First Week Home

We've been home for a week now, and it's flown by.  We are slowly figuring things out, learning about Jackson and what he likes and dislikes, and how to work that into our lives.

When people tell you you'll be exhausted, you don't believe them.  And then you're up at 10pm, 1am, 4am, 7am, and then it is the daytime again.  And usually at least one of those breaks involves little to no sleep.  It does amazing things to your brain.  Breastfeeding is hard.  I'm the only one who can give him what he needs, and he needs it at least every three hours, around the clock.  That means I have to be awake and able to provide every three hours, around the clock.  I'm very proud that we are now exclusively breastfeeding after starting in the hospital supplementing (re: feeding entirely) with formula.  We worked hard to make it this way, and it is finally working out.  He seems to be cluster feeding today, which could be a soothing thing, or could be a growth spurt thing.  Let's hope it doesn't last long.

The nights are getting better.  We discovered on night one that he does not care for his bassinet yet, I think it is too big, personally.  He likes being enveloped, even while also swaddled.  He loves the bouncer, enjoys the swing, though usually does not sleep in it (but right this minute he's in it and fighting sleep mighty hard, I think sleep just won) and a little cradle thing that Diana gave us finally let me put him down in the bedroom last night and Kevin and I got sleep, simultaneously, in our bed.  Up until now it has been one of us, or Grandma Leslie (who went home Wednesday) up with him in the living room.  Hopefully he can go longer and longer in our room sleeping.  The hard part has been getting his clock right, babies are generally nocturnal creatures, since being in the belly during the day, all mom's movement puts them to sleep, and while mom is still at night, that is awake time.  So we've been working on that, and he is doing better being up for longer and longer periods during the day.

We've had a fairly busy week, lots of visitors, a few outings, it feels like we've had something going on every day.  We're ready for an off day, which I think will be tomorrow.

In other news, I'm down 12lbs from my pre-pregnancy weight already.  I didn't gain hardly anything during the pregnancy, and breastfeeding is awesome, so I've lost it all, plus some, in 10 days.  Yay.  Hopefully it keeps going in that direction.  Kevin also shaved his head today.  It has been something he has been mulling over for a long while, and finally decided to pull the trigger while he is home on leave with us.  He looks different, but I like it.  He's enjoying the ease of it already.

Otherwise we are all doing well, enjoying our family time for sure.  Hopefully next week will be a little less hectic, and we will all settle more into a rhythm.