Wednesday, June 5, 2013
Monday, February 18, 2013
Fun times
While Quinn didn't get better immediately, things gradually became more fun. Not only was he feeling better, but I think we were learning his cues better and settling into as much of a groove as one can have with an infant.
Quinn will never be an "easy" baby. He's not content to sit and play on his playmat alone for more than about 10 minutes. He'd be happy being carried around all day. He never stops moving while he's awake. If he's lying down, his arms and legs are moving. If he's standing up, he's bouncing and his arms are flapping away. He has two emotions - SUPER happy or SUPER pissed off. There isn't much in between. That said, the happy greatly outweighs the pissed off now, and we're having a lot of fun with him. He has a fantastic sense of humor, and he makes us laugh every day.
We've had a million rounds of illness go through our house thanks to the petri dish of daycare (bronchitis, RSV, numerous colds, norovirus, and probably others I'm forgetting). We're doing all that we can to try and take him out of daycare if finances will allow. Hopefully by spring we'll have a plan.
We started swimming lessons in January. Despite the pool being advertised as 86 degrees, it was more like 81. That's waaay to cold for babies. All of the babies in class had chattering teeth. Quinn cried and was purple within 10 minutes. I said screw it and never went back. Instead, we found a local soaking pool that is a delightful 100 degrees. It's FULL of babies, and Quinn loves it. He splashes and squeals with delight.
He also loves bath time
He and I started a game a couple of months ago where I peek at him through the bars of his crib when he wakes up. Every.single.time I get this huge smile. It's one of my favorite parts of the day.
He has also learned to sit, and mobility is not far behind
He loves being outside in the fresh air, even if it is cold outside
He's our little superhero, and we love him :) More updates to come, but for now the lure of bed calls. Mr. Q is nowhere near sleeping through the night, so 9pm is bedtime around here!
.jpg)
Quinn will never be an "easy" baby. He's not content to sit and play on his playmat alone for more than about 10 minutes. He'd be happy being carried around all day. He never stops moving while he's awake. If he's lying down, his arms and legs are moving. If he's standing up, he's bouncing and his arms are flapping away. He has two emotions - SUPER happy or SUPER pissed off. There isn't much in between. That said, the happy greatly outweighs the pissed off now, and we're having a lot of fun with him. He has a fantastic sense of humor, and he makes us laugh every day.
We've had a million rounds of illness go through our house thanks to the petri dish of daycare (bronchitis, RSV, numerous colds, norovirus, and probably others I'm forgetting). We're doing all that we can to try and take him out of daycare if finances will allow. Hopefully by spring we'll have a plan.
We started swimming lessons in January. Despite the pool being advertised as 86 degrees, it was more like 81. That's waaay to cold for babies. All of the babies in class had chattering teeth. Quinn cried and was purple within 10 minutes. I said screw it and never went back. Instead, we found a local soaking pool that is a delightful 100 degrees. It's FULL of babies, and Quinn loves it. He splashes and squeals with delight.
He also loves bath time
He and I started a game a couple of months ago where I peek at him through the bars of his crib when he wakes up. Every.single.time I get this huge smile. It's one of my favorite parts of the day.
He has also learned to sit, and mobility is not far behind
He loves being outside in the fresh air, even if it is cold outside
He's our little superhero, and we love him :) More updates to come, but for now the lure of bed calls. Mr. Q is nowhere near sleeping through the night, so 9pm is bedtime around here!
.jpg)
Friday, February 15, 2013
The other side
I couldn't bring myself to post for a long time. I didn't want to put in writing the way I was feeling. It felt unfair and wrong to talk about my baby in any way that wasn't gushing and loving. The truth was, we went through several months of pure hell. From about 3 months, the crying grew more and more intense. By 4.5 months, it was up to 8 hours per day.
I'm not exaggerating.
I'm also not exaggerating when I say it was SCREAMING. Not crying, screaming. We went to the doctor many times. "Nothing" was wrong. He was still gaining weight, albeit slowly. I took him back in in late October because he didn't seem to be gaining much. I was right, he had only gained 6oz in 3 weeks. After doing a pre/post nursing weigh-in, he was taking in plenty and I was producing well. The LC thought that maybe he needed more in the bottles while I was at work. Operation "fatten Quinn up" started. The screaming got worse, but he gained 6oz on 6 days. Nursing was a battle for both of us. Latch, suck, scream, unlatch. Repeat over and over.
I didn't care that he was gaining, something was wrong. Babies don't scream that much. This wasn't colic. Still, I saw several peds, and all said it was just colic and reflux. Finally, when he was 4.5 months old, he gained ZERO ounces in 10 days. Our ped could see the exhaustion on our faces. We probably spent almost as much time crying as Q did. We were miserable. We questioned if we had made a huge mistake having a baby. Our ped kicked it into high gear. The next day, we saw a GI specialist. She took 5 tubes of blood, a urine sample, and 4 stool samples (those were FUN to collect!). We could tell she was a bit stumped, but she decided we should try neocate, a fancy $50 per can amino acid hypoallergenice formula. At that point, we were willing to bankrupt our savings to "fix" our baby.
This is a result of TEN days of formula:
I'm not exaggerating.
I'm also not exaggerating when I say it was SCREAMING. Not crying, screaming. We went to the doctor many times. "Nothing" was wrong. He was still gaining weight, albeit slowly. I took him back in in late October because he didn't seem to be gaining much. I was right, he had only gained 6oz in 3 weeks. After doing a pre/post nursing weigh-in, he was taking in plenty and I was producing well. The LC thought that maybe he needed more in the bottles while I was at work. Operation "fatten Quinn up" started. The screaming got worse, but he gained 6oz on 6 days. Nursing was a battle for both of us. Latch, suck, scream, unlatch. Repeat over and over.
I didn't care that he was gaining, something was wrong. Babies don't scream that much. This wasn't colic. Still, I saw several peds, and all said it was just colic and reflux. Finally, when he was 4.5 months old, he gained ZERO ounces in 10 days. Our ped could see the exhaustion on our faces. We probably spent almost as much time crying as Q did. We were miserable. We questioned if we had made a huge mistake having a baby. Our ped kicked it into high gear. The next day, we saw a GI specialist. She took 5 tubes of blood, a urine sample, and 4 stool samples (those were FUN to collect!). We could tell she was a bit stumped, but she decided we should try neocate, a fancy $50 per can amino acid hypoallergenice formula. At that point, we were willing to bankrupt our savings to "fix" our baby.
This is a result of TEN days of formula:
TEN DAYS people! He put on almost 2lbs in 10 days! His personality immediately started to change. The screaming was 50% less within 3 days, and 75% less within a week. Clearly that was the answer. The best as we can guess, he has a severe milk protein allergy. I was poisoning him with breastmilk. While I was sad to give up breastfeeding, we made it 4.5 months. Clearly it was NOT what was best for my child. We didn't have time to try an elimination diet for me. We were days away from having to hospitalize Quinn. I may be pro-breastfeeding, but I'm more pro doing what's best for my kid. For him, formula is best.
He's stirring from a nap....more about the bonding finally coming and pictures of our awesome kid soon :)
Friday, October 12, 2012
Back to work
This was my second week back at work. The "new normal" for our family is Bryan home with Quinn M/W, daycare at a small in-home place Tues/Thurs, and me at home with Quinn on Friday.
Going back to work was a fairly big adjustment. I am NOT a morning person, but I try to get to work at 7:15 so I can either rescue Q from daycare or Bryan from Q (hehe) by 4ish each day. Babies go to bed so early too, so it's nice to get in a couple of hours with Q before the evening meltdown. We also spend the last hour or so of the day having to get ready for the next day ("processing" my pumped milk and putting it in bottles, getting the diaper bag ready for daycare, making lunches, setting out clothes for the morning, etc).
I love my job. What I don't love is when I train someone for six months to fill in while I'm out, and then that person decides that she doesn't want to do any of my work while I'm out (she has now been kicked off of our team). I thought I'd be able to slip right back in and keep moving forward, but instead I'm catching up on 3 months of work, plus keeping my old projects moving forward, plus adding in 3 new projects. All of this is coupled with pumping 3 times per day and being generally sleep deprived. It is getting better now that week 2 is in the books, but that first week I had stress headaches every day. On the bright side, all of my project team members rejoiced when I returned. It is really nice to be so loved. I had a woman comment yesterday that it was "so obvious I was back because things were finally getting done - and done right." :)
I am feeling good in knowing that me going back to work was the absolute best thing for my family. I'm enjoying the mental stimulation of my job. I'm enjoying Quinn more because I get a break from him. I have found myself being much more patient when he cries, and I look forward to getting home to him every night. I cherish my Fridays at home as the one day I have during the week that I'm alone with him. The biggest benefit has been for Bryan and his relationship with Q. Evening hours aren't the best time for babies, but that was mostly the only time Bryan saw him. It makes it hard to bond with your baby when you only see him scream. Now they get 2 full days per week together, and he gets to see the fun times (kicking and punching and laughing together every morning on the changing pad is their favorite time) and he gets lots of smiles during the day. I've seen an enormous change in the way they interact together. It has been so beneficial for both of them, and I love listening to them chatter together in the mornings when I leave for work. It definitely makes it hard to go!
Quinn is now just over 3 months old, and things are getting better every day. He generally sleeps better, with only 2 short wake-ups during the night to eat. I'll let him get away with that for a couple more months since he's so small, but then I'll try to get down to just one. He has been getting up more from 4-6am for the last few days, but that's because he can't breathe. Two days into daycare and he already had his first cold. We still working on getting naps better, but as I write this he has been asleep for just shy of FOUR hours! Unheard of. It was much welcomed since I'm battling my second day of a migraine - the first one I've had in 12 years.
Quinn smiles readily, and he now has a soft giggle. He does great at daycare and they love him. The long crying spells are getting fewer and fewer as the days go by, and our ability to soothe him quickly is much better. It requires great teamwork in the evenings (one person is dealing with baby, the other is cleaning bottles/lunches from the day and making dinner), but it goes pretty well for us. I'm grateful that B and I were such a good team pre-baby, because EVERYTHING now requires teamwork to get it done. We rarely have to even talk about it, we just divide and conquer. We can see at light at the end of the tunnel and look forward to the days when we can take him to do fun things with us, like the new aquarium that is opening in Portland in December.
Now onto the required photos (and a video that makes me laugh every time I watch it).
Quinn loves to dance :)
Going back to work was a fairly big adjustment. I am NOT a morning person, but I try to get to work at 7:15 so I can either rescue Q from daycare or Bryan from Q (hehe) by 4ish each day. Babies go to bed so early too, so it's nice to get in a couple of hours with Q before the evening meltdown. We also spend the last hour or so of the day having to get ready for the next day ("processing" my pumped milk and putting it in bottles, getting the diaper bag ready for daycare, making lunches, setting out clothes for the morning, etc).
I love my job. What I don't love is when I train someone for six months to fill in while I'm out, and then that person decides that she doesn't want to do any of my work while I'm out (she has now been kicked off of our team). I thought I'd be able to slip right back in and keep moving forward, but instead I'm catching up on 3 months of work, plus keeping my old projects moving forward, plus adding in 3 new projects. All of this is coupled with pumping 3 times per day and being generally sleep deprived. It is getting better now that week 2 is in the books, but that first week I had stress headaches every day. On the bright side, all of my project team members rejoiced when I returned. It is really nice to be so loved. I had a woman comment yesterday that it was "so obvious I was back because things were finally getting done - and done right." :)
I am feeling good in knowing that me going back to work was the absolute best thing for my family. I'm enjoying the mental stimulation of my job. I'm enjoying Quinn more because I get a break from him. I have found myself being much more patient when he cries, and I look forward to getting home to him every night. I cherish my Fridays at home as the one day I have during the week that I'm alone with him. The biggest benefit has been for Bryan and his relationship with Q. Evening hours aren't the best time for babies, but that was mostly the only time Bryan saw him. It makes it hard to bond with your baby when you only see him scream. Now they get 2 full days per week together, and he gets to see the fun times (kicking and punching and laughing together every morning on the changing pad is their favorite time) and he gets lots of smiles during the day. I've seen an enormous change in the way they interact together. It has been so beneficial for both of them, and I love listening to them chatter together in the mornings when I leave for work. It definitely makes it hard to go!
Quinn is now just over 3 months old, and things are getting better every day. He generally sleeps better, with only 2 short wake-ups during the night to eat. I'll let him get away with that for a couple more months since he's so small, but then I'll try to get down to just one. He has been getting up more from 4-6am for the last few days, but that's because he can't breathe. Two days into daycare and he already had his first cold. We still working on getting naps better, but as I write this he has been asleep for just shy of FOUR hours! Unheard of. It was much welcomed since I'm battling my second day of a migraine - the first one I've had in 12 years.
Quinn smiles readily, and he now has a soft giggle. He does great at daycare and they love him. The long crying spells are getting fewer and fewer as the days go by, and our ability to soothe him quickly is much better. It requires great teamwork in the evenings (one person is dealing with baby, the other is cleaning bottles/lunches from the day and making dinner), but it goes pretty well for us. I'm grateful that B and I were such a good team pre-baby, because EVERYTHING now requires teamwork to get it done. We rarely have to even talk about it, we just divide and conquer. We can see at light at the end of the tunnel and look forward to the days when we can take him to do fun things with us, like the new aquarium that is opening in Portland in December.
Now onto the required photos (and a video that makes me laugh every time I watch it).
Quinn loves to dance :)
Monday, September 24, 2012
Newborn photos
I'm having an internal battle about posting lately. I won't lie, things have been hard. Really hard. We have a colicky baby, and some days feel endless. I debate about writing about the hard parts - not because I think parents shouldn't be honest, but I'm not sure if I want my (sometimes negative) thoughts about my baby written down for all eternity. I don't share about the rough times much even with people I know because I don't want people to think I don't love and adore my little boy. I do! I just adore him more when he's not screaming! I know these times are fleeting, and I know things are going to get better. They already are, although today was a rough day (I think it's is 12 week growth spurt a few days early).
For now, I'll tide you all over with some photos from our newborn photo shoot, when he was 3 weeks old. The first one is our absolute favorite. My dad dubbed it his "shar pei" look :) He has now grown into his skin and I already miss that tiny little guy.
Only 2 weeks late in blogging, here is his 2 month photo. He has definitely filled out. He was gaining about 1/2 an ounce per day for the first 6ish weeks, but past that point he's been putting on more than an ounce a day, which is great for an exclusively breastfed baby.
Proof that the days are getting better, here is the first smile I was finally able to capture on camera. He's been smiling for sure for a week or two, and he's just starting to laugh a little when tickled. He kills us in those cute moments! We just hope there are more of those to come and fewer of the screamy days.
I'm headed back to work on Monday, and I'm looking forward to some adult conversation, but I know I'll miss my little guy. Thankfully he'll be with Bryan Mon/Wed and me on Fridays, so he only has to go to daycare Tues/Thurs.
For now, I'll tide you all over with some photos from our newborn photo shoot, when he was 3 weeks old. The first one is our absolute favorite. My dad dubbed it his "shar pei" look :) He has now grown into his skin and I already miss that tiny little guy.
Only 2 weeks late in blogging, here is his 2 month photo. He has definitely filled out. He was gaining about 1/2 an ounce per day for the first 6ish weeks, but past that point he's been putting on more than an ounce a day, which is great for an exclusively breastfed baby.
(One month comparison)
Proof that the days are getting better, here is the first smile I was finally able to capture on camera. He's been smiling for sure for a week or two, and he's just starting to laugh a little when tickled. He kills us in those cute moments! We just hope there are more of those to come and fewer of the screamy days.
I'm headed back to work on Monday, and I'm looking forward to some adult conversation, but I know I'll miss my little guy. Thankfully he'll be with Bryan Mon/Wed and me on Fridays, so he only has to go to daycare Tues/Thurs.
Thursday, August 30, 2012
Our first month as parents (part 2)
Sheesh, this boring stuff is taking me forever to write down! Quinn is going to be 8 weeks on Sunday, and I'm still working on his one month notes!
C section recovery - Needless to say, having a C section was nowhere in our birth plan. I had no idea what to expect, and I wasn't prepared at all. In hindsight, I should have at least read a little bit about them while I was pregnant. The pain the first couple of days was excruciating. They had a hard time keeping the pain under control, and my nurses at hospital #2 kept forgetting to give me my meds (which I've since heard is a common problem there). Not only had I had abdominal surgery, but I also had a tiny, fragile baby to take care of. It was probably 2 weeks before I could sit up in bed without large amounts of pain. Of course this was a huge hassle, since I needed to sit up all the time to feed the baby. I'm grateful that Bryan helped out a TON during this time and really didn't ask me to do anything but feed the baby. He definitely kept our house running. Now, at 8 weeks post-partum, I don't hurt at all. I'd say I was mostly better by 6 weeks.
Feeding - in general, feeding was probably the #1 thing I cried about the most. Since Quinn was so early, he didn't have a suck or rooting reflex. We were separated for the first 24 hours, so he had to get formula and I was trying to pump while I waited for my milk to come in. It took about 48 hours, and when it came in, IT CAME IN. Even the nurses were impressed. Even after feeding Quinn, this is how much extra milk I pumped and brought home in just over 2 days.
In order to bring him home, the doctor told us we had to get him up to a certain amount per feeding. He wasn't really breastfeeding well at all, so initially I pumped colostrum and Bryan fed it to him with a 1mL syringe. (I love the look on Bryan's face here...."am I doing this right???" This feels so long ago now).
It seemed like the doctors and nurses were setting us up for failure. They would tell us that the goal for that day was 15mL per feeding. First off, I wasn't allowed to count breastfeeding. I'm still not sure why. This lead to an exhausting pattern of attempting to breastfeed, then bottle feeding (usually Bryan), then pumping. Secondly, we couldn't get him to eat 15mL without spitting half of it back up. We'd work our butts off all day to get him up to 15mL, only to be asked "why are you doing only 15mL? The goal is 25mL." Um, what? You never told us you had increased it. We asked for help. Even the nursery nurse couldn't get the amount in they wanted. It was SO stressful, and they "threatened" that we couldn't take him home and they would put in an ng tube if we couldn't get him to eat the amount they had deemed as the goal.
Thankfully we just skated by on the last day (I begged for an extra day in the hospital so we could work with him together and all go home as a family). They made us go back for weight checks two days later and one week later. At that point we were able to satisfy them that he was doing well, and the intense monitoring stopped. I'm happy to report now that he's breastfeeding like a champ (although still about every 2 hours, sometimes more often). I haven't had any of the cracking/bleeding/pain issues that so many women complain about. I still pump, but only 1-2 times a day in order to have bottles for Bryan when he gives me a break or for grandma when she babysits. He's going to get bottles in daycare, so we want to be sure he continues to be able to go from breast to bottle as easily as he always has.
Work shower - My work baby shower was supposed to be the Tuesday after he was born. Needless to say, it was cancelled. My boss was kind enough to deliver the big gift, his carseat, to the hospital since we needed it to take him home! My coworkers were so excited about him that they still wanted to have a shower. They knew we have a Dr. Seuss themed nursery, so they threw a Dr. Seuss themed baby shower.
Green Eggs and Ham
Diaper cake:
The whole gang
It was lovely, and several of the decorations now hang in his nursery. I am SO lucky to work with such great people!
Getting out of the house - After the initial "wow we have a baby" shock wore off, we quickly realized how important it was/is to get out of those house every day for both our sanity, and Quinn's. Some days that can be a struggle, but I always try. He LOVES being outside. Even if it is just in the hammock with dad.
Because he was so little he didn't fit in a carrier. The slings worked, but they hurt my back. Bryan and I both agreed the Moby wrap was too complicated. One day, when Q was about a month old, I finally decided to try the Beco, even if he was technically a little under the weight limit. He LOVED it. So did I. You can see how he felt after his first walk in it.
We have since worn it all over, even in the house. He loves being close and warm, and he often falls asleep within a couple of minutes. We went to a beautiful park near our house a couple of weeks ago, and he slept the entire time in the Beco.
More to come....
Thursday, August 16, 2012
Our first month as parents (part 1)
Note: This probably isn't very interesting to many people, but I wanted to record some of this "new to parenting" stuff before I forgot it. It's in no particular order. It has taken me over a week to complete this part, so some of the days might not make sense now. I'm too tired to go back and fix things!
Diapers - Our plan all along was to cloth diaper. However, most of the ones we have are for "normal" sized newborns, not preemies. We ran out and bought some preemie disposables (which are surprisingly hard to find). We used them for about 2.5 weeks, but they were SO expensive (we spent more on disposable diapers in those 2.5 weeks than on our entire cloth diaper stash). We also found that the Huggies leaked terribly, so that was our incentive to go up to the fancy cloth diaper store and buy a few covers for tiny babies. We had a couple of days of figuring out how to use them, but we're now totally on board and love cloth diapering. A friend also loaned me some great snapping prefolds, which have made things REALLY easy. Seriously, they are no more work than disposables. Also, our city recently added composting and switched to only every other week garbage pick-up, so the amount of trash associated with the disposables wouldn't even fit in our trash bin.
Solo parenting - The original plan was for Bryan to take off two weeks plus any fraction of a week after I delivered. He figured out pretty quickly that 2 weeks wasn't going to be enough considering I'd had major surgery, plus he wasn't ready to leave Quinn that soon. He ended up taking 4 weeks off and went back to work this Monday. Monday everything went smoothly for me and I thought I was a pro at this parenting thing. HAHAHAHA. Tuesday was awful. The night before Quinn was a wreck, so I barely got any sleep, and our day went downhill from there. Wednesday was slightly better, and Thursday so far has been fairly hard. When the baby doesn't sleep during the night, it's really hard to function. I know Bryan needs to sleep since he has to go to work, so I'm on my own if Quinn is screaming because of gas pains. When he's gassy he doesn't nurse well (or spits a lot of it up) so I end up bottle feeding pumped milk, which just makes more work for me since I have to pump again. All of this is a long way of saying I'M TIRED! Update: it has been a week since I wrote that. Yesterday I read Happiest Baby on the Block and started implementing the techniques. Although it hasn't even been a full day, it has made a huge difference so far!
Carriers - We planned on baby wearing, but Quinn was too small for a lot of our carriers. He fit in a sling that had been given to us, but it hurt my back. The moby wrap worked, but we both found the wrapping to be difficult and impossible to do without help. I finally decided 2 days ago that he seemed big enough for our Beco Butterfly now (my guess is he's hovering close to 7lbs), so I decided to try it. He and I both loved it! He's snuggly in it and loves to be out walking around with me, and I love that it doesn't hurt my back. Win all around. Bryan tried it tonight for the first time at the store and liked it as well.
Gifts - Everyone has been so generous with our little guy. It became the joke between Bryan and I that we couldn't help but check the porch for packages several times a day because for the first month or so there was a package almost every day. Okay, sometimes it was baby stuff that we ordered from Amazon, but it was still all stuff for Quinn. It was a lot of fun to see all of the people all over the world that were sending
Preemie clothes - We had not one piece of clothing that actually fit Quinn when he was born. We were expecting an 8lb baby, not a 5lb one. All of his clothes swallowed him up. Preemie clothes were a little hard to find, but Babies R Us and a co-worker came to our rescue. He's now just starting to fit in newborn clothes, and we have a ton of those.
And some random pictures:
Diapers - Our plan all along was to cloth diaper. However, most of the ones we have are for "normal" sized newborns, not preemies. We ran out and bought some preemie disposables (which are surprisingly hard to find). We used them for about 2.5 weeks, but they were SO expensive (we spent more on disposable diapers in those 2.5 weeks than on our entire cloth diaper stash). We also found that the Huggies leaked terribly, so that was our incentive to go up to the fancy cloth diaper store and buy a few covers for tiny babies. We had a couple of days of figuring out how to use them, but we're now totally on board and love cloth diapering. A friend also loaned me some great snapping prefolds, which have made things REALLY easy. Seriously, they are no more work than disposables. Also, our city recently added composting and switched to only every other week garbage pick-up, so the amount of trash associated with the disposables wouldn't even fit in our trash bin.
Solo parenting - The original plan was for Bryan to take off two weeks plus any fraction of a week after I delivered. He figured out pretty quickly that 2 weeks wasn't going to be enough considering I'd had major surgery, plus he wasn't ready to leave Quinn that soon. He ended up taking 4 weeks off and went back to work this Monday. Monday everything went smoothly for me and I thought I was a pro at this parenting thing. HAHAHAHA. Tuesday was awful. The night before Quinn was a wreck, so I barely got any sleep, and our day went downhill from there. Wednesday was slightly better, and Thursday so far has been fairly hard. When the baby doesn't sleep during the night, it's really hard to function. I know Bryan needs to sleep since he has to go to work, so I'm on my own if Quinn is screaming because of gas pains. When he's gassy he doesn't nurse well (or spits a lot of it up) so I end up bottle feeding pumped milk, which just makes more work for me since I have to pump again. All of this is a long way of saying I'M TIRED! Update: it has been a week since I wrote that. Yesterday I read Happiest Baby on the Block and started implementing the techniques. Although it hasn't even been a full day, it has made a huge difference so far!
Carriers - We planned on baby wearing, but Quinn was too small for a lot of our carriers. He fit in a sling that had been given to us, but it hurt my back. The moby wrap worked, but we both found the wrapping to be difficult and impossible to do without help. I finally decided 2 days ago that he seemed big enough for our Beco Butterfly now (my guess is he's hovering close to 7lbs), so I decided to try it. He and I both loved it! He's snuggly in it and loves to be out walking around with me, and I love that it doesn't hurt my back. Win all around. Bryan tried it tonight for the first time at the store and liked it as well.
Gifts - Everyone has been so generous with our little guy. It became the joke between Bryan and I that we couldn't help but check the porch for packages several times a day because for the first month or so there was a package almost every day. Okay, sometimes it was baby stuff that we ordered from Amazon, but it was still all stuff for Quinn. It was a lot of fun to see all of the people all over the world that were sending
Preemie clothes - We had not one piece of clothing that actually fit Quinn when he was born. We were expecting an 8lb baby, not a 5lb one. All of his clothes swallowed him up. Preemie clothes were a little hard to find, but Babies R Us and a co-worker came to our rescue. He's now just starting to fit in newborn clothes, and we have a ton of those.
And some random pictures:
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)