Week 6 - Very Different!

Week 6 - Very Different!
(9/20/09 - 9/26/09)

If I have been told once I have been told a million times that every child is different! The past few weeks have been pretty similar to what I remember from Jacob. Andrew doesn't sleep quite as well as Jacob but isn't a horrible sleeper so I can't complain. Overall Andrew is a very easy child, he does cry (what baby doesn't) but most of the time you can pinpoint what is making him cry and it is the usual culprits of hungry, dirty, gassy, etc....

This week though I started trying to figure out how I can get Andrew to sleep better. I do feel that Andrew doesn't nurse as well as I would like him to. Even though he is gaining weight like a champ he doesn't latch well and gets a lot of air in his tummy during feeding. Which ends up with a 20+ minute burp session where most of the time we still don't get all of the bubbles out. So this tends to make Andrew a light sleeper because 40 minutes later he could have another burp that will wake him up.

I do the proper thing of putting him on his back to sleep and that is fine but this week after 40 minutes of hearing him grunt and squirm at 3 am trying to get a bubble up, I said heck with it and put him on his side to sleep. I noticed that he could burp more easily and he seemed to quiet down. I also noticed that I could have him on his tummy on my chest and he could sleep for hours but once I move him to his back he would wake up within a few minutes of a good sleep. So during the day I have been putting him occasionally on his tummy to sleep. All of these things seem to help him sleep more soundly. I don't think he has reflux as he isn't showing the signs of that, I just think we need to get him to eat without getting so much air.

Jacob wouldn't have laid on his stomach for a million dollars! And this baby LOVES his stomach that alone is crazy for Paul and I! We fought and fought with Jacob for tummy time and ended up just giving up after a few months, luckily Andrew will be a lot easier but now I wonder if he will crawl before Jacob and do other "tummy strength" items sooner as well!

Week 5 - Visiting with family

Week 5 - Visiting with family!
(9/13/09 - 9/19/09)

This week was a good week, the sleeping is starting to get better and two or three nights this week we have gotten two 3 hour blocks of sleep at night. Although his first 3 hour sleep has been starting at around 7:00pm so I can't take advantage of it since Jacob doesn't go to bed until between 8:30-9:00. But then with a 2nd 3 hour sleep that I can take advantage of I am starting to feel more and more human. It will only get better from here. I have in Jacob's baby book that he starting sleeping in 5 hour increments at around 6-7 weeks old. So I am crossing my fingers.

Andrew is also staying more awake and is getting more and more alert. He will occasionally make eye contact although isn't doing it constantly yet, that will come more in the upcoming weeks. We also got Andrew a minor surgery this week for a family trait that him and his brother had. They were both "tongue tied" which can affect their eating and speech. So with a very minor procedure and little to no crying we got that taken care of now instead of waiting until he is older and would remember the procedure.

We finally got out of the house this week and visited some family. My mom came up to the house and spent the weekend helping me with Jacob and Andrew, and then this week the boys and I packed up and went to visit the boys Great Grandparents for a few hours.

Jacob, Andrew, and Great Grandma and Pop-Pop

Pop-Pop, Great Grandma, and Andrew

Grandma and Andrew

Week 4 - Deja vu!

Week 4 - Deja Vu!
(9/6/09-9/12/09)

This week I had an overwhelming sense of Deja Vu after giving Andrew his bath. With Jacob Paul and I over did it on the photos (as most first time parents do) and I am embarrassed to say that we probably have 300+ photos of Jacob from his first 3 months of life. I knew that I wasn't going to have the time to take that many photos of Andrew but have made a point to take as many as I can especially when a really cute shot presents itself.

I was messing around with my camera the other day and found that it has an option to take photos in sepia or black and white. I of course have had this camera for 2 years and just figured this out, but oh well....

So I saw this great shot appear as Paul was drying Andrew off after his bath and decided to take a pic in "black and white". After I took the shot nothing really came about with it other than a few "oohs and aahs" about how cute Andrew looked. Then today I went to take the pics off of the camera and put them onto the computer and when the image from bathtime was on the screen in a larger format I instantly got a sense of Deja Vu.....I felt like I had seen this picture before.

Now Paul and I think that Andrew and Jacob look alike in many ways. Their coloring is different which keeps some people from seeing the resemblance (Jacob was born a red head and Andrew is dark brown), but their nose, and mouth are definitely the exact and the jury is still out on the eyes because it is too early and Andrew is still too sleepy to really tell. But when I started to check into pics of Jacob from the same age I realized exactly why I was feeling that "deja vu" feeling........can you tell who is who????? One of these pics is Jacob at 6 weeks and the other is Andrew at 3 1/2 weeks!




Answer:
Jacob is the top picture, Andrew is the bottom one! Pretty similar....huh??

Week 3 - Rub a dub dub

Week 3 - Rub a dub dub
(8/30/09 - 9/5/09)

This week was a milestone with Andrew, the first bath!!!! I remember waiting and waiting for Jacob's belly button to fall off so that we could bathe him for the first time and this time around with Andrew it was much of the same thing....waiting.....waiting.....waiting!

It took almost 3 weeks for everything to fall off so that we could give him a bath, and of course like most new babies he cried and screamed when we first put him in the nice warm bath but then quickly realized "Hey this isn't so bad!"

Andrew has also be gaining weight like a champ and is turning into my little chunker which I love! If you compare pictures of him from even 3 weeks ago it is amazing how different he is already! He doesn't sleep great, but I am hoping that it will slowly get better as we get more used to each other and our little idiosyncrasies! Like with Jacob I am having to adjust what I eat because of different items that don't agree with Andrew and being a nursed baby anything that will make his life less "painful" is fine with me even if I have to live on crackers and water for a few months! ((GRIN))