baby ole :: 5th week

this week, it finally started warming up! spring may be coming after all! this was such a long, cold, snowy winter. the worst in 25 years or so, say some news channels. we got outside a little bit more.

3/11/14



wednesday we tried to catch up on sleep since we had a rough night tuesday night. i think because he's been so gassy he gets uncomfortable especially when laying flat. tuesday night i eventually had to put him on the chair in his boppy and he slept like a rock. ever since then he's done ok flat in his bassinet.

then wednesday night the risen's came over and brought papa murphys pizza. although it was short, it was a good time and the pizza was delicious!! their kids are so cute!!

thursday trevor had his 1 month appointment with dr sarumi; we really like her! she said he's still perfect and still a keeper. :) and he's a big, growing boy! last appt (3 weeks ago) he was 7 lbs 14 oz and 19.5 inches long. he is now 9 lbs 7 oz and 21 1/4 inches long!! that's about 1.5 lbs and almost 2 inches in 3 weeks! crazy! at least we know he's eating well! :]

friday was a rough day. trevor has come into a few day routine of being awake/fussy all morning then sleeping all afternoon and making me think he's not gonna sleep all night, but he has so far. he also is starting to eat every 4 hours now instead of every 3 hours; we like that!! (as long as he's getting enough food) saturday mom came down again and held trevor all morning while he was awake. then saturday afternoon when al went to work, mom, trevor & i went to shopko for diapers and to get out of the house. we also had dairy queen (surprise surprise with mom here :]) and then mom made supper.

sunday we hung out and mom stayed so i could nap in the afternoon. sunday night was a little rough for me after a not so good weekend; trevor was awake from 4-630a and so i got no sleep during that time. al could tell i was frustrated so he took trevor downstairs at 630a so i could get a little more sleep. i felt bad since al had to work but al was in a good mood about it, thankfully! then i had my follow up appointment with the midwife at 1030a. i decided to leave trevor home for this one since al didn't have to work until 3p, both for a little time away for me and to help give al some confidence in his baby watching ability. nothing big or new at my appointment, just questions asked on both ends; she didn't even check my bottom since i knew that i have a couple of stiches left and don't feel any pain/issues. i also ran some errands while in ec and when i returned, the boys were fine. trevor had gotten hungry so al fed him some of the formula we had gotten for free (samples) and trevor was asleep on al. i took him and put him in his crib and he slept there for almost 3 hours!! a first. i'm hoping it's not just because of the formula and his fussiness is not all from my milk. although i have no problem switching him to formula, it's just much cheaper and supposedly better for him to breastfeed. also easier since i'm not going back to work; plus al really wants me to breastfeed for a long time.

the weather on monday was glorious!! sunny and 50 degrees! so once trevor got up from his nap, i put him in his moby wrap for the first time and we took tator on a walk. it was fabulous although there was a little wind so i mostly kept his face covered. also, i'm out of shape!! we only went a little ways and i was winded, guess we'll have to keep it up! :) i'm also hoping wearing him will help me use and develop my back muscles especially for posture, since while wearing him i notice very quickly if my posture is crap.

we also got a new cousin monday morning!! baby girl burge was born at 359am, just short of 5 weeks from trevor! they'll be so close in age; great for at the lake!!

tuesday was another nice day! and i think (hope) trevor is getting over his fussiness. he slept great monday night, was much less fussy during the day, and his poop changed back to yellow, mustardy, seedy (it had changed to funny green/gray which dr said is normal). hoping his tummy has gotten used to my milk and this continues! we went for another walk with al this time and trevor fell asleep almost instantly in the moby wrap. also, this morning i went to put one of his newborn fleece one piece outfits on, after putting his feet in, i couldn't get his arms in. as in i couldn't stretch it up enough to comfortably get it on him. thinking he grew in the last 2 days. :/ he's getting so big!

he's napped in his crib for the first time,
a couple of times this week. we try to put him in there at least once a day.

(although i don't know if i'm ready for him to be in there at night,
don't think i'll like not having him in our room with us...)

 we went outside for a little bit on wednesday when it was nice & sunny.

we had to document how high the snow piles are.

 first time in the snow in a snowsuit that's too big but adorable!!

big muscles :: gun show :)

 first time in skye's bouncy seat :]

 tator has to sit at my feet when i feed trevor, especially at night.

so cute & such a good protector!

 holding on to grama

 finally warm enough to not have to wear fleece,

big boy outfit (3month onsie, nb pants) complete with dinosaur slippers :)

 this little dinosaur attached to a nuk (wubbanub) has been a life saver.

he takes a nuk just fine but hasn't figured out how to keep it in his mouth yet.

he usually doesn't need the nuk for long but for the times he does,

this little guy keeps the nuk more in place. (gina gave it to us, i found it on amazon)

i love that trevor's hugging it here :)

 trevor was very active during playtime on his 5 week birthday!

it was fun watching him for tator, daddy and me!

 during our walk on tuesday,

al and tator went to investigate in the woods

but found some very deep snow :)

 

baby ole :: 4th week / 1 month

this week, daddy had to go back to work on thursday :( which also meant that he had to shave off his 3 week baby beard. he can't have any facial hair at work other than a mustache. it wasn't as hard of a transition as i had thought but that's probably because he works 3-11s and we go to bed about 7 or 8. it also means that al gets home almost perfectly timed for a feeding usually. his work week seemed extra long tho because he ended up working 3 11 or 12 hour days.

it was also very cold over the weekend and i got mad at it and eventually turned up the thermostats (once we got what is hopefully our last delivery of very expensive propane). mom came down saturday afternoon and stayed until sunday. we were not ready for her to go as we're used to having her friday night to sunday, but she did help me get some much needed sleep saturday night.

on tuesday, march 4th, trevor turned both 4 weeks and 1 month old (due to february being a short month). i can't believe it's been a month already!! he also had his appointment with the audiologist this day since his right ear didn't pass the initial screening in the hospital (the nurse had told us not to worry, that lots of babies don't pass and are not deaf, due to many factors from birth) and he passed and is all good.

we're still working on establishing a routine and figuring out how to keep him awake more during the day and sleep more at night. i wake him every 3 hours during the day to eat and attempt to keep him awake for as long as possible afterwards by playing and such, but he's a stubborn boy! if he wants to sleep, he's gonna sleep :)

momma (this may be more info than you wanted to know but i want to document these things for mmysefl): this week i attempted going first a full night and then full days without wearing pads (both breast pads and bottom pads) and was successful!! i feel so much more normal!! my boobs still leak occasionally at night but not much and not often. i also did an actual workout on tuesday (4 weeks post partum). i had been doing some squats and good mornings, and small planks & abs for a week or so along with some stretching, so i felt confident trying an actual workout. i didn't want to do too much however, so i emailed the all knowledgable (and doula) malia and she sent me 3 pieces to do to re-establish my stability and try to gain some stamina. it was a tough workout (i'm really out of shape!) but it felt good. i'm hoping that this is kind of like starting over and i can create some better habits and muscle usage.

trevor is starting to see more so we attempted to play on the playmat the perrens gave us. i don't think he really saw the toys yet but hopefully soon. he turns his head to the side most of the time so once he gets some more neck strength he'll be able to look up and see them.

he helped me with laundry :)

so tiny! 

 some of the wausau crew (al's family) came to visit.

great aunt wendy

 auntie althea

 grand aunt wanda

 3 generations of olesons

 holding his head up a bit during tummy time

 i'm going to have to admit soon that my baby

is growing out of his newborn clothes and diapers

 

baby ole :: 3rd week

i can't believe we've had trevor for 3 weeks! he's so awesome!! and i finally remembered that we got blocks from the burge's to take his picture with so i hope to continue those now.

he had his first diaper/peeing little boy incident this week; and actually ended up having a couple of them. momma & daddy quickly learned to cover that thing up at all times :) the first time was when i was changing him on the couch. he peed on my hand, all over himself including his face, and on the couch a little bit. the second time was on daddy, himself & grama's couch.

we got a ton more snow this week (9-12 inches) on top of the ton of snow we already had. when we were at mom's over the weekend, the piles along the driveway and the amount in the backyard were more than i had seen since i was little. and my brother actually said the same thing. crazy. it's also still very cold!! and will be this next week too. the average temp is 32, we're in the single digits most days and colder if there's wind. :(

we took our first "road trip" as a family and headed up to the cities on saturday afternoon. the big snow storm was on thursday and the roads were still not great by the time we left. saturday night al and i went to akita for sushi for our valentine's & my birthday dinner. then trevor and i went to bed early. sunday we ran to target and old navy (daddy's still got his sympathy weight and needed new jeans :]). then we went to kunde (the johnson's) house for the daytona 500 party. always good to see my friends! sunday night we went to papa's house so trevor could meet his great grandpa; papa was so happy & excited & just kept saying "thanks for bringing him over." we also got a picture of the 4 generations of francis's (middle names). papa also told me that he gives more money for the 2nd baby :) i told him it might be a while for that, to which he said, "gives me reason to stick around then!" :] then monday, gina took trevor's new born pics at her studio in downtown st paul, and they're so cute! even tho someone would not sleep for gina :) although he is older than she likes to do for newborn pics.

tuesday, we headed into eau claire to have lunch with my coworkers and so they could see trevor. since i won't be going back to work there, i also grabbed all the rest of my stuff. kind of bittersweet. i'll miss the people but definitely not working for menards.

trevor had some issues with being gassy this week too. both at mom's and then at home; monday night, he was up every 10-15 minutes from 2-5 am fussing. no good. turns out i should have done some more research on food i should avoid while breastfeeding because i had eaten broccoli and cabbage multiple times that week, and these 2 are on the top of every list i've seen for gassy veggies to avoid. i will be avoiding those for a while now. i've been avoiding dairy for the most part already and will continue to do that (i do that normally anyway) with the exception of yogurt. after just 1 day of avoiding the broccoli and cabbage in our fridge made a world of difference. tuesday night he slept in 4 hour increments all night, which meant i only had to get up twice and then at 8 am! so nice! i think that's partly from him being so tired too but i'll take it!

he likes bath time a lot more now that i figured out to put

a warm wash cloth on his chest/tummy to keep him warmer.

he splays out his hands/fingers like that when he's cold or

shocked by noise :)

skinny little legs :]

 in the hood

 we tried on uncle tyler's tux onsie; so cute!

 we're loving the octupus sling manda made for us!!

 4 francis's and a happy papa (1st time great grandpa)

 pics by gina zeidler

 grama's little giraffe

baby ole :: 2nd week

i'm sure at some point these posts regarding trevor will become monthly and then yearly but for now i'm enjoying documenting everything :) also, warning: this post is LONG.

this week we had our first in clinic appointment with dr sarumi, the pediatrician on thursday. everything checked out well with trevor. he was 7 lbs 11 oz and 19.5 inches long. he has lots of dry skin especially inside his diaper, which dr sarumi said was normal due to being in the womb and not used to things rubbing against his skin. so we've been putting lots of vasaline on and it seems to be approving.

then friday was valentine's day and my mom came down for the weekend. on saturday al and i ran into eau claire for some errands, my first time away from trevor. it was a little nerve wrecking but we survived (it wasn't so bad, but i did miss him). mom stayed for the weekend and helped clean, made some food, and took the baby in the mornings so we could sleep a little bit more. thank goodness for her; she's a lifesaver!

on monday night, i noticed trevor's right eye looked a little red and had a little bit of crustys upon waking. i immediately thought it was pink eye but decided to try to let him sleep it off. when he woke up on tuesday morning, it was really crusty (yellowish) and the lids were red and swollen. his eyes are so big, it was hard to see if the white portions were red/pink or not; they looked a bit red from what i could see. so i called the clinic and they said to come in. at the appointment we saw dr husain and trevor weighed 7 lbs 15 oz; almost 8 lbs!! dr husain thought it wasn't pink eye but instead a clogged tear duct, but she gave us a prescription for the eye cream that they put on babies eyes right after they're born (the name escapes me) because it is anti-bacterial just in case. after one application, his eye was already better.

also at this appt, we asked about his always having poop in his diaper, since the tracking sheet they gave us said he should be having about 3 poopy diapers a day. she said that especially with breastfed babies this is completely normal, that as long as he's gassy and eating and peeing, he's fine.

sleep: trevor is sleeping pretty well! he sleeps 3-4 hours at a time and usually has one 2+ hour awake time per day; which we try to have during the day! i'm still getting between 7-8 hours of sleep a night, they're just not uninterrupted. but that doesn't compare to the 10+ i was getting during the end of my pregnancy. :) i haven't napped all week and i think i'm getting used to the sleep schedule; i still have points of feeling really tired but usually only about an hour long or while feeding him at night.

feeding: after he lost so much weight, i was pumping and we were feeding him by bottle so we could know how much he was getting. i stuck with this for a while because i didn't want to be starving my child. but with this (not sure if because of this or not), i had an oversupply of milk and my boobs hurt most of the time. it was very uncomfortable. thank goodness for the internet!! i did some research on pinterest and the bump and realized that i had an over supply (which we don't want since we have a very small, already full freezer and thus no where to store much extra milk). i attempted to pump less often and less amount of time (i was only pumping for 10 minutes max at a time already), but it still wasn't helping ease my uncomfortable-ness. hard to say if this was from pumping so much early on or if it was just the normal body getting used to how much milk to make.

i was/am leaking a lot and having to wear breast pads all the time. but monday and tuesday i worked hard to get to a point of only nursing trevor and not pumping unless i needed to relieve some fullness. i also started the block nursing style where i only feed him off one boob at a time. this seems to have helped as i have a lot less pain/fullness and he still sleeps 3-4 hours at a time. also, i had thought i was saving time in pumping and then feeding him, but it's so much faster to just nurse him! which helps a lot at night! he's nursing between 15-25 minutes. the only bad thing is then no one else can feed him; so at night i can't have al take a feeding. but with the feedings being much quicker (was near an hour with the bottle plus the 10 minutes pumping time) it's not so bad.

al: al has been amazing! so much more than i could have even thought he could be. he's been so helpful, doing as i ask, and doing things around the house without me prompting. he's had off work (he has to go back in just over a week :( ) and has gotten a bunch of things done that we had been putting off. he's been changing diapers like it's no body's business, even though he'd never changed a diaper before. he allowed me to take naps and baths as i needed when i was recovering. he loves this little guy and constantly says how cute he is! :)

nicknames: we currently call him: wiggle worm, munchkin, billy goat (when he cries it tends to come out like a "nah"), lance armstrong (when he stretches his legs out and in it looks like he's riding a bike)

it's weird to me that i'm not pregnant anymore. i still have a bit of a cough from that darn flu, but it's not bad just coughing junk up.

he currently only has 3 fleece, one piece outfits that fit him.

 i love snuggle time!!

 big baby blues

 those squishy lips kill me!

 the left picture is me 4 days after delivery; and the right 2 weeks out (plus i can suck it in a bit now, weird to suck in after not for so long). i'm 12 pounds away from my starting pregnancy weight. hopefully this breastfeeding continues to help :) can't wait to workout/lift again.

baby ole :: first week

once al returned from getting his prescription and getting us jimmy johns (yum!!), trevor had been bathed and i had showered, we began to get ready for bed, hoping to get some sleep. as i was snuggling into bed, i looked over at trevor in his crib and saw some moisture coming out of his mouth and he was funny colored. al was up about to go to the bathroom, so i asked him if trevor was choking? al quickly sprung to action, picked up a purple/blue trevor and started the infant cpr he had been taught. i pushed the nurses button but knew that it wasn't the emergency button, so i ran out into the hall to yell to our nurse at the time, jean (grama's favorite nurse). she quickly came, saw that al was doing what needed to be done and grabbed the suction thing to get stuff out of his nose and mouth. he then started to get his pink color back and cry. jean said, "yeah, he was blue." it was so scary!! luckily al was there with me!!

after that (and having to sleep in the delivery bed which was hard), it was hard for me to sleep. the couple times i did fall asleep, i'd wake up drenched. i was sweating while sleeping; my clothes and the bedding was all soaked, every time i woke up. we originally thought i was getting fevers from the flu but after the next night of the same thing while feeling ok during the day, we realized it was probably night sweats from the hormones. luckily, they didn't continue much after we got home.

monday night, tyler stayed at our house with tator. then tuesday night mom did and wednesday night peter did. so very thankful they did; tator loves his grama and grandpa!

wednesday was a long day; we were stuck in the room and had to ask the nurses to get me everything, whereas normally al or mom could have just run to the kitchen room to get me water or ice or whatever we needed. trevor's pediatric doctor, dr sarumi, came in to see him. she said he looked good but because he hadn't had a pee diaper yet (lots of poopy diapers tho) she couldn't do his circumcision until thursday morning. we had lots of nurses, and worked on breastfeeding; he had a good latch and desire to suck so it wasn't bad.

mom, peter and al ran to sams club during the day to get al's prescription. when they returned they had a diary queen birthday cake for me and trevor! :) we also got our free pizza party food and drink from the hospital. afterwards, mom headed home to work thursday since we'd be in the hospital anyway. and we napped and just hung out until bed time. had night sweats again and didn't sleep a whole lot, but felt better.

thursday was a busy day. we knew we'd be going home but had to wait for him to get his circ and then he had to stay for 2 hours afterwards. we were shooting for leaving at noon and we did just about that. his circ went good and he wasn't too cranky afterwards. we also had a carseat check before we left. it was good to get home but i still didn't feel great. we breastfed, slept, changed diapers, repeat.

friday mom came back down, which was very helpful! we hadn't established a routine yet and i was getting just a little sleep while having some bottom pain and a cough. a couple of those days just flew by and i barely remember them.

saturday we had our first appointment. they usually don't do appointments on saturdays but wanted to see us especially with the flu and such. we'd be seeing kris the midwife and had to call prior to leaving to see if she was at the clinic or at the hospital. upon calling we found out she was at the hospital but had 2 laboring mom's coming in for which she was the delivering midwife. so we waited around for her call back to let us know when to come in. she finally called about 3 pm and said things had slowed down. so we headed out. mom took the vehicle over to shopko while we went to the appointment. it was supposed to be a lactaction appointment and since we'd waited so long, i'd considered not going since he was latching and feeding well (or so i thought).

i'm so glad we went. they ended up weighing him and figuring out that he'd lost 11% of his body weight. he weighed 6 lbs 7 oz. anything 10% or less is ok, so he'd lost too much. we then did tests to make sure he was latching, sucking and swallowing, and that i was producing enough milk. he was latching and sucking well and i was definitely producing milk. so we figured that he was probably doing a lot of pleasure, leisure sucking and not nutritional sucking and swallowing. so we rented a pump from the hospital since my free one from insurance hadn't come yet and probably wouldn't for a week. we were showed how to use it, and given instructions to write down every diaper and every feeding, and to feed him at least an ounce every 3 hours if not more. we also then had to come back in monday to weigh him again.

so the rest of saturday and sunday were spent pumping, feeding, and creating a routine; and thank goodness we did, because that routine and writing everything down made me feel so much better and in control. sunday also was the day that we would stop wearing masks!!! i got to kiss my boy!! mom headed home on sunday and we watched a lot of olympics.

monday we were called at 815a and asked to come in for an appointment at 930; we were still in bed so we hustled to get going. we got to the appt right at 930. he gained 5 ounces in just about one day!!! i had also noticed that the whites of his eyes were yellow and his skin looked a little yellow. anne, the nurse we saw, wasn't too concerned about jaundice but because his eyes were yellow she ordered blood work to check his biliruben. (we got a call shortly after leaving that his levels were good). after the appointment, we went to the bank and target, then to al's work to get trevor added to the insurance. while al was filling that out, i got a call from the tax guy saying our taxes were done and we could come sign them and then he could submit them. so we drove over to do that. we got a lot done, but i was beat and hurting (still having some bottom pain). monday night i also got breast pain in the right boob that i originally thought was just engorgement since my milk was coming in large amounts now (2-4 oz in every 5-10 minute pump). but when it didn't go away on tuesday, i realized it was probably clogged ducts; it was painful.

our beautiful blonde baby :) 

 i LOVE his little face, especially when burping him like this!

 all dressed and ready for his first appointment