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Tuesday, April 8, 2014

Craft: 2 Months Old

I feel like I blink and it's time for another one of these updates.  I always felt like time flew with Lilly, like I blinked and she was 2 and then a big sister, but I feel like it's moving at warp speed for sweet Craft.  He is growing and changing so much seemingly every day, I look at him sometimes and think he has grown since five minutes before.  Dan is attending a work dinner tonight which means I was in charge of bath and bed for both kiddies and that never fails to exhaust me, so I'll get right to the update.

Weight/Length:  Why I even include this on non-doctor-update posts, I'm not sure.  I am betting that my big boy is somewhere around 15-16 lbs by now.  Absolutely no clue on length.  I intended to try to weigh and measure today but forgot, whoops.

Sleep:  Every time I think we are onto something here, Craft changes it up on me (like last night when he was exhausted but refused to go to sleep).  Usually, C is ready to go down some time around 9pm.  Sometimes it's earlier than that, sometimes later.  Over the past few weeks, he's gradually pushed his own feedings out.  Around one month, he was waking up at 1:30 and then again at 4:30.  Since then, he's dropped down to one feeding and pushed that feeding back to 2:30 and then 3:30 and now for about the past week he's pushed it back to somewhere between 4:30 - 5:00 am.  He goes right back down after that feeding and normally sleeps until somewhere between 8:00 - 9:00 am.  I am hoping he will phase himself out of needing that feeding shortly, but I realize that I can't in good conscience complain about a child who at 2 months old is sleeping from roughly 9p - 9a with one wake up around 5a.  Please understand that there have definitely been nights where there have been more wake ups (like 2 weeks ago when my in-laws were here and he was up about every hour and I wanted to die), but he's gotten much better even in the past week it seems like.  Naps for this kid are crazy - he is never usually awake for more than an hour or an hour and a half tops before he's ready to sleep again.  Sometimes he will sleep 30 minutes or an hour, and then other days he will take a 3+ hour nap.  I have yet to figure out what I am doing differently on those days to make him sleep for a large chunk of time in the afternoon at the same time as his big sister, but I surely hope it continues and gets more consistent.  

We've also been dealing with getting C to sleep in his crib, which is something we never had to deal with when L was a baby so I'm flying blind.  We started Craft out in his crib on night one, just like we did Lilly, and he did fine - as well as any infant can do.  Sometime around or maybe shortly after the one month mark, he caught a cold that Lilly and Kinsley were passing back and forth and was horribly congested.  We have a crib wedge in his crib, but it wasn't elevated enough to help him breathe well since he was so congested, so after two horrible nights of wake ups we borrowed a rock n' play sleeper from Bo & Meagan and set it up in his room and let him sleep in that in hopes that it would help.  It helped a lot - he could breathe much better and his sleep started to improve around that time.  However, when I tried to move him back to the crib, he was not having it - he loved that rock n' play.  After a few days of battling, my friend Jen let me borrow her Dex Daydreamer sleeper (basically the new version of the nap nanny that was recalled).  I put it in his crib and started transitioning him by letting him sleep in that for naps and then in the rock n' play at night.  After a few good days of naps, I moved him to the daydreamer at night as well.  After a few days of him getting used to being in the crib in the daydreamer, yesterday I started the transition to the crib by taking the daydreamer out of the crib for naps and putting the crib wedge back in.  He did okay for naps, and then I let him sleep in the daydreamer last night with the intention of putting him in the crib for naps only until he got more used to it, at which point I would move him to the crib full-time.  However, he started doing this thing where he slid down in the daydreamer to where his feet were basically hanging off and since he is swaddled (yes, I forced it) it was hard to strap him in, so today I went for it and we battled it out in the crib.  He didn't really nap more than 15 minutes at a time all morning but I could tell he was exhausted, and finally around 1:30 he went down in the crib and slept for 4 hours (actually I woke him up at 4 hours because (1) I was about to explode since it had been 6 hours since he'd eaten and (2) I wanted him to sleep tonight ha).  Tonight, he has been in the crib for over 2 hours as I type, and so far so good.  Fingers crossed it continues and we are finally back in the crib for good.  I was thinking earlier today that about the time I get his sleeping location situated, it will be time to transition out of the swaddle and then we'll be back to square 1.  Lord help me.

Another thing that's different from Lilly is that Craft definitely requires more help getting to sleep.  He likes to be bounced, and rarely will fall asleep on his own.  I can't remember whether Lilly was falling asleep on her own this early, but I do not remember her needing quite as much help getting to sleep.  I also have stopped doing the dream feed with Craft.  For Lilly, it worked wonders, but for Craft it seemed like he was waking up at the same time regardless - almost like I was teaching him that he needed to wake up, so I dropped it.  If he doesn't drop that 4:30-5:00 am feeding soon I may try it again to see what happens.

One final thing to note is that I've been tracking C's sleep trying to figure out some kind of pattern so that we can implement, at a minimum, a bed time routine.  I know it's too early for routines, but if we do the same thing every night I am a firm believer that he'll get used to it and know what to expect.  Right now, we give him a bath every night, but I've not done a good job of figuring out timing because by the time we're done he's always either exhausted or starving so we haven't been able to work books into our routine yet.  In due time, I suppose.

Feeding:  Again, this varies.  I mentioned above that he only typically eats once overnight now.  During the day, he usually eats every 3.5-4 hours, sometimes longer.  Today, due to the aforementioned 4-hour nap, he went 6 hours between feedings. Hopefully he won't decide to make up for it tonight!  We also finally got him to take a bottle, he hearts the comotomo (probably because it resembles a boob).  They are $14/bottle, so we only have two for now but he really doesn't take a bottle very often.  I think I'm going to try at some point in the next few weeks having him take one bottle a day to get him used to it before I go back to work, and I am hoping we can transition him to the Dr. Brown's since we have a bajillion of those so we don't have to buy more!

Another difference with this sweet boy is spit up.  I don't remember Lilly spitting up a ton, but Craft does spit up some.  It's usually only during the day and not at every feeding but it's enough that I always make sure to have a burp cloth handy.  It doesn't seem to bother him, but it's gross.  It almost seems like he doesn't know when to stop eating or something, I'm not sure.  Anyway, I thought it was worth noting.

Firsts This Month:  First Easter Egg Hunt and first time visiting Daddy at work.  First road trip, which I did not blog about, but it was to Charlotte to my parents' house because one of our family friends got married.  Katy blogged about the weekend here.  C did well both ways, luckily - we had to stop twice on the way and once on the way back because at that point he was still eating every 2 hours and it is a 3-hour trip, but he was a gem!  I'm sure there are more "firsts" that I've been horrible at keeping track of.

Developments:  Craft is a strong little guy and has had good head control from day one, but he's getting better and better.  He does not showcase this much during tummy time, though, because he prefers to try to sleep, but I think we may be turning a corner on that one - we'll see.  He rolls onto his side quite frequently now, to the point where I don't feel quite as comfortable leaving him laying on any elevated surface anymore.  I think it will be a while before he rolls over - he has a lot of weight to move, ha! - but again, we'll see.  He has discovered his tongue and is forever sticking it out.  C has also discovered his voice and has started "talking."  Every time I take the camera out to try to video he stops, but it's really cute.  He started smiling on purpose a few weeks ago to anyone that smiles at him, and it's adorable.  I have also gotten a few laughs - teeny tiny ones, but I can't wait for the belly laughs!

Likes:  Not too many changes here: bath. sleeping. eating.  play mat.  bouncy seat. being outside.  observing Lilly and Layla.  snuggling.  ceiling fans.  kicking his legs.  chewing/drooling/slobbering on his hands. playing with his tongue.  talking/singing to mommy.  spitting up in my hair only on days when I've actually managed to wash and dry it UGH.

Dislikes:  being cold.  lotioning up after bath.  being tired.  burping.

What I'm Thankful For:  A great support system.  Dan was out of town at the beginning of the week and has work dinners every night, so family and friends have been coming to help me out with the kids to give me a break and I am more appreciative than they will ever know!

What I'm Looking Forward To:  We are spending almost a week with my family for Easter, and have lots of fun things planned.  

Next Pediatrician Appointment:  Next Tuesday, April 15.  I'm not sure why we scheduled this one so far after his 2-month-birthday, but I have a lot of questions for the doctor per the usual!  I'll report back with the stats.

The length of this post has yet again gotten away from me and I'm too tired to upload the photos I took on the camera and edit them so here are some that I took of C with my iPhone on Saturday, which was his actual 2-month-birthday.  So many expressions, this kid.








Craft is such a sweet, smiley, generally happy (with the exception of witching hours when we have them, luckily they do not appear to be happening as frequently these days!) baby and I can't help but think that although he is different than Lilly in many ways, we got very lucky for a second time.  We love our sweet boy and are having so much fun watching him grow!

Sarah

4 comments:

  1. Sarah, you are such an awesome Mom! Craft and Lily are very blessed to have you!

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  2. He is such a little stinker! I love the photos and his spiky hair. Oh, this makes me so excited and so scared to have a newborn back in the house...just when we're getting Mac to a good place with his sleeping. I guess we'll all sleep again someday, right? When the kids are in college?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It is both exciting and scary, for sure. I keep thinking that this will pass and before we know it they will be sleeping, and graduating high school, and then college, and then getting married...time moves too fast!!!

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