Connor has seemed bigger this week. His face looks like it's filled out a little more and when I hold him he just seems bigger and heavier. It's already going too fast!
He still likes to stretch his arms and legs whenever he gets a chance. He's decided that he likes sleeping better when we hold him in our arms or lay him on his tummy on our chests. He stays awake even more between feedings, and we're still working on getting that to happen exclusively during the day. He's started to spit up more, which isn't fun for anyone. It's not an alarming amount or frequency by any means, but he didn't really do that at all the first two weeks, so that's new.
Another new thing he does that is so adorable, is that he's started reaching for our faces when we hold him, and he likes to grab and hang onto our shirt collars when he's eating or we're rocking him to sleep. It seriously is the cutest thing in the world. Sometimes he misses and will grab a handful of my neck. I can't do anything but laugh when that happens, because it hurts so bad but is so funny at the same time. When he grabs Brian's shirt collar, he gets a handful of chest hair at the same time, which apparently is very painful. He's also grabbed Brian's lip, cheek, and nose. Its super cute, but his fingernails are like little razor blades. I think we're fairly good at keeping them trimmed, but they're still super sharp. He's started leaving scratches on his forehead and cheeks when he gets mad and flails his little arms. I try to keep little gloves on him, but he manages to escape from those almost immediately.
His umbilical cord finally fell off this week. I was super happy about that. We gave him his first real bath the next day, which happened to be Christmas Eve. No more sponge baths. He was so adorable during the bath. At first, I think he didn't know what to make of it. He had this puzzled look on his face for awhile, but then I think he started to enjoy it. He didn't cry at any point during the experience so that was good.
As I mentioned in a previous post, he likes to have his arms by his face when he sleeps. Sometimes he'll fold his hands and tuck them under his chin, and sometimes he have both arms up, one on either side of his face. Other times he tucks one arm on the side of and kind of behind his head, like he's propping it up.
His cutest sleep position is when he has one hand against the side of his face and the other arm horizontal underneath his chin. We call it "Linus arms" because he reminds us of Linus from Charlie Brown when he's holding his blanket by his face and leaning on the other arm. It's great. I haven't managed to get a picture of that pose yet, but I'm determined to.
He also gets the hiccups a lot. He doesn't like them and I don't blame him. He always looks confused and then betrayed when he has the hiccups.
He's been more fussy this week, and some days has a hard time sleeping. We switched from Similac Advanced formula (which is what they were giving him at the NICU) to Similac Sensitive to see if that will help the pooping situation. He goes a few days without pooping and then will seem really uncomfortable and then poop like five times in an hour. (Brian calls this a "poop storm.") So we think that was backing him up a bit. He seems to be doing better so far in that regard on the new formula, but he also is fussier. Maybe it's made him more gassy. We are still the same on breastfeeding. I'm pumping and giving him what I can, but we haven't figured out how to latch on yet. Part of the problem is that he continues to be so impatient for his food and almost immediately is crying hard after he wakes up. I'm not sure how I'm supposed to get a screaming baby to patiently try to latch on over and over. Feeding him a little first to calm down his hunger doesn't seem to help either. He gets really frustrated quickly, and honestly so do I. And my milk still hasn't come in fully yet, and I never experience let down, no matter how long we try skin-to-skin, or holding him, or nursing. So as of now, I'm fine with continuing to pump and bottle feed, and supplementing with formula. It seems to be working fine, and honestly keeps the stress levels down for both of us. Sorry, probably more than you wanted to know, but I'm just keeping it real here.
He continues to be a joy for us every day, even when he is fussy and doesn't sleep and wakes up every 1 1/2 hours to eat. It's just all part of the experience and I'm really loving every minute of it.
No comments:
Post a Comment