Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Postpartum Survey-1 Month

How far along were you when you had your baby? 40 weeks and 3 days.
How long was labor? About 8.5 hours...pretty good for a first baby; it seemed to happen so fast.
Total weight gain: 41 lbs. when I last weighed myself 3 days prior to Graydon's birth.
Total weight loss since: 30 lbs. 11 more to go! I need to stop eating all the yummy Fall treats I keep indulging in!
Back into your own clothes yet? For the most part except most of my pants do not fit yet.
Did you get stretch marks? Yes but they are not that bad. They did not become visible until after I had Graydon and my stomach went down.
Did you deliver vaginally or by c-section? Vaginally with no epidural. I am thankful that I was able to have an all-natural, med-free birth.
Best moment this week: Graydon smiling at us more and more.
What I miss about being pregnant: Feeling him moving inside me.
How big is baby: He was 8 lbs. 7 oz. at birth and a little over 9 lbs. now.
Baby's temperament? He is only content if he is dry and just ate...he likes to fuss a lot.
What I am looking forward to: Graydon becoming more interactive and sleeping more at night. Fitting into all of my pants. To be healed up, stop bleeding, and feeling normal down there. And sex. You know, all of the usual. :) OH and being able to start working out and start running again!

One month later!

One Month Old!

Graydon is already one month old today! I can barely believe it. He is changing so much, and so quickly.
It is hard for me to keep up my blog lately, because we are so busy, and when he is sleeping I am typically trying to keep stuff up around the house, or we are running errands. We have kept pretty busy this past month and went somewhere almost every day since we have been home from the hospital.



When Gray was first born, he weighed 8 lbs. 7 oz. He was 22.5 inches long, but also had quite the cone head from being born. :)
At his first doctor's appt. when he was 4 days old, he weighed 8 lbs. 1 oz. losing a total of 6 ounces.
At his 2 week appt. when he was 18 days old, his weight went up to 8 lbs. 15 oz. He gained 14 oz. in two weeks, and his pediatrician seemed to be pretty happy with that. At that point he was only 21.5 inches long, so he lost an inch when his cone head went down.
Yesterday we had an appt. with a lactation consultant. When we first arrived he weighed 9 lbs. 1 oz. and ate 2.7 oz. during his feeding while we were there. The nurse told me that he is doing great and eating well, and should be eating around 29 oz. per day. He loves to eat! We nurse on demand and he typically eats every 1.5-3 hours. Sometimes he will go longer if he is napping or happens to sleep like a 4-5 hour stretch during the night, which doesn't happen too often right now.

Graydon has rolled over 3 times now, and did it for the first time when he was only 14 days old. I even caught it on video. Every time he did it, he started out on his stomach and rolled onto his back, and was completely content.

He has held his head up very well from day 1! He doesn't really like to be held in the "cradle position" (unless I am feeding him) and likes to be held with his head up on your shoulder where he can look all around. He is constantly moving and so squirmy. We call him a little wiggle worm or a bobble-head, lol.

Within the past week or so I have noticed that he blows a lot of spit bubbles, it is cute.

I got him to smile for the first time for me while I was trying to take his picture when he was exactly 4 weeks old. He has smiled on and off for a while but it is usually when he is passing gas, it is still super cute though.

He looooves to kick. Also when he moves his arms around, it looks like he is a little boxer. He has socked me in the face a couple times now.

He got baby acne at 2.5 weeks. He still has it pretty badly. It looks sort of painful, I feel so bad for him! Chris and I both have oily skin and I already notice it with him.



Graydon is a really strong sucker. The nurses in the hospital convinced us to let him have a pacifier, even though I wanted to wait a couple of weeks. We used an orange soothie style one, and he liked it for the first couple of days but it didn't last long. Since then we bought some Nuks and he seemed to like those better but is still not a big fan. He will just spit it out continuously...once in a while he will keep it in but it is rare.

He has only had a couple of bottles that I have pumped. He doesn't really like that either but took them. So far we have only tried the Tommee Tippee bottles. We also have Born Free bottles so will be trying one of those soon. Chris will usually feed him from the bottle if we use one. I tried to give him one today and he would not take it. He is a smarty pants!

This is a given with all babies, but Graydon gets so many comments from people.
First people always comment on how cute his little shoes are.
And then they comment on how long he is, he is soooo long! He will be tall like his Daddy I think! Chris is tall and slender, and around 6 ft. I am around 5'7.
Other comments that we receive are about how alert he is (all the time! he doesn't like to sleep, seriously....lol) and how big his eyes are. And also about his dark hair. I love his hair so much, it looks like a little mohawk!

Right now he can still fit into newborn sized clothes, but the pants are a little short. We are trying some 0-3 month stuff but sometimes it is still too big, he is still pretty skinny, just very long. He can still fit into newborn diapers, but I prefer the size 1's. They seem to contain his poops much better. We used a couple of cloth diapers tonight for the first time, and that seemed to go well so far. Tomorrow will be our first full day of using them so we will see how it goes! Some of them are still pretty big on him.

When Graydon first come home he slept in his pack'n'play for two nights, and then we started co-sleeping. At first we realized that we were both getting much more sleep this way. We were not swaddling him then, which about a week ago we started doing and realized we should have been doing it from the start. Sometimes the only way I can get him to sleep is by nursing him. The past couple days we have been trying to transition him back to the pack'n'play and it is going OK so far.

Graydon likes to be pretty fussy a lot. Chris and I joke around about "how he is angry all the time." We give him gas drops a couple times a day to help. He does NOT like it if his diaper is dirty, and he also likes to fight going to sleep. Sometimes he will cry and cry and I know he is tired, and he will finally go to sleep. He has been getting more content though over the past week or so.
He also really seems to like his swing, unless he is hungry and has a dirty diaper. Otherwise he is usually fine hanging out in there. Sometimes he likes his bouncy chair too, but only if he is totally full and dry, otherwise he is not having it at all! He likes to be pretty dramatic sometimes. I think it might just be a newborn thing though! :)

He is also "talking" and cooing more lately, it is sooo cute! :)
And usually when he smiles, he does this little thing with his tongue, I love it.

Graydon has been holding his head up so well that we tried out his Bumbo already and he really seemed to like it! We did this at 4 weeks old.

When he gets really upset, he tends to scratch his face pretty good...I like to put those little mittens on him sometimes.

He also tends to suck on his hands, especially when he is trying to soothe himself. He has almost found his thumb, but not yet!

Sometimes when he cries or is fussing, his little lip quivers. Once again, sooo stinkin cute.

Graydon did not like his first couple sponge bathes while his umbilical cord was still on, but now loves his bathes. He only starts to cry when he is cold when taking him out of the water!

He is not yet a huge fan of his car seat and likes to fuss or cry when we put him in it, but as soon as we pick it up and walk around, or start driving he usually stops right away. He likes motion!

Gray also lets out some REALLY good burps. I always tease Chris that he burps like his Dad, haha.



Well that is about all I can think of for now! I am really looking forward to what the next month holds. I am really excited to see him start smiling more and being more interactive. And also start sleeping more during the night!

Monday, November 1, 2010

Newborn Photos

I am so excited to be able to post these pictures on my blog and share them with everyone. Graydon was not even 5 full days old when we had these pictures taken. They are so precious to me, and I cannot even express how much I absolutely love them. Bryan and Mae did a fantastic job, and I feel that they pretty much captured everything I could have possibly wanted them to in able to remember this time in our lives. It is amazing how quickly his sweet little face has changed, so I will hold these pictures dear for forever. It was hard to choose which ones I wanted to post without making this entry too long, so I tried to pick my very favorites. I hope you enjoy them as much as we do!

Sweet sleepy boy.





Don't you just want to kiss his little face? Poor guy!



So in love.



These are two of my very favorites. His eyes are incredible.





So wide awake!





Love this owl hat that his Auntie Megan got for him on Etsy. Sooo cute!







Love his little lip here!!





Trying to get a "family pic" with the pups...it was pretty comical to say the least.



I loooove this picture of him and Chris.