Griffin at One Month

Every blog post for every month of Griffin's first year of life will probably begin with.. "I can't believe Griffin is one month old!" and, "It's unbelievable just how much Griffin has grown!" Even if every post starts with these statements, they are one-hundred-percent true!

One month on the dot

Ready for a day at the office

Having Griffin in our family is an absolute pleasure. Since we've done the one-to-two transition already I wasn't too worried about wondering if I could love one more kid, as that is totally possible, but I am constantly astounded by how much we love we have for this little person who still doesn't even smile! Griffin makes his big brothers so happy! They constantly want to hug and kiss him, hold him, and rub his head. The head rubbing tends to be a little on the vigorous side, but as he gets older perhaps Griffin won't mind. One thing I am soooo looking forward to is the day that Auggie and Eland realize just how much their little brother loves them back.

ADORING BROTHERS:

ALL ABOUT GRIFFIN:

Griffin is growing beautifully! He was 7lbs 14oz at birth, 7lbs 11oz three days later, and then 8lbs 2oz at eleven days. That said, I'm sure he's getting close to 9lbs. He started out wearing newborn clothes. By week two his arms were too long for newborn sleepers, and by week three he'd grown out of them length-wise. Three days ago he started wearing 3m onesies instead of NB onesies. His face has filled out and he no longer has that "newborn" look about him. His cute baby double-chin is growing bigger every day, and we even had to move his car seat shoulder straps up one notch a few days ago.

Newborns have little control over where their eyes look; Griffin has officially developed the ability to look places on purpose and engage in eye contact over the last week or so. He doesn't scratch/man-handle his face as much as he used to (note to self: he's due for finger-nail trimming!), but he does still flail uncontrollably during his light sleep phase, which is normal. Griffin has had great head and neck control since he was born and he seems to be getting stronger daily.

While he could only nurse on one side at a time for the first two weeks of life, he's nursing on both sides during the day. He can have a hard time staying awake for both sides at night, but I do my best to wake him for the second side.

We just noticed yesterday that Griffin seems to be vocalizing outside of crying. It's very minor, but definitely the start of something. :)

While a definitive color is yet to be determined, I think Griffin is going to have blue eyes. Griffin had a small broken blood vessel in his left eye next to the iris likely caused by birth. It's gone now.

Griffin is our first baby with an outtie belly button! And speaking of belly buttons, his umbilical stump fell out when he was five days old! While I was changing his diaper he became a little water fountain and somehow aimed high and ended up soaking his belly button. I think the warmth of the pee loosed the stump enough for it to fall out. I, naturally, freaked out thinking my poor baby was going to have a belly button infection because he got pee on his still scabbed/bloody stump. The pediatrician's office didn't seem to be the least bit concerned and told me to swab it once with alcohol and then watch it. Thankfully it didn't get infected, and Griffin has an adorable and fully healed little outtie now. (Random tidbit: it sticks out when he cries/strains his stomach.)

I am fairly certain that Griffin smiled on purpose for the first time yesterday! He gave me a gorgeous gummy grin, and even did a repeat performance for Dan later around dinnertime.

This is a falling asleep smile :)

Griffin's third bath--first on camera. He's red because of my phone, sorry!

Confused and disgruntled post-bath

 

Griffin in our amazing Beco Gemini soft carrier--love this thing!

Relaxing with Dan

AND THE ILLUSIVE THING WE CALL SLEEP:

Griffin's first two weeks of life certainly took some adjustment on our part, but he was pretty easy on us. He slept in two- to three-hour increments at night and most of the day, ate well, and did all the things that newborns do: sleep, eat, and generate dirty diapers. This gave me the predictability that I needed to get through engorgement when my milk came in (as usual, I had it bad--a good five days of painfully full breasts), and generally heal from birth. Griffin slept in bed with Dan and me for those first two weeks. I've never been able to sleep comfortably with babies in bed with us in the past, but for whatever reason it clicked for those first two weeks. I could nurse and sleep at the same time, and I never once felt like he was in danger. It worked really well until day 14 when Griffin fussed and fussed in bed all night. For day 15 we put him to sleep in a Rock-n-play sleeper next to me in bed, and, violá, we had a new successful sleeping spot. This lasted about a week, and then Griffin started experiencing severe tummy pain at night. I think being folded up in the Rock-n-play hurt his tummy when it was gassy. Once again we came up with a new strategy, and now have him sleeping in the Co-sleeper or the Rock-n-play depending on how he's feeling. This seems to be working well for now, but it seeing as how things keep changing, who knows how long it will last for.

Sleepy dad and baby

Milk coma 

We had two nights earlier this week that were especially rough. It seems like Griffin's tummy pain/gas was the worst between about 2-5am. Being stretched out definitely helps, but the poor guy was still hurting. I am working through a couple of strategies.. For one thing, I'm not eating dairy, garlic or onions. I picked up some infant probiotics which seems to keep him from spitting up, but the bottle has milk listed on the label, so I have some non-dairy infant probiotics ordered to see if that helps more. Another strategy is to burp him more. My let-down is pretty strong, so I suspect that he's gulping in air as he nurses. I do burp him already, but I think we need to ramp up the burping even more to prevent extra air bubbles in Griffin's tummy. Dr. Google lists plenty of other options, but I'll see how things go and adjust accordingly. The main problem is that lately at night when I take Griffin off the breast to burp he falls asleep and won't finish eating--meaning that he's up in an hour as opposed to two or three to eat next.

Another tricky thing about sleep is that Griffin has been congested these last two and a half weeks. He doesn't have a cold, so I am fairly certain that it's from our ridiculously dry Albuquerque air. Sometimes he breathes just fine, but other times--particularly when he's asleep--Griffin breathes in a way that sounds like he's working through mucous or post-nasal drip. Yesterday he blew out quite a bit of snot with a tiny bit of fresh blood in it. :( Poor guy. I've been using nasal saline spray in his nostrils and he sleeps at night near a humidifier, but neither seem to be helping too much. Between 2-5am seems to be the worst, or anytime he's fussing. Not sure why, but there does seem to be a pattern. I'll ask his pediatrician at his two-month appointment.

Have I mentioned that Griffin is a LOUD sleeper? He's typically quiet for the first chunk or two of sleep at night--with the exception of the 15 or 20 minutes before he wakes up--but then the rest of the night he's grunting, heavy breathing, squeaking, doing the congested breathing thing.. Oh boy. Hehe..

Who said men can't multi-task?

Dan has been taking the 5-8am shift, which is brilliant. He's usually up around then anyway, so after I feed Griffin he'll take him downstairs and let me sleep for another hour or two. Besides the first chunk of sleep at night, this is my best bet to get more zzz's in. Sleep deprivation is pretty rough, though. Dan and I are both feeling it. I find that my perspective on sleep deprivation has changed from when Auggie and Eland were babies to Griffin. With the older two I found myself praying prayers begging God to let my kids sleep, and while I want to pray those prayers now, I find myself more accepting of my fate and simply praying for patience. This may change once I am on real-life duty again and have to wake at 6am to get the boys to school. Speaking of which...

Since Griffin was born two weeks early, my mom was able to come out for his first week of life, and now she's here again helping. She takes Auggie and Eland to and from school. She has been cooking, cleaning, emptying the dishwasher, taking the kids to the park, holding Griffin so that I can nap in the mornings, generally being tremendous, and she's even in the process of scrubbing all our baseboards clean! We would have a tough time surviving life with a newborn without her! My mom has been a great sounding board as we work through tummy/gas issues, and other new realities. It's incredibly helpful to have someone to talk with who did in fact get a good night's sleep and is thinking clearly. Hehe.. Thank you, Mom! We could not do this without you!!!!

HAPPY ONE MONTH, GRIFFIN!

The boys and I made Griffin a birthday cake: