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April 28, 2004
April 28, 2004: 6 Week Check Up, Schedules, Growing
It’s amazing how, with a new baby, one hour can last an eternity, yet the weeks are flying by. I’m getting used to the life of a SAHM—no more alarm clocks or commutes, just a wee one calling for attention in all his various ways.
Dan and I are getting better at determining what Peter needs. He has a dream-cry that’s very piercing, but it doesn’t mean that he’s waking up. He doesn’t respond well to being changed before being fed. His favorite two places in the world are on my breast and Dan’s shoulder. If he unlatches from the breast, but nuzzles it and squirms, he’s probably trying to poop.
All I Have to Do is Dream
Peter is starting to follow something resembling a schedule. He wakes up between 8 and 9, takes a 30-60 minute morning nap sometime between 9:30 and 11:30, takes a 2-4 hour afternoon nap between 12 and 4, sometimes has a short nap (~30 min) between 5 and 7, and goes to bed between 8 and 9. He then wakes up to nurse at decreasing intervals throughout the night (if he goes to bed at 8, he might wake up at 12, 3:30, 6, 7:30, then wake up at 8:45). Altogether, I think he averages 16 hours of sleep a night. The goofy thing is that he sleeps more now than he did a few weeks ago. The worst was when he was napping maybe 2 hours during the day, then crashing for the night around 5, just when Dan gets home. That leaves me with 8 hours of cranky, awake Peter to deal with alone. I’ve gotten much happier since he developed reasonable naps. Of course today, he’s done everything 2 hours late (except wake up in the morning—he was ready to start the day at 8). He finally fell asleep for the night at 11:30, the pipsqueak. Just as I was about to say that getting him to sleep isn’t too hard, he makes it tricky for us.
Typically, during his morning nap, I either nurse him to sleep and snooze myself, or sway at the computer until he nods off. I’ve been running errands over lunch between naps, so he often falls asleep in the car and I carefully bring him inside and put him on our big chair, walled off by blankets, so I can see him from anywhere in the living room. Our house isn’t big enough to bother getting a baby monitor, but I do try to keep him on the same floor as me. Occasionally he’ll wake up mid-nap to nurse, then go back to sleep. I find myself willing him to keep sleeping as the afternoon goes on. At night, he starts getting fussy around 7 or 8 and it escalates until he crashes on Dan’s shoulder at some point. Once he’s clearly out, we put him back on the chair until we go up to bed ourselves. I’m finding that I stay up until he wants his first night feeding, about 4 hours later. Then I don’t have to wake up to feed him, and it gives me a couple hours of quiet me-time. So I’ve been sleeping from 12 or 1 until 8 or 9, then getting an hour’s nap most days.
No More Mr. Bald?
I mentioned in my last entry that Peter was losing his hair. He was pretty bald for about a week, and now it’s growing in again. I think I can see the difference day by day, since it’s so short. I can’t tell if he’ll be blonde or brunette yet. His eyes are still blue, too.
Beginnings of a Socialite
Peter is smiling and talking more and more these days. In addition to the cooing he started with, he makes a bunch of other sounds now, too, interspersed with big grins. He still holds conversions with lamps and walls, but he’s definitely reacting to us now, also. I can’t quite get him to mimic my facial expressions, but he smiles and talks more when we make big faces at him, and he looks back at us. If we’re out somewhere and someone else is holding him, he’ll stare at me, as if he’s checking to make sure I think his admirer is okay. I love knowing that I’m the one he trusts!
I think his vision is getting better. He looks more often at things farther away. Also, last Friday he suddenly got cheerier. In the morning, I’ll wake up to him looking around and checking out the world rather than him screeching to eat. Soon, we’ll have to decide if we’re really not going to watch TV around him. When he couldn’t see it (and I couldn’t do much other than sit on the couch all day), it was easy to justify keeping it on, but neither of those is really the case anymore.
I’ve found that Peter doesn’t mind the sling or the Snugli if he’s constantly moving, but he won’t stay in them while still unless he’s nearly asleep. I can do laundry while wearing him, especially if I’m hanging clothes on the line, but sitting at the computer is a no-go. The most effective use of the sling is while running errands. He doesn’t mind being taken from his carrier car seat and put in the sling a few times over the course of a couple hours, especially if he’s sleepy. I never got in the habit of carrying his carrier around—it seems so big and awkward. Dan’s car (soon to be our only car) has a convertible car seat, so we won’t have the option of carrying it around.
Watching Him Develop
Peter has always had pretty good head control, but his neck is really strong now. Even going from a lying-down to upright position, he can hold it steady. Along with holding it up, he’s been able to find his fists to suck on them—he can’t maneuver his hands yet, but he brings his head to his hands and slobbers on them. Oh yeah, he’s drooling now. I’ve started putting bibs on him most of the time so his clothes don’t get drenched. When he’s in the swing, he bats at the toys on there. I don’t think he’s purposefully moving his hands to hit them, but he does see them and seems to realize that if he moves around (and accidentally hits them), they make noise. The swing allows me to get dressed in the morning without his throwing a fit. If he’s really cheery, I’ll let him lie on the bed, but if I think he’s going to fuss, I’ll put him in the swing for a few minutes.
My Six-Week Postpartum Check
On Wednesday, we met with Kim for my check-up. Jeanne was out sick, unfortunately. Kim was amazed at how big Peter’s gotten. When we weighed him, he started peeing as she read it and said “13, no 12#10, no 12#8…”. I fed him right afterwards too, so he was completely empty when he was weighed. I figure he’s probably up to 13 lbs now. He’s HEAVY to hold on a shoulder for awhile!
I told Kim how something had been bothering me at my rear end and she gave a couple possibilities before checking me. As it turns out, my tear had re-torn a bit! She said it was already healing, so the fact that I’d bled a week and a half before was probably when it occurred. Back to three baths a day and airing it out. Agh. In the almost-week since then, it’s bothered me less and less, thank goodness. I’ve done alright taking care of it, usually hitting two long baths a day, but not three. Finding a way to take one in the morning is just too hard. I refuse to wake up before Peter does and that first nap is too precious to bathe through.
While Kim was checking me, she remarked that my perineum is shorter than most, which explains why a ¼” tear feels like something’s wrong with my butt. It also means that if I ever got an episiotomy, I’d have a very high chance of it turning into a 3rd or 4th degree tear. Youch.
The other surprising tidbit was that my amniotic sack had a tear in it and no one had told us previously. Kim said that as she reached to pull my water bag over Peter’s head (my water hadn’t broken beforehand), she found a tear around his shoulder. That explains how he could have inhaled blood. She isn’t sure whether he officially was born in the caul, since the bag did seem intact over his head. Strange stuff.
Kim said she’d send me her notes shortly, which I plan to use to reconstruct my birth story, but I haven’t gotten them yet. We also gave her the info to file with the insurance company, and filled out the birth certificate.
Since I’ve gone a few weeks backwards with this whole recovery business, I’ll go back to see one or both of the midwives in another week to see if the tear is healed for good. I am so ready to be done with this nonsense. I seem to have finished bleeding sometime in the past week, but I still feel like I’m leaking. It’s more clear or yellow than red or brown, which I’ve accepted is probably pee and means I should have actually done those Kegels. Double argh. I’ll keep wearing liners, potentially do Kegels now, and hope it all goes away soon. Every time I get irritated about this junk, it’s best to look at a sleeping Peter to remind me that it’s worth it.
Single Parenthood is for the Birds
Last night around 2am, I’d fed Peter and he felt wet enough that I tried to convince Dan to wake up and change him. He sat up for a few minutes, disappeared into the bathroom, and came back 10 minutes later telling me he felt sick and I’d better change him. At the time, I was annoyed that I’d waited, awake, and now had to get up (Dan does all the night changes around here—I wake up more, to feed Peter, but don’t have to get out of bed).
A couple hours later, Dan jumped out of bed to be sick. And a couple hours after that. By that point, he’d relocated to the bed in the back bedroom to have more space and be closer to the bathroom. He spent most of the day in bed. By noon he seemed somewhat alive, and I ran to the knitting store while Peter napped, hoping to get home before he woke up, but knowing Dan was there no matter what. Apparently, I didn’t quite make it, but Dan was up and about briefly.
I ended up sleeping for most of Peter’s afternoon nap and never did have a proper lunch or dinner, just munching things here and there when Peter wasn’t too fussy. I then brought him to my church class alone and survived two hours before he went into hysterics and I gave up and came home. I think the combination of having to get up at night and not getting at break at 5pm really zonked me out. By the time I got home at 9, Dan was okay enough to walk him around a bit, at least. I think I’m back on diaper duty tonight, though. If he’s fussy in the morning, I’m driving straight to my IL’s and not coming home until Dan’s done with work—they have a tendency to hold him so I can get a break, and just take time to nurse him.
Ahh, Energy
Today’s chaos notwithstanding, I’ve been getting a lot done around here during those afternoon naps or late at night. I filed our giant pile of paid bills and other paperwork, I made beef stroganoff in the crockpot yesterday, I finally exchanged my maternity and pre-preg clothes from the closet to the basement bins, and I generally keep up with the laundry. The day that I start washing dishes daily, I’ll know I’ve completely recovered (and then some).
I did managed to lock myself out of the house yesterday for the second time in two weeks, so Peter hasn’t quite given back all the brain cells that I loaned him.
More Showers and Diaper Talk
I’m not sure how this happened, but I now have two baby showers scheduled in May—one with high school friends and one with my extended family. I’m hoping to get diapers at one and clothes at the other, although my mom recently struck her first garage sale of the season and provided all the 3-6 month clothes we’re going to need. Peter’s definitely out of all his newborn clothes and now the diapers too. I’ve been spending way too much time hunting down good diapers for the 10-20 lb range. Dan wants to just have one kind so he doesn’t have to think at 3am, but I seem to keep buying 3 of these and a couple of those. We are narrowing down to our preferred type, at least—front-snapping hemp fitted diapers with snap-in soakers. I’m in the midst of selling some of the newborn diapers that didn’t work well for us. Hopefully, we can get rid of those and I’ll have an excuse to get fancier ones that I like. Dan can fold a mean prefold, but I usually take the fitteds, so my prefolds tend to leak through the leg holes. Today I didn’t wash the diapers early on and was forced to use prefolds most of the day. I think the poop stayed in the covers, but wasn’t contained in the diapers themselves. Dan does better than that, though.
Promotion of the Relatives
Back on Father’s Day when we announced our pregnancy, we told our family members that they were all being promoted up a generation. It’s been fun to see how they act around Peter. My 90 year old grandma is great—Peter smiled lots at her the first time she held him (at Easter), and now she wants to hold him whenever they’re together. He’s happy to stand in her lap, bouncing around. He’s rarely that calm for other people, and both of them get big grins on their faces.
My dad, is turns out, is a baby grabber. When we’re over there, he looks for excuses to take the baby from us and go to another room to play with him. My mom seems to wait more for us to offer. Dan’s dad held him for the first time this past weekend—I think he felt better waiting until his neck was stronger. Dan’s mom and sister get antsy if they haven’t seen Peter for a week. Even though neither drives on freeways, they can be convinced to come to our house if it’s been long enough.
It’s almost 1 and I haven’t taken my second bath yet, so I’d better stop writing before Peter declares his hunger.
I’ve been posting links to Peter photos on my TTM board if you’re interested.
Tara, I’m thinking of you!!
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