Two Months Old

Lincoln turned 2 months old couple of weeks ago. The delay in the post is because I was waiting for his 2 month doctor appointment on the monday after and then I unfortunately had to go back to work last week, but that will be a separate post.

Over the last month I've really enjoyed getting to know my little booger. This month has been by far a lot easier than the first month. He is really the sweetest little boy ever, although I'm biased. This month his personality has really started to show. He is getting more and more social and his wake times are getting more and frequent. Now his doctor did confirm with me  that he does have a mild case of colic, but even so he is getting easier and easier. Though it does help that his mimi and papa are just down the road and can come over and give this mama a break!

This month he developed some sort of schedule. I use that term lightly but there is some sort of pattern. He usually wakes up around 9 or 9:30 and then he is up for a little bit, somewhere between 30 min and 1 1/2 hours, then will sleep for 45 minutes to 2 hours. His feedings have moved from every 2 hours to closer to 3.5 or 4 hours.

We had a great month at home together and getting to spend every second together. I truly cherished those moments because I knew I was going to have to return to work. But I did do a trial run a couple of times. We left him for a few hours with my sister while we tried the black friday thing, and we left him with his mimi and papa so we could go to dinner just the two of us...it was weird!

This month he celebrated his baptism and first thanksgiving. So it was a big month overall. He has changed a lot and has grown a lot too. When I look at him it's hard to believe that he is 2 months old and how big he has gotten. It's also hard to believe that just 2 months ago this beautiful baby was inside me completely dependent upon me and only me. It's sometimes hard to allow other people to tend to his needs because for so long it was just me. In fact one of my instructors said it best once when I was talking to her about having to go back to work.  She said it was going to be hard because after all you have been with him for almost a whole year with minimal separation. When she said that I was almost moved to tears because that truly did describe how I felt.

One thing that has really surprised me this month is how much my love for him has grown. I can't honestly say that I was overwhelmed with love for him while I was pregnant, I never really felt an overly strong connection that I thought I would. Don't get me wrong I always loved him and wanted what was best for him, but I always felt that I would have this OVERWHELMING feeling of love, but I didn't at first. Friends of mine would describe their love for their unborn child or newborn and it would almost make me feel guilty because I just didn't feel that.  I don't know if exhaustion and the fact that he was so fussy played a part of it or all of the emotional turmoil of the year but it just wasn't there even though I wanted it to be.

However this month I can say that my love for him brings me to tears. I am overwhelmed by my love for him. He is tied for first as the best thing that has ever happened to me (his dad is the second part of the tie). I am truly moved and taken aback at the love a parent can have for their child. It's remarkable. I love nothing more than being Adam's wife and Lincoln's mom. I feel so blessed that God chose me to be both. I feel so truly blessed.

Well here are a few of the milestones/things he enjoys this month.

• He smiles A LOT during the morning hours
• He loves the shower/bath time. There are several times where he just falls asleep when we shower together because he is so relaxed. 
• He still pretty much hates his pacifier. SO much so that it will sometimes upset him more if you try to give it to him.
• He loves his lamb seat and sitting and watching everything
• He loves Christmas lights and we've set him in front of the tree to just stare at them several times
• Getting his diaper changed is one of his favorite times. He could be fussy then we put him on the changing table and he is all giggles and smiles. 
• He loves to be naked, and is sometimes the happiest being so
• He absolutely HATES to have anything put over his head. He could be all happy and almost giggling then you put a onesie over his head and you'd think he was going to die. and it will sometimes take 5-10 minutes to calm him back down. 
• The best thing he does is when I say his name and he gets a smile from ear to ear. It melts my heart and I love it!
• Mommy isn't very good at tummy time because he can be so fussy and I don't want to upset him, but he's getting better with it and will lift his head about 45˚ or so. 
• He coos A LOT sometimes it even sounds like giggling
• He will sometimes hear my voice and turn his head to me, if nothing else he definitely turns his eyes, he sometimes struggles with the head thing. 
• He slept through the night (7 hours) for the first time when he was 6 weeks old 
• On average he sleeps about 4-5 hour stretches at nigh, though he will still have a bad night here or there where he is up every 2. 
• When held upright he can hold his head up, occasionally he's a little wobbly but for the most part he's pretty good about it
• He will hold a rattle and shake it if it's placed in his hand
• he will reach out and try and touch the "toys" on his activity mat

Overall Lincoln is growing and developing well. Sometimes I get a little almost defensive when I hear about my friends kids who are the same age and able to do things such as roll over already, but I have to remember that every baby is different and he is growing at a healthy pace for him. He will catch up eventually. He doesn't have to do everything first, so long as he's developing thats what matters.

This month breastfeeding has gone a lot better. We attended breastfeeding support group meetings a couple of times a week. I'm thankful I had the time to dedicate to breastfeeding. It's not easy and I'm grateful to have the support of other nursing moms. Due to my dedication, I can say that Lincoln is growing at a steady pace. He doesn't seem to be growing as fast as some of my friends kids are, but he's holding strong! His stats at his 2 month appointment were:

• He weights 11 lbs 8 oz
• He's 23.75 inches long
• He's in the 50% for weight
• He's in the 75% for height

He also got his first round of vaccines. Before they gave him his vaccines I talked with his doctor about doing an alternative schedule. Unfortunately most of the vaccines he would get at his first appointment came in a combo vaccine so I was unable to separate them as I wanted to. So he just got his combo vaccine. But then the doctor wanted to make sure he got the rotovirus oral vaccine because I guess he wouldn't be able get it past so many weeks of age. So I wasn't able to get the exact schedule I wanted but it's better than nothing.

Now I know that as I'm writing this I've already been back to work for 2 weeks. But at his 2 month birthday I know that I was excited for what the next month would bring to my baby boy of celebrating his first christmas and new years. But I was also dreading going back to work. I'll I'd ever wanted to be was a stay at home mom, but unfortunately our finances don't allow me to do so. So I headed back  to work to help provide for my family. I miss my little man dearly but it's unfortunately all a part of what I have to do!

Here are a few pictures from his 2 month photoshoot...

i love this little face

so alert now

classic pouty face

such a cute smile

he found the sticker

sort of tried to eat it

hi ya

cutie boy

angel baby

Happy 2 month Birthday baby boy! I love you!!

Vaccines

So Lincoln will be 2 months old tomorrow...WOW! With being 2 months old comes another well baby visit and his vaccines.

Obviously if you haven't been living under a rock for the last 10ish years you know there has been a lot of discussion about childhood vaccines. Now I for one don't entirely believe that there is a link to autism or anything like that, but it sort of makes you wonder.

However I do think they are extremely and sometimes unnecessarily aggressive with childhood vaccines. I do believe in children being vaccinated, because they were created and have done a lot of good for people. But I don't necessarily think that a 2 month old baby needs 6 vaccines all at once. SERIOUSLY!

I've talked with several people about this, and I seem to be in agreement with only a small few. Many of my friends had their children vaccinated according to what their pediatrician recommends. Maybe I'm weird but just because I like and trust Lincoln's doctor doesn't mean his always 100% correct. They are CONSTANTLY changing the guidelines for everything including vaccines, so whats wrong with questioning them? Nothing in my opinion. I feel like as a mother I have to be an advocate for my son, and for me part of that is being knowledgable on everything that goes into his body and really doing my research. Medicine isn't an exact science and this is why protocols and things are changed a lot.

While I think it's important to have Lincoln vaccinated, I do believe I want him to be vaccinated on an alternative schedule, which means he would only get 2 vaccines each month instead of 6 every 2 months! Granted with this I would have to pay additional co-pays and have more doctor visits but I think thats a small price to pay for me to be more comfortable with what goes on.

My real thing with the vaccines is that I truly think that the amount of vaccines they get at 2 months is a lot and I don't want to overload his immune system. He is so small and slowly growing and maturing that letting him build up the antibodies to 2 vaccines at a time seems like a better idea than having his body do it for 6 at a time.

Also surprisingly enough I'm not a huge fan of medicine (odd since I'm a nurse) but I don't like a lot of medicine being pumped into me, or my child...hence the natural childbirth. And again while the vaccines are a necessary part of our culture and society I don't think they need to be done so aggressively.

Hopefully Lincoln's doctor will be ok with all of this since I haven't been able to talk to him about any of it just yet. But I'm honestly a little nervous about it. I'm not someone who just does what they are told because some higher power says so. I question things and I tend to believe in things that aren't common or the high majority today. So we will see...hopefully all will go well!

The Great Sleep Debate

Maybe I'm just a first time mom or maybe Lincoln is just difficult I don't really know but sleep can be a bit of a challenge in this household.

First off I should say that I personally think that Lincoln is a fussy baby. From what I've heard from other mom's and the other babies I've been around just further prove that he's a little more on the fussy side. How I would describe Lincoln is that if he isn't sleeping he's crying. I am told he isn't colicky because he is consolable, which he is for the most part.

Now in the last 3 or so weeks his fussiness has gotten better. He will contently look around in his lamb seat or rock n play for about 20-30 minutes at a time, so I'm able to do more things around the house.

When he was younger he literally had two states of being, sleep or scream. The only real way he slept was if someone was holding him. For the first month or so he would sort of sleep in his co-sleeper next to my bed in about 1-2 hour increments and then wake up needing to eat. Then by 4 am he was done sleeping on his own and wanted to lay on my chest, which i allowed because lets face it he wasn't going to need/want me like that forever.

At 3 weeks we started swaddling him which offered me a lot of piece of mind. The hospital we deliver at doesn't recommend swaddling so we didn't, I held off for as long as I could but I couldn't take the every 30 minutes of waking up crying. Once we swaddled him he started to sleep in about 2.5-3 hour spans at night. Hallelujah!!


Then a couple of weeks after that I noticed when he would go to sleep in the co-sleeper next to me, he would still startle himself awake again, even being swaddled. His whole body would jolt forward, this would in turn wake him up and he would scream and the only thing that would really calm him down was to lay next to me. 


I am slightly ashamed to say it but Lincoln does on occasion sleep with me. Sometimes it's all I can do to get a couple of hours of sleep. Granted for me they aren't the best hours of sleep but they are better than nothing at all. 


Well after getting some suggestions we borrowed the fisher price rock and play from a friend of mine from college and let me just say it's a lifesaver! The first night we had it he slept for 4 hours straight. Then in the next couple of days he slept for 7 hours, but that was only once!!! Of course he hasn't slept like that since but still!


It seems like we have this cycle of him getting better with the sleeping then he goes back to his old habits. Currently his sleeping consists of usually somewhere between 10 and midnight he goes down. He will sometimes wake up at 2 for a feeding, then again at 4. A couple of days he has woken up at 6ish for another feeding but then will sleep until around 9 or 10! I for the most part I keep him in the rock n play, but by 4 or 6 I usually put him in his swing, because he seems to sleep the best in there. There have been plenty of nights where I just give up and bring him to bed with me. It's bizarre because he literally calms down the minute he is next to me and will sleep for 4 hours like that. He must really love me :)


I'm a little worried that having him sleep somewhere other than a flat surface of the co-sleeper or his crib could be hurting his chances of sleeping in his crib one day, but it's the only way he sleeps, and I'm a little nervous to put in back in the co-sleeper for fear he will be up every 30 minutes again, and I have a fear of him coking to death. The rock n play really has been a lifesaver. But let me tell you how silly my side of the bed looks with a co-sleeper, the rock n play and a swing all lined up...


Given all of this I started to read babywise. In reading it I have come to find that they have some really great suggestions about a routine and schedule for baby. Such as feed the baby, have baby awake for about 30 minutes then put baby down for a nap. I've tried this schedule for the last few days and it really does seem to work! They say with this then baby will start sleeping through the night between 7-9 weeks.

My misgivings with this book is that they say you should let baby cry to sleep. This could take anywhere from 5 to 45 minutes. I'm sorry but I'm just not ok with letting my baby cry for 45 minutes. Being that Lincoln is fussy, he cries a lot, so I usually only let him go for about 5 maybe 10 minutes before I try to go and console him. It just seems un-natural to let a baby cry for much longer. I am of the mindset that babies don't cry just to cry...they need something. However there are times where its OBVIOUS that he is fighting sleep and if I were to leave him alone for a few minutes he would fall asleep...during these times its 30 seconds or less and he's out!

My other misgivings is that the book basically makes me feel like I'm doing EVERYTHING wrong. They  basically said Lincoln is fussy because he doesn't sleep enough and I don't let him cry it out. Well as stated before I'm not comfortable with the crying out thing, and no he doesn't sleep all that well due to his startling thing. So in the last few days I've started to swaddle him for his naps and this seems to help with the naps, but not necessarily with the night-time rest. I still swaddle him but he can sometimes still wake up SEVERAL times a night. One night he was literally up all night. I only got 1 hour of sleep...

Also I'm not so sure I want him sleeping through the night...what an odd statement I know...but if he goes longer than 5 or so hours I really start to hurt due to me breastfeeding. SO if I'm going to be up to pump I'd rather just feed him because he empties me better and faster than the pump does, plus I have to be more awake to pump. What I would like him to do is sleep for a solid 5 hours wake to feed and then sleep for another 4-5 hours. What's really draining me is when he wakes up every 2 hours to eat. I'm about over that!

My biggest worry is that I'm doing him a disservice by having him sleep in the rock n play or swing. Am I hurting his chances at ever sleeping in his crib? However the last 2 days I have swaddled him and put him in his crib for his naps and he does ok with that, sleeping anywhere from 1-4 hours...
But I just don't know when I should start to try and put him back in the co-sleeper or start putting him in his crib (I'm emotionally not ready for that). I'm also afraid that Adam will just put him in his crib and let him cry all night when I go to working nights in 2 weeks. This worries me because Adam says I've created a monster, but I don't think so, I just think he needs more attention and love from us.

So anyways if anyone has any suggestions for me, I'd appreciate them...hopefully I'm doing right by my baby, I just am not overly confident in my ability as a mother I guess and I really just want to be the best mom to Lincoln.

Baptized!

So I suck and totally forgot to blog about Lincoln's most important day yet!!!
When he was 5 weeks old he was BAPTIZED in the Catholic Church! granted a lot has happened since then, but it was still an extremely important day!!

We chose my sister to be his Godmother. I had asked her when we told her we were pregnant with Lincoln. I put his ultrasound picture in a frame and had the words "would you be my Godmother" on it. She actually told me that she woke up one day before I had him and she was hold tightly to the picture. HOW CUTE!!! She was made to be his Godmother!!!

her and I have never been all that close but Lincoln has truly brought us closer together and I'll forever be thankful for that.

For his Godfather it was a little trickier. Since I don't have any brothers, we chose my cousin Jeremy, since I was under the impression that his Godparents needed to be Catholic. He is the closest thing I have to a brother. He is only 6 months younger than I am. We were in the same grade and went to the same school and we've always really leaned on each other during hard times. He's an amazing guy and I'm so grateful he is in my life and will be such a huge part of Lincoln's life.

So He was baptized after the 12:30 mass on November 13th. His Baptismal gown was made by my aunt's mother in law and it was made from my wedding dress. I've never really understood preserving a wedding dress, i never plan to wear it again and I don't want my future daughter to wear it because I feel your wedding dress should reflect you and your personality, and plus styles change all the time. So I always knew my dress would be made into a gown for my children to be Baptized in. This gown will be used for all of my children's baptisms. The slip will have their names embroidered on it with the date they were Baptized. I would love for my grandchildren and so on to use the dress to but I will leave that up to their parents. :)

Overall it was a beautiful day and it was spent with almost all of Lincoln's family and closest friends. Adam and I are so blessed to have such wonderful family and friends to support our little man. They were all so generous to him and gave him wonderful gifts and lots of money. Adam and I decided to take the money they gave him and open a college account for him. I have to do a little more research on the subject but I believe it's an account that is set up especially for college. I also hope it's an account that anyone could put money in for him in the future. We have been meaning to set this up but haven't gotten a chance since Adam is out of town a lot now, but hopefully we will do it soon!

Here are a few pictures:

Monsignor preparing for the baptism

proud parents

with the Godparents

Godparents

So proud of our little man

with Mimi and Papa

with his pop and Grandma

Uncle Andrew and Auntie

With his GiGi!!!!!!

pondering what just happened

with all of his amazing Grandparents

Congratulations Lincoln! We Love you!!!

Lincoln's first Thanksgiving

For Lincoln's first Thanksgiving we went to Vincennes to spend it with Adam's family. I can not express how much we love spending time with his family and what I would give for them to be closer. So far we/they have been really lucky to see Lincoln almost every week, but now they will go 3 weeks without seeing him and that breaks my heart. I know one day they will move up here and I can't wait for that day!

We left wednesday after Adam got done with work and Lincoln did fabulously!!! I fed him right before we left and he only started to stir when we were pulling into town! He did awesome especially since it's a 3 hour ride!

We had Adam's favorite pizza for dinner that night and Adam and I help his mom cook the stuffing, pumpkin and pecan pies. Lincoln was loved on by his Pop while we cooked and I have to say that watching Adam's dad with Lincoln is one of my favorite things. We also had several of Adam's mom's friends come to see him and I just love that they love our little man as much as we do. Adam's mom is so blessed to have these wonderful women in her life!

We woke up a little later in the morning and helped Adam's mom with cooking the dinner while Lincoln was awesome and took his somewhat morning nap.

We were joined by Adam's grandparents and his grandparents friends for dinner. It was a delicious dinner and we enjoyed spending time with everyone.

Lincoln was awesome and was for the most part really happy boy...which is getting better lately. We left late Thanksgiving night to come home so Adam and I could try to find a deal on black friday for a stove. And so I could attend a breastfeeding support group meeting on friday morning.

I can now say that I've tried that black friday thing and I don't quite understand why people enjoy it. I would much rather spend the extra money and not have to deal with stupid people and all the lines. We arrived back in Indy around 11 and dropped Lincoln off with my sister so we could go to HHGregg to see if their stoves were on sale, which they weren't. But we did get a few other items for people . So overall it was a successful trip in many ways, Lincoln slept well for my sister and we knocked out a few Christmas presents.

here are a few pictures of our little man on his first thanksgiving!!! :)

with his Pop while we cooked pies

sleepyboy

precious

he was a happy boy and smiling like crazy...i tried to capture it

cute face

hi mom

happy boy

too cute

with great grandma

with his great grandparents!

they love him

4 generations!

My first thanksgiving

smiles for Grandma

we wanted a family picture...I was exhausted as you can tell

happy boy!!!

Adventures in Breastfeeding

When you’re pregnant often times you are asked if you plan to breastfeed after the baby is born. My answer was always OF COURSE! I couldn’t imagine not. While I don’t have any real qualms against bottle feeding, I personally can’t understand why you would want to do something that is proven to be the best possible food source for your child.

I can now say that while I still feel strongly that everyone should at least try to breastfeed because some breast milk is better than no breast milk, it is a very challenging task. Through this process I have often thought how did women do this thousands of years ago? 

I have unfortunately come across many road blocks when it comes to breast feeding my precious baby boy but I am proud that I have stuck it out. Also I must say that I’m so grateful that we live in a large city where there are many support groups around for nursing mothers.

My troubles unfortunately began right after he was born. WARNING might be TMI. During the first few days Lincoln was a very sleepy baby. I personally think that this is because my labor was so long that he was just worn out. I know that babies are really made so that once they are born they really don’t need nourishment for a few days because often times it takes 4-5 days for a mother’s milk to come in. Well Lincoln was just so sleepy that he really was just not interested in nursing at all. I was having to wake him and try to get him to latch. But the problem was that my nipples are apparently really shallow so they weren’t big enough to get him to suck down on I guess. This is when the lactation consultant had me use a nipple shield.It’s a little plastic nipple that I have to put on before feeding him. It wasn't too bad, it was really just one more obstacle to try and overcome while also trying to tackle learning to feed a newborn. I don't recommend it. 

The next hurdle was that because he was so sleepy and wouldn’t really nurse they had to check his glucose level. Well the passing level was 45 and wouldn’t you know it he was 44. This meant that he had to have his glucose checked before every feeding and he had to be above 50 for 4 times. He was great for the first 3 then on the last one his foot was really cold and they checked it and he was 38. I about burst into tears. See they had to prick is poor little foot each time! The nurse I think felt sorry for me, so she said she would try a trick and warm his foot with a wash cloth and try again. This time he was 58!!! Halleluiah!!

The next hurdle was that Lincoln was a little jaundiced. Since my milk wasn’t in yet he wasn’t getting enough “bulk” to be able to have enough dirty diapers to get rid of the billirubin. The part that I don’t get is that he was having double the amount of dirty diapers than recommended but apparently that wasn’t enough. So we were “forced” to supplement with formula. This about broke my heart because I felt that I was a bad mom for not being able to give my baby everything he needed. 

They check the bilirubin levels first by a little device that reads it on their forehead, when that was high they had to check a serum level which is done by pricking his foot and getting 1-2 mls of blood! Since they were battling his levels this was done every 6 hours for about 24 hours. It broke this new mom's heart!

Luckily by the time we were about to leave his levels were low enough for us to go home, but we still had to come back to have his serum level checked a day later. But at least we were able to take our baby home.

Once we were home the trouble didn’t stop there. During the first week he nursed well, about every 2-3 hours. I had an abundance of milk once it came in. In fact he was back up to his birth weight by 5 days and we no longer had to supplement…YAY.

The trouble came around week 2 when my mother in law was here to help with Lincoln. Her and I went for a walk. As we came home I started to get a pounding headache. Within a few hours my skin was like pins and needles, it turned out I had mastitis! You can read all about that HERE.

After the mastitis it hurt to nurse for a little while but it wasn’t too bad. I made sure to continue to nurse Lincoln on the affected side like normal. Then around week 3 Lincoln began to grow extremely fussy especially in the evenings. Now I know that with breastfeeding your “supply” diminishes in the evenings, the trouble I had is that the mastitis left my supply already really low.  So consequently Lincoln was hungry all the time I think, this truly is just speculation since I don’t really know why he was so fussy in the evenings. I didn’t want to supplement because he needed to nurse to get my supply back up and if I fed him with a bottle that would only further help to diminish it. The reason I felt ok with this was because I knew he was gaining weight so he was getting enough milk to gain weight but not enough to truly satisfy him, or so I thought. The pediatrician told me I was doing a great job breastfeeding and not to worry that he was probably just a fussier baby, but looking back I truly think he was just hungrier in the evenings.

Well during the weeks that followed the mastitis I truly know my supply was less because I when I would pump I would barely get ½ an ounce when before I was getting nearly 3. Also I never felt full on that side anymore, and he would nurse for probably 35 minutes on the side and STILL be hungry and need to nurse on the other side. But If I nursed on the unaffected side first he would always be 10 minutes and done.

Needless to say around when Lincoln was 4 weeks old was a really frustrating time. With all the road blocks I was seeming to encounter I was getting really frustrated with constantly having to feed Lincoln because he was obviously growing and my supply was struggling. What I did to help overcome this was attend breastfeeding support groups. I am truly grateful for living in such a big city where the breastfeeding support groups are abundant. I have been to SEVERAL. One week in fact I went to 4.

The hospital groups I think are the most helpful. The lactation consultants will help and answer any questions you will have, but what they do is allow you to weigh the baby, nurse, then weigh the baby again to see how much he is getting when they nurse. They also are right there next to you looking to see if the baby is latching correctly and offering tips on everything on how to get them to latch, or tips on pumping when you return to work. 

I’ve also been to La Leche League meetings. These are really helpful just to have support from other women. It’s nice to hear their struggles to know you aren’t alone and also to able find out helpful hints on different parts of parenting and breastfeeding.

Through all of these meetings I learned a lot and really gained confidence in my abilities to provide my child nourishment.  Nursing is a lot about supply and demand. When your child goes through a growth spurt they will require more and will ultimately nurse longer to have your body produce more milk. The same can be true when your supply is lower in one side versus another due to something like mastitis. I was able to bring my supply back up but it still isn’t where the unaffected one is.

I know that my supply is getting back up really because he is happier in the evening, and I can feel my breast filling. But I really know because around week 4 when I went to the breast feeding support group meetings he was barely getting .02 oz on the affected side while he would get 3 in the unaffected side. And today when I went to the meeting he got 3 oz!!! YAY!!! 

I have actually ended up taking an herbal supplement called fenugreek to help even further. I take it in the evenings and it really helps my supply in the evenings to allow him to eat more and has in turn let him start to sleep through the night!!!

All in all my struggle with breastfeeding will probably continue but for the time being we seem to have overcome a hurdle…just in time for me to go back to work…eek! Due to me going back to work my next hurdle I'm sure is going to be whether or not I have enough milk stored for when I'm at work. Since I'm going to be working mainly nights this may make things a little easier since he will only really eat max 3 times while I'm gone, and eventually end up being less than that. But we shall see.

For the time being my biggest struggle is that I am trying to ween him from the nipple shield. So far it's going ok, my nipples are just really sore. So we will see. Hopefully it will be a smooth transition!

I also do have to say that although it has been a huge struggle to be breastfeeding. I’m really glad I stuck with it and am extremely grateful for everyone who has helped me through this struggle and offered support and been just simply amazing to me.  My efforts, struggles, tears and frustrations have paid off. I have a happy healthy and growing baby on my hands and for that I’m truly blessed!

Preview

Ok so I had Lincoln's newborn pictures taken when he was just 2 weeks old. In that time our awesome photographer had a baby so that is why these have taken a little while to get to us. But here are a few of her favorites! I love them and Can't wait to see the rest of them!!!

One Month Old

My precious baby boy is one month old!!! I just can't believe it's been a whole month since that long day of 25 hours of labor and 2 hours of pushing. Time really does fly by.

I love my baby boy so very much and it's a love the grows daily. Adam's and my life has changed dramatically in the last year and it's hard to believe what our life was like before Lincoln came along.

Over this last month I have really enjoyed getting to know my baby son, who lived inside of me for 9 months. Tears are brought to my eyes when I think back to our first ultrasound where he looked like nothing more than a kidney bean with arms. when I stare at him it truly makes me thankful for the miracle of life that our little bean has grown into a beautiful boy.

Adjusting to having a newborn has been quite a challenge. I'm quite thankful for having time off to figure him out as well as all the help I've gotten. From Adam, his mom and my sister I don't think i would have made it through this month without them.

Lincoln is a little bit of a fussy baby. I wouldn't go so far as to call him colicy because he is consolable but he is definitely fussy. Adam thinks he hates him because he is fussiest at night and when Adam tries to help me he cries even harder, the thing Adam doesn't realize is he cries for me too...A LOT! But his fussiness is getting less and less. What I mean by fussy is that if he is not sleeping he is honestly screaming. I then have to pick him up and find what position he likes in which he is only content for around 10 minutes and then we have to start the cycle all over again.

Over the last month Lincoln has really changed. He is holding his head up a lot more. In fact when I hold him up by my shoulder a lot of times he can hold his head up, it's a little wobbly at times but he does a great job with it.

Here are few more of his milestones/things he enjoys this month.

• At nearly 3 weeks he smiled at me for the very first time while I talked to him
• At just over 3 weeks he grew out of his newborn clothes 
• After discovering the swaddle he will sleep anywhere from 2.5 to 4 hours at night until around 4 am and then wants to be in bed with mama, which is where he gets most of his "tummy time" laying on my chest
• he is starting to track us a lot more
• He has started cooing and it's the best sound in the world
• He LOVES bright lights
• He will play on his activity matt for about 5-10 minutes at a time most days
• He loves to be bounced, I spend most of my days and nights doing this
• He likes his butt patted while being bounced. 
• When he gets really fussy the best way to calm him down is to take him in the shower and let the  water run on him. He loves it!
• He moves his legs and arms more and more
• Although he is a fussy baby, his fussiness is getting less and less...light at the end of the tunnel???
• He found his tongue and sometimes I swear he is a frog!

I'm sure there are more but I can't remember them. :(

At his doctor's appointment today his stats are:

• He weighs 9 lbs 14 oz
• He is 22.75 inches long (he grew and inch in 2 weeks...eek)
• He is in 80th percentile for height 
• He is in 45th percentile for weight
• His newborn screen came back and he is a perfectly healthy little boy!

Looks like we have a long and lean baby on our hands. 

Well last tuesday I started our monthly pictures. I wanted to have the date in the picture and will try to have a fun and creative way to do this. I also wanted and object that will show how much he has grown so I chose the winnie the pooh.

Since his fussy times are at their peak at night and I took these at night you can imagine how this worked out...

less than thrilled

angry pants

daddy had to hold his head up

he's so cute though

we calmed down a little

bright eyes

wink!

I stopped to feed him...

and fussy again

too cute!

all better again

pondering

ahhhhh

:)

I love this

i put washcloths under his head to help hold it up

my favorite

he found his tongue this month

and we're done

so this is Lincolns first month in a nutshell. I really can't believe it's been a whole month already. People aren't lying when they say enjoy it because time flies. While a large part of me is really sad that he is already a month old because I loved how small he was. I am however excited to see him continue to grow. I'm glad I will be working nights so I will still be able to be here with him every day. Hopefully he will be a good napper so that I can get some sleep during the day.

We love our baby boy and are so blessed to be his parents!
happy 1 month birthday Lincoln Robert!