Saturday, March 17, 2012

The first 8 weeks

Time has literally flown by! I cant believe that on Tuesday, my little boy will be 2 months old! Everyone says how fast this all will go and they're right. It seems like only yesterday i was pregnant and wishing that it would come to an end so i could meet my mystery baby. I was at the mall today and i saw a few really cute pregnant girls and i found myself missing that chapter of my life....we'll just have to wait a bit and remedy that. LOL.

Rhys really had a rough beginning. Respiratory difficulties that Ryan and I wouldn't stop mentioning to the nurses actually resulted in a 6 day stay at Nationwide Children's Hospital's NICU and life saving surgery when he was 3 days old. The surgeons removed a 1 inch long benign tumor from Rhys' sinuses! Luckily that is all behind us now and we can focus on enjoying getting to know this new person in our lives.

Other than the horrible 1st week we spent visiting him at the hospital, Rhys spent his 1st month as a typical baby. Kind of a blob of human that loved to sleep, poop, and eat :) speaking of eating.....breast feeding was a real challenge for our little guy. He needed to be nourished through iv and bottles of my pumped breast milk while in the NICU and he got what most people call "nipple confusion." Basically, he didnt have to work very hard to get milk from a bottle and very hard to get it from me...and who wants to work harder than they have to? So with the help of multiple lactation consultant's and my perseverance, we have now mastered the art of breast feeding and he's eating like a champ!

Slowly over the first weeks of having him home, he became more and more alert and started showing us little glimpses of his personality. He seemed to be a very laid back guy (just like his dad). If he is fed and changed, he's usually very content. The first month went by in a flash and at his 1 month checkup he weighed 8lbs 3oz and was 21 1/8inches long....On the small end as far as national averages go, but the doctor says there's nothing to be worried about. He just might be slow to put on weight.

During his second month, i feel like we've really become acquainted with him. He smiles at us all the time and he really likes the morning when he first wakes up. That's the time of day he's the most alert and happy. He's holding his head up like a pro now too...with the occasional wobble. We try to do tummy time everyday but he gets pretty pissed at about the 5 min mark. Bath time is also a time he isnt too fond of. some days we can get through a bath without a meltdown but usually the warm water is met with screams. luckily, new babies only need baths once every couple of days so we don't have to torture him daily.

He was diagnosed with a mild case of acid reflux 2 days ago and we've been treating it with the all natural Gripe Water and it really seems to calm his belly down. It has been a life saver on more than one occasion. I've cut down on my dairy intake and cutout yogurt totally from my diet as well.

There has been an unusual heatwave here over the past week and it supposed to last for a while. The temperatures have been on average 20+ degrees higher than normal. we didn't have any summer clothes for this age/size because we weren't expecting this hot weather so today, my mom, Eleanor, Monica, and myself hit up Easton and got him some things to hold us over. It's so hard to shop for him right now though because i feel like he's going to be growing out of his current size soon but who knows when and what the weather will be like when he does?

Overall we're having a blast being new parents. He gives us a 5 hour stretch of sleep each night and he eats about every 2 hours for the rest of the day/night. this is great for a breast fed baby im told. He's just so sweet. i cant get enough of him. i want to squeeze him and kiss him all day long! Hopefully tomorrow we'll have our first family day out together :)

No comments:

Post a Comment