Case Study of a 2-month old

Well here we are at Austin's 2 month mark!

I proudly present my findings in my Study and Observations of Characteristics in Small Young Males of the Baby Variety:

This is Austin thinking his Mom is such a dork

-Weighs in at a whopping 11lbs, 11.4oz!!

-Can focus his eyes on a person and really make eye contact.

-Tracks objects with his eyes in all directions.

-Can grasp and hold onto items put in his hand, like a rattle.

-Eats 4oz bottle every 3-4 hours. I'm still pumping and giving him bottles during the day, and he gets 1 bottle of formula a day usually. We nurse before bed, during the night and first thing in the morning though.

-He's an amazing night-time sleeper.. going to bed with us between 9-10pm, and waking between 5-7am with getting up only once to nurse in the night.

-He brings his hands up to grasp our fingers or the bottle while we are feeding him.

-He's starting to be interested in toys and focuses on them and reaches for them.

-Totally enthralled by lights and shadows.

-LOVES to be bounced on a knee, and I've discovered this is the best way to burp him. I even invented a bouncing burping song. I know, I'm really talented and should go to Hollywood and become a big time song writer. But seriously, I don't want to get a big head or anything.

- Loves the "Charlie Chaplin" song we play with his legs

Bet Charlie Chaplin never had rockin' leg warmers like these though!

- Spends 30-40 mins awake after eating.. smiling, cooing, talking and being a happy baby!

-Cries when he's hungry and makes a "eeyah eeyah" sound when he is tired.

- We are getting close to giggling!

- Enjoys tummy time and can push himself up into a great Scorpion position and easily moves his head from side to side.

-Loves to be on his back to play, especially laying in front of the fire being hypnotized by the flames.

-Kicks his legs CONSTANTLY. This is one of my few annoyances with him.. he's really hard to hold sometimes because he kicks and grunts so strongly. I never know what to to do calm him down and get him to stop kicking.

-Has a hard time winding down and falling asleep sometimes.

-During the day prefers to sleep being held, with his face buried in the crook of our arm. He's a total weirdo.

I don't know what the "f" he's doing either, Neal.. 

-He's wearing only 3 month sized clothes, and even some of those onesies are getting short on him. We have a very long kiddo!

- He's very... um.. passionate, for lack of better word (cough cough... inherited his Mommy's short temper, cough cough... but you didn't hear that from me.....) When he's mad, he is MAD. When he wants to eat, he wants food NOW.

- He's becoming aware of me, and where I am at. If I walk out of his line of vision he'll start to cry. I feel so wanted and popular! Ha.

"This is why I have to keep my eye on you Mom. You stick me in overalls..."

-Austin really really loves the following things:

-Baths

-Being naked (he used to hate this)

-Sucking on his hands

-Having every second of my attention

-Austin really really hates the following things:

-Having his arms put thru clothes. Do they make baby tube tops?

Maybe we'd be better off with those...

-The car. Which he used to love. My right arm probably has permanent

nerve damage from going dead from reaching back and plugging

his binky in his mouth while driving.

-Having his mouth wiped. He must be saving that milk for later or something.

-Being put down to sleep. Do they make beds that replicate human arms??

So that wraps our our second month as parents. Honestly, things have gotten easier (wow, all those people were right who told me that) and it's fun to see his personality develop. Lord help us though if he continues to have Mommy's temper.. uh.. I mean passion...

"Sleeping here. Talk to the hands, woman."

Dear Austin

Dear Austin,

We have made it through 7 weeks with each other! Well, 7 weeks in the outside world, at least.

This has been the hardest job I have ever had in my life... and that's saying something, since your Grandma made me pick blueberries in the hot sun for the slave labor salary of $1 a bucket one summer.

Every day with you is different and I never know what to expect, Mr. Austin. Some days you are a sweet angel baby.. full of smiles, coos, and snuggles.

During those days I hold you on my chest while you sleep and I put my nose down onto your little head and I just breathe- I breathe in the smell of you, and your warmth and your softness as I feel your little chest breathe in and out.

I love those moments and those days... I spend hours looking at you and wonder how my body created something so perfect. I finally understand why they say babies are miracles.

And then... dear son... there are the bad days.

The days where I want to just lock myself in the bathroom and cry. The days where nothing I do will make you happy, or calm you down, and my heart breaks over and over again as I helplessly watch you be unhappy.

There are days of exhaustion and exasperation.. as we try everything to get you to a happy place. We rock, we sway, we dance, we walk, we bounce, we sing, we talk, we shhhhhhh, we cuddle.... and sometimes you just feel like trying my patience to the bitter end.

There are days where I feel like a failure and I wonder what I'm doing wrong. I snap at your Daddy and reflect your crankiness tenfold.

Those are the days when as much as I want to run and hide, I have to just take you and hold you to my chest and do like I do on the good days.... breathe in your scent and your warmth and let your heart beat in rhythm to mine. In and out... in and out..

That is the only thing that gets me through those bad days.

Ok, that and a glass of wine. I won't lie about that!

But let's work together and have many more good days then bad days.. ok kiddo???

I will say this though, dear son... I now know why you buy Mommies presents for Mothers Day.. we earn them!

PS- I like Coach purses. :-) 

You are my sunshine!!!

-Mommy

Yeah, you kinda stole my heart right away, you stinker...

Rub a Dub Dub

Even though we gave Austin his first real bath weeks ago (after his umbilical cord thingy fell off) I never posted about on the ol' blog.

Wow, imagine that.. I didn't have time to sit down and write up about his first bath. Wonder why I didn't have any time? What possibly could have been so time consuming?

Ha. Sorry, sometimes I think I'm funny.

Anyways.. Austin L-O-V-E-S  baths. Thank the Lord we have at least one thing our child actually adores and will always stop crying for and will be happy sweet little baby for a brief moment  in time.

That said, he gets a bath every day pretty much since we enjoy have this happy time with him too.

The Boob vs. The Bottle- Round 2

In following up with my last post about Austin's eating and overall horrible crankiness, I feel as if I have won the battle of The Boob vs. The Bottle.

So here is where we left off last week...

Austin was cranky ALL.THE.TIME. If he was awake, he was a Fussy McFussypants and I was convinced that I had been blessed with an unhappy, difficult baby.

I was trying to figure out what the culprit was, so I started the good ol' Process of Elimination.

Was I not producing enough milk?
Did Austin have reflux or some other intestinal issue?

I needed to know which of these was our problem so I could start to solve it.

I first started with a call to Lactation Services. I told them about my concern of possibly not producing enough milk. I told them I thought this because Austin would nurse for hours and hours, sleep for 15 mins, then wake up starving again.

They told me to take him into his Dr. and have him weighed. If his weight was on track, then he was obviously getting enough food and my body was producing enough milk. Also, seeing his Dr. would rule out problems like reflux.

Off the Dr. we went...

I felt a little silly since we were there basically for "no reason" other than to weigh him and see if he was gaining enough weight. Of course he was an angel at the Dr's, making nary a sound.... (seriously, I wasn't making up the constant crankiness!!!)

Austin weighed in at 9lb, 15 oz at that appt! He gained a pound and a half in just a week and was now in the 50th percentile for weight; and seeing that he lost a lot of weight with his jaundice, how much he gained proved that yes, Mommy was making plenty of milk!

Ok, so we could eliminate that option and I could stop feeling tremendous guilt over my milk production. I was making plenty, and that really made me feel great.

His Dr. examined him, listened to me recount what our nursing sessions are like, and ruled out reflux or any gastrointestinal issue. Other than gas sometimes, his tummy was perfectly healthy.

Ok, that that's out...

So why the unhappy cranky baby???

Between talking with Lactation and Austin's Dr, we came to realize that we had "A Snacker" on our hands.

Yep, Austin already must be following some trendy Hollywood diet or something because he was eating little amounts of milk, several (and I mean SEVERAL) times a day.

He would spend an hour nursing, fall asleep and awaken minutes later ravished because he was never getting full! 

I always knew he was a lazy nurser.. he'd latch, suck, stop, sleep, lick, latch, unlatch... latch, lick, suck, stop, sleep... etc.

He just couldn't focus and get the job done.

Newborn ADD???

So our solution to this issue involved two things:

1. Start pumping and giving Austin a bottle so he's eating a large amount faster and thus be fuller and more satisfied... supplementing with formula if my body needed a break to refill and catch up with his milk demands.

2. Spend more time soothing him to sleep so he sleeps more during the day. His little 15 min catnaps were not only draining on me, but leaving him cranked up and tired as well. He needed to sleep every 2 hours in order to be in a better mood.

I've been following this process for a week now, and let me tell you... I feel like I have a brand-new baby. Austin actually spends some time awake now, and coos, talks, babbles, looks around at the big world and acts (gasp!) happy and content!!

Awake and not cranky... wow!

And now that I know exactly how many ounces of food Austin is getting at each feeding, I have started to figure him out better too. If it's only been an hour since he had a bottle, then I know his crying or fussiness isn't hunger, it must be a burp, a diaper, or discomfort. Knowing that he is getting plenty of food takes a lot of the confusion out of what his needs are.

What a relief it is to no longer be the frazzled Mom grabbing the crying baby, whipping out my boob and crying with exasperation "WHAT is wrong with him??? How is he still hungry??? He ate 30 minutes ago!!!!???? Wahhhhhh........."

Yes, that would be me crying in that scenario, not him.

And for the Mommy guilt about supplementing him with formula? Not there. I quickly got over that when I realized that its better to have a happy baby then try and be the "perfect" breastfeeding mother who never uses formula. Unreal expectations! My job is to fill that belly up (and enjoy the hours of napping and quiet and ensue...) not to be perfect.

So in battle Boob vs. Bottle.. both came out victorious in our case!

Now on to the next issue.... sleeping more. :-)