Thursday, July 26, 2012

6 weeks old!

My second baby boy is now 6 weeks old. Umm what? Where the hell did 6 weeks just go?

We've settled into a bit of a "routine" now, not that we can really call it that. L1 goes to kindy Monday, Wednesday and Thursday which gives me a chance to be home with L2 and spend one on one time with him which is really hard to do when L1 is around. When I have both boys with me during the day, I have found that I need to stick to L1's nap time schedule, rather than try and fit around L2. So, we usually are out and about in the morning, home by 1pm for his nap, then it's home based activities or a trip to the local park in the afternoon. I've found a great enclosed park near us which we can visit. L1 runs around for a couple of hours and I can baby wear L2 and watch L1 play. Either that or I'm trying to organise lots of play dates with my mummy friends on a Tuesday. Friday is when we have play group from 10am-12noon at the local community centre. My mummy group friends go to that so I get to catch up with them and L1 can play with his friends for a couple of hours..

During the days I just have L2, we are generally home bodies. I'm just trying to get a sleep schedule sorted (hard to do at such a young age I know!), enjoying the newborn snuggles (I know these won't last forever!) and catching up on all the home stuff (Washing, cooking, cleaning, vacuuming etc). I've found that our local cinema does a "babes in arms" session at 10:30am on a wednesday morning, so I've started going to that once every couple of weeks. Also, I have a lot of friends having babies in the next few months, so I'll be out and about visiting them and their new bubs too.

L2 is a great night time sleeper. He's usually asleep by 7pm and won't wake til 1-2am to nurse. Then he'll be up again around 5-6am to nurse again, then back asleep til 8am. So I usually try to get to bed by 8:30-9pm so that I can get at least 4 hours sleep. I'm managing to get 6-7hours broken sleep/night, but I know that will get better. L1 didn't sleep through the night til 3 months old, so we're expecting the same with L2.

Breastfeeding is going AMAZINGLY well this time round. I know exactly what to do, what feels right, what doesn't and I know how lucky I am. L2 is a champion sucker.. like WOAH.. much to his detriment as he swallows alot of air and then struggles to burp. Now that he's over a month old we have started giving him wind drops which has helped A LOT! I forgot how much I missed breastfeeding. I love hearing him gulp and guzzle and make these cute little noises when he gets all milk-drunk. I'm expressing around 100-120mL of milk/day for L1 to have in his night time bottle. Already I've noticed that L1 is less constipated (Breast Milk is a mild laxative!) and he goes to bed quickly after the milk (Breastmilk is a mild sedative).. Hopefully it will help get him through the rest of winter without any more colds/flu! Really hoping I can continue breastfeeding for at least a year with L2, hopefully longer and continuing to express for L1 as well.

L1 is 25 months now (just over 2 years old) and ZOMG the tantrums! His favourite thing to do at the moment is scream to get attention if he's not getting his own way. He'll scream an ear piercing scream, look at us, wait for us to react, and then do it again if we do. So hubs and I are trying to ignore him when he screams, which is hard to do, but L1 is slowly working out that screaming isn't getting him anywhere. He has slowly accepted that there is a new member of the family now, and he is just gorgeous with L2. He wants to give his kisses and cuddles all the time, melts my heart. He's such a great big brother, and already L2 focuses on L1 intently and knows who he is and smiles at him. They are going to be such great mates when they are older!

Me? I'm doing OK.. I'll update you on how I'm going now that I have 2 kids.. but that's for another blog post!

Thanks for reading!

LBG

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