Early To Bed

Today was kind of opposite day over here... Usually Ayden has a great morning then has a rough afternoon but today was the opposite. I finally got him to nap in the Moby and when he woke up he was in a stellar mood. Just goes to show that when you think you have them all figured out they are quick to remind you who is really running the show :).

Fatigue has really hit me this week. I've had pretty bad headaches the past couple of nights and it's getting harder and harder to wake up throughout the night. We usually watch Netflix before bed while Ayden nurses and sleeps. Tonight we are skipping Netflix and are already in bed. Ayden is nursing as I type this (left handed on my phone none the less...) and as soon as he's asleep I'm going to follow suit hopefully achieving at least 3 hours of sleep. Wish me luck!!

Sleep Solutions

From about our third night home, we've been pretty lucky with Ayden's nighttime sleep schedule.  Like I've mentioned before, he usually sleeps in 3 hour stretches and he definitely has his days and nights in the right order which is AWESOME!  He also wakes up in the best mood after a good night (there are still a few rough ones every now and then...).  This morning he gave David so many big smiles before he left for work.  Such a great way to start the day!

Morning smiles are the BEST these days!

Our only sleep problem is with nap times during the day.  If I am wearing him in the Moby or Ergo, he'll sleep for hours.  I love wearing him as it's nice to have him close and snuggly and I don't have to worry about running to check on him or carrying around the monitor.  My only issue with wearing him is that my upper back gets very fatigued after 6 or so hours wearing him throughout the day (broken by a feeding or two) and he's only going to get heavier!  This week I am starting to try to get him to nap a little on his own.  Today after he had been awake for most of the morning, I decided to swaddle him before a feeding, then I fed him and bounced him to sleep on our stability ball (works even better than our glider).  I laid him down and he slept for about 10 minutes and then his eyes were wide open like he'd never even been asleep. 

Before waking up from his disco nap...

I had thought that he was sleeping so well at night because I was swaddling him and wearing him gives the same sensation as swaddling too I'm sure.  I thought surely he'd get a nice nap if swaddled during the day but I was wrong so we are back to the drawing board.  I will continue to try to get him to nap on his own everyday and then resort to the Moby when/if it doesn't work.  Any suggestions on getting a 1 month old to nap without sensory input (ie. bouncing, swinging, wearing, etc.)?  He obviously can sleep without is since he does at night.  Is it just still a little too early to have such an expectation?  Hopefully we'll get it figured out before he weighs 20 lbs!  :)

~Sarah

Sunday Funday

Our weekend fun is definitely looking different these days...

We stayed up late on Friday and Saturday night and I am feeling it!  It used to be no big deal because if we went to bed at midnight, we'd just sleep until 9 or 10 and think nothing of it.  Now if we go to bed at midnight, then endure the nighttime changing/feeding routine and then wake up at 8 or so for the day, it makes for a groggy Sunday and a major headache.  Lesson learned.  I also think that contributed to our rough day yesterday.  I guess even babies as young as our little man appreciate routine.  Next weekend we are going to experiment with keeping our weekday sleep schedule during the weekend.  Hopefully we'll all come out feeling more rested.

Hanging out in bed this morning.

Speaking of routine, Ayden seems to enjoy looking out the window in the mornings and it's become part of our morning routine.  After I change and feed him once we're up for the day, I put him back in his bed, open the curtains and push him over to the window.  He proceeds to stare out for the next 20 minutes or so and is in such a happy mood during this time (this is when I get the most smiles).  I looked from his perspective to see what was so amazing and I think that the blinds and the light that comes through between make for a pretty cool high contrast pattern for him :).  

Window Time!

Today was grocery day.  Ayden slept in the Ergo on David as per usual and the trip went well.  Our grocery cart was INSANE!  We're trying a semi-paleo diet and I've never seen a cart filled to the brim with produce like ours was today.  It felt really good to stand back and look at it knowing all of those nutrients were going to be fueling our bodies all week.  "Let thy food be thy medicine," right??  Maybe I'll do a couple of recipe posts soon...

I hope everyone had a fun weekend and here's to a great week!  

Good night!

~Sarah

4 Weeks Old!!!

What??? 4 weeks already?!?

I asked David yesterday if he could believe that it had been four weeks already. He said yes and no... The labor that we went through seems so far away and surreal but our time with Ayden has seemed to just fly by.

Snoozing with Daddy this morning

Today was a very fussy day. I tried to stop block feeding and don't think we were ready for that (his poop also turned back to green today). I can't say it enough but I am so grateful and lucky to have a husband who is so involved and helpful on days like today. I definitely have a whole new respect for single parents.

We have tried out a couple more of his big boy cloth diapers. I really like the Best Bottoms. We have both hemp and Stay-dry soakers and as of now I like them equally. They are a bit bulky (as all one size diapers are guaranteed to be on our eight pounder) but we didn't need the cross over snaps. This makes me think that they may have fit him as a seven pound baby. They just would have been so bulky we would have had to skip on newborn clothing.

Best Bottom

We also tried our Itti Bitti Tutto. It is so soft and snuggly but I'm not so sure about the so called "patented poo fence.". Ayden's poops aren't blow out quality quite yet but the one he had while wearing that diaper made it past the poo fence and almost out of the leg gusset. We'll definitely be wearing it again but that so called poo fence needs to keep the poo in check!

Itti Bitti Tutto

The last diaper that we tried this week was his Charlie Banana. He's only worn it once but so far it gets an A+. Not TOO bulky for a one size and I really like the new bra strap like elastic for sizing. It came very clean in the wash and air dried very quickly. We did need the cross over snaps on this diaper but I still feel it would have fit him earlier. I had heard that the fact that the opening for the insert is in the front was annoying for boys but that didn't bother me at all.

Charlie Banana

I'm definitely having fun trying out all this fluff for the first time but we are still using pre-folds for the majority of the time. His newborn clothing gets very snug when he's wearing his pockets and hybrids. I would go ahead and put him in 0-3 month but the arms and legs would be way too long and he's also still pretty skinny in the mid section. So until he grows a bit more, we'll just try them out around the house where I can leave the crotches of his sleepers unsnapped. :)

Unsnapped crotches are in this season...

~Sarah

Lessons In Efficiency

Here I am, 4 weeks into mommy-hood and already learning lessons from Ayden.

Before he got here my days were free and relaxed. We did this on purpose so I could have a low stress pregnancy and so I would have adequate time to prepare and rest. You'd think my free days would have been filled with productivity, right? The thing is, having a day without a schedule or structure would often lead to letting an entire day pass without doing a single thing. "I have all day, I'll do it after I watch this (or 10) YouTube video(s)...". I would always accomplish more on days when I had an appointment or something that made me think, "Okay, I have 30 minutes to complete x, y and z" and I'd knock it all out.

Since becoming a mommy, my whole day is a race against the clock. "Okay, I have an hour until his next feeding, I need to dust and vacuum" or "He could wake up any second, I should switch over the laundry..." etc, etc, etc. Because of this constant race against time I have automatically become a more efficient and productive person (I don't know if my house ever stayed this tidy for this long!).

It's amazing to think that such a tiny person can have such an impact on who you are. I know that he has even more in store for me in the years to come and I am so eager to learn.

All Smiles!!

Well... At least in the mornings ;).

Ayden gave David his first social smile on Valentine's night and it was so cute. He then gave me a little one the next day but we couldn't get him to repeat it on either occasion. Then today happened...

We were up for the morning and I had nursed him the put him back in his bed awake while I made our bed, opened the curtains and such. When I was done I went back over to him to say hi and he looked right at me and gave me the biggest smile. Talk about melting my heart! I quickly grabbed my phone and mustered the silliest voice I could in hopes to catch another sweet smile on video. He did not disappoint.

 After promptly sending the video to David and our families (isn't that what anyone would do??) I went to get our DSLR and that's when I got these shots.

You want to know the best part? These smiles were induced by my kisses. I think I've fallen in love with him all over again <3

~Sarah

What To Wear?

This morning I got up before Ayden again.  I started a load of diaper laundry and cleaned up the aftermath from our Valentine dinner and then I heard him start to cry on the monitor.  I went and scooped him up, smothering his chubby cheeks with good morning kisses and then he fell right back to sleep before we even made it downstairs...  Sometimes you just need a cuddle I suppose.

Snoozing while I made breakfast.

I didn't have much on my to do list today since the house has stayed pretty tidy (it seems to be easier when you just stay on top of it! Who would have thought?!?) so my only to do's were to put away some clean laundry and venture out to the mall to exchange some nursing tops. 

Since Ayden weighed in at over 8lbs at our midwife appointment on Monday, I decided to give some of his big boy diapers a try.

Gro Via Hybrid

We tried it out all day and overall I really like it.  Though it looked very bulky, it fit well enough to catch anything he threw at it.  The inserts caught everything nicely so the shell stayed clean, which is a very nice feature in a hybrid.  I think as he grows, and it becomes less bulky, this will be a diaper we reach for often.  Now I'm just crossing my fingers that I don't somehow ruin it in the wash (I had a situation with our Lil' Joey's that's made me paranoid)!  Maybe we'll give our Best Bottoms a try tomorrow...

After we worked on the laundry, restocked all of the diaper stations with clean pre-folds (we have 3, one in his bedroom, one in our bedroom and one downstairs in our pack n' play) we took a nap then headed to the mall.  I'm a big people watcher so it was nice to finally venture out to a place with so many people.  Ayden really enjoyed the bumpy tile floors :).

He looks so tiny!  

 He was content, just looking at all the sky lights for a while and then he fell asleep and stayed like that until after we got home.

After walking around for a little while, we made it to Motherhood Maternity where I had purchased some nursing tanks at the end of my pregnancy.  On my due date, actually :).  My pregnant self tried on the tanks and determined that I would need mediums.  Then my non-pregnant self tried them on after having the baby and they were like tents...  They no longer carried the style nursing tank that I wanted so I decided to exchange them for actual nursing tops.  Before today, I only had three that I was rotating (with a few non-nursing tops here and there).  I now have seven... That's one for every day of the week :).  

My four new tops

It was my lucky day because Motherhood was having sales on nursing tops.  Buy one get one free on clearance items and buy one get one half off for regular priced items.  I went in with 3 nursing tanks and came out with four tops and only had to pay $2.30 for the difference.  Not bad!! These are all the kind you pull down so they are a little difficult to nurse discretely in.  I will definitely need to remember to pack the nursing cover.  I bought tanks because I like to layer with cardigans in the winter and also so they'll easily carry over into Spring and Summer.  

When we got home we walked the dog with David (the weather is still uncharacteristically warm for February here) and then we all made dinner together.  

We love the Ergo!

Did you invest in a nursing wardrobe?  Do you have any tricks for making your pre-pregnancy clothes work for nursing?

~Sarah