Aedan is 1 month old

Aedan is 1 month old today! Can you say, time flies when you're having fun? Or when you're too sleep-deprived to know what day it is...











Aedan's first month was actually a lot easier than Brody's.  It helps that I knew what to expect, what to worry about and was a lot more patient with breastfeeding.  It doesn't hurt that Aedan is sleeping better than Brody already.

He's a great sleeper.  Once we let him sleep on his own he started off with 3-4 hour stretches.  In the last week, he's slept 7 hours for 3 nights and 8 hours last night.  I am getting so spoiled!  Brody was a great sleeper and even he didn't sleep for 7 hours until 6-7 weeks old.  He's amazing.

Aedan weighs 10lbs 11.5oz and is almost 23 inches.  He always seems so much longer than they say he is, but I think it's just the way he's built.  His torso is very long.  He's in the 90th percentile for height, 75th for weight and 50-75th for his head.  Definitely a big kid, which is a huge relief that we're not constantly worrying about his size.  He's fitting best in size 1 diapers and 0-3 month clothes.  Some of them are getting tight though, so we may end up in 3-6 month clothes sooner than we did with Brody.

In the last week or so, Aedan has found his voice. He's practicing oohing and aahing. It's adorable. Much better than the grunting I normally hear from him. He has great facial expressions, that are practically identical to Brody's baby faces, so that's pretty cute. I'm enjoying him being awake more often during the day and we're using it to do some tummy-time. It can be kind of quiet when the baby sleeps all day!

Aedan gets out of the house fairly often, since I have a hard time staying home.  On the fun side, he's been to a few birthday parties and a pumpkin farm.  He's also been out shopping more times than I can count.  When my very tolerant husband started asking what I was going to Target for, again, I realized I probably go a little too much.  But there's always something you need, right?!?

3 Weeks

Aedan:

Sleeping: He's a pretty good sleeper, but still wakes up every 3 - 3.5 hours throughout the night. Once, he slept for 5.5 hours, of which, I got 4.5 hours of sleep because I was dumb enough to stay up for an hour reading a book. I'm hoping to get another one of those soon!






Eating: This totally depends on the day, but on a good day, he eats every 2-3 hours during the day and 3-4 hours at night. Some days though he eats every hour. It's Aedan's world and I'm just living in it.

So, now that Aedan is up to his birth weight and growing so well, I thought I would introduce small amounts of dairy into my diet. I thought I would start with a piece of cheese here and there. Then I had pizza one day for lunch. First, he got fussier, but I wasn't sure if that was due to growth spurts. Then, we noticed changes in his diaper. But that could have been due to his cold. Then I found blood in the diaper. This is exactly what tipped us off to the dairy allergy with Brody, so alas, I'm finding history repeating itself. The good thing is that we figured it out a little earlier this time. The bad thing is, I've been dairy free for almost 5 weeks and I hate it. Apparently we eat a lot more cheese and dairy in this house than I thought! However, the switch to formula will be even more annoying, since we'll likely have to start with hypoallergenic. So back to dairy-free I go!

Development: Aedan is more and more attentive every day. Jason swears that he "smiles" at him / recognizes him. I don't doubt that, I know he recognizes his voice from even before he was born, but I'm thinking he's exaggerating the smiling part. :)



Exciting night in the Johnson household

We haven't spent a ton of time on tummy-time, but his neck is pretty strong when we lay him on our chests. We'll be working on getting him in his playmat more and more.

Brody:
 Big-Brother is still adjusting.  I don't expect him to accept the change quickly (I know I don't react well to change), so we'll continue to give him more time.  But we've had good days and bad days.  Still working on getting more good days than bad, but the rainy weekend didn't really help with that either.

2 Week Check-Up

Today we had Aedan's 2 week check-up.  The most important part of the appointment was finding out if he gained his birthweight back.  We struggled with Brody gaining weight, so I've been worried constantly about how often he's eating and if he's growing.  But like the many differences between my two pregnancies, they are obviously different children and will have many differences.

The funny thing is, you'd think we've been through this before and we wouldn't have many questions for the pediatrician...yet, I had a list of them.  I don't think you ever become an expert at this!

First, he's at 9lbs 13oz.  Woohoo!  That's up 1 lb in less than two weeks (he went down to 8lbs 13.5oz at 4 days).  He's 22.5 inches long.  That's the same length as Brody at 2 weeks but more than a pound bigger than he was.  Aedan's going to be my little chunky monkey and I love it.  I don't know if giving up dairy helped him gain weight (he doesn't spit-up nearly what Brody did), but if it has, it's totally worth it.  Next, I plan to phase in small amounts of dairy and see if it affects him.  Also, I can stop waking him up in the middle of the night for feedings.  I'm so sick of hearing my alarm at 1am and then trying to convince a sleeping baby to eat, so I am very excited about that!

Then we went through our list of questions/concerns:
1. Aedan has a cold.  Ick.  2 weeks old.  We've been monitoring his temp and he isn't running a fever.  The doc listened to his lungs and has no concerns.  Just need to keep up what we're doing (clearing his nose, humidifier, etc.), and we're pretty much experts at colds by now having Brody in daycare.  It does freak me out when Aedan starts gasping for air because he's so stuffed up, but we just have to keep doing what we're doing and wait it out.  Jason had a cold last week and managed to infect the whole household.  So aside from Aedan having a cold, Brody & I got it as well.  Not fun. 

2. Aedan's hearing.  Tuesday, we took him to the hospital to repeat the hearing test they do when he's first born.  His left ear failed on day 2, but since a lot of times this is due to fluid from birth, they just re-test to determine if it's an issue.  Happy to report that he passed with flying colors.

3. Aedan's eyes.  His right eye keeps turning inward, making him look cross-eyed at times.  The doc says this is totally normal for 2 weeks, but if it keeps up by 1 month we'll take a closer eye on it.

4. Umbilical cord.  It fell off last week, but still bleeds from time to time.  Again, it's apparently normal and said it actually looks really good.

Overall a good check-up!  We head back at 1 month, when he'll have to get more vaccines, poor guy.

Worn out from the appointment, napping in his carseat

2 Weeks

2 Weeks Old

Aedan:
The very exciting life of a 2 week old.  Aedan is eating every 2-3 hours during the day and 3-3 1/2 hours at night.  He's a good sleeper right now, but I'm still waking him at night to eat until he's back to his birth weight.  His 2 week appointment is on Weds and I'm just praying that he's surpassed 9.5lbs so we can let him sleep on his own.  According to our home-scale this morning, he's actually over 10 lbs, but since it's not a very scientific way of weighing him, we'll see what the pediatrician says!

After eating every hour all evening the other night, I tried letting him wake on his own.  4 hours later he was still sleep and I felt bad, so I woke him up.  Of course once he'll be allowed to sleep as long as he wants, I'm sure he'll start waking every 3 hours.

This week, Aedan also got his newborn photos taken.  He did an awful job, but we had a great photographer who was very patient with him.  Once we get more pictures back, I'll blog about our experience.  Here is one that turned out pretty cute.

 



He's becoming more attentive, but still sleeps a lot during the day.  We've pulled out the playmat to give him some tummy-time when he is awake.  We've also introduced the swing, which he seems to like.  He watches the mobile above the swing, which I don't remember Brody paying any attention to until he was older.  It's pretty cute.



Brody:

He loves his baby brother.  It's clear that he realizes he's not getting as much attention as he used to and has been acting out a little more.  The good thing is, he's not taking it out on Aedan.  He still wants to hug him and give him kisses.  Our biggest argument about Aedan is when Brody gets mad that we won't let him carry his brother. 

Reading a book to his brother

Newborn photo shoot

Me:

Nothing much here.  I'm feeling well, just tired.  A couple of weeks of only sleeping 2-3 hours at a time, eventually catches up with you.  However, it's been fairly manageable and Jason is still being a huge help with Brody.  The weekends are easier to take naps because I know Jason is around to watch Aedan while I'm sleeping.  Even though he's sleeping, sometimes I still worry about him.  At least at night I'm getting 6-8 hours of sleep, even if it isn't consecutive sleep.



Routine

From early on in Brody's life, we've worked to keep his bedtime routine fairly consistent. Usually, we take him upstairs for pjs, put his sound machine on, read a book, hug and kiss goodnight and lay him down. We've had to switch it up a little over time, like when we stopped bottles & formula and rocking him to sleep, we started reading books. Since he's such a good sleeper, I try not to mess with what works.

Though generally stick to the routine, we're not at all rigid about it. Sometimes he falls asleep in the car if we've been out, every other night we do bath, some nights if he's tired enough, we don't even read a book.

So apparently we weren't being consistent enough for Brody...

He's going through a stage where he's latched onto one book that he has to read before bed EVERY night. No matter what. And there's no playing tricks on this kid, he knows right where the book should be each night and demands that it's read to him.

After several nights of reading the same book over and over, I tried to put it in his closet. He caught me doing it and started crying and pointing at it instantly. Fine, we read it anyway.

Then...last night I thought I'd lucked out. He brought the book to the bathroom but then got distracted by the running water and set it down. He loves baths just about as much as this book! After bathtime, we went to his room, leaving the book behind. He instantly went for the shelf where it belongs. When it wasn't there he looked up at me with a sad face, like where did my book go?! Then, he quickly remembered where he left it, ran out of his room straight to the bathroom door.

So what did we do? We read the book. Why mess with what works?

P.S. Thanks to Grandpa and Grandma Sara for the "Baseball Counting Book," he loves it, we hate it. :)

Stomach Sleeper

Not so fun first

Baby's firsts are always great right? First smile, first laugh, first time rolling over...ah the joys of a little baby.

Well...first cold? Not so fun!! Brody has had a stuffy nose for at least two weeks now. We've been vigorously cleaning it out (which causes him to scream his head off) and just trying to keep an eye on his temp. This is what the pediatrician suggested and it makes sense. There's really nothing you can do to get rid of a cold.


However, we're past the stuffy nose stage and now on to the chest congestion, tiny cough and I can't breathe and suck on my paci at the same time stage. So sleeping of course is a real challenge. The first night after the cold worsened, Brody kept spitting out his paci so he could breathe. Then he wanted it back. Remember how I told you he'd try to get it on his own? Apparently sick-Brody isn't that independent. So that just resulted in crying every 10 minutes until he was in a deep enough sleep not to need his pacifier.

Night two went much better, but he still woke up screaming his head off at 3:30 in the morning. I'm not sure why, but he's much crankier when he's sick. Just like his mommy...

Luckily he's still sleeping well at daycare, he doesn't have a fever and he's still a pretty happy guy. And what did his teachers tell us when we mentioned his cold? Oh yeah, most of the kids in the room have been sick this week. Ugh. Well at least he's working on building his immune system!

Little Mr. Independent

For the last 12 months Brody has been completely reliant on me. He needed me for 9 months in utero, then as a newborn he couldn't do anything without my help. Now he's growing up (you know, he's almost 4 MONTHS old!) and he doesn't need me as much as he once did.

Brody is already exhibiting signs of being able to do things for himself. About a month ago, I reported that he was already trying to hold his bottle, tonight, he held his bottle for the entire time. After letting him feed himself with some assistance from me I was feeling a bit sad and proud at the same time. Then he did something that brought tears to my eyes.

I placed him in his crib after his bottle. He was tired but still awake. So I sat back and watched him put himself to sleep. All of a sudden he dropped his pacifier. Now I've seen other kids at daycare do this and it brings instant tears. But Brody? Nah, he doesn't cry. But he didn't fuss either. What did he do? Tried to get the paci back!

First he rolls onto his side to get his mouth closer to the pacifier. He tried to grab it with his mouth. But his weight shifted and he was on his back again. After two more attempts at this he still wasn't giving up and still hadn't cried for help. He remembered he has two hands that can grab things now. So he picks up his paci and brings it to his mouth. However, he grabbed the part of it that goes in his mouth. Now he's trying to put something in his mouth that just doesn't feel right. Now does he cry for help? Nope, he just happily sucks on the part of the pacifier that you're supposed to hold onto. That's when I step in and fix it for him.

I had to admire how much he's already showing signs of strength and determination. He already has an "I can do it!" attitude. While I do hope this continues into his childhood and I do think self-sufficiency is a good trait to have, but it is sad to not have him need me as much.

Then I look back and remember that he still hasn't figured out how to put his bottle in his mouth. At least I'm good for something!

I'm going to start sleeping with my camera

because I really wished I had it last night!

Brody has started sleeping on his side. We lay him on his back and about 20 minutes later he's on his side. This was one of the first signs that he's getting strong enough to move the way he wants.

Then, last night, I woke up in the middle of the night. Thanks to our really awesome video monitor, I peeked in on Brody. What did I see? An EMPTY crib! Or at least that's all the video camera could see. I dashed out of bed and ran to his nursery.

He was peacefully sleeping on the other half of the crib with his feet facing to the top of the bed and his head towards the bottom. I just sat there thinking, how the heck did he get like this?

Then, a couple hours later, I heard him. He was just making noise in his sleep, but I checked the monitor just in case. All of a sudden he looked like his head was towards the top of the crib. So I lay there in my sleepy state, thinking, "did he really turn around again? or was I imagining it a few hours ago?"

So I went into his room. He was now sideways in his crib! Then I realized I was looking at the monitor wrong, his head wasn't at the top, it was on the right side of the crib (it's hard to think straight at 3 am!)

This morning Jason and I were wishing our video monitor also recorded. It would have been hilarious to see how he managed to make his way around the crib last night.

Just like his daddy

He'll fall asleep anywhere! His teacher did assure us that they put him in his crib right after snapping a quick picture.

Where's my baby?

These days, I'm starting to wonder if I even have a child?! If it weren't for onsite daycare, I'd never get to see Brody.

Last night I didn't get home from work until 7:15. I was so sad that I missed the evening with him. When I got home he was still in his carseat, sound asleep.

Brody still isn't napping well at daycare. So he's started a pattern of falling asleep on the car ride home. He'll then sleep until 7pm when we wake him up for bath/bottle/bed. After about 45 minutes of time with him, he's down for the night again.

While this means that I really don't miss anything when I work late and yes, we get more time to get stuff done around the house. But I really miss my baby!

My morning drop offs now include more playtime (and thus getting up to my desk later) and my daycare lunch break is getting longer as well. I definitely can't wait for the weekend when I can have him all day!

Wordless Wednesday

Just like his mommy

Looking at Brody we aren't quite sure who he looks like. He has resemblances of both of us, but is definitely cuter than either of us! Now personality-wise...he's definitely starting to take after his Mom.

Even in utero we saw signs Brody of acting like me. Now, whether it is because he spends all day with me or his DNA, Brody has a lot of characteristics that I can relate to.

-He's already sleeping 8-9 hours many nights. Then he proceeds to take many naps during the day. Just like mommy, he loves his sleep.

-Once, we tried to wake him from a nap at 7:30pm so he wouldn't have trouble going to bed. BIG mistake. He loves his sleep and is cranky if he doesn't get enough. That was one of the crankiest evenings with him. Just ask my parents, or Jason for that matter, I'm very cranky when I don't get enough sleep.

-He loves to cuddle, but he loves his space. As he gets stronger, he's becoming more independent. When he wants to stretch his legs he will make it known. He'll fuss and fuss until you let him sit or stretch the way he wants.

I'm still hoping there are other traits he doesn't inherit. If his hand-eye coordination ends up as bad as mine, J will lose his hope of a baseball player!

Brody is 8 weeks old

Brody is 8 weeks old today! He's celebrating his very first St. Patrick's Day today, decked out in a festive onsie. This is a very fitting holiday for our little leprechaun, since not only does his name come from irish origin but he comes from a strong irish background with a grandfather who is 100% irish.

This week Brody started sleeping through the night, we believe due to keeping him swaddled at night. I'm hoping it will stick and he'll keep sleeping 8-9 hours each night. On top of his long night of sleep, he's been going back to sleep until late morning. Just as I thought I had his scheduled figured out, he switched it up on me. So we spend the afternoons playing now instead of the mornings.

Brody had his first outside adventures this week due to the beautiful weather we've been seeing. First we bundled him up and took him out in the backyard. It was only in the 50s, so we had lots of layers on him, including his new Brewers sweatshirt that is a little big but perfect to keep him warm.

Then, since the weather continued to be warm, we went on a couple of walks this week. He still loves the stroller, but doesn't love the sun in his eyes. Unfortunately the sunglasses we got him don't fit his head very well, so we keep the visor over his eyes to block the sun -- adjusting it every few blocks when we switch direction.

There were no major developmental milestones this week, but he continues to get stronger each day and smiles a lot. He holds his head up better and better each day. He's very active and doesn't like to sit still much. He'd rather look around at new things and use his legs to push upwards, in his "standing" pose. So I am cherishing the cuddle time as much as I can get it!

The secret to my success

Swaddling!

Well, it really is no secret. Many mom's today swaddle their babies, there are books about it and nurses show you how to do it in the hospital. However, we were slow learners. (For those who don't know, swaddling is just a way to wrap babies in a blanket so they are snug - making them feel safe and secure)

When we first brought Brody home, we swaddled him properly with his arms wrapped up. He began to fight us on this and really liked to have his arms free. He looked adorable sleeping with his arms above his head, so we swaddled him leaving his arms out instead. He was sleeping great in his newborn napper since it was small and kept him snug. Then, he outgrew the napper. So we moved him to the bigger part of his pack n play. We went back to waking up every 3 hours.

Then I decided to begin swaddling his arms down again. His sleep stretches increased. All of a sudden, one night I woke up after 8 hours, shocked. He was still sleeping! He was still wrapped up tightly sleeping away. (Picture quality isn't great, it was my dark & on my camera phone)

The next night, he woke up after only 4 hours. I checked in on him and found him like this:

My little houdini escaped his swaddle. After about a week of long sleep stretches when he was swaddled, and shorter sleep stretches when his hands escaped, we looked for another solution. We went shopping and bought a swaddle blanket that velcros closed so our little escape artist would stay snug all night long.

So far...it appears to be helping. He even slept for 9 hours two nights in a row!

Now, I will add that all babies are different and we're lucky to have a good sleeper. We're just finding the combination that works well for him. Aside from the swaddle, the temperature and humidity also seem to affect his sleeping.