(This is his Mickey from his Aunt JoJi:)
This little dude is two months! Two doesn't seem like a lot, but when you compare it to one month, holy cow, he's really grown up!
One of my last posts, about my venting, obviously it's the hormones talking. That first month was really hard emotionally, but once your body does get back into the swing of things and you start getting a little bit more sleep, life does become a lot better. It's so hard getting past those weeks though. Ugh, I did hate it, but once right around six weeks hit, life started becoming manageable.
At about six weeks, I had a routine down. Griffin would take a few good couple hour naps and then his evening cat naps. Well, that sure changed. It was frustrating me. But one of my good friends who also had her baby a few days before me said something that has totally helped me. She said that she stopped trying to adjust to all the changes. THANK YOU! :) As simple as that may sound, that has helped my sanity. Forget trying to make sure he's getting the right length of naps, certain time of day, whatever. However, I do try to coincide Griffin's and Kort's naps together and so far it's gone pretty well so I do get a little bit of "me" time - you know, to shower in the middle of the afternoon, or take a short nap, or simply just have some peace and quiet!
I used to wake Griffin up at the same time each day, but I've given up on that. He usually wakes up between 8 and 9. He'll stay awake for about 1.5 hours between naps. He's been giving me at least one good nap, usually in the morning. It was during Kort's nap which was awesome, but not so much anymore. If he does wake up cranky and Kort is still asleep, I'll rock him back to sleep and fall asleep myself. I'll put him back in his bed when I hear Kort wake up, and then sometimes Griffin will sleep for another hour, maybe. After his afternoon nap, he'll take a couple of 30-45 minute cat naps starting around dinner time. I've tried to keep him awake starting around 7:30 so I can start getting him ready for bed around 9:00. I have been having the hardest time getting him to fall asleep on his own at bedtime. I can put him down drowsy for nap time and he'll fall asleep on his own, but for some reason it's just not working at nighttime. I've been trying the sleep training I did for Kort with putting him down drowsy, staying by his side and just patting and shushing him to comfort him. It doesn't help. Once I pick him up after about ten minutes, he calms right down. Sometimes he'll start falling asleep. Obviously he was ok. So I put him back down and he start right back up crying and my comfort techniques don't help. We usually end up just holding him until he is asleep for a while. I'll keep working on this, but it gets so frustrating sometimes and Clay knows it does, so he'll just take him and put him to sleep so I can fall asleep in the bed on my own without baby sounds. Anyway, that's how his sleep is going. I'm so thankful though that he's falling asleep on his own at least for his naps.
Griffin is doing great at nursing. He eats about every three hours and only wakes up once during the night, which he started doing a little after a month old. When I went for a weight check around three weeks, the doctor said he was doing great and I didn't have to wake him up at night to feed him - he would just wake up when he was hungry. I was always so confused and what to do about that. Some would say to make sure to wake them up every few hours to feed, which does make sense when they're newborns, but I didn't know how long to do that for. So this is for my own record - when I don't have to wake them up to feed them in the night :) With Kort, I remember setting alarms on my phone of when I needed to go feed him in the night. Yeah, that got pretty annoying fast. You definitely learn from your first one and so from that, it does make things easier with the second child.
Smiles are becoming a daily thing during awake time :) He loves my stupid faces and noises while he's sitting in the bouncer. His neck isn't quite strong to keep his head straight so he leans to the side since there's no neck pillow thingy, but he's getting great at holding his head up overall. Kort loves poking him in the eye and trying to bite his feet and roll him over. He's getting better with handling him though. Also, with Kort, he's beginning to really sit still to watch a show, or at least his Colors, Shapes, and Numbers DVD! I'm pretty sure he's learning from it, but I try not to let him watch it 24/7 and still play outside, etc., but it's been such a nice distraction for him so that I'm able to hurry and take a shower or like I'm on here posting :) ha ha It's been so nice though.
I'm beginning to understand when people say it just makes their day when they get their smiley baby from the crib in the morning. Lately Griffin has been waking up happy in the morning or from a nap and when I go get him he begins to smile! I really do love it! I'm getting to the point where my hormones are getting back to normal and I can really begin to feel the love I have for this baby! Anyway, more to come when he has his 2 month appointment next week.
