Well part of me feels like 'where did the time go??' and part of me feels like this has been the longest month of my life. :-) But despite the lack of sleep and all the other challenges we've had, this has been by far the best month of our lives.
Everett is ONE MONTH old!!! (Ok, he's 5 weeks old and I took this picture when he was 5 weeks, but that's pretty much how things go for me, so we might as well start out with honesty!)
A lot of this is going to just be for me to remember in the future, so if you're bored out of your mind reading this and stop here at this cute picture, I'm not offended!
In the first month of life, Everett:
Had (and still has) some serious trouble gaining weight. We are still trying to figure out exactly what's going on with that. As of his 5 week appointment, he weighed 7 lb 7 ounces, which was one ounce above his birth weight. So we will be going back to the doctor on Thursday (again... for the 5th time... they know us by name now!) to check the weight again. He only gained one ounce last week (they are supposed to gain one ounce a day) which I can not figure out because he ate a lot more last week than usual but oh well. We'll figure it out. I really like his pediatrician so that helps with all this.
Has 'silent' reflux. Meaning that he has reflux but it doesn't come all the way up. So it burns on the way up and then on the way back down. Poor guy. You can tell when this is bothering him. We are trying Prevacid right now and just increased the dosage so I'm really hoping that starts helping.
Has some trouble breathing when he eats and sometimes when he sleeps. It scares me to death when I can hear him struggling to breathe while he's sleeping but the doctors don't seemed too worried. Apparently it can be a flap in his esophagus that just needs to develop further, and there's nothing to be done about that, or it can be related to the reflux. We're still working on figuring that out too. The great news is that they sent us to a pediatric cardiologist to make sure it was nothing major and his heart is perfect. :-) So in 5 weeks of life, Everett has been to the pediatrician 5 times, and to see a cardiologist and ENT, as well as had his tongue clipped in the hospital by a pediatric surgeon. Poor little guy!
Can just about full-on smile!! This is my absolute favorite thing. (Ok this didn't happen in the first month, it happened in the last week, but still.) I have to make a complete fool out of myself to get him to do it, and he still only smiles with the right side of his mouth, but he's so close! And he looks right at my eyes now and follows me with his eyes when I'm walking around. So fun!
Loves to lay on his belly. Sometimes (if he's next to me on the couch or something - don't worry) I lay him on his tummy to nap.
Loves the swing! I can only leave him in there for about 15 minutes before he falls asleep, but he'll sit in there happily and watch the mobile, so it gives me a little bit of 'awake' time where he's occupied. He does not like to be left alone and not held, so I'm limited in what to do with him during the day when he's not sleeping (unless I want to listen to him cry).
Is really good at holding his head up. He loves to be held upright and look around.
Loves the paci. I was a little worried he had stopped loving it, but we switched to a different kind and we're in love again. Phew. I really like having that to soothe him, especially when we're out.
Loves to be outside, especially if one of us is wearing him.
Is a really, really good sleeper. He'll usually give me 6-7 hours between two of his feedings at night. (We only go 2.5-3 hours during the day.) We're working on getting into a better routine during the day/night so I can better predict when he'll be up. The problem is that when he wakes up early in the morning, I feed him and stick him back in bed so I can get more sleep. :-) If I actually had a 'wake up' time that I stuck to, I think we'd be in better shape but so far I haven't been able to talk myself into staying up in the morning yet. He slept 5 hours for the first time before he was 2 weeks old.
Had a couple really rough days where his days and nights were mixed up. We wound up letting him finally cry after that so he could figure out that he had to sleep some at night, and crying it out with him was an absolute disaster. He wound up crying for about 24 solid hours and we wound up feeling like the worst parents ever. Thankfully we're past that and sleeping good (usually) at night and still napping pretty good (usually) during the day.
Is so. stinking. cute. He's got a milk belly now, but he's still super skinny everywhere else. He has really long fingers and toes, and lots of extra skin to grow into! He loves to cuddle, which we take advantage of quite a bit. He loves to be swaddled, and we're still making him wear mittens because he sticks his thumbs in his mouth and the rest of his fingers either in his eyes or dug into his face. (He is NOT a fan of this mittens! He tried hard to suck on his hands through them.) We just love discovering all the sweet little parts of his personality and watching him learn to interact a little bit. He's started to sort of coo at us, and he's developed this pitiful, 'someone pay attention to me' cry that is clearly different from his 'I'm furious' cry. There is a serious learning curve to being first-time parents but we are loving it.
Can't wait to see what's in the months to come!!
