Nolan: Six Weeks

This little booger is 6 weeks old today!  He continues to grow chunkier and become more aware of his surroundings day by day.  At our last appointment (about 8 days ago), he weighed in at 9 lbs. 10 oz., so I am assuming by now he's hit the 10 pound mark!  He certainly feels heavier, anyway!  He continues to eat 4 oz. every 3-4 hours, and we've recently started to give him 5 oz. when he seems like he may want a bit more (not often, but sometimes he will take it all like a champ!).  He has switched to size 1 diapers, even though they are a tiny bit big, but newborns are definitely too small.  

He makes lots of noise while he sleeps now, which he still does a lot of.  He grunts, snores, squeaks, and often keeps me up at night worried with all of his sounds... but he always ends up being just fine. We switched him from his rock and play sleeper to the pack and play yesterday, and he's adjusted well to the different environment.  I had a harder time adjusting that he wasn't directly next to me, instead, he's a hand-reach away now, and the pack and play is as close to the bed as it can get (separation anxiety, much!?)

His smiles are becoming bigger, better and more often!  He's learning to make use of his voice and lungs, and realizing that if he cries hard enough, mommy will pick him up quickly!  He has found his hands and waves his arms and kicks his legs a ton when he's playing in his playmat, and has discovered that he can grab things; his favorites are mommy's hair and necklaces.  He really enjoys laying on his playmate and watching the light show or himself in the mirror, and also is obsessed with watching T.V.  Soon enough, he will be awake a little more during the day, and we'll find new activities to entertain ourselves with!  

He's growing up so fast!  It's amazing that he doesn't even look or feel like a newborn anymore.  I think I will always view him as a one-week old Nolan... my tiny baby!  Here's to another week of growing and learning!

Nolan's One Month Update

It's been one whole month since this little guy entered our world, and I can't believe how fast that time has gone by!  I can't even imagine how quickly this first year will pass us by... I don't even want to think about it!  I have loved every second of this first month and getting to know Nolan.  His personality has been around since day one, but more and more we are seeing who he is becoming and how he will make us laugh and leave us melting with the new things he learns and cute things he shows us.  Here's Nolan's first month: 


Height, Weight, and Sizes: 
After a month of losing weight and struggling gaining, our one month well check (Feb. 18th), brought good news when Nolan weighed 9 lbs. 10 oz (30th percentile).  He was 20 inches long (15th percentile), and although I didn't get a number for his head circumference, he placed in the 67th percentile... Dr. Reddy said he has a big head, to be frank!  Diapers are newborn size, although they are starting to get a little tight fitting!  His clothes are mostly all newborns, with a few 0-3 onesies.  Pajamas and pants are strictly newborn sizes, and mommy is waiting until he can fit into his first pair of denim jeans... they still are humongous on his little waist and legs!  

Feeding:
We've had our struggles with this category.  The first three weeks of Nolan's life, we struggled with breastfeeding, latching, and gaining weight.  Finally, I made the decision to exclusively pump, and since then, we've formed a schedule and Nolan's weight has skyrocketed!  He loves his bottle and will typically take in 4 ounces of milk every 3 hours during the day and every 4 hours at night.  At night time, I always have to wake him up to eat.  Mommy pumps so much milk, that we already have a freezer full!  By next month, we will need an extra chest freezer in the garage!

Sleeping:
This may be Nolan's favorite activity, hands down.  This kid can sleeeeeeep!  I asked his doctor at his one month well check if it was normal that he is only awake for 8 hours a day (typically).  She reassured us that is completely normal for a tiny newborn!  He could probably sleep longer through the night, but I wake him every 4 hours to eat.  Our schedule allows for one late night feeding at 2:30AM, so really we only get up once in the middle of the night which is nice!  He is normally awake for 1.5 hours and sleeps for 1.5 hours throughout the day between feedings, although sometimes that's not always the case.  During the day, he naps in his swing, boppy pillow on the couch with our supervision, or in our arms.  At night, he sleeps in his rock and play sleeper, and has to be swaddled with his arms out.  For all times that he sleeps, he can soothe himself to sleep with or without the help of a pacifier.  

Firsts & Milestones:
-Lifting and rotating head while on mommy and daddy's chest/shoulder
-Making lots of new facial expressions and especially giving us lots of smiles!
-Being extremely alert; as early as 1-2 weeks, many people were commenting on how alert Nolan was!
-Starting to coo and make new noises other than crying
-First Valentine's Day

Likes:
-Cuddling with mom and dad, snuggling in bed with us even though we're paranoid!
-Watching T.V.  Literally, obsessed as early as 4 weeks.
-Baths, the warm, running water, and shampooing his head during bath time
-Soothie brand pacifiers and NO others!
-Getting his hair brushed (daily)
-Bottles of milkies
-Riding in the car
-Listening to you talk (anyone, in general)
-Welcoming daddy home from work
-Posing for pictures

Dislikes:
-Burping and taking the bottle away to burp.  Meltdown status.
-Waiting for mom to finish pumping if he's super hungry!
-Pooping.. lots of grunts and struggles!
-Diaper changes
-Being cold

Happy One Month, little Man!  We love you so much already and can't wait to see you grow!

Nolan's Newborn Pictures!

We had Nolan's newborn photos taken when he was 11 days old with our go-to photographer, Kassidy Baker Photography!  He started off the session wide awake and a little cranky... just after I had told Kassidy how great of a baby he was and how easy he has been since he sleeps all.the.time.  Oops... looks like I jinxed that one.  I nursed him for a bit in hopes to milk-drunk him up... and it worked!  From there on, he was out cold and we got some great shots of our adorable little man.  My favorites are the detail shots as well as the baseball ones that will be going up in his nursery.  Couldn't have been any more perfect!

Thank you again, Kassidy!  You always do such a great job!  We love how they came out!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day from this little cutie who is ONE WHOLE MONTH old today!

We couldn't decide on which Valentine's card we liked the most... so we're posting all three!

(in reference to those wonderful Ryan Gosling memes all over the Internet!)

And just for fun... some outtakes from our photoshoot!  We hope you have a great Valentine's Day... I know ours will be full of snuggles, kisses and hugs!

Nolan: Four Weeks

Can you believe this little guy is already four weeks old today, and will be ONE month old in three days!?  I certainly can't believe how time is already flying by.  Week after week he amazes me that he is still such a great, easy baby.  I know all moms probably say that their baby is great, but he really is such an easy one!  He still sleeps a TON and is eating well with our exclusive pumping schedule.  Nolan has chunked up and filled out a lot in the last week, which is great for his weight gain that we've been focusing on!  From his appointment last week on Monday, when he weighed 7 lbs. 13 oz., I continued to monitor his weight and visited the Women's Center for a free check.  Big boy gained more weight and clocked in at 8 lbs. 5 oz!  Hopefully by our next appointment with the pediatrician, his weight gain will be up even more and we can focus on some sense of normalcy with feedings!

Nolan has been making a bunch more facial expressions and is connecting extremely well with faces and identifying Mommy and Daddy's voices.  He recognizes when Jason is home from a long day of work and gives him smiles and coos when Jason first says hi!  Some days, he will coo and make noises a lot and we'll exchange sounds back and forth.  We introduced reading books to him during his bedtime routine, and he focuses on the books as much as he can and intently listens to the story before passing out.  His personality is coming out more and he is a man that knows what he wants, when he wants it!  When feeding, we've learned to burp him fairly often since he has a hard time burping on his own.  When we take the bottle out, he screams and makes it known that he is hungry and needs his bottle ASAP!  After a few cries, tears, and a burp, he's content when that nipple goes right back into his mouth.  

One of his "expressions"... Mom!  I'm over this!

My favorite thing is his smiles that are occurring more and more each day!  Who could resist this face!? 

We took lots of pictures this week: His four week pictures, Valentine's Day pictures, and a special gift for Daddy!  We'll share those soon!

Nolan: Three Weeks

Nolan is three weeks old!  He is still the best little baby we could ever ask for (biased, maybe?  Yes, but we're allowed)!  We're getting more into a regular schedule with our 3 hour and 4 hour feedings.  Jason has gone back to work this week, so Nolan and I have been working on forming our daily routine with things to do, places to go, chores to finish, etc.  As of right now, we get up in the morning after our 9:30am feeding, get ourselves ready for the day, and spend some awake time hanging out.  This is the most alert time Nolan has during the day and I try to keep him awake as much as I can!  After drifting off to sleep, our next feedings are at 12:30 and 3:30pm, where I try to get things done around the house and off my to-do list while he sleeps.  Jason gets home around 5:00pm, we get dinner together, and Nolan usually eats around 6:30pm.  I get two quick feedings in around 8:30pm and 10:30pm to top him off before night.  Bath and bedtime is after his 8:30pm feeding, and then he's good until 2:30am and 6:30am, which is when Jason wakes up for work.  This schedule works out great for us, so we're hoping we can keep it this way for a little bit!  

As far as his weight gain progress- last week Friday, we saw the doctor and he had lost weight from his previous weigh-in.  He went from 6 lbs 15 oz. to 6 lbs. 11 oz.  At this point, the doctor wanted us to supplement with formula.  I really wanted to keep him on a breastmilk diet if I could, so we agreed I should try exclusively pumping to see if Nolan wasn't latching and getting milk, if he was falling asleep too often at the breast, or if my milk was not calorically dense enough for him to gain weight.  Over the weekend we exclusively pumped for all feedings, and went back for a weight check on Monday.  From Friday to Monday, little piggy had gained 1 lb. 2 oz!  His weight shot up to 7 lbs. 13 oz.  We were all in disbelief, so we weighed him twice just to make sure, and sure enough, it was correct!  So, at this time, we're sticking to exclusively pumping.  It's a lot of work having to pump out what I immediately feed him, but down the road it should get easier as my supply builds.  The doctor warned that my supply may drop off if I don't nurse every now and then, but we've tried a couple times since, and it's still a frustrating process.  Most often times, we both end up in tears, and it's just not worth the stress!  So, making my first tough mommy decision thus far since he's been born, we've agreed to strictly pump and if my supply falls off, we'll go from there and supplement with formula.  So far everything has been going great, and I'll be doing everything I can to exclusively pump and keep up my supply for as long as possible! 

Nolan is becoming more vocal and has started to make some coos and other sounds other than just crying.  He has started to smile big open mouth smiles, and we're almost sure they are not due to gas! He still loves to be talked to and listens intently, making many different facial expressions while he listens.  He has discovered the T.V. this week, as it's usually always on in the house, and tends to move his head towards it's direction when we're changing his diaper or if he's in his swing.  We've stopped swaddling in his arms at night time, and swaddle only from armpit down, since he's made it very clear now that he needs his hands readily available and likes to flair his arms in the air when he's in a deep sleep.

He has become much more alert and can follow faces really well now.  He stays awake a little bit more than last week.  He likes to stay awake after his morning feeding, but most other times during the day, he still enjoys getting plenty of sleep!  Which I can't complain about... most moms would love to have their baby sleep so much!

Next week, little man is going to be ONE MONTH old!  I can't believe how quickly it's flying by, already.  Until then!

BIG open mouth smile... caught his first one on camera!