Porter | Six weeks

I really don't have much to say this week. Promise;)

Biggest thing to note is that Porter is still sleeping really freaking well at night. He has done twice-nightly wake ups more often than not, since the day we brought him home from the hospital. And then this week, he even showed off by waking just one time at 3:45am on Wednesday night!!! Seriously glorious, although this was a one-time stunt and my boobs almost exploded in the process. Kind of a big milestone to wake just once though! That would have been an 8 hour stretch without eating for him. Woah. He is now sleeping in his co-sleeper and not the MamaRoo, so we are working our way to being a big boy with sleeping location;)

(note the grin)



Looks so big here!

Naps are still all over the place and seriously, this kid wants to be held for all attempts at napping. Even putting him in the swing will mean a short 20 minute nap. But wearing him in the Ergo, or just carrying him around/sitting with him while he snoozes? The child could sleep for ages, easily 2 hours or more. It's anyone's guess as to when he will be sleeping at any given time, although it seems like he is sort of going to bed around 8pm each night. Which also happens to be when his very loud siblings are asleep and quiet. Go figure;)

(I die over this picture)

More on this baby carrying business...this week I walked with all three kids to the playground twice. I had Porter in the Ergo and pushed T and C in the double BOB and so we were out and about for a solid 1.5-2 hours each time. Little buddy did not make a peep until the very end of these excursions. Also we went to the zoo again as a family and he slept in the Ergo non-stop there, too.

(napping while mommy makes a busy bag for a blogger swap)




Car rides still pretty much suck, but sometimes he will hold back on the hysterics for the first 10 minutes of a ride. I took him out of the van once we arrived at Lori's to pick up the big kids one afternoon, and brought him inside to visit and get a change of scenery. That seemed to help him avoid an epic meltdown while he waited in the van for me, since I think he really hates to stop moving once we are driving. Also, having Truman available to hold the pacifier in Porter's mouth will sometimes help cut back on the tears. On my days at home with all three kids we basically plan our activities based around where we can walk to avoid the van at all costs. Just not worth the terrible screaming!

(attempting this little white noise sound mating thing, and it *might* help a little bit.)


Porter is nursing really well and fairly often, but he does like to snack and fall asleep mid-suck throughout the day. If I were trying to set any sort of schedule with his eating and napping it would be really difficult because he does these little partial feeds all day long sometimes. But really, he is a great little nurser and doesn't spit up much, seems content after a feed, and I can tell when he is hungry and fussy versus just tired and fussy. Big time!

Sometimes when I wake up and look at Porter, I swear that he has grown overnight. His acne is gone all of a sudden and it was totally there just last weekend. His head looks bigger (and is nearing the size of Cecelia's already, seriously!) and he just looks so much older than his six weeks of life on this earth. Like a real baby and not as much of a squishy, wrinkly, pathetic newborn. Don't get me wrong, he is still perfectly pathetic and helpless but he's much more alert and SMILING all of the time at me, and OMG. I can barely handle him. He's just the best and his head smells like a dream. Trust me on that one.

(I mean...)




He is still incredibly chill so if he's crying, he is probably hungry or tired. If he is just tired and sort of doesn't know what to do with himself, needing encouragement to fall asleep, a few things work like magic. First, he loves being swaddled. He also loves to be carried, loves his pacifier (needs it to be held in his mouth at times, very high maintenance-hehe), and will calm down with 'shhhhhh'ing. He might need to be burped and may be working on a wicked poop if he's still grunty and irritated but usually it's not too difficult to calm this child. Please don't jinx me, dear internet. I'm just reporting on how it's going right now but I know it may change!




Comparing:

Cecelia's six week post: ah, yes. The bottle wars, a baby that was spitting up huge amounts of milk, wasn't quite as fussy anymore but I realized week four was the pits, and sleep regression. THANK YOU LORD that none of this applies to CC's little brother right now. Of course, the good things about that post were that I was already running (huh? I thought I was a rule follower and waited until six weeks exactly) and had 134 oz in my freezer stash. Woah. I know I've been slacking about pumping but I just counted it up and I think I'm at 88 oz this time. Which is still great and all but now I'm feeling competitive with my old self...because I DID use every ounce at the end of the year mark and avoided supplementing with formula because of my breastmilk stash. Gah. Oh well, I still hate pumping too much to care at the moment.

Truman's six week post: wow, overachiever Julia! I was already attempting crib naps? Huh. Truman was napping 20 minutes to 1.5 hours at a time and I'm pretty sure Porter naps a lot longer than this time frame. Well, maybe because I'm usually holding my newest baby boy and am not at all concerned about moving him to a crib for naps. I'm not even being strict with laying him down anywhere for naps, let alone the official crib--whatever works at this point! Also, Truman looks like a freaking giant baby in that post already but I was just now starting 0-3 month clothes. Poor dude was probably losing circulation in his NB clothes before this! Plus, I did not even mention nighttime sleep so that's also annoying to me right now---apparently T was doing well? I had no clue that Truman didn't like the pacifier at this age. Really happy Porter is all about it.





(I got the classic sibling-in-diapers shot I wanted!)


My big boy is basically just rocking the six week marker. Can't believe how quickly it's going but at the same time, my pregnancy seems like a different lifetime. And I'm not at all sad about that one.