*Granted I am 16 days late, but better late than never?*
So much has changed in the one month since Edward joined our life. He has changed so much and we are excited to experience the next couple months when he starts to become more aware and interactive with us. He has just started to smile in response to us. He doesn’t do it all the time, but when he does, it just melts our hearts. We attempt to get him to do it multiple times in a row so we know it is a response to us instead of gas. 🙂
Breastfeeding has gotten immensely easier. He is getting faster at feeding, so I am only feeding him for 5-10 minutes instead of the 15-20 it was in the beginning. Granted, he still occasionally has a 30 minute session but I have begun to realize that it is more when he just wants to suck and we are trying not to use a pacifier so we are trying to find a nice medium (which mainly means that we use our finger or a soother while sometimes using a pacifier if we get desperate and he is sucking for a long time). He still has the daily cluster feed where he wants to eat every hour for 3-4 hours. Sometimes it drives me nuts because by the time I feed him, burp him, put him down and start to do something, he is hungry again. Luckily, most of the cluster feedings happen at night and Darrell is able to help me do stuff. I pump once a day (in the mornings) so that we have a bottle’s worth of milk in the fridge at a time. If I get frustrated to much during cluster time, Darrell feeds him and then I pump in the morning. If not, then I don’t pump.
Edward is still on a 2-3 hour sleep schedule at night. He is starting to occasionally get a good 4 hour stretch and I wake up feeling recharged. Unfortunately, after the 4am feeding, he doesn’t like to go right back to sleep and wants to stay up, so I am up for about an hour and a half before feeding him again and then he goes back to sleep. I am waiting for that to change again. During the day, he is great and gives me just enough time between feedings to either take an hour nap, make food, or get some chores done. He does a single 4 hour stretch of awake time a day. Usually it is in the morning, but occasionally it is at night. He loves to just lay around and look at the different lights (sunlight and lightbulbs).
He isn’t to fussy and only occasionally does he really wail when we can’t figure out what he needs. I think we have only had about 3 good wails since we left the birth center. Other than that, he mostly cries when he wants to be fed and I am changing his diaper first, but once I pick him up, he stops. He does love to spit-up. We easily go through almost all of our receiving blankets and burp rags in a two day period. Sometimes it only takes a day. We lay them out over a chair to let them air-dry during the day. So it has me doing at least a load of laundry a day (especially with the cloth diapers).
I’m excited for the next few milestones. I know everyone says that they grow up so fast, so I am enjoying each and every moment (even the difficult ones).
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