8 weeks

guess what!! last night he slept 6.5 hours!!! ZOMG!! he went to sleep at 11pm and woke up at 5:30am, i was so shocked. except i woke up at 2am and every hour thereafter wondering when he would wake up!! so i didn't sleep that well, but hopefully this means it's the start of sleeping longer. although, his sleeping pattern is pretty erratic because the night before that, he was up every 2 hours. that was very very horrible. j's theory is that it is because he was gassy due to the milkshake i had at dinner. the previous time he woke up every 2 hours we had garlic fries during dinner and he thinks it was because of that. who knows, but i am going to avoid those things now!

anyways, the baby is starting to get less fussy thank goodness. he still has his days once in a while though. at least he'll finally sit in his swing or bouncy seat, but you can only put him in there when he's content or tired/drowsy. if you put him in there when he's unhappy, it won't make him happy (unfortunately!!) too bad there isn't a magical device that will turn off crying - if i could invent one i'm sure i would make a fortune! =)

right now he likes to be held A LOT, so most of the time he is in my arms. i guess that is normal? (i have no clue...) but it's veeery tiring, especially since he's getting so big. our rough estimate is that he is now 14-15 lbs! (i weighed myself on a scale and then weighed myself plus the baby to figure out his weight) i also wish it was easier to put him to sleep. i have to rock him for a loong time before he'll fall asleep. one night i rocked him so much it made me fall asleep but he was still awake, oy.

it seems all i ever talk about is bad things hunh? well, hmm. umm. it's great to hear him coo and see him smile, but that only happens probably 1-2 hours of the day, so uh, the rest of the time isn't very fun. BUT i've read that the first 3 months are the hardest and it only gets better! we'll see.

7 weeks

I think the baby has finally started settling down, the fussiness isn't as bad anymore. The sleep book I'm reading says babies start getting really fussy from week 2-6 and reach peak fussiness around week 6 (sooo true!). I also read somewhere that this is when infant homicide is the highest. I read this to j, and he said "homicide??" in an incredulous voice as if that was totally crazy. On Sat, he watched the baby for a few hours at night so I could get some sleep, and he came to bed saying "I totally wanted to strangle Ryan!" heh...I said "That's how I've been feeling the last few weeks!!" While he's at work I would send him many messages like: "omg i'm going crazy" etc...now he knows what i have to deal with THE WHOLE DAY while he is at work. Anyways, I hope the worse is over. Can you believe we even had thoughts of Ryan being an only child?? =P

Our next challenge is getting the baby to sleep longer. In the sleep book, it says from week 6-8 they should start sleeping 5-6 hours at night. I don't know if Ryan will be hitting that milestone any time soon =( He JUST started sleeping 4 hours at a time, so it might be a while. We'll see...I'm already happy he's going 4 hours, 5-6 hours would be heaven!!

Ryan's eating has started to slow down so I've had to pump to get all my milk out, otherwise it gets reaaaally uncomfortable. Now we have an abundant supply in the fridge. We're trying to train Ryan to take a bottle now, but he's still not very good at it. So we're going to give him a bottle every night and hopefully he'll get better at it without having half the contents on his clothes!

Can you believe if I just took the standard maternity leave, I would have been back to work last week?? So crazy. I'm glad I am able to stay home for a few months with Ryan before going back to work.

6 weeks old

i had my OB appt last thurs and the dr said everything healed up nicely, yay. except i don't really feel 100% but it's definitely much better than before.

the baby is still as fussy as ever, but i think i'm learning ways to soothe him. his sleeping habits are still not very good though. i've read so many sleeping books trying to find ways to get him to sleep longer but basically right now he's still too young to try most of the sleep training methods. i guess i'm just impatient but i think it's important to have a well rested child and regular schedule. i guess for now i just have to continue to suffer until he's around 3 months old. the last 3 nights were rough, instead of making progress he regressed, waking up several times at night. i have a feeling it's been due to gas, so we just have to do a better job of burping him. i wonder if the food i eat can also make him gassy. hmmm. i've also been eating a lot of sugar to cope with my tired-ness. i bought 4 bags of candy from target! eek. halloween is a bad time of year for me =) perhaps all the sugar i'm intaking is also affecting him?? every night it takes a loooong time to put him down to bed because it seems like he's totally wide awake. anyways, other than the sleep problems and general fussiness, he's been a great baby. he's starting to coo and smile more. i don't think he's eating as much as he used to, so i don't think he's gaining weight as rapidly as before. it's so fun to feel his fat rolls, sooo soft. j's parents are coming to visit on fri for a week so i'll have some help then. i need to take my car in for a smog check and renew my driver's license!