2 months

Little man is 2 months old today! To be competely honest with you, it feels like it's been 6! Had his shots today :( He actually did so well, though! He only cried for a few seconds after each shot (had to have 3!) and then stopped! I was impressed! He's tough like his daddy!

He weighed 10 lbs 11 oz (50th percentile) and was 23 inches (40th percentile). He still takes his reflux medication (which has helped a lot), but he is otherwise a very healthy baby! He does still have his sleep issues during the day - we've literally tried EVERYTHING! Dr. says it's a sleep cycle issue where he can't transition from REM to deep sleep, which is why he wakes up at the 30 minute mark each nap (thankfully, he is still tired enough to sleep at night but it does take him over an hour to settle/fuss on and off to go to bed). Unfortunately, there isn't much we can do about this unless we want to drive him in the car or put him on the dryer for every nap (soothes him through the transition). So I'm praying he grows out of it soon because it's already been going on 3 weeks! I feel so sorry for this tired little man!

Here's some stats on him:
eats 4.5 oz 4 times a day and usually 5 oz at bedtime and at his early morning feeding (with 1 to 2 tbs rice cereal for the the reflux)
goes 6 to 7 hours between feedings after going down for the night
socially smiles a lot (when he's not tired)!! It's adorable, he even smiled at the dr today! He said he's about a month advanced with this!
Coos a little, but the doc said this should increase over the next month
wearing 3 month clothes (0-3 and 3-6 are too big and newborn is too small) which are kinda hard to find
wears 6 month socks (this child has huge feet and toes!)
still loves bathtime, will lay back and relax or kick and splash
no longer swaddles for sleep
still has strawberry blondish hair



We love our sweet boy!

Sleep Issues

Ok. Can somebody please tell me they experienced this and know what to do or can tell me that it will pass??! Marshall pretty much sleeps fine at night, every now and then we have to let him cry a few minutes at bedtime to fall asleep, especially since we've broken him of being dependent on the dryer for naps during the day. He'll go 4, 5, and 6 hours between feedings at night and pretty much go straight to sleep in between. The big problem is naps. One day he'll do great and stay up about an hour to an hour and a half then go down for a nap and fall asleep on his own, sleeping about an hour and a half to two hours. But every other day or so (since not using the dryer) he picks one nap (usually the lunchtime nap or the afternoon nap) to have issues with. He will go down for 30 minutes, then wake up. Instead of going back to sleep on his own like he does on the good days, he cries for several minutes (5 to 10) then falls back asleep for several minutes, then wakes up crying starting the cycle all over. We do this back and forth sleeping, waking up crying for an hour or so until then it's time for a bottle and he basically gets no nap. Typically after that our naps are shot for the day because he's so tired he does the same thing at the next nap (even if I try to put him down earlier because he's so tired). Somebody please help! I know he's miserable on those days because he's not even happy to be up and awake. Is this just his age (almost 8 weeks) or is it something we're doing or not doing? We try to stay on a pretty consistent but flexible schedule, eating every 3 to 3.5 hours and napping after being up every hour to hour and a half. So I don't know that he's getting "off" or anything. Any ideas??

Halloween

I'm not a huge fan of Halloween, but I took the opportunity while I could to dress Marshall up...


as a chicken! I thought it was pretty funny considering his Daddy works in the poultry industry and his Gramps works for Tyson. Maybe we can get on the poultry magazine! :)

We went to my sister's church, Mayfair, to their big Fall Festival. Kinda interesting with one this young, but we survived. Caiden had a great time...

Gettin' Crafty

No, not witchcrafty. I'm usually not the crafty type, I mean I like decorating, but when it comes to actually making something, I'm not usually that talented. But I saw a wreath I liked on pinterest.com, and decided to attempt one similar to it. Here's the finished product.



Bought everything at Hobby Lobby - a grapevine wreath, an unfinished wood letter, a sheet of moss, burlap, and small pumpkins. Hot glued the pumpkins to the wreath, hot glued the moss to the letter, tied the letter to the wreath with fishing line, and hung with burlap!

Jinxed

Well, I guess I jinxed Marshall when I said at 1 month he sleeps anywhere during the day because at 5 weeks, that's no longer true. He is still sleeping great at night, long stretches and going straight to sleep. But daytime is a different story. He is having trouble going to sleep (unless he has just eaten) and is waking during his sleep cycle transition, right around 30 minutes or so. He is fussy and yawning so I know he's still sleepy and sometimes he's even crying and not alert. Sometimes he will fuss back to sleep and other times it requires a paci or some bouncing in whatever he's lying in to go back to sleep. I know he can't be getting good sleep in like this. Any of you ever experience this (especially this early when I don't think he has formed sleep associations yet, like we don't rock him all the way to sleep at night. We just rock him til he's dozing then he falls asleep himself in his bed), was it a phase, what did you do?

Milestones

I probably should have put this with the 1 month post, but I forgot. I want to use the blog to have Marshall's milestones "written" down since a baby book is only so big. So here goes...

1 month:
sleeping up to 5 hour stretches at night between feedings
swaddled at night
sleeping in crib at night, wherever (swing, bouncy seat, bassinet, carseat) during the day :)
eating 3.5 ounces per feeding (with 2 tsp. of rice cereal to help the reflux)
loves: bathtime, outside/sunshine, riding in the car
hates: diaper changes, waiting for food, any paci other than the big 6+ month ones!
takes a paci sometimes but spits it out when going to sleep
looks just like his daddy (especially in baby pictures), has his reddish hair
Not sure about weight - weighed 7.9 at 2 weeks, 21 inches long

That's my precious boy!

Fall and One Month Old

Our little boy is one month old today!

Everybody says it's gone by so fast, but to be honest, it feels like forever to me! Not that he's been a difficult baby because really, he hasn't. We've only had a couple of difficult days before we found out he has reflux (but the medicine has taken care of that) and one other difficult day when he got overstimulated/overtired (which got taken care of with several good naps in a dark room).
He truly is a great baby. Sweet and happy most of the time and sleeps anywhere! I was even able to take a trip to south Georgia to surprise one of my best girlfriends from college at her baby shower. He did so well, sleeping in the car and only having to stop once on a 4 hour trip to eat/diaper change. My sister went with me to help out (very nice of her), and it was great to see Erin's surprised face!

And she got to meet little man for the first time.

We also got ready for fall around our house. I made some pumpkin topiaries (idea courtesy of pinterest).


Might still do some finishing touches...moss under the bottom pumpkin in the pot maybe?
Great backdrop for a family photo!

The great weather also gave us an opportunity to take Marshall on his first sroller ride, with his buddy Carter Jones Cameron, no less!