5 weeks

We think Nathan smiled! It can still be from gas but we really do think he looked right at both of us separately and smiled.

Nathan has a lot more alert periods and is alert for longer at a time. He is starting to look around at the environment and seem interested in what's in the room around us. In fact, he will fuss for a little bit until we move him and then he starts looking around and stops fussing. Sometimes I think he just wants to see what's around.

Nathan rolled from front to back again but he was ticked off during tummy time so I didn't make him try again. And the rolling was from him kicking and clawing around because he didn't want to be on his stomach. Go figure. We did mention this when we took him for his one month appointment at the pediatrician and she said it doesn't count because he didn't do it intentionally. So I guess that answers that! Not rolling yet.

We swapped the nursery and our room this week. We really did it because the nursery was in the "master" bedroom and adjoined to the bathroom that Dave and I use most of the time. This way we can use the bathroom and not be walking through the nursery once Nathan is in the crib. Now our room is smaller but the nursery can take some of the toys and it actually is nice to put toys in there so Nathan and Neil can play. My only concern is that now Nathan's and Neil's rooms share a wall so Nathan might be more likely to wake Neil up. Time will tell.

Nathan is also starting to grip things. He really likes to grab my hair now and doesn't let go. I'm pretty sure he doesn't realize those are his hands but he definitely has a little grip there. He's also much more expressive with his face- sticking out his tongue, making faces, etc. And he's starting to coo/talk. I love it.

Sleep is still hard. Nathan really seems to want to be in one of our arms all the time and because of Neil needing attention and the fact that I'm the one who does the nursing, it usually ends up being me by default. (I do feel a bit bad because Dave holds Nathan a lot less than he held Neil at this age and I hope he's not upset about that.) I don't have a lot of updates from last week on sleep.

So I feel like I say this all the time but I have to say it again (as a preface). In social media we all tend to just talk about the good things and it projects these false images of who we all are and how things are really going. Granted, who wants to air dirty laundry or whatever and it's a big downer to constantly hear all the negative stuff as well. But I try really hard, while keeping out maybe the more personal stuff, I try to keep it real and be honest and up front as much as possible. If anything I just don't talk about things that are too personal or whatever. With that said, and hopefully Neil/Nathan don't somehow come across this someday and take this the wrong way. But I've come to this realization that it's really getting wearing. It's worth it, don't get me wrong. But I'm feeling pretty tired right now of having to always give, give, give. To have a little person who just constantly needs. With the nursing, as much as I love the bonding experience, there are just times I want to get away from it. I want to go to dinner and not be nursing in a restaurant. Nathan at this point nurses so often in the evening that I can't even say here Dave, here's a bottle, I'm going to just get an hour to myself all by myself. Or for that matter, here babysitter, I want a date with my husband. Yes, there can be ways around it- a stay at home date with Dave maybe. Etc. But there are definitely times I'm feeling selfish and tired of being selfless and always putting someone else in front of me. Is this something a parent does? ABSOLUTELY. I also recognize that there are so many people out there struggling for whatever reason who would give anything to be in this position. I was there at one point. It does make me hesitate saying some of this but this is reality. It's the way it is. It's normal. It doesn't mean I don't want either kid. But yes sometimes I mourn the life before. You never realize what you have until it's not there. The grass is always greener. All those things. They're true. You don't realize what the freedom to be selfish is until you don't have it. And sometimes you just want a taste of that back again. Yes I will get it again but there are some nights when I'm sitting in the recliner unable to sleep that this weighs me down a bit.

That's my update on me haha. Yeah kinda heavy but I just felt I wanted to talk about it a little. Even if just that I re-read this someday and laugh. I mean, think about it. Give it 20 years or so with both kids out of the house potentially. I'll be saying oh how I miss those newborn days when I could just cuddle 24/7. LOL. I'm not going to continue updating my weight because now it's not really pregnancy related; it's general. (I definitely lost all the pregnancy weight but won't deny my body is still shaped differently. I haven't really talked a lot about that part anyways other than to say I'm wider for sure.)

4 weeks

Sleep deprivation is really starting to catch up with us. Dave helps out with a shift a night because Nathan really isn't going down unless he's in our arms for the most part. Plus even if he's in his crib he's so noisy that I don't sleep well. Sleep deprivation is affecting Neil as well. He used to sleep so well and sleep through a lot but he doesn't sleep through Nathan crying. So we actually get Nathan a lot faster than we used to get Neil. Sometimes the babies if they aren't all out crying will settle back down. I still remember Neil fussing, fussing, fussing, passing gas, and settling down to sleep by himself. We haven't allowed Nathan to do that yet because we're afraid he'll wake up Neil.

Nathan doesn't soothe himself to sleep yet. It's early for that and I'm realizing I really don't remember what it was like with Neil. I thought he was sleeping longer periods and in his crib by this point but Dave doesn't think so. The only times Nathan has fallen asleep for me so far are mostly when I've nursed him and a few times as I've held him.

Nathan's first bottle

We still do the same bedtime routine with Nathan; change diaper, put on pajamas, swaddle, then nurse. Then one of us holds him to make sure he's sound asleep and tries to put him in the crib. Some nights it works; others it doesn't. He lasts an hour or two in the crib. I've tried putting him back in the crib but each subsequent time he lasts less. I still have the Rock N Play by my side of the bed, but I prefer the crib in another room where I hear maybe a little bit less of all the newborn sleep noises. Newborns grunt, sniff, etc. a LOT!

They say sleep when the baby sleeps but I'm such a light sleeper I have a hard time during the day as well. There's light. There's more noise from neighbors. I'm so pathetic myself when it comes to sleeping.

Neil also brought home another illness. He got some kind of stomach bug. This meant he needed a lot more attention and he missed 3 days of daycare. The first one we held him back because he had thrown up overnight. Then they sent him home because of diarrhea. We had some major issues and were told he can't go back to daycare until 24 hours have passed without vomiting/diarrhea. So that ended up being 3 days. We wouldn't have sent him the 2nd day but he seemed fine overnight and in the morning and hadn't thrown up since Sunday night in the middle of the night. Nathan also caught it, and so did Dave and I. It was harder to tell with Nathan how long it took to get him over it but we couldn't do anything for him and felt so bad!

I think I cheated but Nathan has rolled from front to back now. This is super early. But he did it 4 times in a row the day he turned 4 weeks. I say I cheated because he seems calmer during tummy time if I put his hands on either side of him so maybe that's allowing him to roll easier. But I had Dave watch and Dave agreed that he has rolled over.

This is a series of pictures as he rolled over one of the times. I ran out of memory on my phone so I couldn't take a video. And the middle picture is blurry.

I am 1 pound below pre-pregnancy weight! So now my goal is to get below my pre-pregnancy weight with Neil, which is another 2.5 pounds. Then it will just be eventually trying to get to my goal weight, which is actually 12 pounds down total from where I am now. But my body hasn't seemed in the past to like that weight very much. Even when I was running I stayed steady about 9 pounds over my goal weight. I also took some pictures of myself, I think I do have a stomach still but have been getting some compliments that it doesn't look like I've had a baby. I do not fit into my pre-pregnancy pants but I do fit into the bigger ones I bought and wore for a little bit at work after having Neil.

Not the greatest picture but I was trying to show a side profile. I think I angled too much though for this.
Plus the jeans might be holding me in a little bit.

BTW I am still doing monthly pictures but instead of doing a long monthly post, as long as I'm doing the weekly posts, I'm just going to make it some of the pictures we take plus some stats, for the monthly post.

Weekly pictures 4/12 to 4/18

Brotherly loving...

Stomach flu hit our house and hit Neil first

Checking out a new pizza place near us since Neil loves pizza

What a toddler looks like when he dresses himself (hat on backwards with sunglasses)

The first night they were both asleep in their respective rooms and beds!
This didn't last long. But still...

Checking out a local brewery that just opened up.

Saturday we went to the zoo, which will be in a separate post.

My dad tuned our piano so we've starting playing it again. Neil loves that!

We got to enjoy some beautiful weather outside in our own backyard.

I think Neil REALLY wanted to go play with the other kids but they didn't even see him.

One Month

Stats:
Weight: 9 pounds 1 ounce
Height: 22 inches
Diaper Size: Newborn but we ran out of that size so we started putting him in Size 1 even though he still fits newborn
Clothing Size: Newborn
Shoe Size: N/A

3 weeks

We are possibly seeing sleep patterns; Nathan is awake and very alert for about an hour around 7-8. He also seems to take a long afternoon nap and tends to have a long (3 hour ish) sleep starting around 8-9 so when he goes down then after nursing. I go to bed at that point and put him in the rock n play next to me. After that he's awake every hour looking to eat so I'm starting to move to the couch at that point. I can sleep while nursing and it doesn't disturb Dave or Neil so much. (Since I'm writing this later, ha to patterns. This only lasted a few days.)

I had my 2 week appointment. The midwife said that because I feel so good after the birth, I'm doing too much and not allowing my body to fully heal so I need to slow down. This is really hard for me. She also said though that I can pick up and carry Neil; what they don't want is me bending over to pick him up. She showed me how my ab muscles are separated (blech felt that with my hand and it was kinda gross) and gave me some tips/exercises to do to start to work on that. I guess you have to be careful because a lot of typical abdominal exercises will actually separate those muscles even further, not help put them back in place. And it turns out I might not have ever gotten them back in place after having Neil. It's not something I knew to even check or look for. Maybe this explains why running was always more rough after Neil. So I guess I need to try to take it more easy to let my body heal fully. She said it will take 6-8 weeks total, that I'm mostly back to normal but this last bit takes time too.

We gave Nathan his first real bath. He didn't cry at all and seemed to like it. We had bathed him over the sink with a washcloth and that actually made him seem to go to sleep, especially when we were washing his head/hair. I'm not holding my breath though; I'm guessing as he gets more aware he might not like baths as much.

Because of potential patterns I decided to try to use the app on my phone again. It's not 100% because Dave isn't using it so if I'm not there I'm not recording what's going on. But I started tracking sleep, feeding, and diaper changes. It looks like I nurse Nathan for 4-5 total hours over a 24 hour period. I actually nurse him about 14 times on each side; if I alternate then that's considered just one session but my app doesn't track like that. Nathan often nurses on just one side at a time and falls asleep. So those are mostly individual, although some of the times are extremely short. He does nurse in spurts- goes back and forth for an hour at a time. He still tends to nurse less than 10 minutes at a time.

We also started a bedtime routine, which now is just swaddling to show it's bedtime; then I take Neil upstairs to our room, nurse him in bed, and put him in the Rock N Play. It takes forever to get him in the Rock N Play though. He needs to be very sound asleep and that takes some time. I tend to actually doze off and when I wake up from that he seems to be asleep enough that I can transfer him. He's very loud though and that kinda keeps me up. He does seem in general to want to be held more than he did the first 2 weeks. I assume that's because he's becoming more aware. He will sleep for a longer stretch if I hold him. If I put him down he doesn't sleep as long. One night I held him the entire night and he slept for a 5 hour stretch, nursed, then slept for a 3 hour stretch. It was nice for me; I got some solid sleep with him in my arms.

I am up overall 2 pounds. Also looked at some pictures and realized I definitely still have a stomach. I thought I was pretty flat. Dave pointed out that when you're full term pregnant your stomach is pretty big so yes compared to that I'm way way down but not back to normal. I just need to have some patience, which is something I struggle with. I do weigh myself almost daily and at my lowest I was half a pound above pre-pregnancy weight! But my weight does fluctuate throughout the week.

Weekly pictures 4/5 to 4/11

The Easter baskets. Neil's on the left and Nathan's on the right.

Neil of course loved this book. It had a little electronic thing and was a bunch of songs sung by Sesame Street characters.

Nathan didn't really cooperate getting a good picture of this outfit.

I can't remember now why Neil was making this face but I had to post it.

Selfie time with mommy! Yes, this is the type of thing we do to pass time while Nathan is nursing.

Cuddling with daddy before bed

One of his alert times. Beautiful eyes! (Yes he's also flipping me off. No more pictures, please.)

It was warm enough to go outside! Dave was going to take Neil to the park but it was raining,
so he let him out in our backyard instead. We really need to rake and pick up back there
but are excited about the fenced in area and that it's flat!

I took this while walking outside the mall. I didn't want to pause because people were looking at me.

Enjoying more warm weather outside

Neil's great aunt got him a Sesame Street memory game.
He's young for the actual game but he LOVES matching the tiles (more age appropriate).

Trying to calm Nathan down when he was crying