My little Henry is growing faster than this poor mama’s heart can handle. He’s 2 months old as of last Tuesday! I spent a long time looking at and trying to narrow down photos for this post and it’s incredible how much he grows even from week to week. There have been difficult days for sure, but Henry is a sweet-tempered and happy baby so I feel blessed that we haven’t had many difficulties since coming home from the hospital.
I still can’t believe I made this tiny human.
Breastfeeding and Sleep
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For the first 3 weeks, he mostly slept, barely waking even to eat. We actually struggled the first few days of breastfeeding because he would fall asleep moments after starting to eat. We met with a lactation consultant a couple of days after coming home and she really helped us get the best start to our breastfeeding journey. We had a second appointment a week later which really helped to solidify things.
Until he was about 5 weeks old, I was insatiable. Breastfeeding hunger was like a hunger I had never known before. I ate All. Day. Long. and I never felt full. I could go out to a restaurant and still feel hungry after eating a plate that would normally fill me up halfway through. I’m theorizing it’s because I wasn’t able to eat/enjoy food for most of my pregnancy.
Besides having help from a lactation consultant, the thing that most helped our breastfeeding journey was the My Breast Friend nursing pillow. I got to use one at my first appointment and I knew I needed to get one for myself. I already had a Boppy which was nice but he was so small that he would just slide in between me and the pillow. The Breast Friend made it possible for me to have use of one or both of my hands while feeding him and the little pocket was the perfect place for my phone and the TV remote which, let’s be honest, were the two most used items those first few weeks.
If he’s still asleep when he gets hungry, he starts shaking his head back and forth vigorously and makes piggy snorts – it’s hilarious and adorable. Right when he turned 2 weeks old, he had a few nights in a row of intense cluster feeding. I mean he was on the boob from about 6 pm to midnight straight and after a few hours, it gave me some intense anxiety. Luckily it didn’t last too long.
Until he was about 8-9 weeks old, he was up every 1-2 hours throughout the night to eat which made sleep very difficult. He always stayed in a sleepy state though so it wasn’t like I was staying up with a fussy baby. I felt generally tired throughout the day but I was honestly prepared for worse. It hasn’t been as bad as everyone made it seem like it would be. Maybe we’re just lucky.ย
Mom Life
I don’t know what other first time moms do the first few weeks but mine was full of sleepy baby snuggles. We were in a predictable, round-the-clock eat, sleep, poop routine. Our days were spent cuddled up on the couch while binging on the best that Netflix and Hulu had to offer.
- Caribbean Life (HGTV, all Hulu available episodes)
- Great British Bake Off (newest season on Netflix – one of our favorite shows)
- M*A*S*H – (Hulu: Seasons 4-11)
- Friends – (Netflix: Miscellaneous episodes – I watched the ones where Rachel has her baby while I was in labor lol.)
- Kingdom Hearts – a game, not a TV show but Brady was feeling nostalgic so I watched him play the whole game.
- Love It or List It (HGTV, almost all Hulu available episodes)
- Baby Ballroom – Netflix: this was probably one of my favorites and I’m not sure why!
After all this, I realized how amazing it is to have Netflix and Hulu. Like what did my mom do? You can’t read books while holding a baby. Don’t want to wake baby to get up change the VHS/DVD? So… stare at the baby? Lol, I do spend a lot of my day staring at and taking photos of my babe. Which is another thing! Cell phone photography has changed the world. I feel like there are only a handful of baby photos of me. Maybe an album. This kid already has enough photos to make 10+ albums and he’s only 10 weeks old.
The cats have transitioned into life with a baby without too much upheaval. Shadow investigated the day he came home and hasn’t cared much since as long as she gets fed. Maisie, on the other hand, did not have a good start. She sniffed him out when we brought him home but for a few days, she would hiss and get angry if you tried to get near her and pet her. Now she doesn’t acknowledge his presence, is extra needy, and keeps trying to get attention.
Henry’s Favorites
Brady went back to work the day after Labor Day, just before Henry was 3 weeks old. The first week that we were home with Henry we had visitors every single day so for week 2 we didn’t see anyone and just enjoyed our family days. We did go out a few times to have appointments, go shopping, or get some food but we mostly spent our days at home since the weather was still very hot. Since we were fully sharing baby duties, we were still showering daily and taking care of ourselves pretty well… since he’s returned to work, we’re lucky to shower more than 2-3 times a week.
Henry is a super chill baby most of the time but there were times when he would start screaming – like getting put into a car seat – and we found our magic trick in singing the ukulele version of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” to him. He would almost instantly stop crying once he heard us start singing. We have a couple of videos and it’s really sweet to look back on. That worked for a few weeks but now the trick is to stick him into a bath.
This kid loves bathtime. We didn’t bathe him until he was 3 weeks old and since then we still only bathe him every 1-1.5 weeks mostly because he loves it, not because he necessarily needs it. He loves kicking his legs and splashing the water with his feet. The first time we used our giant baby bathtub it was pretty big for him but it works so well for him now and I’m glad that we picked this tub since he’ll be able to keep using it once he’s bigger and sitting.
Our baby’s favorite thing to do is move. Often when he gets fussy it’s because he wants to be on the move. He loves to bounce or be held facing out while you walk. He enjoys walks in the stroller or in the Lillebaby – I love my Lille carrier so much. I actually learned how to breastfeed while wearing it and did it this past Sunday for the first time while Brady and I were out on a walk. It’s easy to use whenever I’m grocery shopping or I need to use a cart and he sleeps through every time.ย
Developments
A few random things from the first couple months: he started to have peely skin by the time we were leaving the hospital and that stuck around for his whole first month. Around month 1 he lost the hair on the back and sides of his head and developed cradle cap on the top which we’re still dealing with. For the first 2-3 weeks, he had a poopy diaper for every feeding – you realize pretty quick that changing newborn diapers really isn’t bad at all as long as it stays in the diaper on not on you. We’ve only had a couple of pee fountains in the beginning but it’s been a while now since that happened.
He was tad cross-eyed for the first couple of weeks but apparently that’s pretty normal. Around 4 weeks you could tell when he was suddenly able to see more than just a foot away from his face because he started noticing things and looking around. He could track you with his eyes as you walked across the room. Around 6-7 weeks he started to take a strong interest in what the Wonder Weeks app would call “the world of changing patterns”. One of his favorite patterns has been staring up at the trees whenever we go on walks – he really seems captivated by them.
He’s been smiling ever since we brought him home but it was a few weeks before they were actually happy smiles. Even still they were still random smiles. This past weekend (9 weeks) he actually started smiling back at us whenever we’d smile at him! The last few days have been very smiley baby days.
Henry used a pacifier a lot while he was in the NICU but this was primarily because he wasn’t allowed to breastfeed for the first few days. Once we started breastfeeding, I found it was hard to switch him back and forth between the boob and the pacifier; He would be extremely fussy for 1-2 feeds after having used a pacifier so I only used it when we were out by ourselves and he really needed something to calm him down. Once he was 3.5 weeks old we were able to make a smooth transition between the pacifier and feeding so that’s helped a lot – especially for car rides.
At 5.5 weeks he found his hands and they have been in his mouth ever since – he often prefers them to his pacifier. To go with that he started drooling a lot by 7.5 weeks so I keep a cloth handy. We have only had a small handful of spit ups or blowouts since he was born – he’s been a pretty clean baby so far!
Growth
Henry was born at 8 lbs 6 oz, dropped to 7 lbs 15 oz, was 8 lbs 8 oz at 2 weeks, 10 lbs 9 oz at one month, and was 12 lbs 4 oz at his two-month appointment. He wore newborn diapers till he was 3.5 weeks old and moved into size 2 diapers at 8 weeks. Newborn clothes were large on him when we brought him home even though they say they’re for up to 8 lbs. He primarily wore newborn clothes until he was 4 weeks old but still wore his newborn sleepers until 9 weeks. Everything he is currently wearing is 0-3 month size.
He’s average percentile on growth for everything except his head which he is 95%+ percentile. Even with his larger head, he’s doing great with head control. Most of his practice has come from laying on our chests with a little bit of floor tummy time. He did his first head lift from the floor at 7 weeks old and you’d better believe we were cheering him through this baby milestone.ย
It’s bittersweet looking back at his first photos but I’m trying to remind myself every day to soak it up and live in the moment because I know I’ll miss this sweet time of life when he’s older.
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