This was actually a really rough week. Matt left on Sunday (the 8th) night (for work) and was gone until pretty late Tuesday night. Then, he worked super long hours on both Thursday and Friday. Basically, I saw him close to none all week. Luckily, I had lots of help with family taking LL this week so that I could completely focus on Cooper's schedule. Here's some info about our week:
Nursing: Last week (on the 4th of July) I decided that I wanted to start transitioning to formula. Well, I made the decision and then I didn't ever do anything about it! I guess it just made me feel better that I had actually made the decision?? Anyway, I didn't start doing anything with formula this week until Thursday. There was just a lot going on with Matt not being in town and I just didn't feel the need to rush. Nursing went pretty good this week. Again, he is a super fast eater. Most of his feeding sessions lasted for an average of about 8 - 12 minutes. Occasionally some feedings would be longer, but this is typically what they would last. If you read my post about his two week doctor appointment, you know that I didn't get good advice from our pediatrician about how to transition him to formula. I went online and did some research and found a 14 day plan for transitioning a baby from breastfeeding to formula. I really liked that plan because it took some time and wouldn't be a shock to his system (or mine). For the first three days, I needed to pick a middle-of-the-day feeding and make it a formula feeding. Just one feeding switch for three days. I started this on Thursday. To say that he wasn't thrilled is kind of an understatement. He drank 2 oz at this feeding, but he wasn't too happy about it. On Friday, he drank 2 oz, but he took it a little better than he did on Thursday. On Saturday, he would only take 1 oz. I think a lot of this is due to the fact that we had gone out to run an errand and it was his first time out of the house. On Sunday, it was time for me to replace one additional feeding (to make 2 total), and it needed to be right after the first feeding of formula. For the first formula feeding on Sunday, Matt fed it to him and he only took 1.5 ounces. He still acted a little hungry, so I nursed him, and he ate for only about 4 minutes. Then, at the next feeding (also formula), he ate 3 ounces! And he downed it! So I think he's starting to get the hang of it, and I'm really happy that we're doing this so slowly. Basically, from here on out, I'll add one formula feeding every 2 days.
Cooper's first bottle!
Sleeping: We had some really big ups this week with sleeping, but we also had some downs this week with sleeping. One big "up" was that on Tuesday night he only woke up twice to eat during the night! Awesome! The "down" was that he hasn't done it again - AND he woke up FOUR times on Saturday night. That's the most he's ever woken up. :( I did a TON of reading up on this on the babywise mom blog - and I think that the problem stems from not having a consistent wake time during the week (I'll talk about that in a minute). I'm going to trouble-shoot that this next week and we'll see if it helps at all.
Another big "up" this week was I learned something that has made his sleeping a TON better: he loves to have one arm out while swaddled!! While I was doing all of my reading on the babywise blog, I read that one of her children hated to be swaddled, one loved it, and one loved it with one arm out. As soon as I read that, I thought, "That's Cooper!" There were several times prior to this revelation where I noticed that Cooper would get his left arm almost out, OR he would spend all of his "nap" struggling to get it out. Once I started swaddling him with one arm out, he has started sleeping MUCH better!! Before I discovered the arm out thing, he would fuss and cry a ton when I first put him down for a nap. Once I started leaving his arm out, he would just grunt and wiggle when trying to go to sleep.
Isn't this the cutest thing EVER??
Schedule: This is the week that I started scheduling with Cooper. With Babywise, the first two weeks are just devoted to full feedings and letting the baby just be. At the start of week 3 is when they recommend starting a schedule with the baby. I did not start on Monday because he had his doctor's appointment that morning at 8:30. I knew that I needed to start his schedule first thing in the morning, and that wouldn't work on Monday. Tuesday was our go day. My initial plan was to start his day at 7:00 every day. Well - that has not gone over so great this week. Here were some of his "start" times: 7:07, 6:48, 7:04, 6:18, 6:28. While some of them were *close* to 7:00, it just wasn't working out consistently. My new plan for next week is to start his day at 6:00. LL usually gets up before 7:00, and I think it'll be easier to be more consistent with him. While I don't love this idea of getting up this early, I think it will be better for him.
Because his start times were all over the place, his schedule every day was pretty different. Overall, he did really well with going 2.5 - 3 hours, they just happened at different times every day. I think with starting next week at 6:00 this will help also.
One thing that I am MOST proud of this past week (while his times were different and not consistent), are his naps. Once I discovered his arm out swaddling, he did GREAT at naps. I did really well with making sure to put him down sleepy (but awake), and he did great with going to sleep!! Seriously, 99% of the time he will just grunt and wiggle for a little bit before going to sleep. I'm so proud of him!!
Here's an overview of how his days went this week:
Monday - I didn't start his schedule because of his doctor's appointment.
Sending a picture to Daddy.
Cooper also sent this video to Daddy at work to say hey. :)
Wednesday - He did okay on his schedule, but not great. Matt picked LL up and brought her home after work.
Thursday - He was completely off of any type of schedule all day despite me trying crazy hard. My mom was over (and my step-dad to fix our water heater), and I think all the people just messed him up. I really had to just go with it and realize that tomorrow would be another day.
His nails grow SO FAST. I literally have to trim them at least once a week!
She is such a good big sister. :)
LL said I needed to sing a lullaby to Cooper and I asked her to do it. I only caught the end of it, but it was SO sweet. :)
I have a feeling that I'm going to love this picture for the rest of my life.
Saturday - We took him out for the first time. He did great while we were out, but he melted on the way home because he was way over tired. He did good for the rest of the day once we got home.
Sunday - His day started out rough and he had a hard time napping for his first two naps. He finally got better after lunch and we had a better afternoon/evening.
Here are some other things about him this week:
-I put him in his jungle for the first time this week on Wednesday (July 11). While he's still too little to really look around or play, he seemed to enjoy it.
-His umbilical cord fell off during his 6 am diaper change on Saturday (July 13 - 20 days old). Considering that LL's hung on for 7 WEEKS, Matt and I were super pumped about this!!
Since his cord fell off, he got his first *real* bath!
What is better than freshly bathed kids?!
-We took him for his first outing on Saturday, and I wore him in the Moby Wrap. He loved it (and I did, too!) and I'm excited to start wearing him more.
I tried it out on Friday night just to make sure I could figure it out. I sent this picture to Matt while he was at work.
Out and about!!
Some cute (random) pictures from this week:
Me: I feel like I'm really starting to get the hang of this, and I'm starting to feel like all of this is more "normal". While I had a hard time with Matt being gone (and I got pretty lonely this week), I'm doing way better than I was with LL at this point. I also discovered that I feel much more normal when LL is here. While I appreciate the help that we've had a TON, I'm looking forward to this next week when it's me and both kids solo. It just feels more natural and I really feel like it's time for me to tackle this on my own.
My bleeding this week has really been almost non-existent. It's just enough to be annoying, but it's not nearly as bad as it was with LL at this point. My weight has also done great this week. At the end of the week, my weight was 2 1/2 pounds DOWN from my pre-pregnancy weight. Um - AWESOME!! It *still* looks different, but I'm happy that the number is down at least. This is the least that I've weighed since April of 2011 (before our miscarriage). I'm pumped about this!
1 comment:
i love reading your blog because our sons are so close in age. I can relate to a lot that you wrote about in this post... scheduling, Babywise, naps, swaddling, bathing (we have the same tub..ha), and so much more.
Post a Comment