One Month

Finn's technically not quite one month old yet, but since his one month birthday falls on Mother's Day and today he's four weeks old, I figured I'd do a little something today.  Hopefully I can keep these up each month for the first year, but I have a feeling a certain little someone is going to keep me very preoccupied. 

We survived! All three of us! At times it looked bleak, but we made it to one month.  I'm amazed at how fast a month of doing nothing but sleeping and eating for all of us has gone by.  The people who told us we could spend hours watching him sleep were right.  We are constantly amused by watching him and I'm amazed at how much more alert he is now compared to when we came home from the hospital.

A month later and this picture still cracks me up.  He's so little and his cheeks are so big. 

Eating He's a great eater! Hallelujah! One of my biggest concerns was not being able to successfully breastfeed.  I wasn't opposed to formula feeding, but I knew I wanted to give breast feeding a solid shot.  Luckily, he's latched on from day one and we haven't had any issues since.  I can't imagine how much more stressful this first month would have been if we had to deal with feeding issues, so I'm eternally grateful he's a good eater.  I feed him on demand, which means most of the time he's eating every 2-2.5 hours, but every once and a while, we'll get a three hour stretch when he's asleep.  It also means that when he's been awake for the majority of the time after a feeding, the next feeding usually comes a little before that two hour mark.

Sleeping Oh sleeping!  How I miss you! Ha! I think he's actually a pretty average newborn sleeper.  He didn't like sleeping in his bassinet at first, but we seem to have gotten over that, although he would still prefer to sleep on our chest if given the chance.  He seems to have figured out that night time is for sleeping, so after the 10:00/11:00pm feeding, he will usually sleep until around 6:00am waking up every 2-2.5 hours to eat. Our midwife recommended trying to start a routine when it comes to sleep at night, which we've kind of done.  We introduced the sound machine in hopes that the white noise will become associated with sleep. I'm hoping that month two will bring longer stretches in between night time feedings (four hours sounds like a dream!), but we're managing right now with what we're given.

When you're three weeks old and have no muscle tone, you can curl up in a literal ball when you sleep.

Noises The kid is a noisy one! He's had some gassy issues towards the end of the month which has brought lots of grunting (as well as some other noises down south!) after eating.  We're trying to alleviate that by lots of burping, moving his legs and tummy time, but he's still a grunter, especially if he hasn't fallen completely asleep.

Milestones Everything is a milestone this month! ha! Mike and I laugh because any time we do something (like ride in the elevator), it's always "Baby's first...."!  We've done lots of tummy time on his play mat and he can now move his head so he can look the other direction when he's on his stomach and on his back.   He's also discovering his hands and always seems very happy when they end up near his mouth, although I don't think he can get them there on command quite yet.

Favorites He loves riding in his stroller and in the car, thank goodness because we've got lots of road trips and travel planned for this summer.  We were told that we should wait until the one month mark to introduce bottles and pacifiers and while we haven't done the bottle yet, we broke down after a night of fussing, crying and nursing and gave him the pacifier and haven't looked back.  It's been a great way to temporarily soothe him.  He seems to enjoy hanging out on his playmat, although he's not afraid to let you know when he's done.  The swing has also been a huge blessing because he enjoys hanging out in it when he's awake, but also likes to nap there as well.

   

Nicknames Finn, Finny, Grunty, Grunty McGrunterson, Sweetheart, Buddy

Clothing Size He's still wearing his newborn clothes which seem to fit best, but in the past week or so, he's filled out and his 0-3 month clothes are fitting better.

Diaper Size We started out in newborn Pampers, but once we ran out, we switched to size one.

Height Unofficially 21 inches, although this is just us measuring with a tape measure.  I think he's probably a little bit bigger than that.

Weight  Michelle our midwife weighed him on Wednesday and he was weighing right at 4kg/8.8 lbs! The kid likes to eat!



Mike and I have seemed to have adjusted (as well as possible) to the lack of sleep, although when we are struggling, we're REALLY struggling. I'm recovering much better than I expected and feel pretty much back to normal.  The hormones have seemed to have leveled off and I'm not having the crazy mood swings I was the first two weeks. I've continued taking my prenatal vitamins because they have iron in them which has helped me feel not quite as weak as I was right after giving birth. I was recommended to keep taking the prenatal vitamins as long as I'm breast feeding.  I go back to the OBGYN in two weeks and I'm anxious to get the clear to start exercising again, something I never thought I would say.

We're super excited for month two because my parents are coming and we're going to do our first trip out of Berlin.  We're also hoping that the weather finally stays above 50 F and stops raining so we can start actually venturing out for walks and get out of the house a bit more.

They say time flies when you're having fun and while it hasn't been all fun and games, Mike and I have fallen head over heals for Finnegan Michael. He's constantly making us laugh and keeping us on our toes.  He's definitely our biggest adventure.