The past four weeks have been so much fun. Antony has learned to do so many new things, and he's just a joy to play with! Laughing and smiling are totally his thing now, which is just so rewarding.
Growth check: He's close to fifteen pounds already! We weighed him at mom's house a week ago, and he was 14.95 lbs with his clothes and diaper on. He's also gotten really long, he's grown out of all the 0-3 month clothes, and is even stretching the limits of a bunch of the 3-6 month sleepers we have, so now he's mostly in 6-9 month ones! I feel like he's grown about two inches this month. We had him in one of the bigger 0-3 month sleepers the other day, and he was super fussy at night - finally, Mark changed him into something bigger and he went to sleep almost right away. So we think it was just that his clothes were too tight, poor little guy.
Tummy-time: Much better these days! Especially when he rolls over himself from his back to his tummy, he really doesn't seem to mind it as much. He's able to push his chest all the way up on straight arms, and makes crawling movements too - I have a feeling he's going to be an early crawler at this rate! He also seems to enjoy playing superman on the boppy (see the attached pic).
Other movement: He's now rolling over both from back to tummy (started at 15 weeks), and tummy to back (started a couple of weeks before that). It's interesting though, the back to tummy roll definitely seems purposeful, as he flips over onto his side, then turns his head all the way over and rocks there until he flips onto his tummy. The tummy to back roll seems to be more accidental, and less frequent, even though it started earlier.
Smiles: Smiles have definitely evolved into laughs. We can make him laugh at all kinds of things now, mostly things that we do. Blowing on his tummy or his hands, blowing raspberries, making "yumyumyum" or "mmmmmm" noises while we eat, kissing his face and neck while making kissy noises - we can keep him laughing for a good 20 minutes! It is so totally sweet!
Teeth: Kate noticed "tooth bumps" at 14 weeks, and we had noticed quite a bit of drool in the few days before that, which Mark suggested might be from teething. I dismissed the idea, as it's really quite early for teeth to be coming. (Forgetting, of course, that I had gotten my first teeth in my fourth month). Well, they're both through as of last Monday, just shy of 16 weeks. He's bitten me a couple of times while feeding. Ouch! Hasn't been too frequent though, hopefully it won't become a habit.
Hands: This has been the biggest change - between 12 and 14 weeks he really started to use his hands to grab onto things, from the toys on the gymini, to his blue chair, to ribbons and stuffed animals that we hold above him. He also started bringing his hands together in the middle, and exploring them. You can really see him looking at something now, and then making a concious effort to reach out for it. His depth perception seems to be a little off, he'll often grab for something and miss, either going in front or behind it. He's also started bringing things to his mouth to munch on them, although he misses as often as not. He definitely wants to though. His hands do make it to his mouth without things in them, he sucks on them quite a bit, and has mastered the art of getting his thumb in there. I'm not overly concerned that he'll become too much of a thumb sucker, as he doesn't do it that much.
Feeding: We've definitely got this down. He generally goes four hours between daytime feeds now, and anywhere from 6 to 10 hours beween his last night-time and first morning feed. I'm looking forward to getting the scale back so I can weigh him before and after feeding a few times again - I'm getting huge amounts when I pump now (my max is 11.5 ounces, from one 5 minute session!!!), so I'd really like to know how much he's eating. He generally only takes 4-6 ounces from the bottle, but I wonder if he's getting more when he's eating from the tap. It's also really cute, sometimes he chats while he's nursing or drinking from the bottle.
Eyes: His eyebrows are getting darker, you can actually see them now. No change in his eye-color yet.
Sleeping: Still no rhyme or reason. I've been trying to get him up at around 7:30 each day, hoping that will get him to go to bed a bit earlier at night. It's not working consistently though. Some days he's awake for as little as eight hours, others as much as 12. I guess we'll keep tracking it and hope that he falls into a pattern on his own. He's sleeping through the night on a fairly regular basis, which is great!
Me: My hair is coming out in fistfuls! I know that this is something that happens when your hormones change at around three months... but when does it stop? I've lost a couple more pounds so that now I'm back at my "natural" weight. My clothes still don't fit quite the same, I think I still have a little more fat around my belly than I used to, mostly because I'm not exercising as much anymore. I also would like to get back to some kind of strength exercises, I'm so weak! I used to be able to do 40 pushups, now I can barely do 10. Although I think I still shouldn't do those for a while because I looked at my tummy while I was doing them and I could see a big lump, so I think it's not good for my abdominal separation. I'm hardly leaking at all these days (finally!) so I can quit wearing the nursing pads now. I'm half-way through my fifth box of 60 pads, plus the 30 that Michelle started me off with (thank god for those!!!), so I think I used around 300. Whew! The only other thing I wanted to mention is that I noticed when I bend over that I have a fair amount of extra loose skin on my tummy. It's not noticeable when I'm standing up, but definitely when I bend. It's kinda funny.
Saturday, December 23, 2006
Thursday, November 23, 2006
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!
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!
Thursday, October 26, 2006
Ant diary: 8 weeks
Growth check: Ant grew another inch, and put on 2lb 8oz in the last four weeks. Also added 3cm in head circumference. He’s gone from being around the 50th percentile for both height and weight to being a bit of a porker – 66th percentile for weight but only 39th for height. I think they gypped him on the height measurement though, because he was screaming at the time :-). They also gave me the percentiles for his head circumference, which I kinda wish they hadn’t – he was in the 7th percentile at his one month appointment, and is now in the 21st. So he’s got a little head for his size. I hope it doesn’t mean anything about his brain development! At least he’s growing nicely there too.
Tummy-time: He’s now definitely able to hold his head up, I counted 30 seconds the other day. And his head is pretty stable when I’m holding him up on my shoulders. I think he’s almost ready to use the Bumbo and go forward facing in the Baby Bjorn.
Focus: Ant still isn’t interested in objects. He loves looking at the ceiling, curtains, and paintings on the wall. I did just make and print a black and white bullseye, and he’s fascinated by that. That object he will follow, for sure!
Smiles: Oh my goodness. He’s smiling a lot more now, and it’s totally adorable! He does have dimples, although they don’t show all the time. If he ends up with blue eyes and dimples he’s going to be a real ladykiller!
Hands: Still a good grip, but not grabbing at objects yet. Seems to be really good at finding all the hairs I shed though. He does bat at the toys on the gymini, but I think they just happen to get in his way as he’s waving his arms and legs around.
Feeding: He’s now going between 7-8 hours between his last evening feed and the early morning one, and then 3-4 hours until the next one (last night, for example, I fed him at 9:50pm, then 5:27 and 8:40am). So if we could actually get to bed at the same time as him we’d get a decent amount of sleep. But no, I do things like write this instead – went to bed at 1am. Silly! During the day he generally goes around 3 hours between feeds, with a range of 2-4 hours.
Eyes: Still a medium blue. Can’t tell if they’re changing yet or not. But what’s neat is that his eyelashes have gotten much darker, so you can definitely see them now. Not much in the way of eyebrows yet. He started crying real tears over the past few days. So much more heartbreaking when he cries now. Last night he was crying before I fed him, and little tear slipped off his nose. Waaaaaahhh!
Complexion: Cradle cap is gone, for the most part. Still some rough patches around his eyes and nose though. Don’t really know what (if anything) to do about that. I’m putting a little moisturizer on every now and again, hopefully that’s all it takes.
Sleeping: He is doing really well with sleeping at night. We can even put him down when he’s not asleep yet, and that works out fine. For some reason it’s completely different in the daytime. He won’t take a nap unless he falls asleep on me first, and on the rare occasion when I can put him down without waking him up in the process, he only sleeps for a few minutes more before waking. Must figure out what to do about this! Although if I had to pick a time of day for him to not want to sleep as much it would definitely be day rather than night, so I really can’t complain too much.
Me: Back to biking and ice hockey!!! First practices were last Saturday and Monday. I could definitely feel muscles I wasn’t used to using, but was surprisingly not sore afterwards. Yay! I have missed hockey so much, it is really nice to be back. Good for my mental health as well, I find that I am a lot more on edge now than I used to be. I get frustrated and upset a lot more easily (which I am chalking up to lack of consecutive sleep). Taking a few hours for myself to do something fun like hockey really makes a difference. In other areas, my linea nigra seems to be getting lighter. My belly is still shrinking, although it’s hard to see the difference until I try on clothes and see how much better they fit each week. I do have a diastasis (separation between my abdominal muscles) of 3-4 fingers, so need to do some exercises to rectify that. First, though, I need to get Ant to sleep somewhere else during the day besides on ME! Bleeding stopped at right around 5 weeks. Hmmm… what else? Weight loss has stopped, I’d like to lose another 5-7 pounds of my IF weight, but “they” always say not to diet while breastfeeding. It’s hard not to fall back into the “must be thin” habit / mindset (which is what got me into the HA in the first place), but I keep reminding myself that I’m doing this for my babe.
Tummy-time: He’s now definitely able to hold his head up, I counted 30 seconds the other day. And his head is pretty stable when I’m holding him up on my shoulders. I think he’s almost ready to use the Bumbo and go forward facing in the Baby Bjorn.
Focus: Ant still isn’t interested in objects. He loves looking at the ceiling, curtains, and paintings on the wall. I did just make and print a black and white bullseye, and he’s fascinated by that. That object he will follow, for sure!
Smiles: Oh my goodness. He’s smiling a lot more now, and it’s totally adorable! He does have dimples, although they don’t show all the time. If he ends up with blue eyes and dimples he’s going to be a real ladykiller!
Hands: Still a good grip, but not grabbing at objects yet. Seems to be really good at finding all the hairs I shed though. He does bat at the toys on the gymini, but I think they just happen to get in his way as he’s waving his arms and legs around.
Feeding: He’s now going between 7-8 hours between his last evening feed and the early morning one, and then 3-4 hours until the next one (last night, for example, I fed him at 9:50pm, then 5:27 and 8:40am). So if we could actually get to bed at the same time as him we’d get a decent amount of sleep. But no, I do things like write this instead – went to bed at 1am. Silly! During the day he generally goes around 3 hours between feeds, with a range of 2-4 hours.
Eyes: Still a medium blue. Can’t tell if they’re changing yet or not. But what’s neat is that his eyelashes have gotten much darker, so you can definitely see them now. Not much in the way of eyebrows yet. He started crying real tears over the past few days. So much more heartbreaking when he cries now. Last night he was crying before I fed him, and little tear slipped off his nose. Waaaaaahhh!
Complexion: Cradle cap is gone, for the most part. Still some rough patches around his eyes and nose though. Don’t really know what (if anything) to do about that. I’m putting a little moisturizer on every now and again, hopefully that’s all it takes.
Sleeping: He is doing really well with sleeping at night. We can even put him down when he’s not asleep yet, and that works out fine. For some reason it’s completely different in the daytime. He won’t take a nap unless he falls asleep on me first, and on the rare occasion when I can put him down without waking him up in the process, he only sleeps for a few minutes more before waking. Must figure out what to do about this! Although if I had to pick a time of day for him to not want to sleep as much it would definitely be day rather than night, so I really can’t complain too much.
Me: Back to biking and ice hockey!!! First practices were last Saturday and Monday. I could definitely feel muscles I wasn’t used to using, but was surprisingly not sore afterwards. Yay! I have missed hockey so much, it is really nice to be back. Good for my mental health as well, I find that I am a lot more on edge now than I used to be. I get frustrated and upset a lot more easily (which I am chalking up to lack of consecutive sleep). Taking a few hours for myself to do something fun like hockey really makes a difference. In other areas, my linea nigra seems to be getting lighter. My belly is still shrinking, although it’s hard to see the difference until I try on clothes and see how much better they fit each week. I do have a diastasis (separation between my abdominal muscles) of 3-4 fingers, so need to do some exercises to rectify that. First, though, I need to get Ant to sleep somewhere else during the day besides on ME! Bleeding stopped at right around 5 weeks. Hmmm… what else? Weight loss has stopped, I’d like to lose another 5-7 pounds of my IF weight, but “they” always say not to diet while breastfeeding. It’s hard not to fall back into the “must be thin” habit / mindset (which is what got me into the HA in the first place), but I keep reminding myself that I’m doing this for my babe.
Tuesday, October 3, 2006
Ant diary: 5 weeks
Growth check: At his 1 month doctor's appointment, Ant had put on more than three pounds over his lowest weight, tipping the scales at a whopping 9lb 10oz! He also measured at 21.5 inches, a gain of 1.5 over birth. Both of which we can see in his clothes which he fills out a lot better, and his diapers - he's just about outgrown the newborn size. He also has cute little plump calves, not the chicken legs he was born with.
Tummy-time: I keep meaning to have him spend more time on his tummy, but he gets fussy very quickly when he's there so I don't do it unless he's in the "calm-alert" state which doesn't last very long, so we don't get to it much. He does lie on M on his tummy, and is already able to hold his head up (albeit briefly) at a 90 degree angle. Very cool.
Focus: Yesterday was the first time on his gymini when Ant actually spent time looking up rather than having his head to one side or the other. Still not really looking at the toys, but getting there. Today I went over to a friend's house (our first car trip on our own), and there he actually followed me out of the room with his eyes when I went to get something. Shwing!
Smiles: They're still involuntary, mostly after he's finished eating, but they are SO adorable. He's going to have dimples!!
Hands: He's started grabbing onto things - mostly my skin, while he's feeding. Boy can he give me a good pinch. Ouch!
Feeding: We've started him on the bottle, he doesn't like it as much as he likes me, but he'll take it. He's taken a room temp bottle a few times, but M isn't pushing as hard for him to go room temp / cold as I would. Since he's doing the bottle feeding, I'll go with it. Although somehow I'm always the one who prepares the bottles, so perhaps I should push a little harder. It would be really nice if he would take them cold!
Pumping is going incredibly well - I don't know what it is, but I truly am a milk factory. I pumped four hours after feeding him last on Monday, while I was out, and got 9oz. In FIVE minutes! It's totally crazy. It also means that I'm a champion leaker. I was talking to my mom on the phone, and had forgotten to put a nursing pad in. All of a sudden I noticed I was feeling damp - looked down to see this!. With a puddle on my leg. Ha!
Eyes: They're currently a medium blue. I wish they would come out that way in pictures, but they really don't. I'm so curious to see what color they end up being. Mine are green, M is brown-green. I think they've gotten a little lighter since he was born, but it's so hard to tell.
Complexion: His milia have all disappeared, which is nice. He's getting a bit of cradle cap though - eww. I'm trying to keep him well-moisturized.
Sleeping: Really lucked out on this one - he's sleeping really well at night. After his last evening feed we'll often get five hours until he wants to eat again, which I really count my blessings for. After that it's three hours between feeds, which still isn't too shabby. He's still sleeping reasonably well during the day, although sometimes will only sleep on me, which makes it hard to get things done! He has been fussier in the evenings, but we're slowly learning how to calm him. I found that he really liked going up and down stairs, which translated into deep knee bends also calming him. That's tough on the knees though - but my mom reminded me that we have an exercise ball that we can bounce on, and he really seems to like that as well. It's hard on the back though! M came up with the good idea of using the boppy while bouncing on the exercise ball, which does help with the back quite a lot. Funny-looking, but when he's screaming, whatever it takes!
Me: Only one pound to go before I'm back at my pre-pg weight. Of course then I still have to lose my IF weight after that. I still have a decent sized baby belly, which I didn't think had been getting any smaller until I found I was able to put on a pair of pants today that didn't fit me last week. I also went for my first bike ride yesterday - it felt fucking fantastic. It had been almost five months since I was on my bike last, as I stopped once my contractions started at 25 weeks. I was surprised at how good my stamina was - hopefully that bodes well for when I start playing hockey again in a couple of weeks!
Tummy-time: I keep meaning to have him spend more time on his tummy, but he gets fussy very quickly when he's there so I don't do it unless he's in the "calm-alert" state which doesn't last very long, so we don't get to it much. He does lie on M on his tummy, and is already able to hold his head up (albeit briefly) at a 90 degree angle. Very cool.
Focus: Yesterday was the first time on his gymini when Ant actually spent time looking up rather than having his head to one side or the other. Still not really looking at the toys, but getting there. Today I went over to a friend's house (our first car trip on our own), and there he actually followed me out of the room with his eyes when I went to get something. Shwing!
Smiles: They're still involuntary, mostly after he's finished eating, but they are SO adorable. He's going to have dimples!!
Hands: He's started grabbing onto things - mostly my skin, while he's feeding. Boy can he give me a good pinch. Ouch!
Feeding: We've started him on the bottle, he doesn't like it as much as he likes me, but he'll take it. He's taken a room temp bottle a few times, but M isn't pushing as hard for him to go room temp / cold as I would. Since he's doing the bottle feeding, I'll go with it. Although somehow I'm always the one who prepares the bottles, so perhaps I should push a little harder. It would be really nice if he would take them cold!
Pumping is going incredibly well - I don't know what it is, but I truly am a milk factory. I pumped four hours after feeding him last on Monday, while I was out, and got 9oz. In FIVE minutes! It's totally crazy. It also means that I'm a champion leaker. I was talking to my mom on the phone, and had forgotten to put a nursing pad in. All of a sudden I noticed I was feeling damp - looked down to see this!. With a puddle on my leg. Ha!
Eyes: They're currently a medium blue. I wish they would come out that way in pictures, but they really don't. I'm so curious to see what color they end up being. Mine are green, M is brown-green. I think they've gotten a little lighter since he was born, but it's so hard to tell.
Complexion: His milia have all disappeared, which is nice. He's getting a bit of cradle cap though - eww. I'm trying to keep him well-moisturized.
Sleeping: Really lucked out on this one - he's sleeping really well at night. After his last evening feed we'll often get five hours until he wants to eat again, which I really count my blessings for. After that it's three hours between feeds, which still isn't too shabby. He's still sleeping reasonably well during the day, although sometimes will only sleep on me, which makes it hard to get things done! He has been fussier in the evenings, but we're slowly learning how to calm him. I found that he really liked going up and down stairs, which translated into deep knee bends also calming him. That's tough on the knees though - but my mom reminded me that we have an exercise ball that we can bounce on, and he really seems to like that as well. It's hard on the back though! M came up with the good idea of using the boppy while bouncing on the exercise ball, which does help with the back quite a lot. Funny-looking, but when he's screaming, whatever it takes!
Me: Only one pound to go before I'm back at my pre-pg weight. Of course then I still have to lose my IF weight after that. I still have a decent sized baby belly, which I didn't think had been getting any smaller until I found I was able to put on a pair of pants today that didn't fit me last week. I also went for my first bike ride yesterday - it felt fucking fantastic. It had been almost five months since I was on my bike last, as I stopped once my contractions started at 25 weeks. I was surprised at how good my stamina was - hopefully that bodes well for when I start playing hockey again in a couple of weeks!
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