1 Month

Well...I unfortunately never found the pause button for life so here we are at one month down as of 11:35pm last night. I really can't say that this month "flew by" because I honestly did try to slow down and really soak up every moment with my sweet boy. My life hasn't been this laid back since... what, maybe the summer after my freshman year in high school? It has been glorious.

Richard was on spring break for the first week and took two weeks off from his jobs which was also awesome! We basically just spent that time fighting over who got to hold him :)

On that note, Richard is literally the world's best Dad. That was no surprise to me but it's really sweet watching others learn that about him. I love eavesdropping on their little conversations when I'm in the other room or walking in on them both asleep together. My heart has burst about a thousand separate times, it just never gets old.

SIZE: In these pictures, Carter is wearing a newborn 5-8lb onesie! We have his pediatrician appointment tomorrow, so I will update this with his weight and height then. He fits into some 0-3 month onesies and some of his 0-3 month bottoms are starting to fit a bit better as of last week. Newborn clothes are definitely still best. He is also still in newborn diapers. We tried a size one once we ran out of newborns but there's just no way, they are huge on him. He has the smallest little limbs. As you can see, he carries his weight in his tummy and his delicious cheeks :)

Here he is next to a water bottle to more adequately show his size. I fully expect myself to burst into tears in a couple months when I see this picture and realize how much he's grown...

EYES: The jury is still out, but I think they will end up being brown like mamas because they are very, very dark blue right now.

HAIR: Still very brown! He also has a killer little mullet going on :)

SLEEPING: His schedule is still very inconsistent right now which is to be expected. At night, he'll sleep between 2-3 hours between feedings. The two nights before last he fussed for a bit, I fed him, and he stayed asleep when I put him back down which was awesome. Last night on the other hand...the little stinker decided that 5am was an appropriate wake up time and stayed awake until 7am. What does everyone else do when this happens? I will normally go out to the couch and put him in the swing while I try to sleep but he just sits there and stares at me with his cute little face so I'll feel guilty and end up picking him up and watching TV.

Besides having the occasional random wake-up time in the middle of the night, he is a very good sleeper. He sleeps in his bassinet without having to be rocked or shushed to sleep. He also will sleep on the couch, the ground, the stroller, his swing or the car-seat so we are definitely counting our blessings for now.

EATING: In the hospital he had lots of trouble latching so the nurses pushed me to use a nipple shield to help him eat. I'm grateful that it helped him facilitate weight gain, but it also became a crutch for him for awhile and was super messy and inconvenient for me. He also had a moderate level of jaundice so I needed to feed him very frequently to get his levels to go down. I was so worried that he would become dependent on it but my pediatrician assured me that he would grow out of it and to not worry about it until his jaundice went away. Luckily, he has grown out of it! I will only use it once a day or so if he has an especially hard time latching and gets frustrated. I wish I would have done more research on breastfeeding beforehand, so if any expecting Moms are reading this..take note! It's not always the easiest thing in the world.

We introduced him to a bottle of breastmilk on Monday, and he ate like a champ. I am grateful because obviously I need to go back to work, but also kind of sad. I secretly hoped that he would reject it and only want mama.

MILESTONES: 
-He's been able to pick his head off my chest since day one which totally threw me for a loop in the hospital. He can now hold it up for at least a minute and look around. We are very impressed!

-The last couple of days he has been smiling as a reaction to us. Richard is the fun parent so he is obviously the one who gets the most :)

-He is becoming much more vocal. Everything consists of mostly grunts right now but he is NOISY!

-We started him on a binky a week ago and we'll use it to buy us some time before I'm able to feed him. He usually spits it out once he calms down which I'm grateful for because I wasn't 100% on board with using one anyways.

NICKNAMES:
-Buddy & Bubs (self-explanatory)
-Mr. Carrot (he can thank his jaundice for this. It looked like a very bad spray tan)
-Gumba (Given to him by Richard. I had no idea what this was, but it is so fitting. Please Google it!)
-Pterodactyl (he has kind of outgrown this one but right when he was born his cries very much resembled that of a pterodactyl)

LOVES:
-He absolutely LOVES this gallery wall in our living room. He stares at it ALL DAY LONG. I think it's because there's very high contrast (black/white/navy) and he can see it well. He has also recently noticed the wall hangings in his nursery and has taken a liking to those as well.

-He loves his hands/fingers. I will have to trap his arm under mine while he eats or have Richard hold his hands or else he'll just try to suck on his hands instead of nursing.

-He loves kisses on his tummy and his cheeks and having his head rubbed

-Loves being propped up on our legs to look around

-Loves his baths. I started him off in his baby bath but have switched over to putting a towel in our bathroom sink and doing it that way.

-Loves his dad. This kid is a daddies boy for SURE.

HATES:
-Being swaddled. He's okay with his legs being bound up but he will not tolerate his arms and hands being tied down. He sleeps with his arms above his head haha

-Having his arms pulled to get dressed or put in his car seat. He's totally fine once we get him situated, but he hates when we try to control his arms/hands

-Being stomach down on our chest when he's awake. He will sleep on our chests no problem (thankfully, he can't be done cuddling yet!!) but he always gets fussy and wants to look around when we do it when he's awake

-Being in his baby k-tan carrier. I am pretty bummed about this but he just hates being against my chest and not being able to look around at the world. I'm hoping once he's older he'll like facing outwards a bit better.

-Being gassy. This is obviously a "duh" but the poor guy really struggles with this so we bought some gas drops yesterday and are hoping they will help a bit!

HIGHLIGHTS
-Peeing on Richard like every time he changes him haha
-Peeing on the pediatrician during our first visit (embarrassing! I didn't realize boys needed to be pointed "south" whoops!)
-His first smiles...so cute
-Going to church for the first time at 3 weeks. I missed almost all of Sacrament feeding him but it was totally worth it :)
-Meeting all of our family and friends! Showing him off is literally our favorite thing ever.

 

The last three photos were taken after he noticed the pictures on the wall :)