Forest at Three Weeks

Oh man. Forest at three weeks means that he’s still a pretty good baby, but last week’s evening woes are carrying over into week three, making everything after 5pm until 10pm a festival of crying, feeding, and diaper changing. If it isn’t umpteen diaper changes in an hour, paused by about a 10 minute session of general contentedness, followed by the need to feed for 15-30 minutes, alternated back again with some diaper changes, punctuated with some more crying that we can’t decide what it means (usually means he’s gonna need a diaper change in the next five minutes…he’s just preparing us in advance), followed by another bit of ‘Oh, maybe I can do some chores for a few minutes”, only to get called back for more crying. He wears us out.

We have a few mini-meltdowns in the middle of the day but that usually just means he needs his diaper changed about five times in an hour. It isn’t unusual to change him and then sit down to feed him or put him back in the swing or Mama-Roo only to have him very vocally tell you that, ‘Oh, just kidding, I pooed last time, but this time I needed to pee.’ This can happen in a five minute period. Let me tell you, I’m looking forward to having him potty trained! As soon as I can get a better grip on things around here and he can hold his head up, I will be introducing the Elimination Communication. The sooner we can work out this diaper thing amongst the evening meltdowns, the better.

Overall, he’s doing really well. I need to be working in more tummy time during the day but by the time I feel like I can do it I’m ready for him to really sleep for his 1-3 hours so I can have some time to myself (Like writing this blog post. My goals for doing more today were dashed. This is what I can realistically aim for today.). I’m getting a little more daring in going out in public with him. To be honest, I was completely scared to go out by myself with him a week ago, the thought perplexed me. So far his only outings have been relatively short, eating out twice, trips to the doctor’s office (for me and for him), a trip to the hospital for his second round of newborn blood testing (OMG, sending a newborn to the general lab area where all other sick people go is completely nerve-wracking. Woman across from us had a 9 month old…who either had ‘asthma or pneumonia, we don’t know’. Um, greeeaaat. Don’t cough over here!).

The trip to the hospital was with my mom, so I had some help. He was in meltdown mode after his heel was pricked for blood—of course!—so we found a spot to nurse him in the hallway corridor where some chairs were set up facing the windows. I had taken a bottle of formula for him but really wanted to nurse him, so I did. It wasn’t too scary and of course it wasn’t a giant public space. Then we went over to Academy so I could get some new running/walking shoes, and hit up Chick-Fil-A after. After I had nursed him at the hospital he went to sleep and all was going swimmingly until I came out of Chick-Fil-A and found him crying in the car with my mom. I pulled off into an adjacent parking lot and changed him but of course the next thing he wanted was to eat and we were still twenty minutes from home. I attempted to drive home but the crying didn’t stop so we pulled over to a gas station and nursed him in the car there. He just needed a 10 minute sip of milk and we were on our way after that. Even if I’d had a bottle I know we’d have had to still pull over because he can’t hold the bottle up himself yet. So, it’s this kind of maneuvering I’m trying to navigate.

Today I went to a breastfeeding support group back at the hospital, which ended up being really nice. I learned a lot of new things, commiserated with everyone else on the 5pm-10pm meltdown situation (we’re not alone, thank goodness!) and then went to Target to pick up a few items. I survived! Of course he didn’t need to nurse after I’d nursed him at the breastfeeding group, so that helped. It’ll be those other longer situations that I’ll have to navigate. I don’t have a large stash of milk built up yet for bottle feedings, but that doesn’t eliminate the fact that I’d still need to pump if I didn’t feed him directly from me. So, I’ll be figuring that one out as time goes on, but for now I know I can at least do short 1-3 hour errands with him. Plus, I’m starting to get stir-crazy around here. I like being at home but there’s only so much a person can take. Yesterday I spent 30 minutes sitting in the garden path, weeding. I was hoping for at least an hour but Forest had something to say about that. Oh well, baby needs food, baby gets food. Having that dose of Vitamin D was wonderful and after getting down and dirty I can’t wait to really start doing more work out there in a few weeks. I’ve got to figure out how to bring Forest out so he can hang out but not get bit up by mosquitoes.

Anyway, it was a big week last week. My mom was here to help out for the week since Chris returned to work and then over the weekend my brother, sister-in-law, Zoe, and Grayson came to visit. It was a little stressful at first having a whole houseful of people, and Chris and I were pretty tired, but we were glad to introduce Forest to everyone. I think Zoe really loves her cousin and will be happy to play with him when he’s a little less fragile. Grayson, well, he’s interested but not so interested yet. I think those two, when Forest’s bigger, will be a handful!

Anyway, here’s some more photos from the week: