3 months

Baby is now 3 months old...after that 8 hour stretch that one time he kind of regressed and went back to 5 hours! but now he's back to 6-7 hours and i'm hoping it stays that way (or gets longer). he's still not really doing anything new, he smiles more and likes to look around a lot. he gets super fussy right before naptime, so i'm going to have to try some stuff out to try to avoid that crying/screaming period.

only one more month to go for my maternity leave! i guess i'm going to try out the working/watching baby at the same time, but i don't know how well that will work out. i should probably maybe start looking for a nanny, but i'm lazy. i would prefer to have someone that speaks chinese, but i don't know if i would trust an asian grandma. so i think i'm looking for someone that is young-ish with childcare experience.

i'm also starting to have craaazy thoughts about having a 2nd baby sooner rather than later. i kind of just want to get it over with! is that crazy?? i think yes, but since i have no clue what it will be like to have a toddler, maybe it's better to just do it and hope for the best =) we'll suffer for a little bit, but maybe it won't be so bad??????? and i think most likely we'll only have 2. i would like 3, but monetarily speaking, it's definitely more practical to just have 2. even if we have 2 boys...wah. we'll see though...maybe we'll have a large age gap if we decide to go for a 3rd. we'll see we'll see. i soooo hope the 2nd child is a girl so i won't have to think about a 3rd haha

2 months

oh dear, i have been so neglectful of my baby blog!! i actually forgot it existed...oops!! so at his 2 month appt his weight was 14 lbs 14 oz (97th percentile) and height 22.25 inches (20 something percentile). yikes! He also got his first set of shots (3 of them) and he cried sooo much. the poor thing. the rest of the day and the next day it seemed like he was crying more, my poor poor baby. i don't look forward to the rest of the shots.

when he was a little over 2 months he started sleeping 5-6 hours during his longest stretch of sleep at night. last night he slept 8 hours!! yay!! the bad part is that i was horribly engorged and it was painful. i actually woke up before him so i could pump.

other than that, not much new to report. he still isn't very excitng yet. he will smile at you and coo and gurgle if he's in a good mood =)

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!

4 weeks / 1 month old!

one week older, but not much has changed. every night i hope that he'll sleep one hour extra but i am always disappointed. one night he ended up waking every 2 hours, 12am 2am 4am 6am 8am...that sucked considering each feeding is half an hour and then half an hour to fall asleep. bleh. and during the day i am constantly having to hold him!! when he is awake, he can't be content just chillin, laying around and playing. after a few minutes he'll start crying so i'll have to rock him/bounce him, soooo tiring. i just wish i could figure out why the heck he is crying after i've just changed his diaper, he ate already, and he has been burped!! the swing and playmat don't seem to interest him right now. i'm going to try the bouncy seat next week, but omg i can't get anything done during the day. those few precious minutes/hours that he is asleep in the crib (sometimes he won't even sleep there, he'll fall sleep on my chest and then wake up once i put him down in the crib) i can finally go use the restroom, eat, drink water, do laundry. sigh. what have i gotten myself into?? i'm really hoping it gets easier as he gets older...i've only been alone with him a few days and i'm already frustrated/sick of it. =/ i can totally see how people can get the baby blues, taking care of a newborn is HARD! last night i even mentioned to j, perhaps we should just have one child...oy. everyone says the first few months are the hardest, so i guess i just need to get through it. the first month passed fairly quickly, so hopefully the next one will too! i look forward to the weekends when both j and i are at home so at least i can fob the baby off onto daddy for a little bit.

baby is getting chubby but it is very cute. his skin is super soft and it's fun to rub. he got his first bath last weekend and i'll be giving him a bath every 2-3 days. he seems to enjoy it, he doesn't cry at least! ok...baby is crying....again. wahh..time to go!

3 weeks old

the baby is 3 weeks old already, time seems to pass by a lot faster than when i was pregnant hehe. not really much has changed with baby. his umbilical cord finally fell out a few days ago. omg, he's the noisiest sleeper!! he makes lots of snorts, wheezes, sighs while he is sleeping and it makes it really hard for me to fall back asleep after his feedings. he had his dr appt on tues and he is now 10lbs 2.5oz (75 percentile)!! he's been waking up every 3 hours like clockwork at night to eat (although one night it was every 2 hours which was sooo tiring). each feeding takes about 30-45 mins and then it takes me about 30-60 mins to fall back asleep so i really only get about 1-2 hours of sleep in between. i'm getting sooo sick of all this feeding, i don't really see it as a bonding experience yet =/ i think the hardest part for me is being woken up during my deep sleep and then watching j and tofu sleep so peacefully while i'm stuck tending to the baby. ugh. my issue is not really a lack of sleep because i'm rested enough to be awake during the day with a 1-2 hr nap, it's the interrupted sleep and trying to clear my foggy head while baby is screaming at me. not fun. sigh. i'm REALLY looking forward to when he's older when he doesn't have to eat as much and can sleep longer through the night. i REALLY hope it's soon!

about me, i'm still slooowwly recovering. it kind of sucks that even after 3 weeks i'm still not 100%. i'm so impatient! it still hurts to lift my leg up (like when putting on pants). and since our bed is so high, we had to put my step aerobic apparatus next to my side of the bed so i can get in and out of bed more easily. so sad. and it still feels kind of funny to walk around, but i've kind of been forcing myself to do it (like taking tofu for her walk) in hopes that it'll speed up my recovery. i'm definitely hoping in another 3 weeks when I have my OB visit i'll be back to normal. supposedly you can start exercising 2 weeks after having a vaginal birth, but uhh, i don't see any exercising in my future. luckily i've lost most of my weight, just have 5 lbs to go. once i'm fully recovered i'll definitely need to do some kind of stomach exercises since there is some loose skin there. i tried on a pair of my jeans and they buttoned up, but they were really tight and i had a nice muffin top =/ my belly button looks really weird and wrinkly and i also still have my linea negra, not a pretty sight.

oy..i guess this post has been very complainy. hopefully before i know it, several weeks will have passed and all of these problems will be a distant memory =)

2 weeks old

baby is such a hungry monster, he eats A LOT. at our 2 day appt after we were discharged from the hospital (thurs 8/28), he was down to 6 lb 12 oz because my milk still had not come in yet, so he lost almost 10% of his birth weight (7 lb 6.2oz). so they asked us to come back on sat 8/30 to check our progress. at that appt he was up to 7 lb 3 oz. typical weight gain is only 1/2 oz to 1 oz a day, so he gained 7 oz in 2 days!! j was in disbelief and thought the scale must have been wrong haha we had another weight check on wed 9/3 and he was up to 7 lb 14 oz. another 11 oz in 4 days!! if he continues that kind of growth he's going to be sooo fat =P we have our first pediatric appt on 9/16 so we'll see how his weight is then.

so far everything is going ok...sleeping 2-3 hours at a time sucks though. ugh. i'm looking forward to when i can get 4-5 hours!! also, the baby gets suuuper fussy sometimes and won't go down to sleep. like today he was up from 11am til around 5pm!! it was so tiring trying to figure out what he wanted. i'm just glad it was during the day and not during the night. i think it was because he was hot and it was uncomfortable to sleep but who knows. it was nice that both of us were home so i could pass him off to j when i was tired/given up. good thing my mom will be helping out for the next 2 weeks when j goes back to work, but after that i'll be on my own..eek.

the baby fell asleep on my tummy today and it made me think, wow just 2 weeks ago the baby was inside my stomach and not on top of it! i still can't believe he came out of me haha

one week old

the baby is now a little over a week old and we're slowly getting used to getting 2-3 hours of sleep at a time. it's very tiring oy. it seems like the baby sleeps more during the day than at night. my theory is that the heat wave makes him drowsy and sleepy but i have read somewhere that babies tend to be more active in the night. This is because when they were in the womb all the motions you do during the day rock the baby to sleep so they are usually more active at night. anyways, i'll try to update the blog more often when i have more to write, right now the baby just sleeps and eats...not very exciting. oh, he poops and pees a lot :)

baby is here!

ok i guess this is a little late, but in case you didn't know, the baby arrived on 8/24 2:12pm. You can find out more info about it at our homepage..link is on the right.