William update

We are approaching 8 weeks with our little one - wow! While he still feels brand new to me, we have quickly adjusted to our new life with him.

Of course, the main question is always sleeping. At night, William usually goes two to four hours between feedings, with three hours being the most common. There are three main differences in our nighttime routine with William compared to when Lily was a baby. First, Carl and I divide the night into two shifts which works out wonderfully for us. With Lily, Carl would usually get her when she woke up and change her, then I would feed her and put her back to sleep. However, this meant that we were both getting up every time and neither of us was getting a solid block of sleep. Secondly, William has been in his crib from day one. The main reason for this is that the nursery and master bedroom are attached so a bassinet in our room is just not necessary. The other part is just experience. I'm much less nervous and don't feel the need to count every breath at night like I did with Lily. Lastly, with William, we change him, feed him and put him right back in his crib. This was not possible with Lily. With Lily, we would have to rock her, often making several attempts at putting her down, before she would go back to sleep. Again, experience is probably a factor in establishing a back to bed policy from the beginning, but I think a large part of it is temperament as well. Lily would not settle back to sleep on her own from very early on; William so far has no problems going back to sleep without any fussing.

During the day, William sleeps on and off with no particular schedule. Luckily, like his sister, he loves the carseat and will readily fall asleep in the car (as long as we stay in motion). About half of the time, he will continue his nap when we come home too. Slowly I'm noticing that William is starting a pattern of eating, being alert and wanting to check out his environment, and then taking about an hour nap, and waking up ready to eat again. Again, the time between feedings is usually about three hours.

William's fussy period is at night, usually starting around 5 o'clock. He is likely just tired but does not want to settle down to sleep just yet. This is also the time when I start making dinner so I usually put him in the Baby Bjorn, and more often than not, he falls asleep while I'm preparing the food. Again, usually pretty easy to console, which was not always the case with Lily.

After sleeping comes the question of eating. Let me just say that breastfeeding is about a thousand times better this time around. No pain and tears and no nipple shield required - yay! I think that it is a combination of experience and William's style of eating. Lily was more of a "barracuda" while William just seems more laid back about the whole thing. The other main difference between William and Lily is that we have been supplementing with formula from the beginning with William. In the hospital, I was paranoid about giving William formula which probably - no definitely - contributed to his NICU stay. My paranoia resulted from my experience in having Lily in which all the nurses at the hospital acted like if she received one bottle she would never breastfeed again (I'm not exaggerating this point either). This time around, the nurses said that they basically put no stock in the whole nipple confusion thing and finally convinced me that it was not the end of the world if William had a bottle. Well, let me tell you that that opened up a whole new world for me. If I want to go out during the day, we just give him pumped breastmilk in a bottle and then I usually pump again once I get home. As I mentioned before, Carl takes one or sometimes two of the night feedings, and this is when we use formula. It is so freeing. I can't begin to explain the difference that this makes to my mental well-being. If I had only known with Lily!

Overall, William is a pretty laid back and super snuggly little guy. We always call Lily our little monkey because of her high energy level and desire to climb all over everything, and we call William our little koala because he loves nothing more than to curl up on your chest and take a little snooze. His current favorite things are our skylights in the hearth room and the light over our kitchen island. He could stare at them for hours. He also likes the Gymini and will purposefully bat at the little animals. He seems to like watching his mobile as well, but he hasn't particularly taken to the swing. However, that could be because the swing is currently located in a room that we use less often. He is also fascinated with the dog and Lily but naturally quickly becomes overwhelmed when Lily comes on full-force.

In milestone news, William rolled from back to tummy at 4 weeks and tummy to back at 5 weeks, but these instances were both on the couch which I'm thinking must have provided some advantage because he hasn't rolled again since. He started smiling in response to people at around 6 weeks, but he has to be in the right mood (not tired or hungry). He had a growth spurt at 7 weeks (just a few days ago) and went from wearing "newborn" size sleepers to almost not fitting into the "0-3" sleepers. However, most 0-3 pants are still ridiculously big on him, particularly in the waist. (As a side, William has to get a vaccine that was not in at his 6-week appointment today, and we are going to check his weight for good measure, but I really think that he is doing fine and gaining weight as he should.)

So that's the news for now. We are all doing pretty well right now and enjoying this holiday season. So many festivities to look forward to...and so many pictures to post! I'll do my best to keep up!