TBT Catch Up! Plus a Week One Update!
I've missed three weeks of Throwback Thursday picture posts and even though it's not Thursday (it's Tuesday), I'm going to get caught up now anyway.
TBT 36 ~ Sept 8th: My Mini-Me
This picture was taken over Labor Day weekend in Encinitas in 2013. I see so much of little Meg in this picture of my daughter! The light (almost white) blonde hair, her nose, her eyes, her red red lips. I go back and forth between seeing me or Jeff in Audrey. But like my dad always says, "Audrey has a lot of Audrey in her." :)
TBT 37 ~ Sept. 15th: 38 weeks
Oliver was definitely tinier than Audrey throughout the entire pregnancy and I think these two photos side by side confirm that! I made it to 38 weeks and 5 days with Oliver. With Audrey, labor began when I was 39 weeks and 2 days and then she arrived 26 hours later (ugh!). I never really liked talking about my labor and delivery of Audrey. I felt like I had chickened out... But you can read about it here. Two different pregnancies, two (VERY) different labor and deliveries, two very different babies!
TBT 38 ~ Sept. 22nd: Domo Arigato, Mr. Roboto!
This is a series of photos of Jeff dancing to his new (at the time) 7" record of MR. ROBOTO! I love random dance parties in our home. Now with Audrey, they happen A LOT more often - what a treat! Jeff has also choreographed his own dance to the opening credits of MadMen, which we have been watching together on Netflix. I love that I have a fun silly husband!
ONE WEEK UPDATE
And since there are no pictures of Oliver in this post yet.... here you go! :-D
Jeff especially likes calling Oliver "Mr. Cool." When Oliver fusses, Jeff says, "Mr. Cool, you are being very uncool right now." He says it in a loving and joking way. It's pretty terrific! Oliver is one week and four days old now! We have overcome a bout with a clogged tear duct (gunky junk coming out of the corner of one eye). The cure? Cleaning it with a warm washcloth and squirting some breastmilk on the eye! Wow! We have also switched to using washcloths to wipe Oliver's butt after wipes gave him a fairly large diaper rash in the first few days. Plus, the wipes would make him scream and/or pee all over the place. With the cloths, he doesn't mind at all (although the pee still happens because.... you know, pee happens!) We're still waiting on the belly button raisin to fall off. I've been so tempted to just pull at it but I know I need to leave it alone. It is literally hanging by a thread but I don't want to do anything that could bring on an infection in the future. Oliver hates baths (so far) but he LOVES getting snuggly in his towel afterwards! When he's awake, he is very alert. He has started making and maintaining eye contact, which is exciting. I've caught a few little smiles in his sleep - he must be having pleasant dreams! Oliver is a pro at tummy time! We're surprised at how much he can lift his head and how often he chooses to do so.
As for me, a week and four days postpartum I am feeling good! Jeff and I are getting out to go for walks frequently and it's great! Sleep is decent at this point. Oliver is feeding about 9-10 times a day. During the day, I try to arouse him every two hours to feed - sometimes I let him go a little longer if he's sleeping but never more than 3 hours between feeds during the day. At night, I let him sleep as long as he likes which has typically been 4 hours at the longest stretches. One night, I forgot to set an alarm and he went for 5 hours. That was actually painful for me so I've become more diligent with setting an alarm for 4 hours after the start of the last feeding. The alarm has yet to go off since Oliver starts stirring before then anyway. I'm hoping the more frequent feeds during the day will help Oliver distinguish between day and night. We shall see! I know Audrey's clock flipped at 2 weeks and I was up ALL NIGHT with her for a season. Breastfeeding has been going GREAT! From day one, Oliver has known how to latch and suck, which was something Audrey had a lot of trouble with, making those first weeks with her pure torture. With Oliver, I actually look forward to nursing. I did have a lot of pain in the first week as my body got used to everything but that pain has subsided and the milk is flowing!
We're really just taking each day as it comes and I'm trying really hard not to put myself or Oliver on a schedule. I use an app called GLOW which has helped with each season of baby - fertility issues to pregnancy to postpartum. It has a tracker for logging each feed and diaper change. There is also a sleep tracker but I don't use that yet since Oliver still sleeps so much during the day (and night) anyway. The only thing that is tricky is timing with Audrey. Thankfully, Jeff is taking care of Audrey in the mornings, dropping her off and picking her up from school, getting dinners ready for us, and starting her nighttime routine. I still try to get in every other day to read with Audrey as part of her bedtime routine. Both Jeff and I don't want her to develop any resentment against her brother due to me not showing up for her bedtime. In the mornings, I make sure I sit with her, hug her, and talk to her, even if I'm busy nursing Oliver. So far, Audrey is adjusting pretty well to the new routines with Oliver.
Lastly, I've gone poop and didn't die! That was the hardest thing for me postpartum... um, literally. *Gross.* But all is well and my bleeding is subsiding as well. I wasn't sure how long I should expect to bleed postpartum. I knew it was longer than a regular period and then one of my friends who recently had a baby told me she bled for "like" a month postpartum. So I'm not stressing about that area any more. My follow-up appointment isn't until mid-October, after 6 weeks. I expect the check up will go well because I am feeling so well. In fact, I keeping playing this over and over in my head (and then I go look for some wood to knock on!):
TBT 36 ~ Sept 8th: My Mini-Me
This picture was taken over Labor Day weekend in Encinitas in 2013. I see so much of little Meg in this picture of my daughter! The light (almost white) blonde hair, her nose, her eyes, her red red lips. I go back and forth between seeing me or Jeff in Audrey. But like my dad always says, "Audrey has a lot of Audrey in her." :)
TBT 37 ~ Sept. 15th: 38 weeks
Oliver was definitely tinier than Audrey throughout the entire pregnancy and I think these two photos side by side confirm that! I made it to 38 weeks and 5 days with Oliver. With Audrey, labor began when I was 39 weeks and 2 days and then she arrived 26 hours later (ugh!). I never really liked talking about my labor and delivery of Audrey. I felt like I had chickened out... But you can read about it here. Two different pregnancies, two (VERY) different labor and deliveries, two very different babies!
TBT 38 ~ Sept. 22nd: Domo Arigato, Mr. Roboto!
This is a series of photos of Jeff dancing to his new (at the time) 7" record of MR. ROBOTO! I love random dance parties in our home. Now with Audrey, they happen A LOT more often - what a treat! Jeff has also choreographed his own dance to the opening credits of MadMen, which we have been watching together on Netflix. I love that I have a fun silly husband!
ONE WEEK UPDATE
And since there are no pictures of Oliver in this post yet.... here you go! :-D
Jeff especially likes calling Oliver "Mr. Cool." When Oliver fusses, Jeff says, "Mr. Cool, you are being very uncool right now." He says it in a loving and joking way. It's pretty terrific! Oliver is one week and four days old now! We have overcome a bout with a clogged tear duct (gunky junk coming out of the corner of one eye). The cure? Cleaning it with a warm washcloth and squirting some breastmilk on the eye! Wow! We have also switched to using washcloths to wipe Oliver's butt after wipes gave him a fairly large diaper rash in the first few days. Plus, the wipes would make him scream and/or pee all over the place. With the cloths, he doesn't mind at all (although the pee still happens because.... you know, pee happens!) We're still waiting on the belly button raisin to fall off. I've been so tempted to just pull at it but I know I need to leave it alone. It is literally hanging by a thread but I don't want to do anything that could bring on an infection in the future. Oliver hates baths (so far) but he LOVES getting snuggly in his towel afterwards! When he's awake, he is very alert. He has started making and maintaining eye contact, which is exciting. I've caught a few little smiles in his sleep - he must be having pleasant dreams! Oliver is a pro at tummy time! We're surprised at how much he can lift his head and how often he chooses to do so.
As for me, a week and four days postpartum I am feeling good! Jeff and I are getting out to go for walks frequently and it's great! Sleep is decent at this point. Oliver is feeding about 9-10 times a day. During the day, I try to arouse him every two hours to feed - sometimes I let him go a little longer if he's sleeping but never more than 3 hours between feeds during the day. At night, I let him sleep as long as he likes which has typically been 4 hours at the longest stretches. One night, I forgot to set an alarm and he went for 5 hours. That was actually painful for me so I've become more diligent with setting an alarm for 4 hours after the start of the last feeding. The alarm has yet to go off since Oliver starts stirring before then anyway. I'm hoping the more frequent feeds during the day will help Oliver distinguish between day and night. We shall see! I know Audrey's clock flipped at 2 weeks and I was up ALL NIGHT with her for a season. Breastfeeding has been going GREAT! From day one, Oliver has known how to latch and suck, which was something Audrey had a lot of trouble with, making those first weeks with her pure torture. With Oliver, I actually look forward to nursing. I did have a lot of pain in the first week as my body got used to everything but that pain has subsided and the milk is flowing!
We're really just taking each day as it comes and I'm trying really hard not to put myself or Oliver on a schedule. I use an app called GLOW which has helped with each season of baby - fertility issues to pregnancy to postpartum. It has a tracker for logging each feed and diaper change. There is also a sleep tracker but I don't use that yet since Oliver still sleeps so much during the day (and night) anyway. The only thing that is tricky is timing with Audrey. Thankfully, Jeff is taking care of Audrey in the mornings, dropping her off and picking her up from school, getting dinners ready for us, and starting her nighttime routine. I still try to get in every other day to read with Audrey as part of her bedtime routine. Both Jeff and I don't want her to develop any resentment against her brother due to me not showing up for her bedtime. In the mornings, I make sure I sit with her, hug her, and talk to her, even if I'm busy nursing Oliver. So far, Audrey is adjusting pretty well to the new routines with Oliver.
Lastly, I've gone poop and didn't die! That was the hardest thing for me postpartum... um, literally. *Gross.* But all is well and my bleeding is subsiding as well. I wasn't sure how long I should expect to bleed postpartum. I knew it was longer than a regular period and then one of my friends who recently had a baby told me she bled for "like" a month postpartum. So I'm not stressing about that area any more. My follow-up appointment isn't until mid-October, after 6 weeks. I expect the check up will go well because I am feeling so well. In fact, I keeping playing this over and over in my head (and then I go look for some wood to knock on!):
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