Our Life Back in Texas!: 3/24/13

Saturday, March 30, 2013

4-6 Week Update

Finally - a new blog entry! I finally had a few minutes while both babies were napping to give a quick update! The past couple of weeks have been so busy with me trying to slowly but surely figure out how to manage two kiddos on my own.

I feel like we are somewhat getting into a groove. There have been some days that I feel like I really have my act together and other days that are very challenging. I'm surprised by how fast the days go by since we are at home all day long...probably because I feel like I go non-stop all day long! Luckily though, my friends have been coming over for playdates once or twice a week so that sure helps!

The hardest part of the past couple of weeks (weeks 4-6) have been Andrew's sleeping (or lack there of) at night time. He was doing pretty good but then the nights just got really hard. He is waking very often to eat - sometimes every hour and a half to two hours with some nights not really going much longer than a 2 hour stretch of sleep. Then each night he consistently gets what we think is a tummy ache around the same time. I actually called the doctor about it last week to see if there is anything we could do and they said it sounds like he could be a bit colicy. So we started him on some baby probiotic drops to hopefully help with his little digestive system. The past 2 nights have been much better with him sleeping until 1ish (after going down around 8:45/9:00). I'm trying to not get my hopes up that this is his new schedule because I have sure learned that every night is different. The lack of sleep is certainly hard to get used to again, but I know that it is temporary and so worth it!

I've also learned that it's hard to not compare him to Joseph or expect him to do the same baby behaviors that Joseph did. I have to remind myself that he is a different baby but it's hard when that's all you really have to reference. At this age Joseph was sleeping much better through the night. But...Joseph was a terrible napper during the day whereas Andrew will typically have at least one 2-3 hour nap, typically in the morning. After that he typically eats ever hour and a half to two hours and goes about that long between naps too - sometimes shorter.

We had our first family outing to the mall last weekend just to get me and Joseph out for a bit. I was a bit nervous because Andrew is already to the point of fighting sleep and he gets really upset when he is tired. But we managed through it and got that first outing under our belts. Now that we hit our 6 week mark, all of my c-section restrictions have gone away - yay!! I can now lift Joseph any way I need to which is really nice. So we will be attempting our first playdate at a friend's house next week now that I can put Joseph in and out of his carseat. I hope to slowly get us out more here and there and look forward to more walks around the neighborhood and our local park before it starts getting too hot.

Joseph continues to do well as a big brother. He loves Andrew and always asks for him if he sees me without him. He's still too young to understand just how gentle he has to be with Andrew, but he is sweet and always loves to be near his baby brother. We are trying to really involve Joseph as much as we can in everything we do with Andrew. And he finds his own ways to be involved. In fact when I change Andrew's diaper, he automatically goes and gets Andrew's diaper and puts it by Andrew's head. So sweet and such a good helper!

Yesterday, Michael and I both thought we got little grins out of Andrew. And then this morning during his good awake time, I got several big true smiles. It just melted my heart and was so fun to have that interaction with Andrew for the first time. He even managed a couple of little coos! It brought tears to my eyes at just how sweet he is!

Here are some pictures from weeks 4-6 with some more new firsts!