Evan turns 3 weeks old tomorrow! It's hard for me to believe this as I feel like time has flown by since we've brought him home. Maybe time flies because we're on a routine with very short cycle periods (meaning every 3 hours he eats, gets changed, and then leaves me with about 2 hours of "free time" for sleeping, eating, showering, or checking email until it's time to start the cycle over again). Trust me, those 2 hour segments go by very quickly!
Either way, Evan is definitely getting older. For one, he eats more. He used to eat for no more than 20 minutes at a time, and now it's easily 30-35 minutes per feeding. (This also reduces the in between feeding "free" time for me).
He also cries more. I hope it's not the beginning of colic, but for one reason or another, he gets more fussy throughout the day, especially in the evenings. We can usually calm him down, but sometimes it's really hard to know what he needs to be soothed. I don't want to resort to always feeding him to calm him, so unless I see clear rooting reflex signs that he may be hungry I try to console him other ways. Either way, from what I've read this is common beginning the 3rd to 4th week (especially if it's colic).
Evan is also awake more often now too! The first few weeks he napped, and napped, and napped... This was great for me to get things done while he was napping, but I also worried he slept too much and I wanted to have more awake and alert time to spend with him. Thus, he seems to now be awake for a full couple hours between feedings during at least one "cycle" of each day, as well as short periods other times of day. During those moments, I try reading books to him, singing/dancing with him (he seems to really like when I have music on), hanging out with him while he sits in his boppy, and of course we spend time just talking to him and holding him. We've also broken out his floor gym, which he seems to like, and he is actually doing better with tummy time!
This is Evan during some awake and alert time! Look at that sparkle in his eyes!
This floor gym will keep him entertained over the months ahead, as he's more able to see and play with all of the cools toys hanging around him. For now, he just took in the colorful sights and the elephant rattle near his head.
Tummy time is getting to be more enjoyable, although he still feels some frustration due to his limited movement abilities.
Then this morning I noticed that he is starting to see his hands as they move in front of his face. Right on schedule with his development according to "Baby's First Year". Of course, he can't hold his hand still long enough to really get a look at it, but he notices it when it's near his face.
I can only imagine that he's now over 8 lbs now too, given he was 7 lbs 12 oz last week at his last doctor's check up, and he's probably gaining about 1 oz per day. He will not be "newborn" much longer!
One less fun thing that Evan's been experiencing this week is blocked tear ducts. It started with his right eye, and now is more in his left. The doctor (and the book I'm reading) says this is very common with newborns, but it means we have to wipe his eyes every time he wakes up. He sure doesn't like having his face and eyes washed, but it makes us feel better looking at his eyes without all the crud in them. Hopefully that goes away soon.
Noteworthy story of the week:
Tuesday Evan had a record day for clothing changes. Whether it was from him spitting up all over his shirt, or him peeing during a diaper change and thus soaking the back of his onesie, he went through 5 outfits that one day. Considering we don't have that much in newborn or very small sizes, that was nearly his whole wardrobe! We're still doing laundry for him almost every day. I sure hope that as he gets older and we have a larger stock of outfits that fit him we can reduce that a bit. However, once we start using cloth diapers that will also introduce one more load of laundry that we'll have to do on almost a daily basis. Good thing we have a high efficiency front-loading washing machine!
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