Saturday, June 8, 2013

Henry's first month

As I write this, Henry is turning 1 month old tomorrow.  I can hardly remember where the month went.  One moment we're taking him to the hospital for his 24 hour tests, and now we're slowly getting into a routine.

Ready to go to hospital for 24 hour tests
May 5
Clearly our new routine is a lot busier than our old routine which is why there is a month update rather than a first week update, as I did for Rose.  As the month has gone by and I'm a little sleep deprived, it's harder to remember how everything unfolded in the early days. 

Off the bat we made sure to get Henry sleeping in his crib.  Of course right away there were a lot of night time wake ups, and a lot of holding him and rocking him to sleep, but we got him in there right away. So far there have been some rough nights, but nothing horrendous.  Generally I am the one that needs to take care of him in the night of course, but Mike has helped out with what he can.  
So far  his best night was a few days ago...a 7.5 hour stretch.  He woke up at 4:15 for the first time.  Really I forgot how much a new born sleeps.  Really he is barely awake for any long stretch of time before he needs to eat again and then have another nap.  Some are just short cat naps, and others can be 3 hours long or so.  A ride in the car or stroller generally guarantees a nap unless he has just woken up from a super long one.   

May 5
May 6
May 6: Mommy looking tired.  Still bloated from the dreaded 41st week of pregnancy that I always go through...
May 6: His woombie








May 9
May 21: 17 days old

Feeling sad at 15 days old

17 days old: G diaper
Rose looking huge


19 days old: The wide eyed look



21 days old with his oldest sister


Looking bigger: 23 days old

 2 days old: Enjoying the bouncy chair

5 days old

So tiny

Stop texting and change my diaper!

Scout checking out her new brother 


Hanging out on a hot day

Sleeping on the table


Fun with an older sister

I can't seem to properly sort these photos, and time isn't something I have, so i'll just have to leave them. 

Henry, so far, has been a bit fussier than Rose. It's hard to tell with Paige as I was inexperienced and probably made her fussy. Henry has been a bit gassy and has been dealing with a diaper rash for a while now.-- A few things that sometimes make him a bit upset.  His cry sounds like a pterodactyl. We've had to learn what works to try to burp him, which is often difficult. Also we have to do the bicycle move on his legs a lot to relieve the excess gas. I think it's just something that will sort itself out as he already seems to be getting less gassy. 

We wanted to try the cloth G diapers this time and they are awesome. It feels so good to avoid producing so much waste. As he is on breast milk only the poo is water soluble and they just go straight into washing machine with no work beforehand. Unfortunately he has a bad diaper rash now and they don't absorb as well so we have had to put them on the backburner for a while until the issue is sorted. Apparently it could be a yeast diaper rash so we have a prescription. 

Speaking of the diapers and laundry, I have almost been doing laundry every day. He needs a ton of cloths to wipe his bum, which we go through through quickly, he has peed through sleepers a lot, and lots of things have spit up on them. Between all of that and the girls and mike and I, there's basically something almost every day. Our upstairs laundry will be handy in the new house for that reason!

So far he has been super easy to take places. Except for a couple of occasions, if he goes in a car he generally will fall asleep and stay sleeping in the car seat long after we have gotten to our destination. It makes it easy to take Rose to her class and spend undivided attention with her, or go shopping, etc. It's also a good thing if he is in desperate need of a nap.  The girls used to fall asleep in the swing, but so far he doesn't like it. Sometimes he'll have a quick nap in the bouncy chair. He really loves the bouncy chair and will sit in it when awake and just look around. I've also used a swaddley carrier thing to carry him around.

We had a great visit with Grandma Val when Henry was 1 week old. We hung around the house quite a bit but also managed to go to Second Cup a few times, go to Springridge Farm, walk Paige to school, and go to Rose's class.  She also got to see the new house when we went for the pool inspection.  Grandma Val really got to spend a lot of time with Henry as he doesn't always need to be nursed to go to sleep as Rose did.  He likes being held a lot and will drift off to sleep, or need a good walking around. It was really sad when she had to go and I always feel bad that she's not around all the time to watch these kids grow up.  On the plus side it did feel like we had seen her recently as it wasn't long ago we were all in Florida.

As busy as it has been, and as difficult as it often is to look after all the kids and fit in Scout's walks, I think life with 3 will be fun! Looking forward to Henry's first smiles in his second month! Hope we can get him out in the fresh air a bit more, and hope he can sort out his gas issues as he gets bigger.  Poor little guy. So happy to have a little boy.  And such a cute one. 



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