Sleeping and Eating

Unfortunately, Henry is still refusing to nurse. I am now exclusively pumping and giving him breastmilk in a bottle. I am thankful that he is still able to get breastmilk, but I am not sure I will be able to keep up the exclusively pumping gig for much longer. It's nearly impossible to pump when I am home alone with Henry. I have to feed him a bottle and then immediately set him down to pump for 20 minutes. Usually, he starts fussing or crying about halfway through the pumping session, which I either have to cut short or listen to him cry. This happens at least three times during the day while Luke is at work. And it happens more frequently when Luke has to work evenings or has plans away from the house. Also, I was fine feeding Henry out in public, but it's a little more difficult to plan to pump while we are out and about. I still hope that this feeding thing works itself out. I think it will be easier when I go back to work, since I will be mostly pumping then anyway.

Henry has been a little better about napping on his own. Yesterday, he took a three hour nap in his crib! It was great! He still needed to be held for his other naps, but hey, it's progress.

Sleeping at night has gone downhill a little bit. Henry is sleeping a great 4 or 5 hour stretch but then won't really go back to sleep. We put him back down, but he is awake after about 30 minutes. So, we both haven't gotten much sleep past 3:00 AM. I am SO TIRED. I really think the lack of sleep is catching up to me. I am absolutely exhausted. And it is so much harder to comfort a screaming baby when you are sleep deprived.

It's been a rough couple of weeks for us but we are hoping that Henry's sleeping and eating issues get better with each passing day.

Despite the sleeping and eating issues, we have managed to have some fun in the last week. My stepdad, Joel, was a collegiate swimmer and taught both my brother and I how to swim at a young age. He is looking forward to teaching Henry how to swim as well. This past Saturday, Henry and Joel had their first swim lesson! Henry did pretty well, but the pool was kind of cold so he didn't stay in for very long. Sorry for the blurry pictures - we took them with our phone.









I also had to post this picture of a remarkable blowout that Henry had this week. Priceless.



Henry had his two month check-up last week and he now weighs 13 pounds, 14 ounces, keeping him in the 95th percentile for weight. He is also 23 inches long, putting him in the 75 percentile for height. He is huge! He is 100% healthy and we are so thankful for that. We love our big guy.

2 Months

I am sorry to the faithful readers of this blog - it has been far too long since I last posted an update. Forgive me, life has been crazy busy with a newborn baby! I can barely make time to shower, let alone sit down and write out a blog post. :) So, here is a recap of the last two months in our busy lives.

Henry James is just about the cutest baby in the whole world. Of course, Luke and I are a little biased. The last couple of months have been quite the whirlwind. Luke and I have been working hard at learning how to be parents. It's quite the job. A 24/7 job. A 24/7 job that revolves around the demands of another human being. A very demanding little human being. :)

An update on night sleeping: Henry wasn't sleeping very well at first. Around the clock, he would be up every couple of hours to eat. Because I am breastfeeding, there wasn't much Luke could do in the middle of the night when Henry woke up just to eat. So, if Henry woke up to eat and went right back to sleep, Luke was able to sleep through the night. However, it was rare that Henry went right back to sleep after eating. Usually, he would eat and then be awake for an hour or so. So, our routine became that I would wake up and feed Henry for 45 minutes to an hour and then wake up Luke to put Henry back to sleep. This happened every couple of hours. So, needless to say, we weren't getting much sleep. However, over the last few weeks, Henry has been sleeping a longer chuck of time at night. We usually put him to bed around 10 PM and he sleeps soundly until 2 or 3 AM. He then wakes up to eat and we put him back to sleep at 4 AM until about 6:30 AM. Then he is up for the day. At the feeding in the middle of the night, Henry is usually wide awake after I feed him. So, it takes a bit of work for us to get him back down. The magic combination we have found for him sleeping well is a tight double swaddle and a white noise machine. We moved the crib into our room, as it was just much more practical to put him to sleep in a bedroom than the living room. This way, we can put him to sleep and still watch TV or be out in the living room as needed.

An update on naps: Henry is a snuggler. He loves to be held and loves to be in motion. He sleeps very well in the car, in a baby carrier and while being held. This has made it difficult to put him down for naps. He doesn't sleep more than like 10 minutes if I lay him down on his back. His arms and legs flail, startling him awake. I have tried swaddling him for naps as well, but he still doesn't sleep very long this way during the day. I have put him to sleep a couple of times on his stomach and he definitely sleeps better this way. But I am terrified of SIDS so I try to avoid this option as much as possible. Therefore, most of my day is spent holding my sleeping baby. It's wonderful to hold a sleeping baby, but not for an entire day. It makes it impossible to shower, clean, run errands, answer emails, etc. Everyone says to enjoy it for now because soon he won't want to be held anymore. I suppose that is true but at this point it just feels a little inconvenient. I am sure as he gets older, it will be easier for him to sleep on his own. It's just a season.

An update on breastfeeding: As I said in my previous post, breastfeeding has been going really well with the help of a nipple shield. Henry was doing really great eating and had no problems latching on. He is definitely gaining weight and turning out a healthy number of wet and dirty diapers, so I was super happy about that. However, over the last week or so, Henry has been having a really tough time breastfeeding. My pediatrician recommended introducing him to a bottle between 4-6 weeks so that he would be able to take both the bottle and the breast easily. So, around 6 weeks we started giving him a bottle once a day. However, now it's apparent that he prefers the steady flow and ease of bottle feeding. About 3 minutes into nursing, Henry now screams and cries and refuses to nurse. He gets frustrated with the slow and intermittent flow of nursing. It's become rather frustrating for both of us. His refusal to nurse has drastically reduced my milk supply so I have been having to pump to keep it up. Over the last three days, I have literally been pumping after every feeding to increase my milk supply. It hasn't been going well. Henry has only been getting more and more frustrated and adamant about only taking a bottle. We have his two month check up appointment tomorrow, so I plan on asking his pediatrician for advice. I am really disappointed in this turn of events and really hope to find a solution so I don't have to stop breastfeeding. But pumping after every feeding and supplementing just isn't practical. I can't pump when we are out of the house and can't do it while I am alone, since no one else is here to hold Henry. It's been a rough last couple of days, with lots of tears by both me and Henry. But I am thankful that I have been able to breastfeed so far and I really do have hope that Henry and I can turn this around and find a solution.

An update on awake time: Now we get to the good part. After each feeding session (which is every three hours), Henry is awake for about an hour. During this time, Henry is a very happy, smiley baby. He is very interactive and will coo and smile when we talk to him. He is so fun. It's been amazing to watch him discover the world around him. He loves his bouncy seat and play mat and definitely recognizes Luke and I. We can't wait for his awake time to increase so we can play with him more and more.

Henry's "firsts": Henry had a lot of "firsts" these past two months, including his first snowstorm, his first trip on an airplane, his first hotel stay. Seattle had a nasty snow and ice storm in mid-January which kept Henry and I held up at home. The power actually went out for about 24 hours, so we went and stayed in a hotel. We also traveled to Florida at the end of January for a work conference of Luke's with Young Life and Henry did great on the plane and away from home. It has been a busy couple of months! We also have some fun trips to look forward to. In March we are going to Suncadia (a nearby resort) with my family. In April we are traveling to Ohio to visit Luke's extended family. And in May we are visiting my sister at college in Santa Cruz. We can't wait!

Overall, we are doing pretty well. Everyone told us that the first two months are the hardest, but we are actually finding that it's getting harder. The last week has been the hardest by far with Henry's eating troubles. With his trouble eating, he has been much fussier and sleeping much worse. I will absolutely switch to formula soon if we can't find a breastfeeding solution. I would rather have a happy, healthy baby that is formula fed than a grumpy, underfed baby.

But, we are loving life as a family of three. It's only been two months but we can't imagine what life would be like without our precious baby boy. He is so adorable and we love him so much! And now, some fun pictures for your enjoyment:

We are taking weekly pictures of Henry until he is three months old and then we will be taking monthly pictures. The "7" pillow doesn't mean anything - we just wanted something consistent to set him next to so we could see the changes in his growth each time.



















One of our friends and his wife, Sean and Laura Thompson, took some amazing professional photos of Henry when he was just 9 days old. They are incredible photographers and you can check out more of their work here.

















Henry's first snow:



All bundled up and ready for a walk:



Sleepyhead:



Sleeping on dad:



Naptime:



Smiling at Grandma Tushar:



Thank you all for your thoughts, prayers, encouragement and advice these last two months. We have so appreciated everyone's support!