First of all, thank you all so much for your words of kindness on my last PWP post. I really appreciate it. I won’t go into detail here, since this is not going to PWP. ❤ I love you all.
Today Oat is 11 weeks old! I can hardly believe it. He is such a joy, and every day more and more of his little personality comes out. I will tell you all (all three of you? LOL) about what our day is like. (woo hoooo the excitement)
He doesn’t like to wake up early. He is a GRUMP with a capital G-R-U-M-P if he is woke up from a nap/night time sleep to early. On the flip side of that he goes to sleep pretty easily.
Our mornings are shaping up to start pretty early. He gets up around 5am to eat….and has been going back to a restless sleep until 7am and then eating again and then a DEEEEEEEP sleep from 8 or 9 to 11 or so. WELL, just as I feared he is now not wanting to go back to sleep after his 5am feeding. BLAH. Mamma no likey. He is not a night Oat anymore. I don’t know if I am sad or not, b/c I am still a late to bed kinda gal. It is hard. I am not sleepy at all!!!
A few nights I can force myself into bed and fall sleep after an hour or so…but not so all the time. I am now starting to nap in the afternoon with him. I actually have only napped during the day 2 times since he came home.
Why you ask? Honestly- b/c he is pretty awesome about sleeping at night. Maybe it was the two weeks in the NICU of getting ignored at night? (not really) They DO put the baby down after a feed most of the time b/c they have so much more to do. The bassinet is elevated, so they don’t worry about reflux, and they move onto to the next task. I think he started learning to self soothe himself to sleep there.
He has two big long naps during the day that I use to get stuff done. Sometimes they are a hour sometimes they are three. I just never know!
The reflux is better. He isn’t screaming as much and not seeming to be in as much pain with feeds. He spits up- but it is now regular wet burps and the such. He is obviously gaining weight just fine.
When Daddy gets home from work he will change his clothes (nasty hospital germs), and they spend time together. Sometimes Oat is a little fussy, but for the most part- I think he is just sick of ME! The boys walk out side and talk about their days. Oat likes to be carried facing out, and he is always lifting his head back to look at his daddy. Oat’s hand almost always is on Daddy’s face somewhere. It is so very sweet.
Daddy has been getting the first real consistent smiles also. Little bugger saves them up for his Daddy! Gives me pouts all day long, but gives Daddy the smiles. LOL
He lets us know when he is sleepy- this is a pretty easy kid to read. He gives half hearted ‘wah’s and has seriously sleepy eyes. Bedtime must happen soon. LOL
At night time he gets a bath or a good wipe down (non bath nights), a clean fluffy butt (double stuffed cloth diaper- seriously those things are AWESOME. Zero leaks ever), a good swaddle and then we have bedtime stories. I hold him and Daddy reads the story. We are so blessed to have so many people gift us books!! I also read to him during the day, and part of the story is telling him who gave him the book. We (uh, I) talk about family and friendship and silly stories of that person. I love it. I am remembering stuff about my friends and family I thought I had forgot. I love a good oral history.
Any how- at night Oat will calm down and listens to his father. He studies his Daddy’s face in a way he never does with me. It is wonderful, and I love this family time. I hope Oat learns to love books, and I hope as he gets older we move on to ‘real’ books and read them as a family. (Harry Potter, Wrinkle in Time, etc.)
By this time he is either drowsy or hungry…depending on when he last ate. I try to make sure he has eaten before the story, before he is super sleepy. I don’t like nursing him to sleep- I can see that being a bad habit for bedtime!
If he is drowsy, we just make sure he is snug in his swaddle and put him in his crib! Violia! 8 times out of 10 he will just look around wiggle some and then go to sleep after 5-6 minutes. The other two times he cries and wants his binky back in, or needs to have one more burp beat out of him. I am thrilled with how easy he is going down at bedtime. (PLEASE GOD DON”T LET ME HAVE CURSED MYSELF!)
His long sleep is after he is first put down for the night. It is going longer and longer, with his longest stretch being 7.5 hours after our day at the beach. Mostly it varies b/c 4-5 hours. Then he will get up again in three hours….then wants to eat every three or so hours during the day.
We wake up and do it all over again. 🙂
Dislikes:
- getting in the car seat. He hates this. With all our driving his threshold is about 3.5 hours in the car. Then the screaming starts. sigh.
- medicine. I have to put his zantac and mylicon and bottle feed that in about 10-15 mL of milk. He slurps it down and has minty fresh breath (for some insane reason the zantac is peppermint flavored)
- getting woke up early.
- not getting put in bed when he is sleepy
- tummy time. OMG THE SCREAMING.
- getting his nose suctioned with the Nose Freida.
- Mommy picking a booger out.
Likes
- bedtime stories
- walking with daddy around the pool in the afternoons/evenings
- laying on his changing table and staring at the toy hanging above
- a fresh clean diaper! (WHO WOULDN’T!)
- bath time!!!!
- putting his face into our necks when he is sleepy, or putting his cheek on my mouth. So stinking cute.
- any toy that makes a rattle noise. Brilliant! I always thought rattles were dumb and a gimmick.
Yesterday he gave me a REALLLLLLLLY huge smile after he woke up from his nap. It was big and gummy and melted my heart. 🙂
We are lucky that family was able to come down, and us going up to see my family. Soon we are heading to KY to see Kingman’s extended family and for Oat to meet his Papaw for the first time! I am sending lots of pictures and videos, so he isn’t a stranger to them!!!
I am very excited, but nervous about the travel. The nurse/mother in me sees flu/RSV/pertussis everywhere. All the cold weather illness have started here and it sucks. I feel better knowing I am breast feeding him, and he has my immunities…but. At least I am taking him out in public more- but I still get royally pissed when some random person touches his hands. PEOPLE! GERMS! I was changing him in the bathroom stall at a restaurant sunday, and I came out of the stall the same time a lady came out of her stall right across the way. I KNOW that stall doesn’t have a sink. She proceeded to say “Oh, what I cute little baby, I didn’t know there was a baby in here! He is so good- and so TIIIIINNNY”…and then proceeded to try and TOUCH Oat’s hands. After she peed….and wiped herself. Gross.
I pivoted away and said “Oh, let me let you get to the sink- sorry I was blocking you”. I wasn’t, but I didn’t know what else to do. I sure as heck wasn’t going to let her touch my baby with her pee pee hands. The other girls waiting for bathroom stalls widened their eyes, and the woman just said “oh, um…thank you”. I promptly left. She was wearing a Ravens jersey. What can I expect? (JUST KIDDING MY RAVENS FANS! LOL)
Check out my PWP post with pictures that will be coming up in a few minutes…as soon as I upload them…LOL.
My Bumpy Journey 