8 weeks

This will be my last weekly post- I'll switch over to monthly from now on. Babies still grow and develop a whole lot the entire first year but I'm having some trouble keeping up and I'll be back at work in 4 weeks anyways so I'm going to switch to monthly at this point.

The biggest thing I've noticed is that now sometimes Nathan cries because he's getting bored. He wants to see things now. It used to be if he cried it was diaper, hungry, or sleepy. Now add bored. It's kind of nice; sometimes to get him to stop crying we can just turn him around to see something else. He's starting to stare at ceiling fans (that are running) and respond when I sing to him. It's really nice.

He's still really gassy, so we started gas drops to see if that will help. I try to make sure I burp him if it seems like he needs it. He doesn't burp most of the time but when he does it's usually pretty good. He was also having poopy diapers every time (just a little bit each time) and now most of his diapers are just pee. This is nice; he was pretty red most of the time and we were using Triple Paste on him but now when he poops he POOPS. He also likes to go as soon as we take the dirty diaper off. Go figure.

Sleep wise he is definitely settling into a pattern. Our big bedtime routine thing is to swaddle him and he goes to sleep when I nurse him (which is pretty typical). Then Dave puts him in the crib and he seems to last about 5-6 hours on average, total sleep. Since I've nursed him etc I don't get quite that much sleep but I try to get up to bed asap so I can maximize how long I can sleep. Also, when he wakes up he doesn't tend to cry. He's VERY hungry but the sounds he makes tend to be more gas related from what I can tell. So I wonder if we can help with the gas if he'll go longer. After that long span he is more sporadic; sometimes he will go 3-4 more hours but most of the time it's 1-2 from then on out. He also seems to have a wake period around 3-4am, which I am still finding annoying. I'm also nervous about how work is going to be- I was getting up very early and I'm kind of hoping I can handle things like I did with Neil. I would pump before work and Dave gave him a bottle before daycare. Nursing just takes a lot longer and means I'll have to be up even earlier. Before I had Nathan I was actually leaving my house around 5:20 or so.

Oh and with this sleep pattern I'm not on the couch anymore! The long stretch and the first sleep period after we leave him swaddled and in the crib. Then I unswaddle him but put him in the rock n play next to me for the rest of the night. I love being able to sleep in my own bed all night.

At 7 weeks I forgot the stats and just gave approximates at the last minute before the blog post went live. Here are more specific stats. These are from the last 7 days. The sleep period is probably still too short because I don't catch all the little cat naps. The nursing period is pretty close; although I do stop it when he falls asleep on me. He often stays latched and will keep sucking every so often but I don't count that because he's asleep. If I did the time would be WAY longer.

Sleeping: Average time is 15 hrs 11 minutes each day (63% of the day). Longest duration this past week was 6 hours 25 minutes.
Feeding: Average time spent nursing is 3 hrs 38 minutes a day. Average number of times is 22 a day; 11.4 times on the left side and 10.3 times on the right side. 3 bottles this past week. 2.5 oz, 3 oz, and 3 oz.
Diapers: 10.5 diapers with pee per day. 1.7 diapers with poop per day. (Those can be both pee/poop; it doesn't distinguish that in the application.)