Dear Lincoln,
I can’t believe that you are one month old today! It makes me so sad to think that you are growing up so fast. Everyone told me that I would be amazed at how the time flies and it really is true. Your dad and I have just been trying to enjoy you as much as possible this month. You won’t be this small forever (sob!).
This month has been all about learning by trial and error for your dad and I. You see, you didn’t come with an instruction manual, so we’ve been trying to figure you out all month long. Because your birth was a little traumatic for you it seems like it took a good part of the month for you to figure yourself out as well. You are a completely different baby today than you were in the hospital. That made things a little more complicated for us – as soon as we felt like we were getting the hang of the whole parent thing you would up and switch something on us. For the last week though it seems like we have all settled into our roles, and life is just getting better every day.
Eating was a little bit of a challenge for you at first. You were just so sleepy! You would suck twice, maybe three times, and then fall fast asleep. The lactation consultants in the hospital didn’t know what to do with you! After a couple days of very sleepy days you lost too much weight and the doctor came and woke your dad and I up in the night to tell us they were concerned. We spent the next couple days feeding you with every supplemental method we could think of besides a bottle because you hadn’t gotten the hang of breastfeeding at all. We fed you pumped colostrum from a spoon, a cup, a syringe, and a tube. It was so sad for me to see you trying to lap up the colostrum from a cup like a kitty when all I wanted was to feed you myself. After you gained some weight we went home and started getting visits from our favorite nun/home health nurse, Sister Mary Teresa. She was awesome and helped us figure out why you were struggling to eat. We started using a nipple shield and things started going a lot better. After a couple weeks we’ve been able to stop using the shield and things have been going great! You LOVE to eat and make the most adorable noises while you are sucking. I love getting to cuddle with your little warm body every time I feed you. I love seeing you just lean back with milk all over your face and a really satisfied expression after eating a lot. You are so adorable!
Sleeping has been full of changes too. At first that was all you would do. We would rarely see your alert little eyes for more than a few minutes at a time. You were so sleepy that you never woke yourself up to eat -ever. The first time you woke up because you were hungry was when you were almost three weeks old! In the hospital because of your weight loss they had us waking you up to eat every two hours. It took over an hour to feed you, so sometimes mom and dad would only get 45 minutes of sleep before we woke up again to feed you - we were exhausted. I don’t really know that many parents who have to set alarms in the night to wake their newborn to eat! Once we got you home we continued with waking you up until you had gained enough weight to experiment with letting you wake yourself up. The first time we let you sleep without waking you up you slept for six hours! It made mom really nervous. After that you averaged somewhere around six hours during the night. Then two nights in a row you did an eight hour stretch. That made us nervous again that you were not getting enough to eat, but the next night you switched to four hour stretches, which you have been on ever since. So, we have gone from having to use alarms in the middle of the night to make sure you woke up, to sleeping too long, to now sleeping normal nighttime stretches for a newborn. Now if we could just get you be a better napper during the day…
Diapering you has, surprisingly, been a challenge. You just have such skinny legs that no diapers we tried would keep everything inside. For the first two weeks we would literally have to change your onesie every time we changed your diaper, which was sad because you HATED getting your clothes changed. We started with the newborn size diapers and then we went down a size to the preemie diapers. They fit much better but still didn’t contain everything, so we stared double diapering you – a preemie diaper with a newborn diaper over that. How ridiculous! Now we are just using newborn size and because your legs are filling out a little bit we are having fewer blowouts. Whew!
Another experiment this month has been swaddling. When you were inside me you loved to have your hands up by your face and in your mouth. During my last ultrasound we could see you sucking your fingers and sampling each one in turn. We could hardly see your face because your hands were in the way for the entire time. When you were born nothing had changed. Most newborns like to be swaddled, but you didn’t. You let us do it for the first few days, but then you decided that you never wanted to be swaddled again. As soon as we would swaddle you you would frantically start straining against the swaddle and within a few minutes you would work your hands up to your face. We decided that it was counterproductive to try and keep your hands down, so we decided to let you have your hands. You were much happier, but we started getting frustrated because you wouldn’t stay asleep for very long because your pesky hands would wake you up. You’d poke yourself in the face, or startle and your hands would fly up and wake you. Mom and dad decided that we knew what was best for you even if you didn’t like it, so we started swaddling you despite your protests. Once we rocked you to sleep you started sleeping longer stretches without your hands hitting you in the face. Now, you submit meekly to being swaddled even if you are wide awake. We are all much happier with this arrangement – it just took some training.
You still get hiccups a lot, just like you did when you were inside of me. You LOVE to look at bright lights. If there is a bright light nearby you will stare into it for long periods of time with your little mouth open in fascination. You hate to take baths and it is always a traumatic experience for you, so hopefully you will grow out of that soon because we like to keep you clean! Your feet are still really big, but not quite so out of proportion as they were when you were first born. Your eyes look brown to me, but your daddy has been insisting for weeks that they could change to blue. He is recently starting to admit that his genes may have won this battle, though. You also love music. Sometimes you sleep with music playing in your room. Mostly, though, you just like me to sing to you while I’m rocking you to sleep.
Some of our favorite times with you are when you are in your quiet, alert phase. You just look all around with this look of intelligence that amazes and scares us. Sometimes you look so much like a tiny adult. We can’t wait for you to start talking – you look like you have so much to say!
You have smiled at us a few times this week and it has just melted our hearts. A few days ago we had a bit of a frustrating morning – you didn’t think you needed a nap, I thought you did. I was trying to nurse you to sleep and was explaining to you why you were being a naughty boy when you just looked up at me and grinned. I instantly forgot all our morning frustrations and started crying. It’s amazing what a little smile from you means to us.
Lincoln, it has been such a joy to have you be part of our family. Our home is even happier since your arrival. I always knew that your dad would be a great father, but he really has blown me away this month. You have him completely wrapped around your little finger. We can barely get anything done in the evenings besides playing with you. We are so glad that you finally here after praying for you for such a long time. We can’t believe you are ours.
We love you more than you’ll ever know,
Mama
For the record:
Weight: 10 pounds, 7 ounces (43rd percentile)
Length: 22 inches (38th percentile)
Head Circumference: 15 inches (25th percentile)
