Life With A Two-Month Old

It's been two months already? Seriously? I've used up 2/3 of my maternity leave! I feel like they placed a newborn on my chest in the delivery room just yesterday!

A lot has changed in two months. Jack has gone from my tiny little newborn who barely opened his eyes to a chubby little baby who is bright and alert. I went from a girl who was terrified to nurse to a mom who can walk around the house with her baby latched on to her boob. Eight weeks ago I was so overwhelmed I never dreamed that would happen for either of us. But I am so glad it did! He's almost 13 pounds now and I am only 5 pounds away from my pre-pregnancy weight too!

1 week old vs. 8 weeks old.

So what is life like with my two-month old baby? Great! He plays and laughs now  I love watching him learn new things everyday. He smiled for the first time around 3 weeks and he's doing it more each day. He even laughs now! We do have bad days still. The days where he just screams and cries no matter what I try. Those days I just comfort him the best I can and tell myself it will pass (despite how much it breaks my heart to see him so upset). I think of the happy times and remember he will not be a baby forever so I need to cherish it.

One happy time is bathtime. He loves bath now. He always calms down instantly when we put him in. He splashes around and is even trying to play with his toy. He takes a bath with me sometimes too. I get the bath ready and Michael hands him to me wrapped in hand towel. I suggest the towel for a few reasons.  First of all it keeps him warmer. Second babies get really slippery, the towel gives you some more friction to grab on to. Third, babies poop when they feel relaxed. I cover his booty with the towel so if he does poop, I stay clean.

He also stopped pooping at night, which means he sleep almost through the night now! He only wakes up once (maybe twice) to eat. This also means we stopped changing his wet diapers at night. This way he doesn't get overstimulated and will go back to sleep easier. Michael gets him from his big crib, checks to make sure he didn't poop or his diaper isn't leaking. If it is, only then does he change him. Then he gives him to me and I nurse him and rock him back to sleep. Then I put him in his bassinet next to our bed for the rest of the night (usually 3 more hours). Unfortunately he only drinks one side so I still have to get up to pump. But that only takes a few minutes and then I'm back to bed.

We can also take him out more now. We go for walks almost everyday, he loves looking at people passing by us. He usually falls asleep a few minutes into the walk and somehow magically wakes up right when we get home. He goes to the store with me sometimes too, but he isn't always good about that. I think it's all the fluorescent lights.

Breakfast with Daddy in Sonoma. 

For Father's Day we went to Sonoma for the reenactment of the Bear Flag Revolt. He napped in his Boba Wrap most of the day luckily. He even slept through the gunpowder shots during the reenactment, granted we hid in the back of the crowd and I covered his ears as best I could. I was so happy to be out of the house and talking to adults. I suggest when taking your baby out for a long period of time, make sure you get them to nap whenever they start giving you the sleepy cues (like yawning, covering their eyes, and fussing slightly). Stroller, wrap, car seat, your arms---whatever it takes to get them down, just don't let them skip naps.

This was from the start of his Wonder Week, he sucked
 on his toy for the first time, I was blown away.

The second month is also when your baby has their second Wonder Week. I didn't know about these until recently It's when your baby makes a huge mental leap, like a brain growth spurt. Two weeks ago Jack was so insanely fussy that I didn't know what to do. He would get mad when I tried to play with him like I always had been. He would nap only an hour at time---if I could get him down, he fought every nap. He also started fussing at my boob when I tried to nurse him. It took forever to get him to latch on and when he did, he just wanted to comfort nurse forever. He'd scream if I unlatched him before he was ready to stop. And at night he went back to waking up every 2 hours to eat. I was so confused and getting overwhelmed again. Then someone on my the April 2014 Birth Club mentioned Wonder Weeks so I looked it up. I found an app and downloaded it. It explained all these fussy behaviors were normal and not permanent. He just needed some extra comfort while he was starting to see the world around him differently. And he needed me to play with him differently now, more interaction and stimulation. The app has a chart that shows about when your baby will enter a wonder week and exit it. And about a week later it ended and Jack went back sleeping well at night and stopped fussing so much. The app helped me prepare for everything. I had to keep playing more interactively. And his naps change, no more three 2-3 hour naps. He now takes four 1-2 hour naps. I like that he's up for longer period of times, but now I have less time to get stuff done around the house. I really suggest downloading the app, it's nice to know what to expect and that it's all normal.

That's Jack's life two months in, in a nutshell!