Ant diary: 12 weeks

I really cannot belive that it's been twelve weeks already. They have flown by! My first day back at work was yesterday - it wasn't too bad. M was off for the day, so stayed home with the kiddo. I think it wasn't so hard for me because it wasn't the first time I've left Ant, as I have left him a number of times to play hockey. We'll see how I feel next week when he's home with my FIL...

Growth check: We weighed him at my mom’s house last week, and he’s now around 13 lb 5 oz or thereabouts. Yikes! Definitely helping to tone my arm muscles. He’s rapidly growing out of the 0-3 month clothes (although there are some that are *still* too big for him. I don’t know what kind of 0-3 month babies these people have!!!)

Tummy-time: I’ve been so bad about this. Ant is really starting to express his displeasure when he’s on his tummy so I haven’t been doing it much. He also just basically lies there most of the time, not trying to lift his head at all. Although I just discovered yesterday that he doesn’t mind tummy time on the changing table nearly as much, where he has his mobile to look at. He’s totally lifting his chest up! He’s also got enough head control to sit in the bumbo (his head doesn’t fall backwards anymore, but he tends to list to the right a bit), and we used the Baby Bjorn forward facing just a couple of days ago.

Other movement: Ant is starting to roll over onto his right side – he picks both legs up and basically throws himself over to the side. Funny to watch! I don’t think he’s that close to actually rolling over though, because his arms are totally in the way. We do have to be much more careful when he’s on the changing table, I can totally imagine him throwing himself off now.

Focus: Wow, there’s been a big change here! Ant is definitely looking *at* things now. I went out and bought him the Tiny Love mobile on the recommendation of a few friends with similar aged babies, and he *loves* it. It doesn’t even have to be turned on. We put him under it and he smiles and laughs, and you can see him focusing on different pieces of it. I could watch him watching it for hours! He also looks at the toys on the gymini now.

Smiles: He’s smiling all the time now. But there was a new first today – he smiled at me when I went to pick him up after his nap. *heart melting*. I would swear that he’s laughing too, when he’s playing with the mobile, but that might be my imagination.

Hands: Just last Friday was the first time I think that Ant actually swiped at a toy on the gymini intentionally. M had him a couple mornings ago while I was playing hockey, and said that he grabbed at the lion on the gymini, and also used his hands to “hold on” to the bottle. Seems like he’s really getting the hang of these things! All the books etc. say that he will find his hands fascinating, and just watch them – he’s not doing that yet. Any idea if he will? My sister said she doesn’t think her daughter really did.

Feeding: We seem to have regressed a bit here. For a while he was going quite a long stretch between his last evening and first morning feed, but these days he’s back to only giving us around 5 hours. I’ve started using a site called trixietracker to see if I can make any sense of his patterns… not yet! I wish I knew what it was that would make him sleep for such a long time some nights and not others. I also feel like my milk supply is down. I pumped yesterday while at work, and got slightly less than he ended up eating. I also feel so empty in the evenings these days, totally floppy. He’s spending a lot longer on the breast, especially in the evenings, and he’s not just playing either, really sucking. I know I haven’t been as good about staying hydrated as I was in the beginning, and I’ve also been playing ice hockey every other day or so, and wonder if that has anything to do with it.

Eyes: No noticeable change here, perhaps a little lighter?

Complexion: He’s got a little rash around his mouth, I think irritation from spitup? Also still a rough patch between his eyes. He has two patches of stork bites, one between his eyes and one on his nose, and those do seem to be fading a little.

Sleeping: We seem to have the daytime nap thing figured out. Around 1.5 to 2 hours after he wakes (in general), I take him up to his room, put him in his sleepsack, give him his bink, sing “Are you sleepy Antony” (my words to “Are you sleeping”), and jiggle him a little bit. His eyes are usually closed within 5 minutes, at which point I can put him in his crib with a minimum of fussing. I think he sleeps better, and whomever is looking after him can do something else besides holding him. Yay! Night-time sleep is really not bad – it depends on what time he goes to bed. Some nights he’s down at around 8pm, and then wakes at 3 and 6, other nights he’s not down until 11-12, and wakes at around 6. I’m trying to figure out where the difference in bedtimes is coming from. I wonder if it’s based on the time that he gets up in the morning. So this am, although he fell asleep while I was nursing him at 7, I basically woke him up afterwards rather than letting him sleep ‘til 9ish which is what he would have done had I left him. I think. We’ll see if that helps!

Me: Not much to report here. No more weight loss, but somehow my belly is still getting smaller. Not complaining! I have started doing exercises to reduce my abdominal separation, and it’s gone from 3-4 fingers wide to 2-3. Hopefully a few more weeks of exercises will take care of that. My belly button has a little bit in the middle that sticks out now and never used to before, I wonder if that will disappear when my diastasis is corrected? Speaking of bellybuttons, a friend with twins a few weeks older than Ant told me that the dark brown smutz in my bellybutton would come off with some scrubbing in the shower. So of course I had to try it, and sure enough it did. Icky!