April 2015 – Peanut Smiles

William 2 Months

April 25, 2015 peanutsmiles

Dear William,

What a difference four weeks can make. This month has been so fun and much easier than your first month for all parties. You’re GI issues have gotten much better, you started smiling all of the time, sleeping for long stretches at night and are just more content. You have lost that newborn look and transitioned into a cute little baby! This has been a fun month, we celebrated Easter, went to Mall of America twice, took Lexi to the farm to see baby animals and went on many many walks.

Stats

Height: 24.5 ” 95%
Weight: 13 lbs 2.4 oz 65%
Clothes: Right around 6 weeks, 3 month outfits got too short–especially the sleepers with the feet. I still try and put you in a few 3 month outfits because they are just too cute and you only wore them once or twice, but the legs do scrunch up on you.
Diapers: We just used up our last Size 1 Diaper today, but could have easily transitioned into Size 2’s a week or two ago.

Sleep

The big kahuna of babyness and sanity for mama! Let’s tackle night time sleeping first. The first week and half of the month you would wake every 3 hours or so for a feeding and a diaper change. The longest you had ever gone was 5 hours. Then out of nowhere you slept through the night. Mind blown. But it didn’t continue… whah wha for mama. However, you did start sleeping for longer stretches, about 6 hours, every other night or so. By about 7 weeks or so, you were consistently sleeping at least 6 hours during the night for the first stretch. So depending on when I fed you last was contingent on whether you woke up during the night. Part of me liked having you fall asleep around 9 and waking up around 3 so I could go back to sleep and get a couple more hours before your sister woke up. If I fed you at midnight when Daddy and I usually went to sleep, you would wake up around 6 and by the time you were done eating, your sister was up; and those days felt long and exhausting. I digress. For the past several nights you have been going to sleep between 9 and 10 and waking up around 6:30. I’ll gladly take those 9 hours and just pray this is the new norm! I also pray in thanks for the amazing invention of swaddles. We swaddle you every night and wrap your little wiggly arms down tight like a snare drum, which I think is a huge factor in helping you sleep for long stretches at such a young age. For a couple weeks, I also had a beach towel under the terry cloth spit rag on your bed to help give you a little incline while sleeping. I’ve since removed it, but I think it helped make sleeping longer periods easier verses laying flay.

Nap time sleeping is a little more unpredictable. For about the first three weeks of the month, you would snooze between each feeding. Sometimes it was 15 minutes, other times it was an hour and a half, but on average, I would say it was about 45-50 minutes. When I read Lexi’s two month post, I was shocked to be reminded that we were putting her to sleep awake in her crib for naps. I didn’t think we started that for another two months. We have done that with you a couple of times, but most of your naps are taken in the rock-in-play. If I can, I try and put you in there when you are drowsy, turn on the vibrator, give you your pacifier and let you fall asleep by yourself. However, most of the time you fall asleep in my arms and then I put you in there to continue snoozing. You do not like to nap in our arms. I can count on one hand the amount of times you have slept in my arms for an entire nap. You’re constantly moving and trying to get comfortable; usually waking yourself up. You continue to love to be wrapped in your blanket with it touching your face to help fall asleep–and always have your pacifier. Praise the pacifier!

By the end of the month, you started to stretch out your awake time and have stayed awake for more than two hours–where you’ll actually have two feedings without sleeping between. Also, over the past couple of days, you have lengthened some of your nap times to 2+hours, which has been AMAZING as it has fallen during the same time as Lexi’s nap and given me some glorious computer time to shop, do some research on house projects, meal plan and work on this blog! I adore this time and truly feel refreshed to take on the craziness of the evening with you two hooligans, so thank you for that sweet little bud!

Eating

Eating has been going pretty darn good. It feels like you are always hungry. Rarely, in the day do you go more than 2 hours without eating. By the hour and a half mark, you start getting a little fussy and by two hours your are ravenous and refusing your pacifier. There have been several times where we are out and about and I have pushed your threshold in needing to eat. Sorry bud! You still do good with a bottle. I discovered that there were a couple of instances where I had given you a nipple with a medium flow, and that was just too fast for you. As long as you have a slow flow, you seem to do a good job taking it down. Admittedly, you do a much better job taking it from anyone but me.

Mama notes: You continue to eat off one side per feeding and seem satisfied. After letdown, you kind of pop on and off and do this silly thing where the boob is in your mouth but you move your head back and forth as if you can’t latch–it is slightly annoying, but at least you’re still eating. After a feeding, you usually give us one big burp and one small one, and about 50% of the time you’ll spit up a little milk. Exception: when you eat in the middle of the night or right before bedtime and you fall asleep nursing, you rarely burp, even though I try. This go around, I’m much more relaxed about pumping. Depending on how the night went, I may or may not pump in the morning. If I do, I’ll only pump one side and will usually get 5-6 ounces on the left side and 7-8 on the right, assuming you slept through the night. I also only pump once or twice a week in the evening before I go to bed. This mostly depends on how the day went and how full I feel. With Lexi, I pumped every night before bed for 7-8 months and don’t think I skipped one evening. Just too lazy this time around and feeling pretty good about my supply and the stash I’ve built up.

Development/Personality

Throughout the month, you’ve started smiling whenever you see faces and have the two cutest little dimples on each side. I just love how your smile is just a huge open mouth circle and your eyes nearly close. You’ve made a couple of cooing sounds here and there but so far seem to enjoy observing life. They rolling has ceased this month, which relieves me a little as it was kind of scary before. You do a great job on tummy time and have really strengthened your neck muscles and push yourself almost up to 90 degrees on a fairly regular bases. When we do tummy time, you usually last 3-5 minutes before fussing. Also, Lexi loves to do tummy time with you. She helps spread your blanket out and then goes and get hers and lays face to face with you and says ‘Good job buddy. You’re so cute,’ clearly repeating the phrases she’s heard me say.

You love your star. If you’r fussy and don’t need to eat or have your diaper changed, we’ll put you under it, which ironically is counter-intuitive to a fussy baby. Anyways, you just light up (no pun intended) and will stare at it and smile and kick and wave your hands (accidentally hitting all of the other toys hanging). One evening you were happy and content there for over a half an hour while I was making dinner. It was fabulous.

You continue to do will in your car seat, although you don’t seem to sleep in it as much as Lexi did. You usually wake up when we bring you in from the car. You still have a good amount of hair, but it is falling out–especially on top. You have a little case of cradle cap. It is mostly just little white dry patches on the top half of your head. You love the bath and are always smiling and do great when i poor water over your face. You haven’t been a huge fan of the swing. There have been a couple of instances where you’ve been content in it for more than 10 minutes, but usually, you start crying at the 5-10 minute mark.

You definitely recognize me. Daddy thinks you prefer me, I think I just do a better job at soothing you the way you prefer 🙂

You love to go for walks and often are awake for them. You also do really well in the Ergo. It is kind of ‘if all else fails, I know you’ll fall asleep and be content in the Ergo.’ This is really a life saver for me to keep you and Lexi happy at the same time–especially if I’m making dinner and you both need me.

Big Sister

Lexi loves you more and more everyday. She is doing a much better job of giving your your space and adjusting to the lack of attention she gets. She still continues to love to say ‘He’s wooking at you’ and is beam of sunshine when she sees you in the morning. I also just love how she repeats the phrases that I say and is all Mama Lexi to you. She’ll be eating breakfast in the morning and you’ll start to fuss on the monitor and she’ll yell up to you, as if you could hear her, ‘Buddy, it’s ok, mama will be right there.’ Mama is with Lexi right now’ Seriously is so sweet!

I have about 3.5 weeks left before I head back to work and the weather is supposed to be very nice so I’m looking forward to more fun activities and seeing more of your little personality shine.

Love,

Mama

Lexi

Big Sister

April 22, 2015 peanutsmiles

Little love bug,

Congratulations my sweet bug, you are a big sister! You’re just over a month into your new role and absolutely adore that little brother of yours (as we all do!). You love to give him kisses and hugs. The hugs are a little rough, but you just want to squeeze all your love into him so we try to remind you just to be gentle instead of yelling at you for being too rough.

You’re constantly asking, “Where’s buddy? What’s buddy doing?” and want to see him first thing in the morning. You’ll often go to his door before mama and dada’s. You also like to get right up in his face. Literally nose to nose and say ‘He’s wooking at you.’ You often ask for him to open his eyes if he is sleeping and like to beep his nose. For the first month, you were just about giving hugs and kisses and looking at him, but around 1 month, you started requesting to hold him.

Although you do know his name, you almost solely refer to him as ‘Buddy’ and will occasionally call him brother. When someone asks you his name you say Buddy. I’ll follow up and say, ‘What’s his other name?’ and you shyly respond, ‘William’.

You love to help mama take care of brother too. You received a ‘Big Sister’ book from Kelly and you love to read it and help me with things they mention in the book, like taking a bath, singing songs to William when he is crying (Twinkle Twinkle, Baa Baa Black Sheep and Rock-a-bye-Baby) and practicing tummy time. Upon completion of your task, you’ll tell me, ‘I help, just like Big Sister book’.

As you’ve watched Mama and Dada care for brother, you increased your nurturing tendencies tenfold. You’ve shown much more interest in your baby dolls and feeding them and naming them (Baby Molly), but most of the time you prefer to take care of Girafee. You love to put him into the swing, strap him into the carseat and often tell us you need to change him. You’ve even taken care of Mrs. Potato head. She fell off the table and you ran to get her, cradled her in your arms and said ‘It’s Ok ‘Tato. It’s Ok.’ as you slowly rocked her back and forth. My heart fell out of my chest when you did this. So sweet.

Through all your sweetness, you’ve also shown us some sass, stubbornness and independence. You’re struggling with the lack of attention that Dada and I are able to give you. You’ve had more potty accidents than normal, and just straight up don’t listen. It feels like the lack of listening happens most frequently when I can’t do anything to stop you. Example, I’ll be feeding William on the couch and you’ll climb up on the counter and open the cupboard doors to find yourself a snack. We tried to put you in time out, but you thought it was funny and laughed while you were there, you little stinker! You also love to steel William’s pacifier. I’ll be changing him, and it is sitting on the floor next to me, you’ll come and snatch it up, run away with it as I request to bring it back. It is slightly maddening you little one!

Thankfully, you haven’t made the connection that William is the reason that you have less attention and you haven’t taken your frustrations out on him in any way. Occasionally, you’ll tell me to put him down that he isn’t hungry or he doesn’t need to burp, but for the most part you just love him beyond words.

As a result of your frustrations, I decided to take you out for some special Mommy-Lexi time. We went to a little music class and then to an indoor play ground at the Learn and Play Cafe. You were devastated that William wasn’t coming with us and kept asking where he was.

Mommy is so proud of you sweet girl and how well you have adjusted (are adjusting) to this big transition. You are probably adjusting to this transition better then I am. I love watching your nurturing side come out and hearing you talk to your babies and toys as you take care of them. It is so sweet and just makes me a puddle of mush.

Love,

Mama

Lexi

Lexi-isms Round 2

April 9, 2015December 2, 2016 peanutsmiles

Lexi Lou,

I miss writing your monthly posts, but there just isn’t enough change happening on a monthly basis anymore, and they’re just too time consuming. But here are a few updates on things you’ve done or enjoy over the past few months.

You’ve gotten pretty good at singing songs. Mostly nursery rhymes, but it is still fun to listen to you put the string of words together. Songs come and go as favorites where you sing them 25 times a day, but here is a list of your favs: ABC, Baa Baa Black Sheep, Wheels on the Bus, Old McDonald, Rain Rain Go Away, Humpty Dumpty, Let it Go, Little Red Wagon, Twinkle Twinkle and Rock-a-bye-Baby. You’ve been counting past 10 for 6-9 months. Currently, you can consistently get to 16. We’re really working on the concept of counting and not just repeating the words. I think you’re starting to get it. Occasionally, when we ask you how many there are, you’ll get it right. Not sure if it is coincidence or not, but it feels like you get it. You’re also starting to look at a number and know that is the number ‘2’. Likewise, you can sing the ABC’s and have randomly identified some letters, but don’t get the sounds of letters yet.

You know all of your colors and love to color. Your crayons and coloring books pretty much stay out on your table all of the time and you’ll color 3-5 times everyday. One day you were at Great Grandma and Grandpa S’s house and you told Grandma a pink crayon was ‘sorta-red’ and she corrected you and said it was pink and you firmly responded back and said, ‘NO, it is sorta-red.’ Grandpa chimed in and said, ‘You know, she is right. Pink is sorta-red.’ We’ve also been drilling the concept that you only color on paper. While mama was having contractions, Dada put up the bookshelves in your room and was making marks on the wall where he was going to drill. Of course you were watching and then went to go get your crayons and colored green crayon all over the wall and said ‘Just like Dada’ Tuche little bug, Tuche! You also think coloring in the bathtub (with bath crayons) is the cat’s pajamas. One day I found you in the empty tub, with your clothes on just coloring on the walls.

You also have started to tell stories. When I come home from work, you tell me what you did that day or what happened with Thomas on your show. You’ll often follow up a story with the phrase, ‘You remember that?’ I’ll often say this phrase during bedtime when we talk about what we did that day or before we’re going somewhere to see people you haven’t seen for awhile.

You love to make deals. In line with your story telling, you’ll try and cut a deal with me. You say, I go potty, then eat ice cream and go to the park, OK mama, and wait for me to respond ‘OK’.

Favorite toys: Doctor Kit, Mrs. Potato Head, putting your plastic food in gift bags and telling us they are presents for people, taking care of Baby Molly, coloring (on paper and in the bathtub)

Love,
Mama

William

Sleeping through the night baby 2

April 4, 2015 peanutsmiles

Dear William,

Out of nowhere, you slept through the night for the first time last night. Jaw dropped! You just turned 5 weeks a two days ago. I’m sure it was a total fluke because you have come nowhere near sleeping through the night any other night. For the previous couple of nights you would eat between 8 and 9 pm sleep in the rock and play downstairs while Daddy and I watched TV and hung out. Around midnight, you eat and be changed again where we would then swaddle you and put you in your crib. You would wake up again between 3 and 4 am for a feeding and a change and then again around 7.

You can imagine my surprise when you slept from 10 pm (your feeding was at 9:30 pm) to 7:30! Ten glorious hours! Of course, I didn’t sleep through the night and was up a lot checking on you to make sure you were still breathing (thank goodness for monitors to hear your little grunts to know things were A-O-K) and some engorgement. Of course, this conveniently happened when Lexi was overnight with Grandma. I was looking forward to sleeping in and not having to worry about getting up early with her after I had been up all night with you. I’ll still have part of that, but here I am at 7:15 am capturing this milestone, waiting for you to get up, and thinking it will be any minute and it doesn’t make sense to go back to sleep (even though I’ve been waiting and sort of awake for the past 5 hours).

Again, I’m sure this was a complete fluke and won’t happen again for another 6 months, but at least I know it is possible 🙂

Love,

Mama

Lexi

Big Sister

April 3, 2015October 15, 2016 peanutsmiles

Little love bug,

It is been interesting you watch your reactions to him change over the the past 5 weeks. Your first visit to the hospital, you didn’t give two hoots about him and were much more interested in playing with the buttons on the hospital bed. Subsequent visits to the hospital showed a little more interest as you were asking ‘Who is that? What is she doing’ (you referred to him as a she for the first week 🙂 Then every week or so, you’ve shown more interest in him and now you just can’t get enough. Although you do know his name, you almost solely refer to him as ‘Buddy’ and will occasionally call him brother. When someone asks you his name you say Buddy. I’ll follow up and say, ‘What’s his other name?’ and you shyly respond, ‘William’.

Love,

Mama