Four month checkup/CIO

First, the good things. Alex weighs 12 pounds, 15 ounces! He has more than doubled his birth weight of 6lb, 3oz. Go little peanut, go! He is healthy in every way and has such good upper body strength that she cleared us for stomach sleeping even though he’s not rolling over. She felt around in his mouth and exclaimed that he’s getting a tooth! I can’t really feel it, but she was confident.

Then we talked about sleep. This appointment was perfectly timed because this has been our worst week ever with sleep; as in, he’s been waking up every hour or hour and a half consistently all week. We explained what’s been going on and here were her points:

• He obviously can’t get back to sleep without us. That needs to change.
• Every night that he gets a bad night’s sleep (so, every night of his life so far), he is more tired the next day and a bit more sleep-deprived than before.
• Thus, “waiting it out” is not an option because he’s going to start sleeping less and less, not more and more. We know this is true because he used to sleep 7-11 like clockwork and for a good 5 weeks it’s been 7-9:30 or 7-10. It’s not getting better on its own.
• She was adamant that teething is not causing this sleep disruption.
• She was also adamant that giving him solids or formula will not help. I knew that, but I get this advice so often that it was nice to be validated. He is not waking up because he’s hungry. He’s waking up at the end of every sleep cycle. It’s different.
• She was 100% confident that if we used the Ferber method and stuck with it, followed it exactly, it would work. She said he is capable of sleeping at the VERY MINIMUM, 8 hours a night, if not 10-12.

This, about a child who has slept MAYBE five hours ONCE.

I read Ferber last night. It’s so much gentler than I thought it would be. And maybe I’m just drinking the kool-aid here, but it makes sense to me. Here’s where my brain is now:

• His crying has changed in the past couple of weeks. He no longer has a newborn cry. He whines to be picked up, etc. He knows how to get a response from me. That’s fine, I’m happy to respond to his needs…during the day. NOT every 75 minutes all night long. To me, this change in crying signals he’s ready for CIO.
• I wanted to wait till 6 months, anyway. The pediatrician urged us not to do that. She said he’s ready now. I believe her.
• I still don’t like the idea of letting him cry, but at this point I truly have no choice and I do think it’s the right thing for us to do.
• I cannot function like this. In the past month, a two-hour stretch of sleep has become something to celebrate. I make stupid mistakes while I’m driving. I’m worthless at work. I feel sick to my stomach most of the time from sleep deprivation. I’m getting sick (which very rarely happens, usually). My marriage is suffering.
• Maybe there are moms out there who could live this way without letting their child CIO. I am not one of them.
• I’m really effing tired of everyone telling me their baby doesn’t sleep well either. Then you find out, maybe they don’t sleep well THAT WEEK, or maybe they “only” sleep three hours at a time, or maybe they’ve slept 8 hours a night since they were 6 weeks old and are now having a sleep regression. None of that is our case. My baby has never learned to sleep without me. I have gotten no breaks and it feels, at night, like I am still caring for a newborn.
• I’m also tired of issuing the standard disclaimer. I DO love my son. I love him more than anything in this world. I have never once gotten angry with him for waking me up (I direct the anger at my husband, though, which is also bad). I’d rather deal with this than with infertility. But, I shouldn’t have to keep saying this. No matter how much you love someone, being woken up every 75 minutes for multiple days in a row is a slow form of torture.

One more night of constant night nursing, and then Friday night we start Ferber.

I’m going to be so flipping engorged.

Four months

Dear Alexander-

My, oh my, you are four months old! You have learned so many things in the past month - it’s hard to choose my favorite.

First of all, you started giggling! Your first giggle was a few weeks ago, when I was tickling your face with my hair during a diaper change. Then you made us go weeks with no more laughter until recently, when you started doing it more often. It’s still pretty unpredictable what will make you laugh, but it fills my heart with joy every time you do.

You have also started pushing with your feet; this is huge! One day you were sitting in your bouncer chair when I realized you were practically doing a backbend! That’s when I pulled out your Jumperoo. After a few days you learned how to bounce around like crazy in that thing, and we have so much fun watching you.

Now that you push with your feet, you are sososososoclose to rolling over. We let you practice every night on your back, and you will be rolling within a week, I bet.

You’ve also gotten more coordinated with your hands. The first time I realized you had total control over your hands, you were rubbing your eyes because you were tired. It was adorable. You can grasp objects, although not intentionally, and you reach out and bat at toys now. You love to suck on your fingers, when last month you had just started bringing your fists to your mouth.

With fun “firsts” also come some less exciting milestones. This month, you had your first cold, and I’m learning how hard it is for babies to shake that nasal congestion, as your stuffiness lingers and lingers. We had our first out-of-town trip, for a sad reason, when we went to my hometown to say goodbye to your great-grandpa. You had your first dip in a swimming pool in the hotel, which you absolutely hated (hey, that water was frigid and I really can’t blame you).

You are a happy baby. You get fussy when you’re tired, and you still have the occasional reflux flare up. Every month when I write this letter I think “maybe next month I’ll be able to report that he’s started sleeping well at night!” Not the case for month four. : ) But I have hope, and we’ll keep working on it.

I think this past month has been the absolute CUTEST month of your life. We’ve gotten so many smiles, and you’ve become so much more alert and eager to look around at your surroundings. You like to sit in your high chair while your dad and I eat dinner, and you like to go on walks and stare at the sky and the leaves on the trees. You have such a gorgeous face that I get choked up sometimes, watching you take in the world around you. You’re perfect.

In a thousand tiny ways, you are growing more independent each day. It makes me so proud, and also a little sad. I love you to the moon and back.

Love,
Mom

Please, dear god, help me help him sleep.

My son still doesn’t sleep well at night. He’s 4 months on Saturday and everything I’ve read on the subject says he should be sleeping at least six hours at a time by now. We celebrate when we get three.

I have tried everything. I have changed his reflux medicine. His mattress is on an incline. There is a humidifier. There is swaddling. There is white noise. There is darkness. There is frequent nursing.

I’m out of ideas.

He goes to bed around 7. We do our bedtime routine and I put him down in his bassinet, awake, and he puts himself to sleep. It’s just that he doesn’t stay asleep very long, and he can’t put himself back to sleep.

Maybe 5% of the time I can get him back to sleep with a re-swaddle and a pacifier, but 95% of the time I have to nurse him.

An important distinction: he does not “nurse to sleep”. He’s awake when I put him back down. It’s just that nursing is the only thing that relaxes him enough to get back to sleep.

I’m so torn on what to do next. His four month appointment is next week and I know the pediatrician will encourage me to do CIO or controlled crying.

I go back and forth on this. Do I think my son will suffer long-term damage from CIO? Most likely, no. Do I think I can be there, hearing him scream for his mommy, and just ignore him? Absolutely not.

Do I think that the parents who are super judgmental about CIO are probably getting more sleep than I am, not waking up 5x a night (as if with a newborn), while still needing to appear professional and coherent the next day? Yes.

Part of me thinks that he will figure it out on his own if I’m just patient enough. Part of me thinks that I am seriously going to have a mental breakdown soon and in order for us all to be happier during the day, we need to do something drastic.

Lately I have been doing a dream feeding between 9:30-10:30, and after that he may sleep till 12:30-1 ish. Then he is awake in another two hours. Once we hit 3am, all hell breaks loose. He always wakes up at 3, 4, and 5, and somewhere in there I always give up and bring him into bed with me. My alarm goes off at 6.

He’s still in his bassinet, because I can’t imagine having to actually walk into another room all of those times in the night. That’s another thing – do I need to get him used to the crib before we start serious sleep training? It seems heartless to plunk him down somewhere totally alien and then let him scream.

Everything inside me rejects the idea of CIO. But I also can’t keep functioning like this. And really, neither can he. He needs more rest than he’s getting.

I don’t know what my next step is.

Rest in peace, grandpa.

My grandpa passed on Monday morning and was laid to rest today (Friday). We just got home tonight, after getting to my hometown Wednesday afternoon and spending Wednesday and Thursday night in a hotel.

It was an exhausting, confusing, taxing, depressing, stressful, exhausting exhausting exhausting weekend. But also a tiny bit fun because I got to see so many family members. I got drunk, didn't sleep nearly enough, and pumped in both a closet at the funeral home and a men's restroom at the parish hall.

Traveling with a 15 week old is no joke - especially a 15 week old who has his first cold. Poor baby. He's had diarrhea and sounds like a little piglet when he tries to breathe. He also has a pathetic little cough. It breaks my heart.

He did not sleep well at all while we were gone, but did take some good naps because we packed up his swing, which was a pain in the ass but totally worth it. We co-slept in the hotel bed because I couldn't bear to listen to him snorting over in the crib.

I spent the better part of 6-7 hours preparing for this trip (packing, laundry, cleaning the house for our house sitter, etc), but luckily I think unpacking will go more smoothly.

Alex was my grandpa's first (and only) great-grandchild. There was a large flower arrangement on the casket: yellow roses, mums, and carnations, with white daisies. There were ribbons that said "dad", "husband", "grandfather", etc. And tucked in the corner of the casket, one tiny yellow rose with a "great-grandfather" ribbon. It went into the grave with him. He didn't get to know Alex very long, but he sure was special to him for three short months.

I look forward to the day I can take big boy Alex to grandpa's grave and tell him that there's a tiny rose from him resting with his great-grandpa.

I'm sad.

mommyhood

Just logging in to say that I love being a mom. Yes, I’m exhausted all the time, and it’s difficult to pump at work (verging on impossible, some days), and there are a lot more chores and a hell of a lot more laundry, and a lot less sleep, and some strain on the marriage, and my schedule is not my own, and I feel rushed a lot of the time. All of that is very, very true. And I do still cry from time to time, thinking "I’m doing it wrong", "I’m bad at this", and recently "I think he loves the babysitter more than he loves me."

But I’m also much happier than I remember being before. I wasn’t this happy when I was pregnant, and I certainly wasn’t this happy with I was struggling to get pregnant. I feel like myself. A new, mom version of myself, but it’s working for me, overall.

Here’s what my days look like.

6am – wake up.
6-6:45 – my husband gets Alex ready for daycare and entertains him. I get ready for work (breaking records every day in the arenas of fast showering, makeup applying and breakfast eating), and manage to squeeze in some snuggles and smiles with the baby.
6:45 – nurse
7 – leave the house with baby in car seat, diaper bag, pump, lunch box, and purse. It takes two trips to get everything to the car!
7:30 – drop Alex off at the sitter. Lots of kisses.
7:45 – get to work
8 – work day starts
9:30, 12:30, 3:30 – pump, as long as meetings don’t interfere (adjust as needed)
3:30 – my husband gets home and tidies up the house a bit, because he’s amazing.
4:15 – off work
4:30 – pick up Alex
5 – get home. Immediately throw diapers in the wash (every other day).
5-6:30 – the three of us play, prepare and eat dinner (my husband does most of the cooking in our house), and catch up on each other’s days. Alex usually nurses somewhere in there, depending on when he had his last bottle. If I’m washing diapers, I make a few trips downstairs to switch the washer settings and move from washer to dryer.
6:30 – bedtime routine begins with a bath, followed by jammies, reflux medicine, nursing, swaddling, a story, a snuggle. This is my favorite thirty minutes of the day.
7 – down in the bassinet
7-8 – I tidy up the house, unpack the diaper bag, pack it for the next day, unpack and wash my pump parts, wash bottles, make bottles for the next day, pack my pump back up, pack my lunch, bring dry diapers upstairs for husband to stuff.
8 – ahhhhh, I have a glass of wine and two Milano cookies. I relax for a while, sometimes read, sometimes watch TV, sometimes play on facebook and twitter. This is my second favorite part of the day.
9 – start winding down for the night – let the dogs out one last time, lock up, finish up any laundry
9:30* – in bed!
*please don’t read this to mean I’m getting 8.5 hours of sleep every night. Hardly. I’m still up about 4 times with the baby every night. Things are slowly improving, though, cross your fingers that things continue to get better.

Three months

Dear Alexander-

Well, unlike your one month and two month letters, which I wrote in the recliner while you were sleeping on my chest, I am writing this one at work. That’s probably our biggest change this month. I went back to work and you stayed home with dad for a week. Your dad made me so proud, taking care of you all day! We are so lucky to have him.

The best thing that has happened in the past month is that you started talking up a storm! You say all sorts of baby nonsense words. Your dad talks back to you in English (“Oh really? What happened next? No way!”), but I talk back to you in Baby (“ahhhhk? gaaaah? gluuuuuuuw!”). It’s the best part of my day when you start in on one of your stories.

  

Your favorite part of every day is bedtime. You may be cranky one evening, but once we get you in that bathtub you’re all smiles. You love your bedtime routine, right down to getting dried off in your shark towel, getting dressed in your pajamas, and reading your book. We’ve been reading Roald Dahl’s The BFG for several weeks (we only read about three pages at a time). You love to stare at the book and smile at it, talking back to me while I’m reading.

 

It’s been fun watching your personality emerge. Now you get real tears in your eyes when you cry, and as a tragic preamble, you’ve started sticking out your bottom lip. You love sucking on your little fists, but you get frustrated because you’re still not quite coordinated enough to get particular fingers in your mouth. You get mad at me when I use the blue bulb to suck out your boogers, but smile as soon as it’s over. You’re annoyed when I swaddle you, but if I don’t, you look like you’re trying to conduct an orchestra with your chubby baby hands. As soon as I unswaddle you, you stick both arms straight up over your head, like a superbaby flying through the air.

You still aren’t sleeping much at night, and at about 3:30 am you get a serious case of the wiggles and try to start a dance party in bed. Silly boy. We have kind of given up on teaching you to sleep for the time being. You’ll probably figure it out one of these days, and your dad and I will sleep when we’re dead. Or retired.

from his three month photo session

This time last year I wasn’t even pregnant with you yet. Now you’re three months old, and I can’t wait to see what the next month brings!

Love,

Mom

Sleep update

Well, sleep training is officially off for a while. Remember how, at eight weeks, I started trying to get Alex back to sleep without feeding him? It worked great for a while. I could shhh him back to sleep with his pacifier, or pick him up and snuggle him back to sleep. The thought was that if I stopped feeding him every time, he’d learn to sleep through those wakeups.

Hahahaha. HAHAHAHAHAHA.

Four weeks of that and things just got worse. He started waking up more often. He would stay awake for an hour at a time, at which point it actually was time for him to eat again so I would feed him. Guess what? I’m back at work now and we can’t be having battles of will from 3-4 in the morning every night. Baby wins.

We have slid back into our old habits. Instead of trying to soothe him when he wakes, I just nurse him. It works like a charm and when I put him back in his bassinet with a full belly, he doesn’t protest a bit and he doesn’t even need a pacifier.

We are back to co-sleeping from about 3am on, whereas he used to be in his bassinet all night.

Whatevs. I don’t care at this point. Would I like to follow all the sleeping rules? Don’t nurse to sleep, don’t co-sleep? Um, don’t give up on something that you’ve started because it makes you an inconsistent terrible parent? Yes, it would be great to follow those rules but I’m not perfect.

And truth be told, I love nursing my little man in the middle of the night. I don’t get to do much nursing anymore (but I do get to do a lot of PUMPING, which is a post in and of itself). Sometimes I nurse just because, hell, I miss him and I want to.

Nursing at night might not be good for his sleep habits, but we can fix those later, right? In the meantime, it helps me feel closer to him, helps my supply, and helps me feel like I actually get to do some parenting even though I’m at work all day. And I get way more sleep myself this way.

It’s becoming clear that this kid will have to be Ferberized. I’m thinking at 5-6 months. So I’m going to enjoy the snuggly co-sleeping mornings while I can. He’s only little once.

Back to work.

Well, I did it. I woke up this morning and left my baby at home with his daddy and I came to work. And I didn’t die. And I think I can do it again tomorrow.

I spent some time last weekend reflecting over why I was dreading the return to work so much. It occurred to me that I was experiencing grief – deep grief – over my maternity leave ending, my baby growing up, and time passing more quickly than I wanted it to. The level of heartache I felt was akin to Alex actually being taken away from me. That’s what it felt like: that today, someone was going to come to my house and take him away and I’d never see him again.

So I told myself how ridiculous that was. And I made myself get over it as much as possible, and it kind of worked. I miss him and I’m sure there will be very difficult days, but I can do this.

…I can do it, but damn am I going to be TIRED.

We have shifted bedtime to 7pm. We do bath at 6:30, then jammies, a nursing session, a story, and bed (bassinet). He’s such a gem at bedtime – I put him down awake (sometimes with the pacifier, sometimes not), and he puts himself to sleep. Sometimes I have to give him his pacifier one time. Then he sleeps for about four hours (until 11pm).

And then all hell breaks loose. Last night he was up at 11, 1:30, from 3-4 crying with a tummyache, and 5:30. I got up at 6:30. I’m not sure why he can put himself to sleep at 7pm but seems inconsolable when he wakes up at night. Also not sure why he can sleep four hours at a time early on and then only short increments.

It makes for a very sleepy mommy. But I can do this. He will, eventually, sleep at night. I’m learning that it will not be on my schedule, or when all the books say he is capable of doing it, or when all of my friends claim their babies slept. I just need to be patient and wait it out, and be very tired in the meantime. But I’m totally willing to do it because, you know, he’s so flippin cute.

More sleep complaints

First, the positive: Alex will now sleep in his bassinet at night. He even puts himself to sleep at bedtime most nights! We do a bath, a story, and somewhere in there (usually before the bath) he eats. I set him down drowsy and (most nights) he falls asleep and sleeps for four hours.

Unfortunately, this blessed four-hour stretch is from about 8-12, and no matter how tired I am I just can't wind down enough to go to sleep at 8.

Once he wakes up for his first night feeding, he wakes up every two hours. It used to be three, for some reason we're back to two.

A friend on twitter recommended this Sleep Lady book, which appears to be a nice middle road between CIO (which I'm not totally against, but he's still too young for) and attachment parenting (which is going to tell me to co sleep and nurse him to sleep, etc.) I'm trying to follow her advice of using all of my soothing skills to get him back to sleep, with nursing as a last resort. It sounds cruel, but if he's truly hungry, he won't go back to sleep, so I'm not withholding food from a hungry baby.

I had been feeding him every time he woke up, but last night I tried the Sleep Lady way. It worked one time.

Last night he woke up at 11:30, 1:15, 3, 5:30, 6, and 7 for the day. Every time he wakes up I put him back in his bassinet, but I'm awake for at least 30 minutes (usually more like an hour) through the course of it all. I just can't keep functioning on these 45 min-2 hour stretches of sleep! Especially when I go back to work. I would be so, so happy if he'd just switch to four hour sleep stretches all night long. I can wake up twice in one night, that would be super easy.

I keep hearing about other people's babies who slept 5-6 hours at 6 weeks, or sleep 9 hours at 9 weeks. It's hard not to feel like I'm failing in some dramatic way. 

The sleep lady also says to try to have the morning nap take place in the bassinet/crib. We're just not ready for that yet - I tried for 45 minutes to get him to nap in his bassinet this morning. It consisted of a lot of him falling asleep, dropping his pacifier, and crying until I replaced it. Then I brought him downstairs, put him in his swing, and he was out like a light. So we're going to be using the swing crutch for a while longer. (napping is really a whole separate blog post)

I love my baby with all of my heart. But I haven't slept longer than three hours at a time for two and a half months, and I have to admit it's starting to wear on me.

Two months

Dear Alexander-

Here we are on your two month birthday, sitting in the same recliner that I wrote your one month post in, with you sleeping on my chest just like a month ago. It may not sound like it, but a lot has actually changed in the past month.

The most exciting change is that you have learned to smile. At first we could coax a smile out of you with a lot of silly voices and tickles. Now, you smile at your toys, you smile at the ceiling fan, you smile when you see our faces or hear our voices for the first time in a while. You smile through your entire bath time with your dad every evening.

Nothing is more precious than your smile!

You have also gained a lot of head and neck control in the past month. You're still floppy sometimes, but when I put you on my shoulder to burp, you love to look around and see the world. When the pediatrician put you on your tummy at your 8 week appointment, she was so impressed by how strong you are!

You are still a tiny peanut - 9lb, 6oz, 5th percentile for height and weight. But someone has to be small, right? You are generally a very happy boy, except that you still struggle with reflux and some painful gas at times. It breaks my heart when I feel like you're in pain, but we have some new medicine and hopefully you'll outgrow it soon.

Our sleep situation has drastically improved in the past week. At night, we set you down in your bassinet, drowsy, and you put yourself to sleep for a few hours. You still wake up to eat just about every three hours, but I'm happy to feed you as often as you need until you're ready to stretch out those night feedings. You are content to sleep in your bassinet until about 3 or 4 am, when you just want to snuggle mommy.

As a family, your dad and I have started getting more confident. We've gone out on a few trips - to lunch, to a local arts festival, to the mall. You're pretty content in your Ergo carrier most times, unless you get hungry and have a meltdown, like in the middle of Kohl's yesterday. : )

You continue to be an absolute joy. Our lives quite literally revolve around you. And I wouldn't have it any other way.

Love,
Mom

7 weeks

- Reflux continues to be frustrating. I'm not sure if the baby Zantac ever really helped as much as it should have, and if it did he has already outgrown his dosage. We are back to the fussy feedings and I just hate knowing he's in pain. : ( I have a call into the pediatrician about it.

- I keep remembering little details about my birth experience (like the blood pressure cuff being stuck around my elbow and the anesthesiologist trying to move it for me during surgery) that I never recorded anywhere. I get really panicky when this happens. I want to remember every second of that day. Even now I look at photos from the hospital and it seems a world away, not just 7 weeks.

- I have given up trying to use the bassinet at all and now we're just straight-up co-sleeping. I'm going to try to talk to the pediatrician about this next week at his 8 week checkup. I'm wondering if the reflux isn't a prime reason he's so comfortable on my chest, or sleeping next to me, which keeps him just slightly angled toward my body.

- One thing I never wrote on here is that we did go through with our decision not to circumcise Alex. And holy hell, was there a backlash for that. My parents were very upset, especially my dad, and my mom had a "talk" with me in the hospital to make sure I was "thinking clearly". Pretty much every single person who visited us asked when he'd be circumcised and if he'd had it done yet, so we had to explain that no, he hadn't been and he wouldn't be. It wasn't very fun being immediately put on the defensive when my baby was 72 hours old!

- We have been using the cloth diapers for a week and a half now. It's going very well. We started out with the shorter inserts and have since switched to the longer ones, and we haven't had any more leaks. Full disclosure - we are using disposables at night for more absorbency, because we still have NB size left and didn't want them to go to waste, and also to stretch my stash a bit right now. I have 25 BG 4.0s and can go three days if we use the disposables at night. I also have 5 Fuzzibunz but I haven't used those and I'm thinking of selling them - not sure yet. The cloth is a lot of laundry, but it's actually easier than I anticipated.

- I go back to work in 5 weeks and have no pants that button.

- Sunday night, Alex went 4.5 hours and then 4 hours between feedings. It was amazing. Last night he had a 4 hr 45 min stretch, and then went back to 2.5 hours. Let's hope he continues to have these 4ish hour stretches, because they're amazing!

Routine

I'll admit it: as much as I dearly adore this tiny suckling piglet newborn phase, and try to inhale every moment and memorize the softness of Alex's skin...part of me is craving the months when he operates on some sort of routine.

NOT that I'm wishing away these days. I'm on maternity leave - what else do I have to do but sleep, eat, and shower on his schedule? But still, someday it would be nice to be able to say "he goes to bed at 7:30, wakes up at 2, and sleeps till 6" instead of "he goes to bed whenever the hell he wants to and wakes up every two and a half hours to eat until he's ready to be awake."

Or "he takes three naps a day", instead of "he sleeps on and off all day, waking up to eat and stare at me for a bit and then cry until he falls back asleep."

The main parenting book I've been consulting is Baby 411 and I love it. But it's leaving me in a bit of a limbo regarding sleep. They say several places that for the first two months you have to do whatever you have to do to get some sleep, and you can't form any "habits" during that time. And by month four, baby will start to set up his own routine. That leaves me in limbo for month three, which is rapidly approaching.

So, mommies, when did your little ones fall into a sort of routine? I am mostly interested in knowing when they stretched out their night eating. We have had one stretch of 4 hours of sleep, other than that it's been all 2-3 hours between feedings, around the clock.

Did you have to guide them into a routine, or did they find it all on their own?

PS- I got an email today from Emily, who is 6dp5dt and pregnant after five miscarriages. I've never met her but I'd appreciate it if you kept her in your thoughts.

5 week update

- We have thrush. I first recognized my symptoms - the shooting pain deep in my breast. Sure enough, a couple of days later I saw a tiny white spot in Alex's mouth. So tiny that the pediatrician at first denied that it was thrush, until I pressed him and he said it's a "teensy" bit of thrush that I caught "very early". Baby has a rx diaper cream and antibiotic drops. My OBGYN says to just put some of his drops on my nipples and we should both be clear soon.

- at 4 weeks, 6 days, Alex weighed 7lb 8oz!! When we brought him home he was 5lb 7oz. I can definitely tell he's getting bigger. His little arms and legs are getting chubbier and he's getting a double chin : ) at 7 lb he's technically supposed to be able to wear his BumGenius 4.0s, which I'm really excited to start using, but now that we're on the diaper rash cream I need to keep using the darn disposables. I can't believe many babies are this big (or even way bigger!) when they are born. He seems so grown up to me.

- I had my 5 week postpartum checkup today. It was a disaster. The appointment was at 11:30, and even though I had just fed the baby at 10, he had a complete meltdown right as they called me back. Just screaming himself purple! They took my blood pressure while I was trying to calm him down - I didn't even ask what it was. I asked if they could let someone go in front of me so I could nurse him, but I was the last patient before my OB's lunch break. So the nurses took him while she did my pelvic exam. Even though I know people understand, I felt like a terrible mother while he was screaming bloody murder. I wanted to tell everyone, "I JUST fed him! I promise!"

- I have lost 20 of the 40 pounds I gained during pregnancy. I know I should be happy about this, but I'm not. I still have 20 to go, and they're going to go a lot more slowly than the first 20. Mainly, I'm just tired of not having any clothes to wear. My maternity clothes are sagging off of me and my pre-pregnancy clothes are laughably tight. There are only so many public places you can go in yoga pants.

- We had the birth control discussion, which I knew we'd have. I have been agonizing over what to do. I do not need birth control for contraception - OBVIOUSLY. It would be nice to just let my cycle do what it wanted to do for a while and sit back and observe. But I knew that if I didn't go on BCP, I'd constantly be wondering if I might be miraculously pregnant. I can't take that kind of heartache. Plus, she said the minipill might help my acne and other PCOS symptoms, so I wouldn't argue with that, and I filled the rx.

- Alex continues to go down for his first sleep of the night (around 8:30-10:30) in his bassinet (last night in his crib!!), and then wake up and want to sleep with me the rest of the night. I still feel iffy about this. I hope I'll know when the time is right to start teaching him how to put himself to sleep. It seems like a very scary job.

- We are thinking about going away for a night in July for my birthday. 24 hours I would be away. I'm desperately hoping I can get enough milk pumped before then to make it work, but pumping is a struggle again. The first couple of days with the hospital pump worked wonders but now we're back to where we were. Yesterday I pumped 5x and got 3.3 ounces. The sad thing is that's a good day! I hate pumping. It's hard to do when the baby's fussy, and hard to do when he's happy because I want to be playing with him, not hooked up to some damn machine. It's a lot of time to get settled pumping and clean everything up to get a freaking teaspoon of milk!

- Baby keeps getting cuter and cuter. I love his soft little hands and feet and how they brush up against me when we nap together. He does this thing sometimes where he latches onto my nose. Like, really latches, and starts sucking on my nose. My sister got a photo of it yesterday, and that's what I'll leave you with.

Co-sleeping

(Disclaimer: since writing my last post, everything went to hell in a handbasket. We started having latch issues for the first time, and now when I pump I can barely cover the bottom of the bottles. I think we're slowly getting back on track, but just goes to show you can't get too confident.)

So here we are writing the inevitable newborn sleep post.

I had never planned on co-sleeping, yet here we are. Long story short - my baby sleeps so much better in my arms than in his bassinet. And here's the shocker - I sleep better when he's in my arms, too.

When he's in the bassinet, I spend a long time lying there listening for him to fuss. There's nothing more exhausting than when you juuuust fall asleep and then you have to rouse yourself immediately to tend to the baby.

But when he's next to me, I'm so much more in tune with him, I can get better rest because I can tell when he's about to start fussing without lying there awake.

Last night, he slept in his bassinet from 11-1:30, then I fed him (we have gotten better at the side-lying latch, which is great because I hardly had to wake up!), then I went to put him in his bassinet, but he fussed. So I pulled him into bed with me and we slept from 2:15-5:30. Those three hours were my best sleep since I had him.

I am struggling with the co-sleeping thing. I never intended to do it, and I guess I'm having a hard time checking my ego and doing what my baby wants, regardless of my own parenting intentions.

I don't feel like he's in danger when we're sleeping together. I can tell that I'm aware of him even when I'm asleep. There may be evidence that shows it's dangerous, but on a very primal level, I know he's not in danger. So that's not the issue.

It's just that I do, eventually, want him in his crib. And I don't know how long I should allow him to sleep with me before I have to buck up and put in him there. I don't want this to become a lasting habit.

Will something like this help with eventually weaning him to his crib? I don't want to invest $150-$200 in a co-sleeping bassinet when we already have a bassinet.

I'm open to any advice anyone has.