Update on Sean!

Ok, so I know it has been a while since I updated.... and I left anyone who reads my blog only through blogger hanging, with that post about Sean in the NICU. I have been keeping facebook updated, so I didn't think to update my blog too, but then I realized that not everyone is on facebook! So I am going to do a quick update in my spare time here. I don't have that much of it it seems these days : ) Or at least, not a lot of spare time that includes two hands, or lasts long enough to make plans! Sean is a wonderful, beautiful, perfect little angel. But he is a newborn baby, so he loves to sleep in my arms more than his crib or pack and play, and right when I make "plans" to do something productive during his nap, is usually when an unexpected bout of fussiness will make its appearance.

Our daytime schedule usually looks like this: wake up for his "early morning" feeding around 5 or 6, nurse for about 45 minutes, then we either go back to sleep, or Sean goes back to sleep and Mommy gets up to take a shower, or make breakfast, or just experience 2 hours of peacefulness to herself : ) Sean typically eats every 2.5-3 hours during the day. We actually had it down to a science- him and I were on the same page, and you could have set a clock to his wake up timing to eat every 3 hours. It was nice- I could anticipate a feeding at 3, 6, 9 and 12. And then at night, my angel would normally go form 9pm to 1am, and then from 1am to 6am, where we start the daytime feeding schedule again. We were also going for a walk in the neighborhood when the weather was warm enough, after his 3pm feeding.

Then 2 days ago, I am thinking that a growth spurt hit him. He is hungry every 2-2.5 hours instead, and hasn't gone more than 4 hours between feedings at nighttime. He isn't completely satisfied after each feeding it seems, but will *usually* still go down for a nap during the daytime. Luckily we are still not having to walk around the house for hours on end in the middle of the night to soothe a colicky baby, but I miss the predictability that I so naively thought I could hold onto.

The problem with a 2-2.5 feeding "schedule" is that it really isn't a schedule at all- I have no idea what time he will eat next, and therefore cannot anticipate the feeding after that, so it's been impossible to make any concrete plans for the past few days. Tomorrow we have my postpartum doctor appointment in the morning, and his one month photo shoot at Sears in the afternoon. I am nervous that our feeding will run into one or both of those, and it's difficult to breastfeed a baby in public, especially one that is a slow eater and can nurse for well over 45 minutes.

Anyways, sorry to ramble about his feeding schedule. It just seems that feeding him has become my life. And I guess I am ok with that- he needs me, and I am his mom, and it's my job to take care of him. I just can't wait until he can sleep through the night and only eat every 4 hours during the day : )

So I will end the post with some pictures of our little man. I can't believe how much he has grown in just a month. We went to the cardiologist on Monday and he was 9 lbs 3 oz already : ) Oh, and just to feed your curiosity, the pediatrician is not concerned about him at all- says he seems very healthy and happy despite his stay in the NICU. His cardiologist says she can still hear a slight murmur, but we have another follow up appointment in 2 months. They say that the murmur is from the PDA, and will most likely go away with age.