Week 5 & 6

This post is going to be a mad-dash to the finish line--a thoughtless blog vomit of words--because I can't put the baby down anymore!

Noah used to be able to nap an hour or two on his own a couple times a day but not since last week.  Now the little man demands that somebody hold him for naps ALWAYS.  Okay, that's an exaggeration.  We can maybe put him down on his own for about 20 minutes before he starts stirring and demanding the human touch.

So of course my free-time has now whittled down to zero.  When I do put Noah down for those 20 precious minutes it's a mad triage analysis in my head.  Do I pee first?  Eat first?  Check my email?  Pay the bills?  Wash dishes?  Clean up Judah's toys strewn all over the floor that is bound to kill someone someday?  Time is ticking!!!!!  Aaaaah!!!!

I'm not going to lie--showering is a low priority.  I stink.

But as bad as it's gotten with Noah, he's still a hundred times easier than life with Judah as a newborn.  When I go back and read the Judah newborn chronicles on my blog, I shudder in horror.  How did we ever survive that?!  Sure Noah likes to be held, but a gentle rocking and cuddling is enough for him.  Judah demanded to be bounced vigorously in the ergo and constantly.  No sitting back in a rocking chair or relaxing on a couch with that one.

And Noah can sit in a bouncy chair forever when he's awake.  Judah sat in the same exact bouncy chair for all of 2 minutes his entire infancy.  Even when Judah was awake, he demanded constant attention and cuddling.

But night-time Noah is still a pain in the butt--nursing every 2 hours or less!  BUT, it's better than old night-time Judah since Noah doesn't have the same bad reflux and I can just nurse him in bed with me all night, usually.  The only problem with Noah is that he sometimes doesn't switch to 'night time mode' until 1 am!  Judah always switched over around 9 pm.  I'm thinking it's because we kept the house dark with Judah so he would get sleep cues at a reasonable hour.  But with Noah, we've been careless about having all the lights on in the house even at 10 pm.

Anyway, here's a list of things I've tried to do to make Noah's digestion/life better (how's that for a totally horrible/nonexistant transition):

--give him Mommy's Bliss gripe water whenever he seems gassy.  That thing seems to work really well!  As soon as I give it to him he always burps and/or farts a lot and seems to ease right down.

--cut out all my favorite foods--dairy, chocolate and caffeine.  SUCKS to be me.

--give him probiotics (from a medicine dropper cuz the dude doesn't take a bottle anymore)!!!!  He took a bottle early on (week 3) but now doesn't know what the heck to do with it.  I don't know whether to try yet again or just give up...  I hate pumping anyway...

--read Harvey Karp's new book about baby sleep.  I love Harvey Karp.  I wish he could be my live-in nanny.

Week 4: Noah in the Night

I'm going to keep this one short because I am SUPER tired.  Why?

Because our night-nanny left last week and I've been wrangling with Noah all night by myself for 3 days.  He's an easy chill guy during the day but night-time Noah is frankly a bit of a nightmare.

With the night-nanny he would only nurse every 3-4 hours.  But now that it's just me he wakes every 1.5 to 2 hours to nurse (he probably did that before but the night-nanny soothed him down again without the magic of boob juice)  On top of that he has horrible gas, and sometimes just stays awake for 2 hours--just for fun!  Bottom line--I've maybe gotten 4-5 hours of fragmented sleep each day.  An hour here, an hour there.

You're lucky I think your to cute to abandon at my local fire station.

It's so miserable I think I'll just let him sleep next to me so I don't have to fully wake up and get him from his crib to nurse each time.  Ugh, I feel like such a zombie.

Power to the baby!  I will resist the urge to sleep at night!

Sleep deprivation is no joke people.  No joke.

The Good Stuff

Sometimes Judah can be the biggest pain in the neck.  But other times he can be so incredibly endearing.

A few days ago he got into a weird attitude of gratitude and started going through his favorite toys, saying:

Judah: Mommy, did you buy me this kitchen?
Me: Yes [so weird since he knows I bought it for him 2 months ago]
Judah: Oh!  Thank you!  Big hug!  [Judah gives me a big hug]

Judah: Mommy, did you buy me this police car?
Me: [laughing] Yes
Judah: Oh!  Thank you mommy!  Kiss!  [Judah plants a kiss on me]

He did this with 3 or 4 more items while I exchanged puzzled looks with the spouse.  What a wonderful weirdo.

And then just today he climbed in our bed this morning and got in some nice cuddles before going off to daycare.  But before leaving he said "Mommy, I want to spend all day with you!"  When I asked him why he replied "Because I love you!  Big hug!"

And then I melted into a puddle of mommy-goo.

Week 3

I've been doing a lot of mental comparisons between Judah's early days and Noah's, trying to figure out if I lucked out this time and finally got an "easy" baby.

So far, the jury's still out, but I'm leaning towards the "easy" baby label with Noah.  The dude sleeps a lot.  Which is why almost every picture we have of him is like this:

He eats, sleeps, poops, and repeats.  At this age, Judah would already have 4-5 hour wake-periods, which were mostly spent screaming his head off.  And the only way to calm him down or help him sleep was to bounce him on an exercise ball while wearing him in the ergo carrier.  I spent 8-10 freaking hours PER DAY doing that for the first 3 months of his life.  Ugh.  Gotta love colick.

But Noah isn't that easy as he's starting to exhibit symptoms of bad reflux problems, similar to what Judah had as well.  I've decided it's time to start with the probiotics and see if that helps.  Just sent the spouse to the nutrition store to buy some baby-dophilus so...fingers crossed.

Either way, I am loving life with my new little man.  He's so cuddlicious and yummcious. Yes, the cuter you are, the more I feel the need to make up words to describe your cuteness.

I seriously can't stop putting my noise right over his mouth and taking a deep drag, like a crack addict getting her next hit.  Seriously, baby's breath is the most intoxicating smell on earth.  They need to sell this as a perfume so I can always get my fix.

Quick!  Take a picture!  I'm awake for 5 minutes!

And his cheeks.  His round plumpy cheeks!  The poor guy gets pecked to death with kisses constantly.

And I can't stop rubbing his soft baby head of hair.

Mommy's drug of choice

Mommy loves her some newborn!

Judah has been adjusting surprisingly well to me constantly cuddling and inhaling this new little man.  Judah lets me nurse and hold Noah as much as I need to, as long as Judah gets his "nursing" time right after.

Don't worry, I'm not nursing my two year old.  Judah just wants me to simulate the comforting closeness by cuddling him while he drinks his COW'S milk bottle.

I really do have to give Judah credit for his generally generous nature.  Just yesterday he told me the following hierarchy of preferences:

Mommy is my favorite person. (Yay me!)
Daddy is my favorite daddy.  (Hilariously specific)
Noah is my favorite baby. (Yay Noah!)

So far so good!