So four weeks have flown by and Calem is already a month old!
The first half of the month was mostly a blur of trying to get him to
gain enough weight (he made it back to birth weight by 21 days old)
and trying to figure out how to help him differentiate night from day.
These days he is keeping awake much more, including making eye contact
and being more aware of his surroundings. He is much better at going
to sleep for 3 to 4 hour stretches at night and then taking shorter
naps during the day. We are still going through lots of clothing
every day, whether its pee, poop or spit up, turns out there are many
ways to get clothes dirty for someone who doesn't even go outside most
days! Even on days we manage to avoid any of these, he is growing
very quickly by length (despite the lack in dramatic weight gain) that
he no longer fits most clothing for 3 month olds.
Calem is a pretty easy going baby. He doesn't cry except when hungry
(and rarely when his diaper is soiled). He quietly fusses when he
needs to be burped or has a wet diaper. He barely whimpers when a
certain older sister of his hits him on the head (yes, the sibling
rivalry has begun and I have contemplated getting a baby helmet to
protect him from his big sister!). His favorite activities are
eating, sleeping and cuddling. He sleeps great when he is being held,
and about 30 min to one hour max if he is put down to sleep on his
own. To have longer stretches of sleep at night we are co-sleeping
(which we did with Clara as well). He usually sleeps from 10 to 1 AM,
feeds, then from 2 to 5 AM, feeds, then from 6 to 9 AM. I would love
for him not to need the 1 AM feeding, but I know it'll happen in time.
Since he had trouble gaining weight when exclusively breast feeding,
we introduced the bottle at 2 weeks (of expressed breast milk) and
formula by 3 weeks. He gets 2 to 6 oz of formula per day. He has not
had any nipple confusion and does not seem any more gassy than usual
while using just generic baby bottles (which come with the Ameda
breast pump)
He will have his one month check later this week. I'm definitely
curious to see how his growth is doing!
In less than two weeks I return to work. I am very anxious about
trying to balance both him and Clara during the little time I have at
home once I go back to work. We hope his sleep gets a little better
so we can all be better rested!
