And there was hair

Wait a sec? Is that hair I see? Suddenly, DJ has a hair line again. Granted, he's got the equivalent of dark peach fuzz on his head where he lost the hair, but it's something. I'm so excited!

First Report on Scheduling

I think DJ wants to be on a schedule more than I do. I had always tried to feed him every three hours. But now I'm trying to keep to the same wake up time every day and settle into a pattern of feed time, wake time, sleep time. It's hard to come up with activities that are both good for him and fun for me. I like book time. I try to read to him while I'm breast feeding some of the time because it takes a long time and I'm bored. He doesn't seem to mind. Sometimes I watch TV or play video games. I'm bad, I know. But if you were feeding for 60 minutes instead of 30, you'd try to find stuff to do as well. There's only so much I can stare at him, especially when he starts closing his eyes. I try to keep him awake but, it's seriously hard.

Anyway, the 8 am wake time is going fairly well. I had a bit of trouble for a couple of nights there because I was letting him sleep to his fill at night. Then he'd get up for a 6 am feed, leaving 30 - 45 minutes to sleep before the next feeding. Not so good. So I've got B watching the clock in the early midnight time so that we can keep DJ on a strict 8, 11, 2, 5 schedule. Well, last night after a rough day (visitors then dragging the kid out to the "mall" for an evening walk) I didn't have wake him on schedule, he did it all himself. Damn. I wanted to sleep in a little bit this morning. Fifteen minutes past wake time and he was like, "yo mom, it's hungry in here." Damn.

I really like our morning routines. I take him on a walk around 9 or 9:30, depending on how timely I am with baby breakfast. Either way, I walk for 30 minutes making circles around our neighborhood. If you know me, you know I hate walking. I still do, but I know it's necessary. And I'm loathe to admit I like the morning routine. It's quiet. Everyone's already left for work except the peeps who stay home. There's not a whole lot going on. And even though today was Sunday, I didn't see hide nor hair of the baptist church crowd (there's a baptist church across the street from our development). I just wandered, walking at my own pace, enjoying the fresh air, which is rare to have here.

The only problem is that the baby is getting HOT. Well, he's in a long sleeve shirt and a long sleeve sleep and play body suit. It's kind of warm making. I'm going to try him tomorrow in a short sleeve onesie and pants. See if that helps. I'll need to make a couple of morning walk outfits. I might could get away with those short sleeve one piece short sets we've got now. I think we got them from B's sister.

In anycase, DJ seems to be taking to the schedule really well. Mom thought he'd have trouble adjusting but I don't see that at all. He seems to want the timeliness even when I'm willing to let it slide. The only this is he likes to sleep in a bit. I'm trying not to let him so he gets used to going down in a timely fashion. It seems to be working. The nights are getting easier. B and I seem te be getting into the rhythm and tag teaming well. B is getting a lot more sleep with the new morning routine. DJ hardly has time to make a fuss at 8 am, what with me on the alarm clock. And then he is quiet till 11 for the next feeding, since he usually falls asleep on the walk and then goes right back to sleep when put down after.

Hair Loss

When we went to Dallas for the family reunion, DJ had quite a bit of hair. The little hair he had on top grew in, and the hair on the back of his head grew out. By Sunday of that weekend, the hair on top of his head started to fall out. Well, not all of it. The hair on his soft spot seemed to stay, but around it stuff fell out. I was kind of sad. I really liked his hair. Now the kid is seriously balding. Not only on top, but the sides. We couldn't even rock a comb-over at this point. But that hair on the back of his head stubbornly remains. I don't even think the stuff that normally rubs off is rubbing off. Funky. The kid is just strange.

Scheduling

It's great to have family support. I had no idea what I was doing with this kid. I thought mom would teach me everything I need to know. But really, there just wasn't time, and there's no way for her to impart on me the endless knowledge and research out there. And, ok, I'll admit it - there's a lot of what she said I didn't want to hear. Or I just wasn't ready to hear. isn't that always the way it is? We stubbornly refuse to listen to what mom says. Mea culpa.

So I was flying blind. Thankfully my sister in law brought me a couple of books to help me figure out how to deal with fussyness and sleep time. I've gotten through one and it's already proven invaluable. Swaddling, jiggling, white noise. Techniques I've successfully employed to get and keep DJ asleep. Then we went to the reunion and a cousin gave me more books. The one I'm reading now talks about how putting your infant on a schedule as early as two weeks in will get them sleeping through the night by week 9. Wow... that's a lofty goal. But a good one to have.

There's more to it than just scheduling, but I'm not giving up sleeping DJ in the swing until he's at least 3 months old. Right now, we just need it. Or giving up jiggling him to sleep and co-sleeping (which I try to limit to once a night or in dire circumstances. If I can't see straight and I'm getting up every 15 minutes to deal with fussy anti-sleep and B isn't awake to help with jiggling, usually associated with the 6 am nap time, then he's coming to bed with me. Sorry, that's just how it is. I can't have him crying for 15 minutes at 7am when I need that hour more of sleep.).

So, with that in mind, we are off. Now, I had basically been feeding DJ every 3 hours or on extreme demand anyway. I mean, there were times when he had growth spurts and he would want to feed every other hour during the day. Plus, he was trying to lock in my milk supply. But I was absolutely certain that he was hungry and that nothing short of the boob would cure his ills. I just tried to hang on for dear life. But most of the time it was 3 hrs or bust. What I was doing incorrectly is allowing the schedule to slip if I started a feed late. So say he was supposed to eat at 5, but it took me an hour to bath and redress him (cause he pooped in the clean diaper I just dropped on him). So now it's 6 and I'm feeding him. I'd push the schedule back to 9 and then keep it there. And the whole schedule would slip in definitely. Well, the book says, nope, keep the next feeding at 8, maybe just knock it back by 30 min and work your way back to normal schedule.

DJ has already been showing signs of sleeping more at night. He won't get up in less than 3 hours, or hasn't in a few days. And a couple of times, he's slept for many hours before waking me up to eat. And I've been THANKFUL for those nights. So hopefully it will work out.

So far, he's taking to the official schedule well. And for the first time in my life, I'm happy to exercise first thing in the morning. Granted, first thing is 9am or so, depending on when the feeding finishes and when we get out of the door. I'm walking him around the neighborhood. It's slow going, gods forbid I start to itch and burn, which has already happened once. But it's exercise and we walk for 30 minutes. He needs the air and I need to get my weight loss started. I'm hoping to get some mall walks in as well, maybe once or twice per week. Lofty goals. Before I popped I also wanted to walk in the parks. That hasn't happened yet. Perhaps B and I will get around to that.

Specialized Cries

Something strange happened today. If DJ is hungry, he lets you know it. He belts out a cry that tells everyone in a 50 yard radius that I'm neglecting his need for the boob. And if I don't respond quickly, he gets MAD and starts really crying. It's not quite a scream, I've heard him scream before. It's rare for him to carry on in that manner, but it's happened before. That day that I skipped a meal and he got frightful gas I got a whole evening and night of it. Never doing THAT again. But still, mad crying is still pretty serious.

But something was different today. I needed breakfast and mom said treat meal time like an emergency on a plane: help yourself first and then help those around you. She said you need strength to feed him and if you're hungry you don't have any. So DJ was waiting for me to get my breakfast on. And he was trying to be patient. First, I got the "Hey, it's hungry in here" whine. And then it escalated to a mad, cry that says, "Yo, lady. Didn't you hear me?" Then, he stopped for a moment. Like he had said his piece and was waiting for me to respond. When I didn't, he started over again at the beginning. Mild whine, then full on cry. This pattern repeated several times, since breakfast took a little while to make. I thought it was amazing. Apparently, he's quite secure in the idea that I will respond to his needs at some point. Great!

First Smiles

When my mom was around my house helping out and showing me the ropes, it took a while for me to realize this essential truth: doing baby chores is spending time with an infant. Sorry, mom. Once I was up and around, I wanted to take over everything for the baby. I felt bad asking mom to help with this and do that. I felt like it was burdening her after all she did to help us prepare for the baby. That and I wanted to practice while I still had supervision in case I needed back up and couldn't handle it. She felt, and she told me so, that she was useless and not helpful any more. She felt like I was pushing her aside. That wasn't my intent at all. Only during the last few days of her stay did I realize she WANTED me to let her do the baby chores. So those last few days I let her. I gave her as much as I could and handed the baby over as often as possible.

So, when I got to the family reunion and everyone wanted to hold DJ, I let them. I relinquished. And when Mama (B's mom) wanted to take him in the mornings to help out, I was ecstatic. Baby time for her, sleep time for me. Good deal.

And then something amazing happened yesterday. Now DJ has been grinning when he falls asleep for a while. B and I attributed it to happy dreams, pleasant sleeping, or just something random. But this morning, Mama L (Mama's mama. Ha!) said he smiled at her. Just out of no where he smiled at her. And she was certain it wasn't gas. I believed her. He'd been heading in that direction for a while.

Later that afternoon, we were hanging at a cousin's house, and I handed DJ over right after he'd eaten. And he smiled at our cousin again. She was so excited.

Then, this morning after eating he was just looking up at me and smiled. It was so great. He's so pretty when he smiles. All gums shining and eyes bright. His eyes are really starting to look brown now. I was hoping they'd stay kind of grey looking, but no go. Oh well. His eyes are going to turn out like mine. Which is fine with me, I have purty eyes. I'm so proud of him.

Baby Hair Loss

Technically this is still G posting, but it's faster for me to post through his account than mine.  So, when DJ was born, he hardly had any hair on the top of his head, but had plenty on the back and sides.  He looked like he had male pattern baldness.  It was kind of funny.  As the weeks have gone by, his hair grew all over, on the top and on the sides.  It kind of looked like he had a mullet. Unfortunately that ended today.  At our cousin's house we noticed that he had hair all over his face, including one in his eyeball.  When we looked at his head, he only had a small patch of hair on top left.  The stuff on the sides seems to be staying, but his fuzzy top is falling out.  I'm a little bummed about it but what can you do?  Baby hair will do what it does despite what you want.  So soon we may have a baby that looks like an old man.  Ha. 

My First Airplane Ride

Wow, people have been telling me for a month now, or very nearly, that I'm INSANE to take a newborn who's barely 4 weeks old onto an airplane. Yeah, I know. When we first planned the trip, I thought, like B did, that DJ would show up early. Yeah, not so much. So really, he would have been closer to 6 weeks rather than barely 4. What can you do, really? The best that you can is all.

So, with some trepidation, we made our way to the airport. DJ was up early, looking for a feeding at six am. And then didn't really want to sleep after that. Not shocking really. So, once I got him together, I woke up B and got ready myself. We managed to get out of the house before 8 am, which was our initial plan. The only thing we forgot was the third swaddle sack that I was planning to use on the plane (figuring it would be cold). (Technically, that was B's fault. I reminded him to pick it up and he left it.) Oh well, that's a pretty good record for us.

So we drove to the airport and parked. DJ was half asleep for most of the car ride, though he was a bit fussy right at the beginning. He hates the infant carrier. The side impact head gear bothers him because he can't turn his head from side to side. You know how he likes to look around. Well, we get to the economy lot and I pull him out of the car seat, waking him up, naturally. There's a lot of sun and quite a bit of wind. So I block what wind I can and wrap up the baby. He tolerates it well enough.

We get on the bus and people just coo at him. I hate taking him in public and covering him up because I LOVE the attention. Yeah, they are really just looking at him, and it doesn't matter how busted I look, but still. He's my baby. I made him. And he's beautiful. I am just so proud of him. He's wide-eyed as usual, and people just go crazy for him.

We get to the terminal and check in. At the desk they tell us I could have brought a stroller and checked it at the gate. Damn. I didn't know that. I carried the baby the whole time. Curses. Live and learn I suppose. Braden and I shuffle him back and forth. I'd use my sling but it's not as comfortable as thought it would be and it won't be comfortable under the backpack. My back pack is HUGE and heavy. I've decided I need a different approach to that. I could rock the sling if I had something that rolled. I need a proper carry on bag now that we have a single good piece of luggage. Yeah, just the one and it's checked baggage size. It's great though. It fit stuff for all three of us, including 3 outfits per day for DJ.

So we finish with check in and head over to security. The line is a little long but it's not the hour and change fiasco I was expecting. That's comforting because this kid got HEAVY. I start thinking I made a terrible mistake going without a stroller. And then this woman with her 2 kids and infant carrier/stroller has to disassemble the whole thing with baby in hand to put it through security. Oh damn. Maybe I did right after all.

We get through security and head over to the terminal. DJ is asleep right up until I order my breakfast at a restaurant in the terminal. Then he's hungry. I break out my nursing wrap and feed the kid. It's not terribly comfortable, because I don't have nearly enough things to cram under my arm. This is a situation I need to think more about. What can I carry with me to make breastfeeding in public easier on my arms? Oh well. I feed him but he's not done by the time we're done with breakfast. So I put the first boob away and shuffle him out of the restaurant as quick as I can. B follows us with the diaper bag and carry on items. I find a corner in the gate waiting area and feed DJ the other boob. Finally he's satiated. But then his butt explodes. I get B to hold him till I can go pee and then come back to change him. For some reason beyond reckoning, the builders of the airport didn't think to put changing tables in the ladies bathroom. Bastards. I use my changing pad and built in changing area in my diaper bag to change DJ on the floor. Ye gods. People around us laugh, but not in a mean spirited way. One guy comments that this is the way it is as a parent. Sometimes you've just got to deal with these kinds of things.

Finally, we get settled, though they've already started boarding. We never hear them board disabled people or those traveling with small children, but we go ahead and board anyway. Once on the plane, things are good. We settle into our seats easily. B is sleep deprived, again, and is a little grumpy. Getting the bags and my breakfast leftovers straight is a bit of a challenge but we manage. Once settled, we wait for take off. I have one strap of my nursing bra unhooked in preparation for a quick boob dismount in case of sudden crying due to ear pressure. He's fine.

Later, I feed him on his normal schedule. The flight is quiet. We only get drinks, no snacks and the selection available for purchase is pathetic. B and I both get a little napping in, though be is rather annoyed by my incessant requests for assistance. One arm always has a baby in it. Kind of hard to do anything on plane.

Everything is peachy until landing. I know we're descending because DJ wakes up with a start and begins wailing. This is the reaction I was expecting on take off. That's OK. I have one over full boob ready for the nursing. He takes it down and still wants more. Unfortunately, I'm tapped out and we haven't landed yet. So I give him the knuckle of my pinkie. He likes that. Unfortunately, I can feel a bruise forming from the suction. So I switch fingers. That works until we get out of the plane. Then he's fussy all over again. We march to baggage claim and I bounce him around the carousel until he finally goes to sleep. Yay!

All in all, I'd say that worked brilliantly!