5-6 weeks....

Wow, a lot happened between week 5 and 6.  Starting on Dec 23rd we had Christmas festivities for 3 days straight.  Prior to those days I had a miraculous baby who slept 4 or 4.5 hour stretches at night.  He was having some trouble with spitting up a lot, but he was coming off of a growth spurt so that's to be expected.  Well starting on the 23rd his schedule was off, he still ate every 2.5-3.5 hours, and slept TONS, but when he slept, he was always in someones arms... FOR 3 DAYS!!! Therefore when he was at home and I tried to put him down, he screamed.  On top of that he was having some major gas problems :( I hated watching him grunt and then cry when nothing came out. Well after sleeping for a total of 5 hours over 2 nights I had enough.  I thought I was going crazy, I was delirious and he was so gassy, and the only thing that made him happy was eating more.  On Christmas he actually ate every hour from 2pm-10pm, and then it was 90 minutes after that.  Hello boobs that are going to fall off!!  So starting the day after Christmas I told everyone that I was locking myself up with the baby and not leaving until we were back on schedule.  It took 2 days to get back on a regular schedule, and those 2 days were AWFUL!!  We are however back to some sort of normalcy... if that is possible with a 6 week old.  So here is a little update on a few certain topics

NAPS:
Parker is taking on average 6 naps per day.  Those naps are anywhere from 30 minutes to 2 hours.  I am following very loosely the baby wise method of Eat Activity Sleep You (with an added Activity after sleep when he takes shorter naps).  I am hoping to get Mr. Parker sleeping through the night before I go back to work so we are slowly setting the stage for that right now.  When I put him down for a nap it is either in his bouncer, swing, or car seat if we are going somewhere.  I make sure he is fed and has had his diaper changed and then I place him in there when he is showing signs of being sleepy (yawning, subbing eyes, whimpering).  Then I brace myself to hear him cry :(  It is unfortunate but the first time I had to let him just cry it out was by mistake and it worked so well I went with it from there. I was in the shower and had put him in his bouncer after feeding him.  He started crying right when I was all soapy with shampoo, so he had to wait for me to rinse off... within 2 minutes he was asleep.  So I started timing it that day and usually within 5 minutes of him crying he is asleep.  It has been easier than I expected and it works for us.  I know a lot of people have different opinions about letting kids this young cry it out, but this is working for us so we are sticking with it.

SLEEP:
Once we got out of the holiday stage he was still waking up every 2 1/2 hours on average until we got his day times back on track.  Now he is at about 3 1/2 hour blocks. We started giving him gas drops before or after meals and that cut out one night feeding.  I then started giving Parker his pacifier when he woke up before automatically feeding him if he wasn't acting hungry.  That surprisingly worked for 2 more night feedings.  Which means that he can go 5 hours without wanting to eat, but is still waking up.  I am going to be tackling that these next 2 weeks and I will let you all know how that goes.

CHANGES/MILESTONES:
The biggest change we have seen with Parker is how happy he is.  He is a smiling machine!  I can pretty much get a smile out of him anytime I start talking baby talk to him. The first of the big smiles was on Christmas and it was the best gift I could get out of him after sleeping only 2 1/2 hours the night before.  We even get cooing and laughing to go along with the smiles :) It is adorable and melts my heart when he does it.

He is also growing too fast! I officially have taken all his newborn clothes out of his closet and dresser and boxed them up :( Only 2 onesies that weren't worn and that's not bad for a kid who had 2 drawers full of newborn onesies! The Hubs stepped on the scale with him on Christmas day and he weighed 11 lbs! That almost a 4 lb gain from his birth and almost 5 lbs from his lowest.  I feel like we will get scolded by his pediatrician at his next appt.

UP NEXT:
He is 7 weeks today and almost 2 months old. He has his 2 month check up on the 13th that will tell us officially how much he has gained and we are going to talk to the Dr. about his constipation issues and his CONSISTENT spitting up.

Here are pics from the past 2 weeks ENJOY and HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

In his Jets uniform from Uncle Joe

One of Parker's many expressions

Sweet boy :)

Tummy time! Look at that belly :)

Peacefully swaddled up and asleep

This kid always has his pinkies out! 

Christmas Eve outfit :)

Christmas morning with Daddy

Christmas morning with a tired Mommy

Christmas night at Grandma's. 

Mommy and Parker

Using his telepathic powers to speak to us Lol

Happy boy!

Look at those chins!

I love baby wearing, it makes my chores so much easier, this was on New Years Eve as we looked at wedding venues for my sister who got engaged before Christmas. 

Watching TV with Daddy.