one month

Henry is one month old today! It sure has flown by and he's already changed.

Stats: I don't know how much Henry weighs, but I'd guess somewhere between 8-9 pounds. We don't have another doctor's appointment for him until six weeks. I just put away the newborn clothes and took out 0-3 things. They are still a little loose, but fit him the best. We'll move into size one diapers soon, and will start cloth prefolds too.

Schedule: Henry has fallen into a loose schedule that I try to encourage when possible. He tends to wake up for the day around 7:00. He has a feeding and might or might not sleep a little more. He has a morning awake period, and is usually ready for a good nap around 9:00. I have to wake him up from his nap for a feeding because he usually has a long nap at this time. He's awake for a while and then has another long afternoon nap, which is nice because he and Celia have good naps at the same time. Henry is usually awake more in the late afternoon, and sometimes gets fussy then. When I'm lucky I can get him to nap while we have dinner. Sometimes Henry has more of a fussy time in the evening, but if he's had a good nap he sometimes has nice long awake times after Celia goes to bed, when he's calm, alert and very social.

Henry doesn't really have a bedtime or set night schedule. He's usually ready for his last feeding between 8 and 9:00. When he was 2-3 weeks, we were getting some six hour stretches between feedings at night, but I think those days are over for now. Since we moved him to the crib I'm lucky to get a 4 hour stretch, which means I'm sleeping for 1-3 hours at a time. I'm more tired now than when he was a newborn. It's definitely related to gas and digestion, and he was sleeping much better in the swing than he does now in the crib. Every night I'm tempted to just put him in the swing, but I know it's good to get him used to the crib. Henry doesn't do a lot of nighttime crying, which I'm very thankful for, but it's hard to settle him down into a deep sleep after his feedings. I hope his system will mature more soon, because I think he'd sleep longer and more deeply if he wasn't bothered by spitting up or gas during the night.

Development: The little dude is already doing some pretty great things. He loves to watch people and makes great eye contact, just looking and looking at us. Henry will glue his eyes to yours and won't look away. Last night I kept trying to kiss him on the cheek, but whenever I moved my head down to the side to kiss him he would turn his head so he could watch what I was doing and I could never get to his cheek! He is very social. He likes being talked and sung to, and likes seeing us make different facial expressions. Just last night I heard a few little coos from him when we were talking. He makes little smiles when we're talking, but nothing big yet. He's also starting to show an interest in Celia and likes when she talks to him and shows him toys.

Speaking of Celia, in the last week we've seen a great improvement in her behavior. I hope I'm not jinxing us by saying this! Pita seems back to her normal self, which is so nice. She's much happier, more focused, more compliant, and just generally back to the sweet little girl she normally is. I think that having a couple weeks off daycare and having a lot of time at home with me has helped her. Our relationship seems back to normal and Celia has been having the cutest little interactions with Henry.

It is a challenge to juggle Henry and Celia's schedules and get everything done that we need to in a day, but we are starting to get into a routine after a month. It helps that Henry is a good baby and Celia is now adjusting. I already wonder what things will be like at two months.