six weeks in

i was just in for my 6 week postpartum doctor visit - wow!  (at which i got a $50 parking ticket because i didn't see the sign that it was a street sweeping day.  grrrrr.)  i've heard people say "the days are long but the years are short", and six weeks into the first year, i will wholeheartedly agree with that.

mats and i are happily settling into more of a rhythm together at home.  for the most part, at least.  he's at the tail end of his 6 week growth spurt, so for the past week he wasn't sleeping quite as long at night and was eating more often during the day - monday he ate every two hours all day!  it was a long day, especially since scott had to work late; he got home to me preparing dinner and mats crying upstairs (he was supposed to be napping, but hadn't wanted to nap all afternoon) and i just gave him a look that apparently said, "it's your turn now."  (i had intended it more to say, "do you see what i've been putting up with all day?"  same difference, really.)

the highlight of yesterday was that i got the bathrooms cleaned, dishes and laundry done, and house vacuumed!  (vacuum is one of the few words i almost never spell correctly on first attempt - i always want to spell it "vaccum" for some reason.)  i've realized that of the many things that change when you have a kid, sense of accomplishment is right up there at the top.  it really is amazing, though, how much more you can get done when you have to feed your kid only every 3 hours rather than every 2 hours.  (when it takes 30 minutes at a time.)

last night goo and a friend came over to hang out with mats while scott and i went to see "thor" - fun movie!!  the theater just down the street from us has 1/2 price tickets on tuesdays, so i foresee a fair number of tuesday date nights in our future.  highly recommend "thor" for a fun movie night, and i'm sure i'll be recommending the sequel that the movie totally set itself up for.

a day with baby

just for fun, i decided to keep track of what matson's 1 month birthday looked like for us.

• 5:10am - wake up to matson crying, go to his room to pick him up, bring him back to bed and feed him.  (scott gave him a bottle the previous night at 9:30pm, and this was the first we heard of him all night.  we have the greatest baby ever.)
• 5:40am - hand the little man off to scott for a diaper change and to be put back to bed.  i go back to sleep.
• 6:20am - scott leaves for work.  not typical, but his company is doing a big accounting system conversion starting this week which is making his days crazy busy.  plus, we have friends bringing us dinner tonight and i had invited them to stay and eat with us before i realized what scott's week would look like, so he wanted to make sure he has enough time at work to get stuff done before coming home for dinner.  so that's kind of my fault - sorry, dear!  meanwhile, i again go back to sleep.
• 7:20am - matson's hungry again.  i had hoped to sleep in until 8 today, but i guess that wasn't meant to be!  i nurse him in bed and browse facebook on my phone while he eats.
• 7:50am - take mats in to change his diaper, and he pees on me (and his own face) again.  for those keeping track at home, i was not peed on for the first three weeks of his life - but this is now the 3rd time being peed on in the last week and a half.  two of those times, it ended up on his face as well.  (his expression when he realizes that he's peed on himself is pretty priceless!)
• 8:00am - after changing his diaper, we sit in his glider and play for a few minutes.  by play, i mean that i propped him up on my legs, he wiggled his arms and legs and i made faces at him.  he stared at the light coming in through the window, then stared at the lamp.  i discovered an awesome blog yesterday entitled "chronicles of a babywise mom" which has tons of great real life tips and insights into parenting using the babywise system.  anyway, she says that about 45-60 minutes of awake time is the ideal amount for a 4 week old ... lo and behold, at 8:05 on the nose (exactly 45 minutes after he woke up to eat), mats started yawning!  if i put him down right after he starts yawning, he usually goes down well - if i wait til he gets to the fussy-tired stage, he'll usually cry for like 10-15 minutes before falling asleep.  i swaddled him, rocked him for a minute, his eyes got reeeeally heavy, and i put him down in his crib for a nap.  he still sleeps nights in his bouncer seat, but we've been trying to do at least a few naps a day in his crib so that he gets accustomed to it - so far, so good!
• 8:20am - i go back to bed to finish my bible reading from yesterday (i had opted for a nap instead), get up post-reading to brush my teeth and realize that scott forgot to take out the trash for pickup this morning (understandable since he left the house before 6:30!) so i take it out, have a delightful bowl of frosted mini wheats and am mildly horrified to realize that i've gone through almost a whole box since scott bought it for me on saturday.  i read a few blogs, then start this post.  we're switching to cloth diapers this week, but i have to wash the dark colored diaper covers 6 times (separated by color) before we can use them - i did the blues 4 times yesterday, so i start the 5th wash.  i get a shower in before mats wakes again.
• 10:30am - little man was still asleep, so i woke him up to eat.  his waking up is adorable - i opened the curtains, rubbed his tummy, undid the velcro on his swaddle sack, and talked to him; he slowly opened his eyes, looked around, yawned, and stretched up his arms while curling up his legs.  (i watched the end of "legally blonde" on tv while he ate.)
• 11:00am - upstairs for diaper change - no peeing on me this time!  i decided we should do some tummy time for this awake time, so we did that on the floor of his room (burp rag under his head - i've learned that lesson!).  he starts out with moving his head from the right to the left, is happily wiggling around for a few minutes, starts to get a little bit frantic ... and rolls over all by himself!  he was so surprised!  he's rolled over a few times before, but i've always attributed it to some sort of environmental accident - too close to the edge of the towel after bath time, i left his arm too far underneath him when putting him down for tummy time, etc.  this time, though, it was all him!  (we called daddy right away to brag.)  i celebrate his success with using his new snot sucker - he's not a fan.
• 11:30am - down for another nap!  i pump and make my to-do list for the day.  then proceeded to ignore my to-do list and watch tv/browse facebook until time for his next eating.  :)
• 1:45pm - i was a little late in waking him up for lunch, but it worked fine since he was just waking up when i got up there.  post diaper change, we went out to run our errands - returning a cd to the library and stopping at the grocery.  some highlights of the grocery trip were picking up ribeyes to grill for mother's day (yay!), getting a giant box of goldfish crackers, and lemons to make homemade lemonade.
• 4:10pm - home again.  kiddo decided he didn't need a nap this afternoon - he was absolutely mesmerized by the lights at the grocery store!  i had him in the moby wrap (which typically puts him right to sleep), and he got many compliments from fellow shoppers on his cuteness.  grade school girls seemed to be his biggest fans.  i decided to go ahead and feed him early in order to get him down for a nap since he didn't get one at all this afternoon.
• 4:45pm - i decide to go for the gold and make it a huge day for matson ... and put his first cloth diaper on before his nap!  i have the diaper snapped in to the smallest size, so i'm not sure they really would have worked much prior to this.  i had read that you're supposed to fold the insert down so that the excess is in front for boys and in back for girls, but it kind of makes him look like he has a giant front butt!  i think i'll see how the excess in back goes for the next change.  i get to work putting away the groceries and picking up the house.
• 5:45pm - scott's home!  mats was asleep, but scott's first order of business after hugging me is, as usual, to go in and look at our little guy.
• 6:00pm - a couple from our small group brings us dinner and stays to eat with us (per my invitation) - fun!  they're having a baby next month, so we got to talk all about baby stuff with people who are actually interested.  matsy is definitely prey to the witching hour (and lack of nap all afternoon) and fusses throughout dinner.
• 7:10pm - enjoy dessert and feed the kiddo.  nick and anna get some snuggle time from matson after he ate (and he very kindly didn't spit up on either of them).  we try to get him to show off his new rolling skills, but it's a no go.  first cloth diaper was a success, but no poos yet.
• 8:15pm - down for another nap.  he's kind of overtired at this point and gets a few extra snuggles from scott.
• 9:40pm - last eating of the night.  and then bedtime for the whole family - hooray!

1 month

happy 1 month birthday, baby boy!

highlights of the 1st month: matson rolled over for the first time this morning!  he's been practicing his smiles more recently, and while i don't think he knows what it really means ... still fun.  he's slowly becoming more aware of his surroundings and loves looking at lights.  mats adores snuggle time, and i think cries sometimes just because he's lonely and wants a hug.  he loves being in the moby wrap (again, snuggle time), sleeps amazingly well at night as well as for most naps, nurses like a pro ... and is all around basically the greatest baby ever.

my favorite things

my favorite things about matson thus far, in no particular order:

1. the way he stretches and yawns when he wakes up.  as scott says, "it's like he's a real person!"
2. he loves to sleep with his arms straight up.  even if he's wrapped up in a tight swaddle, he'll try his hardest to work his arms out so that he can have them next to his face.
3. when we take him out of his swaddle sack, his little legs are all curled up in a knot.
4. that he gives us so much sleep at night!  i think he gets his love of sleep from me.  (i hope this one continues to be true of him.)
5. his little squeaks and grunts.  we have taken to referring to him as "the little dinosaur" (or babysaurus, or matsysaurus rex, or dino) and while i'm not entirely sure where the name came from, i think it might be because of his squeaks.  and his size.
6. he folds his little hands together while he eats.  it's adorable.
7. watching him explore the world around him and become a little more aware every day.  i think he's starting to recognize the things he sees every day, like the dangling toys on his playmat.
8. he often falls asleep while being burped, and will fling his little arms out around your arm and neck like he's hugging you.
9. no matter how fussy he is, he'll calm down almost the second you put him in a room with a running dryer or running water.  strange, but it makes us laugh.

baby sleep

i would say that matson and i are settling more into our days together, but really, he could mostly care less - so instead i'll just say that i'm settling more into daily life with matson.  my crazy hormones seem to mostly be back to my normal stability (thank goodness!), mats is sleeping really well both day and night, denver's having some spectacularly sunny and warm days - hooray!

if you know any parents or have ever looked at parenting books, you know that sleep is a HUGE (and hugely divisive) issue.  everyone has an opinion, and everyone seems to have the magical answer that will make every baby sleep well.  i never got that until we had a newborn in the house and was woken up every 3 hours all night to feed the kid - and it's not a quick thing you can do half-awake like a middle of the night bathroom break.  you're awake nursing and burping the baby for 30 minutes, then off to do a diaper change and put him back to bed.  it kind of makes you feel half-human after a few days.  anyway, the feeding stuff is hard enough - if you have a baby who wants to cry all night or not go down easily, or wants to continue the trend for months on end, even harder!  mats is pretty awesome when it comes to sleep, and i will pretend to have no answers, but i will share our experience with sleep thus far - primarily for my own future curiosity.

regarding sleep, our moms had been questioning why we were still setting an alarm to wake mats up in the night to feed him.  at the hospital, they'd explicitly told us to feed him every 3-4 hours, and i knew that it's important to nurse at least 8 times a day to keep both my milk supply up and make sure he's getting enough to eat.  he'd been gaining weight like a pro, though, and consistently giving us 4 hours at least once a night between feedings ... and i really wanted more sleep.  so last thursday i asked at breastfeeding group about nixing the alarm and letting mats wake us when he needed to eat.  the lactation consultant said to give it a shot, just make sure that i pump before and after bedtime to keep milk supply up and prevent engorgement, maybe move daytime feedings closer together to make sure he's still eating 8 times a day, and weigh him to make sure he's still gaining weight after a few days.  that night mats was extra fussy and ate every 2 hours like i'd been starving him his whole life - we really anticipated being up with him all night.  we fed him at 9:30pm, though, turned off the alarm ... and woke to him crying at 5:15am!  what?!  that's right, my 17 day old went 7 hours and 45 minutes between feedings!  awesome!

he went back to 3-4 hours the next night, but then did 7h45m again for the next three nights.  he hasn't given us quite as long of a stretch since monday, but last night was the shortest all week with just over 5 hours between feedings - for a 3.5 week old, that's still really amazing.  i can't even express how longer stretches of sleep make you feel like a human being again!  last thursday he weighed 9lb 2oz, and come tuesday he weighed 9lb 10oz, so i think it's safe to say he's still gaining just fine.  (thursday was pre-feeding, whereas tuesday was post-feeding ... but saturday at the pediatrician's office, he weighed 9lb 6oz post-feeding, so that's still up 4oz in 3 days with sleeping longer stretches.  doctors recommend at least .75-1oz of weight gain per day, so he's doing great.)

for daytime naps, mats had been getting really fussy - crying hysterically prior to going down, so i'd rock him, put in his pacifier, and get him down.  he'd fall asleep, but invariably he'd wake up in 5-20 minutes, crying hysterically.  (i think he'd fall asleep just enough for his pacifier to fall out, which would wake him up.)  repeat the cycle for the entire hour of his nap time.  not really sustainable, in my opinion.  i was reading babywise the other night, and it suggested that if your baby is waking up early or getting extra fussy, he may need more sleep.  i started putting him down in his bouncer when i first start to see his yawns, and while he doesn't necessarily fall asleep right away, he'll happily lay there quietly looking around until he falls asleep.  and when he falls asleep, it's pacifier-free (thus no pacifier to fall out and wake him) and he'll stay soundly asleep until his next feeding time.  i know babywise is a fairly divisive book, and i have no intention of being hardcore about it, nor do i think that that us following it will make him a better person - but we're really finding the general sleep-eat-wake cycle to be totally spot on with what mats wants/needs.  honestly, it's a cycle that seems pretty natural for him, it's just a matter of being intentional about making sure it happens.

whoops, naptime is almost over and i still have a few things i need to get done.  off to the races!