Newborn Summary: Week 2

This week has been better in some ways and harder in others. Ah, the journey with a newborn.   Gas: She still isn't showing any gas issues. I'm thankful for that!   Nursing: Nursing is still going well. She's eating a full feeding every time. I'm doing single side nursing and she's nursing for anywhere from 12 to 20 minutes on a side when she nurses. I did this with Isis, too when she was a newborn & there was a growth spurt where she started eating from both sides every time. We'll see if Lux does the same. There still hasn't been a growth spurt yet, so I'm waiting for that.   I did have a slight problem with her latching on the right side. She would do great on the left, but it always hurt pretty bad when she'd first latch on the right. I talked to my midwife about it at my 2 week appointment and she helped me get it right. It's been better since then. I did have a couple of those nights this week where I woke up super leaky. That's never fun. But I've been sleeping in a bra with the breastfeeding pads. Those things itch like crazy, but at least I don't leak all over the bed. Lux is still sleeping through most feedings, but I'm still trying to keep her awake. She does better during the day. At night I basically just nurse her & put her right back in the crib. It's basically nursing her to sleep at night, which I am not a fan of, but I'm just going with it these first few weeks. She's sleeping so great that I'm not going to mess anything up right now.   Burping: I have been trying to burp Lux after each feeding during the day. I don't burp her at night because she's asleep when I finish nursing her & I just put her in bed. During the day, she will burp every once in a while after a feeding, but not every time and usually it's just one little burp. She's got a really tight latch, so I'm just wondering if she's not taking in a ton of air when she eats. I have found that she burps better if she's swaddled because she is more stretched straight out and doesn't have her legs all curled up.   Waketime: I've been trying to keep her awake for a few minutes after her feedings during the day. I try to get her back in the crib within 35 minutes of waking up. It's tough because if she's really fallen asleep while nursing, it's hard to wake her up afterwards. And then sometimes if we are going out somewhere or we have visitors, she'll get passed around and be a little overstimulated and then she has too much wake time and it's pretty much ridiculous trying to get her to sleep.    Witching Hour: I'm adding a section for the witching hour because Isis definitely did this and Lux is trying to. Every night from about 6 to 8, starting this week, she got fussy. Isis did this where we would basically have to hold her and walk her around the house, but for the most part she would just scream. With Lux, she started this week and she would eat and then we'd put her down somewhere to sleep while we got Isis ready for bed. She'd start screaming at some point in the process and we'd be going in to calm her down every once in a while throughout the bedtime routine for Isis. It was a little crazy. I'd end up having to just feed her again to get her to sleep. Once you got her really asleep, she'd be fine and stay asleep.   After a few days, we started troubleshooting. The last 2 days, we've focused on feeding her somewhere around 6 and then again around 8. In between, she might fuss or cry or something, but after the 8-ish feeding, she would go to sleep when we put her down & stay asleep for several hours. We are going to keep trying this cluster feeding at night to see if it helps. Although last night (Thursday night) she had a really rough night. We tried everything from the swing to a pacifier to even nursing her & nothing would help her go to sleep. I guess I'll follow up next week to share how this continues to work out!   Swaddling: This is another part of our nighttime routine that I feel like I need to document. After several days, we started swaddling her at the end of last week. She seems to just hate it at first, but she sleeps longer stretches once she goes to sleep if she is swaddled. We are using the SwaddleMe blankets so she can't get out of them. We definitely swaddle throughout the entire night. I tried a couple of days letting her nap unswaddled, but she just didn't sleep as well. So we are now swaddling for all her naps, too. Although I'm experimenting today with 1 arm out in the swaddle.   Nighttime Sleep: She really is doing so great with nighttime sleep! I said before that I'm basically nursing her to sleep in the middle of the night and putting her down. Again, not my favorite thing to do, but it's working now. I'll stop at some point in the next couple of weeks and focus on putting her down awake. Probably around 5 weeks. Here's her summary of our nights:   Night 1 - Friday night - She ate before bed (meaning waketime after) at 5:45 and 7:45, she then woke up to eat at 9:00, 10:40, 12:20, 3:50, 4:30 and 7:30. She was again in the pack & play in our closet. This was a rougher night.   Night 2 - Saturday night -She ate before bed at 5:00, 6:15, 7:00 and 8:00. She was having the witching hour here. She then woke up at night at 11:15, 2:45 and 6:15. This was also the first night that we put her to bed in her crib at night. She clearly did better in there once we got her to sleep.   Night 3 - Sunday night - She ate before bed at 5:00, 7:00, 8:30 and 10:00. She was pretty fussy this whole time, even though we were able to get her to sleep a little between 8:30 and 10:00. She then woke up at night at 1:20, 4:50 and then 8:15. She was again in her crib and did good once she was asleep for the night.   Night 4 - Monday night - She ate before bed at 6:30 and 8:15. She did better with the witching hour stuff this night because I tried to feed her closer together. She then woke up at 10:30, 2:15 and 7:00. She did that one long stretch from 2:15 to 7:00, which was really exciting! Except it was the first night I had some major leaking in terms of breastfeeding. And from now on, she's in her crib for nighttime sleep.   Night 5 - Tuesday night - She ate before bed at 6:00 and 8:00. She did awesome this night in terms of witching hour. Still fussy, but she went right to sleep after the 8:00 feeding, which made things much easier. She woke up at night at 11:50, 2:30 and 6:30. Again, a longer stretch from 2:30 to 6:30!   Night 6 - Wednesday night - She ate before bed at 5:20 and then 8:00. She was really sleepy this night, probably because she had a rough nap day this day. She slept straight from about 3:30 to 7:30. I was able to wake her up just enough to eat at 5:20, but she basically fell right back asleep and we had to wake her up at 7:30 to try to feed her again. I kept her up for a little while from 7:30 to 8:00, then fed her and put her right down. She woke up at 11:45, 3:15 and 6:50.   Night 7 - Thursday night -She ate before bed at 6:00 and 8:00, but she had a really bad witching hour in between those 2 and then after. I had to feed her again at 9:45 and she finally fell asleep. She woke up at 1:30 and 5:00 and then I woke her up at 7:30 to start the day. This was the roughest night in terms of going to bed, but she still did great once the night was started.   Naps: I tried to start focusing her naps in her crib as much as possible this week. Some days she would do great and others it would be rough. The biggest problem is figuring out the appropriate wake time. I'm trying to get her back down within 35 minutes of waking up. On a good nap, she will cry for a minute or 2, fuss on and off for about 20 minutes and then fall asleep. On a bad nap, she will cry a lot or just fuss on and off throughout the whole nap. She won't take a pacifier, but we are trying some different ones to see if that will help with some of her nap stuff.   One of the biggest problems is that she is more of a suck-to-soothe baby, but she won't take a pacifier. So that leaves me. If she won't sleep, the thing that will get her to sleep is to nurse. But if she's just taken a big feeding and then an hour later you're still trying to get her to sleep, so I nurse her, she will spit up a bunch. She doesn't really spit up if you let her get a full feeding and then wait 3 hours for the next full feeding. She's not had a growth spurt yet, so she's not looking to EAT more often, she just wants to suck on something. So again, we're trying lots of pacifiers. Hoping something works for naps.   The positive thing here is that she will nap in her crib and that about half the time I can put her down awake and she will fall asleep in there after a little fussing. It's also positive that she clearly has her days and nights worked out. There's no question that her sleep at night is a lot different. So I am happy about that.   The negative thing here is that Lewis has been helping me a lot with nap stuff because he was able to stay home for 2 weeks from work with FMLA. And I think because he doesn't smell like milk, she will fall asleep if he rocks her in the glider. So he's been doing that for some naps. He started back to work today (Friday), so he's not here anymore to help with the nap stuff. I'm interested to see how next week goes when it's just me.   Sibling: Isis is still doing great with Lux in terms of the way she feels about her. She's still really excited about her being there. She actually is really attached to her already. The other day, Lux was crying and Lewis was rocking her in the glider. If Lux is crying, Isis doesn't deal with it well. So Isis went & grabbed her blanket, curled up in my lap and sucked her thumb because she was worried about her. We are worried right now about the fact that Isis is showing signs of getting a cold or something. Not super pumped about that part of having 2 kids - where Isis will bring home germs from the babysitter and stuff and potentially give it to Lux. Hoping that my breastfeeding gives Lux some immune assistance in that department!   We are also having some difficulties with Isis that I think are related to adding a new sibling. She cries all the time now when something happens or she doesn't get what she wants. The babysitter even commented on it and was worried. Isis never cries at the babysitter. She's always really chill when she's there. She's been crying more lately there and at home. Lewis and I think that she is seeing that Lux cries to get what she wants and we respond, so Isis is trying to cry to get what she wants. Needless to say, we are responding differently. We are still trying to affirm her and affirm her anger or frustration or feelings, but we are talking to her about how she can use her words to tell us what she wants, while Lux can't. She also tells us all the time that she is the baby and she wants us to hold her like a baby and she will pick up the pacifiers that Lux doesn't like and put them in her mouth. It's actually kind-of amusing because Isis doesn't like pacifiers, so she doesn't suck on them. She just puts it in her mouth and looks at you and then takes it out after a minute. It's all a part of the transition. We're just trying to be consistent.   Schedule: We're trying to do the consistent bedtime and waketime still. But I go with whenever she wakes up that is close to 7:00. Some days this is 6:30 and some days this is 7:15. If she's not up by about 7:15, I wake her up. At night, my ideal day would be feeding her around 6:00 and then around 8:00 and then putting her to bed. As you can see with the nighttime sleep above, this doesn't always work out perfectly. During the day, I am still focusing on every 2.5 to 3 hours with a cluster feed at night before bed. I'm also focusing on waketime of about 40 minutes, so I try to get her down within 35 minutes of waking up. This obviously is not consistent, but it's my goal.   Mom stuff: I'm still feeling great! Getting out of the house, watching some Vampire Diaries for fun, obviously blogging again - which is a fantastic outlet for me with a new baby. I think that's why my blogging slacked for a while. For one, I didn't have much to say and also because I didn't need that outlet. Now I do. I'm also focusing on keeping my house clean and laundry done. I absolutely LOVE being in my new house with a baby and not in my old townhouse. Having more room feels so much better! Keeping it clean feels even better than that! It's tough to keep the kitchen clean right now. Lewis is helping with that a lot. People are bringing us food and gifts, so the kitchen tends to get cluttered.    I had my 2 week appointment the other day and she said I can start going back to the gym now. She said to take it easy and do about half what I did before. I'm not going to start just yet, but maybe this weekend I'll go at some point! I still had 19 pounds extra to lose, meaning I've lost 16 since she was born - most of that obviously baby & water weight right after birth. She also said she can put in my Implanon in about 2 weeks. That's the birth control I'm going to use this time. It's progesterone-only, which is what I wanted. I'm done with the birth control that has estrogen in it. That also means it's safe to use with breastfeeding. I wanted to wait until my milk supply was set up well, but I'm thinking I'll be good at about 4 weeks.   I went into school this week to get my picture taken for the yearbook and to stop in and see my students and the other 4th grade teachers. It was really fun! It was great to see my students! I really miss them, but I'm also happy to get this time at home with Lux. I know how important it is to be present at school, but you only get these first few weeks with your baby once in their life. I would hate to look back and think that I missed them. having 12 weeks is really a blessing. You just don't get that time back and as hard as the newborn stage is and as much as I've shared that I don't like it, it is still a time I wouldn't want to miss or leave up to someone else.