Max will be 6 weeks old on Monday. It's been interesting.
We have a lot of fun with him, but it can also be extremely trying. He's a great baby, but has been very slow to eat. We know that he's too young and small to get him on a schedule, but he seems to always be eating, and there's no rhyme or reason to it. Sometimes he'll eat 4 oz. and go to sleep for 3 hours, but that's not the norm. Usually he'll eat a bit, fall asleep for an hour, wake up, eat more, fall asleep again, and so on. What we consider one feeding can take up to 2 hours, at which point he will then usually sleep for 2-3 hours. We're trying everything we can think of to get him to eat more in one sitting to no avail. We try to make sure he's good and "angry" so he'll eat in one shot, but it doesn't often work. We've tried darn near every bottle and nipple on the planet and have high hopes that the one we picked up yesterday will do the trick, so far so good.
We've heard that any feeding over 30 minutes actually burns more calories than are going in, so obviously any feeding beyond that isn't necessary-but that doesn't change the fact that he's still "hungry".
Things are getting a little tense around the house, as neither of us are getting the sleep we'd like. We are hoping that Bobbie Jo's Mom (who's stopping by tonight) might want to watch him for a few hours so that I can take out the wife and get a few beers in her.
That's it for the bad, it's tough, but so worth it.
Now for the good - Max is pretty awesome. He's putting on a lot of weight, and outgrew his preemie clothes a few weeks ago. He's almost too big for his "Newborn" diapers. He watches us a lot, and is very curious about all of the things he sees around him, he finally noticed the various mobiles that hang over him. He has a great smirk. He spends more time awake. He's really strong and has a great grip that hurts our fingers when he holds on. He can lift up his neck quite a bit when he's on our chests or on the floor. He likes the baths we give him every other day. He gets cuter every day.
He's been a joy, and is really such a good baby. We think about how tough it is for us, and then think about people who have babies that cry for no reason, or real issues to deal with. Our hats go off to them.
