Monday, December 29, 2014

Garrett - 2 Months

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Diapers

Size 1.  I’m hoping to stay in these for a while, but sometimes I wonder if he’s ready for size 2 because he frequently poops through his diaper!

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Shoe Size

He doesn’t wear shoes yet so I have no idea!

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Clothes

Some of his clothes are 0-3 month and some are just 3 month clothes.  For the ones that are 3 month clothes, they’re a bit baggy on him, but they fit enough for him to get away with wearing them.  He’s definitely bigger than Carter was at his age, but he’s also wearing all of the clothes that Carter wore, which have been washed and dried countless times.  So some of those 3 month clothes that almost fit him have probably shrunk a bit since Carter wore them. 

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Feeding

Last month I mentioned that his middle of the night feeding was either a breastmilk or formula bottle.  Well, Garrett is now strictly breastfed…I can’t remember the last time we gave him formula.  For most of month 2, when Justin was in town, I would nurse the last feeding of the night (somewhere between 9pm-10pm) and he fed a breastmilk bottle in the middle of the night when he woke up (around 3am or 4am).  Then he would wake up for the day somewhere between 7am-8am.  That was most of month 2, but for the last two weeks he hasn’t woken in the middle of the night.  He still gets the 9pm-ish feeding, but then he usually doesn’t wake up until roughly 5:30-6:30am, at which time I will breastfeed again and then he will go back down and wake up for the day around 8:30 or 9am.  During the day he eats about 5 times a day (every 3 hours).  9 times out of 10, I have to wake him up for his daytime feedings.  My overproduction is still going strong.  I have found the number to call about donating my milk.  I have to fill out a big survey about my lifestyle and then give blood just to get approved to donate it.  I haven’t called yet, but probably will in the next week or so once Christmas/Carter’s birthday stuff dies down a bit.

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Babywise

This is still working well with Garrett.  The whole point of Babywise, basically, is to put your baby to bed while they’re still awake so that they can fall asleep on their own without needing to be rocked, pacified, etc.  Garrett has been doing this since birth which has been extremely nice.  Each cycle he eats, then has waketime for about an hour and then goes down for a nap which usually lasts between 1 1/2 – 2 1/2 hours. 

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Sleep

Naps are great.  He falls asleep for them on his own without needing a “sleep prop”.  Each nap lasts anywhere from 1.5-2.5 hours and most of the time I have to wake him up to eat.  His “middle of the night” feeding isn’t really in the middle of the night anymore.  It’s somewhere between 5:30-6:30am.  His last meal of the day is around 9-10pm and then he has that 5:30-6:30am feeding and then he’s up for the day between 8-9am.  At this age, Carter had slept through the night a few times, but he was still waking about every 4-5 hours on a normal night.  Garrett’s longest stretch so far has been 9 1/2 hours.  After spending a large portion of the night at a family Christmas get together in Tuscaloosa with my family, we got home around 10pm.  I fed Garrett and put him down and he didn’t wake up until 7:45 the next morning.  The incredible thing about Garrett is that as soon as he’s done eating and has his diaper changed and put back in his woombie, he falls asleep immediately.  Pretty much never cries at all!  It makes the feeding go by quickly for sure!  At this moment, Garrett’s nighttime sleep is anywhere from 7-9 hours.

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Waketime

Still doing various things for waketime such as playing on various playmats and having tummy time.  He’s getting much better at holding his head up during tummy time and is finally using his arms to support himself while doing it.  He has rolled from tummy to back  several times, the first time being the night before he turned 7 weeks old!!  We also started Baby Einstein DVDs this month, but he doesn’t seem interested yet.  I’ll put him in front of the TV to watch it, but he usually ends up staring at the Christmas tree or the ceiling fan.  I hope he likes Baby Einstein as much as Carter did.  There’s a lot of learning that was done on Carter’s part because of those DVDs!

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**This is Cole.  He is my cousin Quinn’s son and is 4 months old, while Garrett is only 7 weeks old in this picture.  They look the same size!!!  Turns out that Garrett is in the 75th percentile for weight while Cole is in the 25th, which explains why they look the same size!**

Mother’s Day Out

Garrett will go to the same KIDS program at our church that Carter goes to.  Unfortunately, he can’t be enrolled until he’s 6 months old.  His first time to go will likely be during summer school next summer.  Our church offers a summer program for 4 weeks in June where the kids go Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday from 9-1.  I always enroll Carter and will likely put Garrett in next summer as well.  I am definitely not ready to let anyone else take care of him other than me for right now, but by next summer he’ll be about 8 months old and I want him to get used to being taken care of by other people.

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Justin’s Travel

Justin traveled the majority of December.  I felt like he was NEVER here.  He was gone 3 weeks in December.  One week was Sunday-Thursday (back at 11pm Thursday night), the next week was supposed to be the same, but his flight got cancelled so he didn’t get home until 3pm on Friday.  Then the third week he was gone Sunday through Wednesday night (back at 9pm).  So December was a month where I was doing almost EVERYTHING by myself.  It was exhausting but I got through it.  Thankfully he is in town now and won’t go back out of town until the very end of January.  Carter loves having daddy at home.  He misses him SOOOOOO much when he’s gone.  Garrett doesn’t know any better yet, obviously.

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Statistics

Garrett’s 7 week appointment was on December 15, 2014.  He weighed 12lbs, 2oz (75th percentile), 22 1/2 inches (60th percentile) and his head was in the 90th percentile!  I honestly thought he was going to be higher than the 75th percentile.  Carter was 10lbs 6oz at his 7 week appointment and at that time, that was the 75th percentile.  I thought that was weird since it’s almost a 2lb difference and yet the same percentile, but I think it’s because it’s different years.  Carter was 75th in 2012 and this weight is apparently the 75th in 2014.  Garrett had his shots which, like most babies, was traumatic.  Props to me y’all….daddy was out of town so I had to take both kids to the doc.  Carter tends to get really upset if Garrett cries so I was trying to console two babies at the same time.  It was a tad rough, but we got through it.  Doc said everything with Garrett was great and he didn’t have anything to report to me.

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Abilities

We’ve been doing tummy time more and more and he doesn’t mind it at all.  In fact, he sometimes falls asleep.  Justin and I joke that most kids don’t like tummy time so they roll over to get off their tummy.  We think that’s why Garrett’s so big-tummy time doesn’t bother him so he just lays there most of the time!  The day before he turned 7 weeks old, he rolled from his tummy to his back for the first time.  This is about the same time that Carter did it too.  It’s one of those things that happened and then you’re not sure if they meant to do it, but then they did it again over the next couple days until they eventually just do it all the time.  I facetimed Justin immediately after he did it and tried to get him to do it again but he never did.  Daddy usually misses those first milestones because he’s out of town so much :(  He’s also starting to make those baby babbles.  You can tell he’s finding his voice.  With a brand new baby, the only noise they make is crying or grunting.  Now Garrett just makes a consistent noise to hear himself “talk”.  It appears he’s also beginning to reach for things that hang above him.  Again, not sure if this is actually what he’s doing, but he has been putting his hands up and touching the toys that hang from the playmats.

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Teething

Definitely not there yet!  

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Discipline

Again, definitely not there yet!

Other Notable Things

Likes

  • Sleeping
  • Car rides – he usually falls asleep and doesn’t make a peep.  He rode from Justin’s grandparents house in Florida all the way to our house and never woke up.  That’s about a 3 1/2 hour car ride!
  • Watching brother walk around and do things
  • His ocean mat.  He likes looking at the octopus that hangs from it.
  • Lights and ceiling fans-this probably won’t change for a while. 

Dislikes

  • When brother steps on him on accident.  I kinda don’t blame him on this one!
  • When Gizmo gives him kisses.  It takes him by surprise and I don’t think he’s a fan.

How Mama Is Doing

It’s been 2 months now and I can finally say that I’m fully recovered.  Y’all, that was a rollercoaster.  You can read my birth story with Garrett here, but needless to say, A LOT of healing was needed.  Unfortunately a lot happened to me afterwards as well.  The pain from the 4th degree episiotomy was excruciating.  Way worse than it was with Carter.  I finally broke down and went to the doctor because it was just not normal, in my opinion at least.  She noticed that the knot at the end of one of the stitches was rubbing against a sensitive area so she took care of that for me.  I was able to walk better immediately.  It felt so much better.  A few days later, just when that area started to heal, I started getting a sinus infection.  I get really BAD sinus infections.  I usually run fevers and have bad headaches and it’s just unbearable.  Since I was breastfeeding though, there wasn’t much I could do but let it pass because anything you take for a sinus infection will dry up your milk.  The grandmothers helped a bunch and took turns taking care of Carter for me so that I could rest and get better.  Once I was finally better, I got a yeast infection.  Ugh.  Once that cleared up, the symptoms of the sinus infection came back.  I had the WORST headache I have ever had in my life, to the point where I couldn’t stand up or eat or function.  I was assuming it was a migraine (I’ve never had one before then).  After two days of this, I ended up going to the doc in the box on Thanksgiving morning.  What I didn’t expect was the diagnosis of a walking pneumonia.  What I thought was a sinus infection that entire time was actually a walking pneumonia, which is extremely contagious.  So not only did I not get to spend Thanksgiving with our families, I didn’t even get to spend it with my own family.  Justin took the boys and left so that I wouldn’t get them sick and I spent Thanksgiving in the bed.  It was awful.  A few days later I finally started feeling better from that and to be honest, was waiting on some other thing to happen to me.  Luckily my bad streak of sicknesses was over and I never got sick again after that. 

I started working out again around 5 weeks postpartum.  I slowly got into the P90x workouts and now I do them about 5-6 days a week which is what I was doing before I got pregnant.  I’m down to only 5 measly pounds to lose to be back at my pre-pregnancy weight so I’m hoping that will come off quickly.  Justin also bought me another package at Pure Barre for Christmas so I plan to start taking classes there again soon.  I think that’s about all the updates I have on myself.  We’re getting into a new normal with two kids and it isn’t bad at all.  It really helps to have a big brother that likes to help out as much as Carter does and also to have a newborn that sleeps as much as Garrett does!  It all makes for one happy momma :)

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