What a week

This week has been quite a challenging week. Eric has been extremely fussy which has been very stressful. It became a constant discussion in our house of what could possibly be wrong. We had put him on the gas drops which seemed to work for a little bit and then I couldn't take it anymore and went and filled the medicine for acid reflux. The gas drops I still believe he needs but I'm still not convinced that he has acid reflux. We were beginning to feel like we were exhausting all of our options. We had a wedge under his mattress to keep his head upright. We were pumping him with medicine and he was miserable. Every night we'd sit down to dinner and think of things that it could be which normally came down to the fact that his stomach must really hurt. The funniest one was daddy Eric telling me that we "baby" him too much haha. So yesterday he was screaming and I assumed he wasn't hungry but I could not hear him scream for the next hour until he was due for a bottle so I fed him. It had only been 3 hours since he last ate and he sucked down a four ounce bottle. So I began to wonder... all this time that I thought that he wasn't hungry and could for four hours between bottles, maybe I was totally wrong. Judging by the last 24 hours that seems to be the problem. So we have taken a step back, no more acid reflux medicine, no more wedge under the crib, no more shoving a binky in his mouth every time he fusses as well as no more picking him up to save him quickly. This seems to work for now. I can only imagine what new challenge he will present us in the upcoming days. What we have decided is to stop over-analyzing him and panicking every time he spits up or fusses.

A Milestone

Eric was doing some really good tummy time today. He was pushing himself up with his arms and lifting his head up higher than he ever has. And then it happened.... He rolled over!!! I'm sure it was just a fluke but still I couldn't believe it! I think he even shocked himself!

updates

Eric has been on medicine to help with his gas for over 24 hours now and we definitely see a difference. Although he still has gas at times he's not spitting up constantly which means that we were right. His spitting up was not caused by reflux but by gas. He made it through the whole night last night without spitting up in his crib. Hopefully this will reduce the amount of laundry that I do! He takes the medicine so well. It must taste good because he just swallows it right down.

He is starting to smile more at us which is very cute. He was smiling like crazy at me this morning. The funniest thing was that I fed him this morning and put him in his crib and I heard him on the monitor making some noises. I went into his room to peek on him and he was looking at his mobile and giggling. It was very cute.

With all of his spitting up issues, we decided to put a wedge underneath his mattress that my sister and Mike gave us to prop up one side of his mattress. However, tell me how useful this wedge is when Mr. Mover and a Shaker ends up like this halfway through his nap:

Yup that's right, he decided that sleeping sideways on a slope was a good idea :)

Such a big boy

Today Eric had his 1 month appointment. We were anxious to find out how big he is now. He is now 8 lbs 11oz and 21 1/2 inches long. He's grown so much in two weeks! Now he's the size of most newborn babies :). He also got a shot today and handled it very well. His daddy however did not handle it very well and eventually needs to try not to show his fear of shots in front of Eric but for now he turns his back and stands in the corner while the baby gets shots. We talked to the nurse about the baby seeming congested and spitting up a lot recently as well as his extreme amounts of gas. So we need to get him some medicine for his gas and then she wants us to put him on medicine for reflux which I'm not totally sold that he has so we may wait a week or so to put him on that medicine but we will see. He also needs to see a urologist but I won't get into details of why. So now I need to make an appointment with a plastic surgeon for his extra "thumbkin" and an appointment with the urologist. Poor little guy. He's such a trooper though. He handles going to the doctors pretty well.

Last night the baby did not sleep well. I got very excited because he slept from 7pm until after midnight so I thought maybe this would be a sign for the rest of the night. Why he can sleep for 5 hours during the day but not in the most crucial parts of the night, I do not know. So needless to say last night there was a lot of spitting up and waking up all night long. I was so tired. Eric did help at one point because I just couldn't get up one more time to rock him. Whatever I was doing was not working. This morning he woke up at 8am to be fed and I couldn't even see straight so I asked Eric if he could feed him and get him dressed and play with him for a little bit. I just needed an hour of uninterupted sleep. Thankfully Eric bit his tongue about the baby keeping him up all night because he has a tendency to tell me this which technically he hears him on the monitor and wakes up but I'm the one physically getting up with him. So when I awoke an hour later I didn't hear either of my Erics upstairs. I went downstairs to find the baby happily swinging in his swing, the trash taken out, the bottles washed, the kitchen cleaned, and Eric was cleaning out the litter box. What a way to wake up! Not only that but the baby had his appointment at 11am so I wanted to leave at 10:30. Eric went up to take a shower and knew I wanted to leave at 10:30. Normally he takes forever and we're always late but much to my pleasant surprise he was showered, dressed, and downstairs by 10:29am. What a guy.

Yesterday I went to my parent's house for a surprise visit with the baby. My mom watches Dylan on thursdays so it was a day of grandchildren. We had a very nice day including going on a nice walk. Dylan doesn't have a whole lot of interest in the baby but when I put the baby down for a nap and Dylan and I were playing, he picked up his blanket and said to me "I want to give this to baby Eric." So we went into the room and wrapped the baby up in the blanket. Eric was fussy for a little bit when I put him down which is hard to listen to but I told everyone that he needed to cry it out for at least 15 minutes before we all run to rescue him. The only one I let go in the room simply because it was so cute was Dylan. He would tell me "I go check on him" and then run in the room and come back out. I think Dylan will be a very good big brother once he gets used to having a baby around. He at least can get some practice with his cousin!

I had an interview on Wednesday at the May for a different position. I do not want to go back to work, especially to a different job. I don't plan on going back to work until June but when I saw the description of this job I figured I would at least apply and see what happens. I'm not sure I would accept this job if it was offered but the next day I received a call that they want to have me come in for a second interview next Wednesday and I decided to go. After all we are in a recession! It kind of would be wrong to not pursue a job even though this is the first job I've applied for since I was laid off. So we'll see how it goes. I thought I bombed the interview because I was so tired but apparently I didn't do too bad!

Now for some pictures:

Eric has found his thumb several times since he was born but yesterday he was all about it. I was in the middle of feeding him a bottle and I took it out of his mouth for a second and so he decided to suck his thumb. Too cute!

My mom got Eric a mobile for his crib. It matches his bedroom set very nicely! He seems to like the music it plays but hasn't quite discovered that he can look at it and see the animals move around too.

Here's his snoopy bandaid covering his first shot. However, it is very blurry because he couldn't stay still while I took the picture.

On a Schedule

This week I have been determined to get the baby on a schedule and get rid of the witching hours before I lost my mind. So I started yesterday and got him on a schedule to eat every 4 hours, have play time, and then take a nap in his crib instead of everywhere but. The tricky part was getting him down for a nap without screaming. I want to make sure that we can put him in his crib awake and he will fall asleep on his own instead of having him fall asleep on us. The first time I put him down for a nap in his crib he fussed for probably 10 minutes and then fell asleep. After that, every time I put him down he just laid their quietly until he fell asleep. It was so cute. He ate every four hours, we played, and then he napped again. It was so nice because Eric and I were able to eat dinner together and have some time together without having to listen to a screaming baby. Today the schedule has continued. It got a little screwed up because he went almost 5 hours without a bottle because we were out and about and he peacefully slept in the car so we will see how the night goes. The night last night went great though with him waking up at 11:50, 4:10, and 7. Now for the cute pictures...


Today I was feeding him and discovered that he wanted to hold his own bottle. He normally tries to but this time he really did. He rested it on one arm and held it with his other hand.


When we were at my parents house for Easter everyone thought it was so funny that he slept with his arms up by his head. He ALWAYS sleeps like this. Even in the womb and when he came into the world his arms were up like this as well. So here is proof that he does sleep with his arms up.

One month old

I can't believe Eric is one month old. Time goes by so quickly. On friday night he had his first good night of sleep all week. We were getting in this bad habit of him being up from around 8-11p unless I held him and 5-7am unless I held him. This was completely wearing me thin and I had no idea how to break that habit. Friday we were out at my sister's house for Dylan's 2nd birthday party and then we stopped at Eric's friend Nick's house on our way home. I don't know if this helped the baby skip right over the 8-11pm witching hour or what but we got home, fed him and put him to bed when he was awake and he actually fell asleep on his own and slept until his next feeding. He got up about every 3 1/2 hours for a bottle and then went right down to sleep afterwards. I was so happy! I wish I could just figure out what on earth we did to make this night successful. However, a new day brings a new tough night and tonight is not going quite as well as last night so we'll see what the rest of the night brings.

Dylan's birthday party:

One month old pictures:

Random cute pictures of him in a towel:

More one month old pictures

Oh Happy Day

Today was one of the best days since the baby has been born. The glider and ottoman came in!!!! No more rocking on the floor at 3am with the baby! Eric immediately put it together and I've already used it several times today and so far so good! Now I just hope that it wasn't on clearance because it's going to fall apart after 2 days.

On another note, we are getting into a nice routine somewhat. I've been able to get Eric to go 3 1/2 hours between feedings and he's now consistantly drinking 4 ounces. It would be nice if he would go 4 hours between bottles but that only happens about once a day if that. Last night he probably could have slept through the night because he fell asleep on my chest and slept for what seemed like forever. If it wasn't for the fear of SIDS, I would totally have him sleep on his stomach at night because I know he would sleep so much better.

I gave Eric a bath today and he didn't cry once! Maybe a wimper but no screaming and he didn't pee in the tub for the first time. He apparently likes the tubby.

That's it for now!