Fit Little Mama: Almost Seven Weeks Old...Already???

Hey there!

I'm really going to try and get back on top of blogging once a week, it's just hard to find the time between feeding Liam, cuddling him, washing bottles, changing diapers, getting peed on, and changing his clothes after he pees on himself...or poops on himself...or spits up on himself. But that's life with a newborn and I honestly love the craziness of it all.

Liam will be SEVEN WEEKS OLD on Wednesday and I honestly cannot believe it. Time seriously needs to slow down a little bit because I feel like at this rate he'll be graduating high school in what will feel like a month.

Being a mom is honestly a blast, it's exhausting don't get me wrong...but I wouldn't want my life to be going any differently right now. I feel like I was created to be this little boy's mama.

I LOVE hanging out with this gorgeous little man

Jim and I have learned a good bit over the past few weeks but it seems to be that every time we think we're getting the hang of things Liam throws us a curve ball. We get him into what seems to be an eating schedule and then he has a growth spurt and needs more food than before. We figure out where he likes to sleep the best and then BAM he doesn't like his crib anymore and instead prefers his car seat. Yeah, you read that correctly. Our son is currently napping and sleeping at night in his car seat. Why? Because other than being held that is the only place he will sleep longer than about thirty minutes. And if he's comfortable there, than that's where he's sleeping bygolly.

Baby boy napping away in his new favorite spot

That's one of the main things I have learned about motherhood so far. Just because a book tells me that my son should be eating __ ounces of formula every __ hours, that really doesn't mean squat. If he's hungry, he's hungry and I need to feed him. Jim was better about that than me at first. I wanted Liam to eat EXACTLY how much some doctor writing a book said he should be eating. But now, if he's giving hunger cues and the pacifier won't calm him, we feed him. Why? Because he's hungry and I'm not going to make us all miserable by making him wait that extra thirty minutes until the book says he should be eating again.

I know my kid better than any random person on a website or in a book. And if he's sleeping somewhere odd, at least he's sleeping. And if he eats every 2 hours instead of 3 sometimes, at least he's eating and healthy. I have had to realize that just like every pregnancy is different, every baby is different and I can't go by a book as to when he should eat and where he should sleep etc. Now we do research things just to get a general idea, but we let Liam and our instincts dictate a lot of what happens now. And Liam is happy and healthy, so I guess we're doing something right.

In fact, Liam's doctor has told us at both of his appointments that he is perfect and if all of his patients were like Liam then his job would be easy. He even said we're doing everything right, which as a first time mom was shocking to hear because I just knew I was failing my son somehow. I guess I'm not as clueless as I feel sometimes when it comes to this whole motherhood thing.

Jim and Liam at Liam's first doctor's appointment

Are there times I want to pull my hair out because I have no clue what's going on? Of course! Just last night, Jim and I couldn't figure out what was wrong with baby Liam. He was hungry and crying so I fixed him a bottle. About thirty seconds into the feeding he started screaming as his legs kicked straight out, stiff as a board. I stopped feeding him and tried burping him. This continued for the whole bottle. He would scream a few seconds into feeding him and scream when we stopped. But, he was burping every time we stopped feeding him to burp him, which was about every 30 or 45 seconds. Finally, we decided we would try some gas drops and switching to another kind of formula from the same brand we had a container of that is for fussiness, crying and gas. It didn't really work for that bottle but we did get him to finish it finally and go to sleep. But then after getting a few hours sleep, the next feeding was back to normal. Come to find out, we think the problem was a combination of sleepiness (he had been awake a lot yesterday afternoon/evening), gas and a tummy ache, and hunger.

We have had to realize that trial and error is your best friend. try something and if it works, great. If it doesn't, give something else a shot. When Liam cries it's usually because he's hungry, his diaper is dirty, or he wants to be held and rocked or walked around. So when he gets upset I'll usually check his diaper, try walking around bouncing and shushing him, then see if he's hungry (even if it's not "time" for him to eat yet).

Basically, we have learned to trust our gut and to try and go with the flow. Liam will let us know if he needs something, and we just have to smother him in kisses and smiles in the time between.

XOXO,

Courtney