Cooper: 2.5 Week Update

Time is flying! After we got home from the hospital we pretty much hit the ground running. I can't really think in coherent paragraphs at this point so let's hit some bullet points of these week:

• Bringing a second baby home is significantly different than bringing home our first. I feel like we fell into our routine much quicker and were less on edge. Scott and I both just seemed more relaxed with Cooper than we did with Noah. With Noah, I felt very tied down, a slave to the clock and breastfeeding, and really just the house in general. With Coop I am vaguely aware of the last time I fed him but pretty much let him set the schedule and sometimes that means he eats every hour and sometimes he goes for four. We got out of the house almost from the get go, and I was insistent on making life as normal for Noah as possible.

• Noah...oh, Noah. I mentioned that I was super emotional about my big boy. Luckily, this has worn off and I don't cry daily! It's hard to describe but I just welled up every time I was with him...reading him books goodnight was like a sob fest! Poor guy was probably wondering what on earth was wrong with me. I think my hormones have evened out and I have probably realized that he gets more than enough attention still. 

He adores his Papa.

• I was also a nut about trying to keep Noah's schedule/life as normal as possible. The week after we got home from the hospital I made sure that I was present at all of Noah's activities and for every pick up/drop off from school. I have no idea if this had any bearing on how he handled the transition but he has been nothing short of amazing. He tests us all from time to time, but then again, he is two so he would be doing that anyway! He loves his baby brother and asks to see him and give him hugs and kisses all the time. He also tries to feed him granola so we will be abiding by the "never leave the two unattended" rule very strictly!

The sweetness of Noah melts my heart.

• Wait, this is supposed to be about Cooper! 

Post bath hair. :-)

• Nursing is going well. We had some latch issues the first few days home and rather than take a wait and see approach like I did with Noah I immediately called our lactation consultant and high tailed it over for a quick evaluation. One little piece of advice and we were well on our way to a successful nursing relationship. My advice to new moms, don't wait, go see someone if you have any questions. Breastfeeding is hard, it can be painful at the beginning, and it is extremely overwhelming guessing if your baby is getting enough food, gaining weight, etc. It is supposedly the most natural thing in the world, but a little professional help makes a world of difference.  

He has this funny little patch of blonde (or grey) hair. I wonder if this is an indication of what is to come?

• The first week of diaper changes is a real pain. In fact, it was pretty much a two man job around here to make sure that we avoided his umbilical cord, didn't pee on himself (or us), and tended to his circumcision correctly. Luckily, that was short lived and now it is a quick change routine around here!



Nappers!

• Sleep. Oh sleep. The first couple of nights home we were up for every.single.peep. It definitely takes a few days to get used to all their noises and to stop being fearful that something is going to go wrong. I think once you get sleep deprived enough all you care about is closing your eyes again! As far as his schedule, he wakes every 2-3 hours for his feedings and we are getting more efficient at this whole nursing thing. For awhile we were up for an hour every feeding but now I would say it is more like 30 minutes. 

Coop looks very comfortable! ;-)

• It is also amazing how much more relaxed we are this time around. With Noah, when he nursed in the night I was wide awake, we changed his diaper every time, and I was awake until he was fast asleep in his bassinet again. With Cooper, we only change his diaper if he's poopy, I am half conscious for his feeding, and I hate to admit the number of times I have set us up so he can just sleep on my chest. 

These snuggles are the best.

• That said, Cooper did give us one good 24 hour period of feeling completely scared and like first time parents all over again. He began grunting SO loud that I didn't even have the heart to lay him down. He seemed ridiculously uncomfortable and went 24 hours without a bowel movement. We finally decided to take his temperature (more to hopefully stimulate his bowels than for the actual temp) and he was at 100.1. The good news is that we succeeded in making him poo, but the temp freaked us out as we were supposed to call the doctor at 100.4. Luckily, it began to go down and as of today he is a happy boy once again. It was definitely stressful and the amount of worrying that we all did was enough for an entire first month!
• My recovery is going amazing. It took me about a week to feel comfortable going on long walks and as of two and a half weeks post partum I am back to Bar Method. 
• That's my physical recovery. Mentally I am still coming back. I told Scott that sometimes it literally feels like I am out of my own body observing what is going on around me. I had the same thing with Noah and it is purely sleep deprivation. It happens in the evening and is the most frustrating because I can't make myself snap out of it. The only thing that helps is sleep. Luckily my mom and Scott don't mind, I just feel bad when we have visitors and I'm not my usual self. 



Taking a bottle a day like a champ!

• Cooper has had two pediatrician visits and both went fantastic. We saw the doctor two days after coming home and then again for a weight check three days later. The comments from our pediatrician about his weight gain, "I am pleased with babies gaining 1 oz. per day, happy with 2oz. per day, and ecstatic to see that he has been gaining 3oz. per day". This made me so happy to hear as we had a hard time getting Noah to gain weight and Cooper seems to be a rockstar nurser.

• His stats:
• Weight: 7lbs. 9.6oz. (46th percentile)
• Length: 20 in. He grew a whole inch in three days! HA! Just goes to show that the early length measurements have a little wiggle room. (56th percentile)
• Head: 36.5cm (91st percentile!!)



After his first bath. He hated it less than Noah but wasn't overjoyed by having his hair washed.

• Overall, we are second time parents and Coop is a second child. We have to remind ourselves that it has been a few days since he had a bath (versus Noah where we had to make ourselves wait to bathe him again), I have charted exactly zero feedings, poos, or pees (versus Noah where I had a timer and a physical log of all of these things for the first two weeks), he is rarely swaddled, and we are just generally much more cool, calm and collected. 

I can't believe I have two boys! I keep telling Scott, "we have two kids!!!"

• Finally...my parents. I seriously don't know where we would be without them...especially my mom. We are so fortunate that they both retired shortly before Cooper's arrival and my mom has spent an entire month here with us to help us get settled in. The amount of help she has given us cannot be quantified. And my dad is absolutely Noah's favorite person on the planet so having him here for Noah was unbelievable in that first week. Not to mention they took on some house projects that we have been putting off for months and between all of us the backyard/patio has never looked so good!

Grandma snuggles!

Noah overseeing the flagstone work.

Ok, this is incredibly wordy and long but I want to make sure I remember it all! Moving forward I will likely do monthly updates for Cooper but keep checking back as I really want to keep up with blogging! I love looking back on my Noah updates and want to make sure to always have this little record of our lives.

Date night! We escaped to Los Altos Grill for an amazing night together. I even got to have 2 glasses of wine. It felt like heaven.