Barrett - Week Two

Barrett finished his second week here. I dare say this week has been easier than last week.  Mainly because I think I'm just getting used to less sleep and have lowered my expectations a whole lot. Ha.

I forgot to mention last week: had his first diaper rash, is super fidgety, has a hard time settling, kind of jumpy, and his belly button fell off.

This week he had his first bath.  The first one Jonathan and I did and the second one Jonathan and Georgia did.  Barrett LOVES to listen to his siblings talk to him. He fell asleep with Jonathan holding him while Georgia read a list of Titanic facts. So funny.

I have met, held, and rocked to sleep A LOT of newborns.  Since I'm a photographer I put newborns to sleep fairly regularly and I have never had a more difficult baby to get to sleep than Barrett.  Putting him down for a nap or getting him down for his longest stretch at night is pure torture to me.  It wouldn't be AS bad if I didn't have two other kids but it takes upwards of 30 minutes to get him down.  The other day it took over an hour...and I say "the other day" but that is basically every day.  I've tried every increment of time after he wakes up but it doesn't really seem to make a difference.  He is for sure sleepy after being awake for 30 minutes so that's usually when I try to finish up his feeding and get him reswaddled and he does fall asleep fairly quickly...for like 5 minutes and then he pops his eyes open and just stares. And we repeat that over and over and over.  I'm 100% that he's full (bottle fed) and we've tried 30 and 45 minutes and even an hour.  An hour is too long and pretty much all bets for sleep are off after that. The other day he cried it out because of pure necessity while I made Milam lunch and he slept for an hour. He is so easily over stimulated but with two older siblings it's really hard to keep that to a minimum. Letting him cry is NEVER my first option but sometimes I feel like even me holding him is distracting him from sleeping. He's been going down for the night around 10-11 and doing a first long stretch of 4-8.5 hours and then sleeping 1-2 hours after that until about 6:30.  The other night you actually only woke up to eat and then fell right back to sleep.  It was so nice. Each day he seems to be giving us 2 long naps a day (2-3 hours)  I don't let him sleep longer than 3 hours for a nap before I go wake him up.

He is in size one diapers and clothes...I have no idea because I don't think he's worn anything but a swaddle this week.  It is cold and flu season so we are being hermits.

He likes to watch his brother and sister and likes it when they talk to him. He doesn't dislike his baths.  We do that about every other night. He smiles a lot.  Even in the hospital he was constantly smiling so that's fun.

He likes to eat but can be a fussy eater.  Not always sure of what he wants.  Sometimes he'll soothe with a Paci, sometimes not. He doesn't spit up a whole lot...or at least not yet.