March 2013 – This Carolina Girl

I can’t believe Dillon is a whole month old. It feels like just yesterday we brought him home from the hospital. So much is happened in one month, I’ve almost forgotten what it was like pre-baby…almost!

Labor and delivery couldn’t have gone better. I was induced at 41 weeks, labored for 9 hours and pushed for 30 minutes, so I really have nothing to complain about. All of the OB’s at our doctor office were impressed by my experience, which makes me feel like a bamf. The only part of labor I was not prepared for was the BUTT PRESSURE. My tailbone 4+ weeks later still hurts. And our nurse (loved her!) was surprised by my ability to pee every 10 minutes. She had never had a laborer request a catheter. During her shift change, she warned the next nurse that anytime I said I had to pee, I really had to go haha! But I can honestly say, labor and delivery is the easy part compared to raising a baby.

**The bags I packed for the hospital…I didn’t use a single thing I’d packed for myself…except my tooth brush. I wore the hospital gowns and disposable underwear the whole time. I did forget to pack boxers for Nate…whoops! So next time, I’ll pack a bag for Nate and that’s it!

The one thing I was nervous about before having our baby was breastfeeding. I’d been told about so many horror stories, I was so freaked out by it. But Dillon latched on within 6 minutes of being in the world and my milk came in that same night! Dillon has been the best eater ever since and with the help of a nipple shield the first 2 weeks, breastfeeding has been a piece of cake. Now we are working on getting on a schedule, longer feedings, and longer times between feedings. Wish us luck.

Sleep. That is what we are missing. I’m sure things could be worse, but I know they could also be better. Right now he sleeps 4 hours, then 3 hours, then maybe 2 hours before he is up in the morning. Sometimes I can rock with him in the glider for another hour or so in the morning. Which is fine with me because I can doze in and out of sleep for a bit. But the 4, 3, 2 for momma is more like… 3, 1, 1…at best. Now that we are past 4 weeks, we’re hoping to see an improvement in the sleep department. We’ve had 2 random nights with a 6 hour stretch…need more of those!

We did manage to move Dillon into his crib at 3 weeks. And he took to it the first night thank goodness. We did this earlier than I thought, but it was a good decision. Incase you didn’t know, babies make a ton of noise when they sleep. Squeaks, coos, and grunts. And it is so hard to get any decent sleep when every noise sends off an awake signal to your brain. So at least the little sleep we do get, is better sleep now.

Dillon loves bath time. I thought he would scream and cry during bath time for a while, but nope, he loves it! Loves naked time and the warm water :). He has great head and neck control already. We can’t believe how strong his neck is this early. He is getting better at tummy time everyday. From week 1 he has loved looking at anything colorful. It is so neat to see his sight gradually improve. Even though he seems to be looking at the same things everyday, we can tell he is able to focus more and more. He has been in size 1 diapers since week 2 and has outgrown newborn clothes and fits in 0-3 and some small 3-6!!

One snag we’ve run into…we noticed his manlyhood still had a…hood. Which is not normal if it has been snipped. Decided to take him in to have it checked, and what do you know, he has to have the circumcision redone. Either soon with a local anesthetic or when he is a year old and will have to be put to sleep. There is a weight limit to doing it now which is 12 lbs. And meatball is a whopping 12 lb 9 oz as of today. So we are crossing our fingers they will make an exception because of how young he is. Either way, I hate to hurt my baby 😦 but we can’t leave his peepee like it is. The bright side is, at least this is a cosmetic issue and not a serious medical problem, so we are thankful for that.

Still haven’t made it back in the kitchen…one day grasshoppers.