Week 8 has been rough!

Owen is 8 weeks old today. The last 10 days or so have been pretty tough for us all. After we got home from California, Owen's schedule was pretty messed up. He was only happy when he was being held and we had the hardest time getting him to go to sleep. We started sleep training and I'm happy to say that one week later we can put him down to sleep in less than 5 minutes! We are actively looking for his tiredness cues and when we see one, we swaddle him and then make our way to the bedroom. When we're there we spend a minute or two holding him and soothing him and then put him in the crib awake (yes - he's no longer in the bassinet, but in the pack n play in our room). If he fusses we try to soothe him in the crib or pick him up just until he calms down and then put him back down. It's so nice to have him making this progress and I think he's sleeping much better by himself and not in his parents bed!

Another first last week was daycare. I've started back to work part time this month and I'm taking Owen to daycare for about 4 hours a day. It's been good for both of us to get used to it, without it being 8 hours a day. The first day was soooo hard, I was really surprised at how upset I was. I think it was more than just leaving him with strangers (he had a babysitter twice while we were in California). I think it was that it was the end of me being a stay at home mom. That's been pretty hard to come to grips with.

Another struggle we're dealing with is Owen's weight and feeding. We went in for his 2 month check up and vaccinations on his 7 week birthday. His height is still on track at 95%. He's now over 24 inches long! However, his weight dropped a curve to the 50% and he only weighed 10 pounds 11 oz. The Dr gave us a two week weight goal to try and reach. Owen must have heard him because he's been eating around the clock for the past week! My little boy who used to go 4 hours between feedings and regularly 5 hours at night has been eating every 2 to 3 hours - even at night!

This has been hard on me, a lot of times I felt like I didn't have enough food for him, and when I was pumping for work I had to pump several times just to get enough for one bottle for daycare. This added to my stress with going back to work and worrying about his weight and lack of sleep, probably didn't help me make any more milk!

After much prayer, research and advice I think we may have turned a corner today. He still ate every 3 hours, but I finally felt like I had plenty to give him when he wanted to eat and I pumped a little more than usual - not enough, but I did make progress. Hopefully things will continue to go well and he'll gain the weight he needs to.

I know this is only the first of many trials of parenthood. I still wouldn't trade it for the world!