill me at this point).
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