Sleeping...

Well...this is a post I have eagerly anticipated...and prayed for! It is no surprise to anyone that Will was NOT the world's best sleeper! He didn't sleep through the night consistently til 6 months and that was after a very long CIO (cry it out) weekend at 4 months.

Pierce out of the gate seemed to be a better sleeper than Will, but still seems to have a fast metabolism and wanted to eat every four hours at night. After talking with my good friend Ashlee whose baby starting sleeping through the night at 6wks I immediately began picking her brain. Miss Charlotte (baby #3) was born two days after Pierce and Ashlee assured me she had no idea how/why her girls slept through so early but the more she talked the more I realize that she actually did have a method. Ashlee had been telling me that when Charlotte would wake she would first put the paci in and try to hold her off. Miraculously, Charlotte would sleep several more hours. It made perfect sense to me as you truly do have to train their tummies that nighttime is NOT the time to eat. I also had joined a facebook group called "I love babywise" which is a support group for Mom's who subscribe to Parent Directed Feeding. They had a document with tips for sleeping through the night and the suggestions seemed to loosely coincide with my conversation with Ashlee. Here is an excerpt of their suggestions:

2) In the early morning (5-6ish), feed until your baby goes back to sleep and then put him down. The MON ; and early morning feeds are the times you don't have to worry about feeding baby to sleep. Now I'm not saying that if baby is fast asleep as soon as he latches on, you put him down...you know what I mean. With mine, I'd work a little harder at the first MON feed (anywhere from 1-3am usually), but at the early morning feed, I just go 5-10 min on one side. This way a) you are back in bed sooner and b) baby will take a full feeding at the first official feeding of the day. 

3) Some time between 8-12 weeks, use controlled crying to push the MON feeding back. In my experience, my babies would go from two night wakings to one at about 8 weeks. It would just suddenly happen. From there, I'd begin to work on that last MON feeding. I'll try to describe the;process....If, for example, my baby had demonstrated that he could routinely make it from 10:30 (DreamFeed)- 3:00, I would set 3:00 as the minimum time. So if he woke at 2:00, I'd allow 15 minutes of crying. To my surprise, what often happened was that he'd cry 10 min and then fall back asleep until 3:30 or whatever. When he woke again, I'd get him. After a few nights, I'd reset the "minimum" time to 3:30. This would go on for about 2 weeks, at which point I'd have the MON feeding pushed back to 5- something. At that point, I dropped it. With my babies, it required two nights of off & on crying. It was not as bad as I feared, and they never looked back after that.

4) Limit the amount of milk offered at the MON feedings. This is the method utilized by the author of the BW blog (babywisemom.blogpsot.com). It is used in place of the CIO method outlined above. I've never tried it, but here's how it works...You offer progressively less milk at each MON feeding over the course of a few weeks. If you are breastfeeding, you'd start by limiting the time at the 2nd breast. Then work your way down to just doing one side. After that, limit time on the first side. This gets baby used to taking in less at night and more in the daytime.

I should say that I have yet to do the crying it out, not because I am oppose to it, but because I would fully wake up if I listened to him scream for 15 minutes. What I have done is hold him off at the 30 minute intervals with the paci (because there is no paci in the world that would put Pierce back to sleep for several hours). This past weekend was rough holding him off from 4 am to 5am but yay! It has worked. Pierce did his first night of sleeping til 5:30am (7 hours straight) without a peep. I am hopeful that by the end of the week he will be fully sleeping til 7:30am! Yay!!! I simply cannot even believe it. What I love about this advice is that it doesn't presume that baby will automatically know how to sttn but needs to learn. I wish so badly I had known this for Will! But that's the story of first time parents! Hope this is helpful for those in the trenches right now! I am definitely a Momma who needs 8 hours of sleep! 

Pierce: 2 Months Old!

It amazes me at this point how much changes in 4 short weeks! Pierce has plumped up, is sleeping so much better and his reflux is finally under control!

We had his 2 month check up yesterday and he is doing great!

Weight: 11 lbs, 13.5 oz (37th percentile)

Height: 23 in. (48th percentile....up from 16% at his last appointment which must have been a fluke because it didn't fit with his other numbers!)

Head: 39.5 (61st percentile)

Eating: Pierce still eats 4 oz every 3 hours during the day and we continue to follow the Eat, Wake, Sleep pattern of Parent Directed Feeding (PDF). I have truly found that for my boys, it has made them less fussy and more predictable! I feed him at 7:30am, 10:30am, 1:15 pm, 4:30, 7:30 then down for bed. Just as we did for Will, I do a Dreamfeed at 10:30pm while he is sleeping to tied him over longer at night. He has continued to stretch at night and has been doing a 6 hour stretch in the middle of the night, so we are down to one middle of the night feed around 4:30am.

Sleeping: We have made major strides here. For a good part of this past month we struggled and struggled with the 45 minute naps where Pierce was unable to resettle and go back to sleep. Lots and lots of crying and generally overtired during the day as a result. Finally, I decided that I needed to give him a chance to resettle on his own before intervening with a paci or moving him to the swing. I set the timer for 10 minutes for both going down for a nap as well as if he wakes early before I go in.... and what do you know, the child goes back to sleep! YAY!!! This has made all the difference in the world to my day. He now is awake for about an hour to an hour and fifteen minutes and then naps the remainder of the 3 hour cycle (so 1hr and 45 min-2 hours of a nap each time.) At night he goes to bed at 8pm and I usually don't hear anything out of him until 4:30 with the 10:30 dreamfeed in the middle. I am super hopeful that in the next few weeks he will be sleeping a full night til 7am or 7:30am. Our ped said they really need to be 12 pounds to sustain their tummies a full night... so we shall see!

Milestones: As I mentioned in an earlier post, Pierce has been rolling over since 7 weeks and rarely allows himself to spend much time on his belly before making his way to his back. He is tracking faces and toys like a champ (even though I was a bit worried about not tracking toys...more on that in a latter post). He has started "talking" baby talk and cooing and laughing. He LOVES to watch Will and I must say, his favorite face to see at the moment is Mama. He is constantly looking for me which melts my heart. I call Pierce my squishy baby because he is much fatter than Will ever was. I always said that I wanted to have "chunks" and he is turning out to be just that...and I LOVE it! Pierce truly is the happiest baby! We love you so much baby boy!

We are all doing GREAT and I absolutely LOVE being the Momma of boys! Sure the clothes aren't as cute but there is just something about a Momma and her sons that can't fully be described in words. I do hope we have the chance to parent a daughter as well one day, but for now I'll take my house of 5 boys (counting Charlie and Hank of course! :) )

I could just eat him up! This face gets kisses ALL DAY LONG!

So thankful these sweet little boys made me a mama...feeling very blessed!

We have a roller!

I told Zak last night that because Pierce is becoming a bit more of a chunker than Will (who rolled at 8wks), I assumed Pierce would likely be a good bit later. I believe he was offended so he decided to go ahead and roll today...@ 7wks! Yay Pierce!

Posted the first video to facebook, so for a little variety here take two!

Baby Smiles

Love these sweet baby smiles! I could just eat him up! Hard to believe he was 7 weeks yesterday! #lovemyboys

Pierce: One Month Old...

I can hardly believe that baby Pierce has been here for a whole month! Seems like just yesterday I was miserably pregnant and waiting to meet him! I was waiting to post Pierce's one month pictures until his well check which we had yesterday so I would know his stats!

Sweet Pierce is growing well and definitely catching up even though he was slow out of the gate. He is smiling at us and loosely tracking. He seems more laid back than Will and tends to go with the flow. He is strong as an ox just like his brother was. He even rolled over from his tummy to his back at his two week check up. The doctor said likely as his tummy expanded he wouldn't be able to continue to roll over and that has held true. At his 2 week check up he was only 13th percentile so I was hopeful he would make up for lost time (in the womb!) The first 3 weeks were rough with silent reflux (where he spit up but it would just go up his throat and back down and burn like battery acid.) Last week we saw the doctor and began on Prilosec and praise Jesus it began working immediately. Pierce has been such a different baby now that we have that issue under control! Prior to beginning medicine he seemed uncomfortable most of the day and screamed during feeds and often woke an hour early crying in discomfort. I spent much of the day wearing him in the k-tan just to make it to the next feeding time.

Eating: Pierce eats 4 oz every 3 hours during the day and we begin the day between 8:00 and 8:30. He eats great but is quite difficult to burp. His schedule flexibly is 8:30, 11, 2, 5, 7:30 and 10:30 (dreamfeed). He typically goes until 2:30 and then just started extending til 6:00 ish.

Sleeping:  After eating, Pierce is awake for 45min-1hr and then he goes down for the remainder of the 2.5-3 hour stretch. He usually fusses on and off for 10 minutes and then goes to sleep. Unlike Will, he doesn't seem to want his paci to go to sleep and only takes it when he wakes early or is fussy during the day. We purchased a Rock N Play sleeper for Pierce and he exclusively sleeps in it as it helps being upright with his reflux. We moved Pierce to his room the 3rd week and he does great.

Weight: Pierce is 9 pounds 8oz (29th percentile)
Height: 21 inches (16th percentile)
Head: 37.4 cm (45th percentile)

My poor baby boy got his first shot (Hep B) at the pediatrician and he did not appreciate it, but as usual he was easily consolable as soon as I picked him up.

....and of course the photo shoot ended about here, "Please let this be over Momma!"

Welcome to the World Baby Pierce! (Finally your birth story...)

To say that my pregnancy with Pierce was a challenge would be the understatement of the year. Bottom line- this body doesn't handle pregnancy very well. Cliff notes: First trimester I wanted to die I was soo sick. Literally, I wanted to DIE! Those first 12 weeks were filled with 24/7 hugging a toilet bowl and just trying to make it through each day with a toddler. Second trimester, not too bad. Still hated being pregnant but otherwise uneventful. At 24 weeks though I found out that I had placenta previa (which is where the placenta is covering the cervix and unless it moves out of the way, its an automatic c-section and early delivery). The doctor immediately put me on pelvic rest (no lifting, no more exercise etc.) and unfortunately I was scheduled for a 37 week c-section delivery. As we got closer, I hadn't had any complications so I pushed for one more week to deliver. The doctor agreed and the new date was set for March 18th. I should also note that my final trimester was filled with heartburn and severe sciatic nerve pain the shot straight down my right leg morning noon and night. I was not a happy camper.

Fast forward to Monday night, March 17th. We dropped Will off with Nana and Bampa and headed home to try to get some sleep as we had to be at the hospital by 5:30 am. Thanks to the help of ambien I actually slept great that night and we both got up at 4:30 to take showers and head for the hospital. The whole thing felt surreal driving up, parking the car and knowing that in a few short hours we would be meeting our second baby boy. We checked in and they immediately began to prep me for surgery. Dad showed up unexpectedly and I could tell he just wanted to be there to make sure everything went smoothly. Soon after the nerves began to kick in. I was scared. They wheeled me back about 7:45 because the doctor was running late and the anesthesiologist began with the spinal which I have to say was AWFUL! Shockingly I found it very painful but boy did it work. I had an epidural with Will and felt like I couldn't breath because they had numbed my chest but with the spinal I could breath just fine. The surgery felt like it went on forever and I was soo eager to meet my sweet baby. I lost a significant amount of blood in surgery as a result of the previa so it took a bit longer to get Pierce out. At 8:30am Hudson Pierce Shipman was born, 7 pounds 2 oz and 20.25 inches long. I cried when I heard his screams coming out because I knew then that he had safely arrived. Zak cut the cord and was able to go ahead and hold him, but it was a good bit later before I got to hold him because they were closing me up.

When I got to recovery I was so tired because of the blood loss and honestly only held Pierce briefly because I was concerned I might drop him if I passed out. Pierce was making a lot of grunting noises and they were concerned enough that they sent him to the special care nursery for the next hour and placed him under the warmers. Soon after, they brought him back and his body temp was still lower than they wanted so they had me do skin to skin for the next few hours to try to get his body temp up. Thankfully it worked but instead of our families being able to come back at 9:30am as planned it was just after 12:00pm when they finally were able to come back and Pierce was still having to lay on me so no one was able to hold him.

Will was NOT a fan of me being in the hospital and certainly is very attached to his momma. I had really hoped that when Will came to meet Pierce I would be able to have someone else hold the new baby so I could be fully available to greet Will and assure him that everything was fine. But because it was so late when everyone came back they were only in the room for 15 minutes before they had to take Will to the cafeteria to get some lunch. By the time they came back it was past Will's naptime so they needed to head back home and Will just lost it. He was reaching for me and screaming "Momma, I want to stay with Momma!" It literally ripped my heart out and I started crying too. He was scared and not sure what was going on and I felt completely responsible.

The next 3 days were challenging to say the least. Pierce struggled to nurse and I saw lactation so many times. He was lethargic, which is common for boys who come early and had trouble latching. It was so so stressful that he continued to drop weight and have little interest in eating. The nurses and lactation all shared their concerns that he was tongue tied, but the pediatrician disagreed. By the time we left, Pierce had lost 11% of his body weight and we had to begin supplementing formula at every feed. My milk had yet to come in and we were definitely getting concerned. While in the hospital I definitely felt a major hormonal shift and began to have the same panic attacks throughout the day and to be honest it scared me. We were discharged Friday morning and at the point had made the decision to take Pierce to the ENT to have his tongue tie evaluated. The ENT said he definitely had a tongue tie and he immediately clipped it. They also discussed with us that due to his chin being recessed as a result of being born early he would likely continue to have a difficult time nursing and it would likely always be painful for me. That night we made the decision to wean. It was very emotional and very hard but I knew in my heart it was the right decision for our family. Each day since weaning I have felt better and better and now feel no anxiety at all. It took Pierce two full weeks to get back up to birth weight but within a short period of time he began eating like a champ!

I was so worried when I was pregnant with Pierce that I couldn't possibly love another child as much as I loved Will. But as many friends assured me, your heart grows in ways you never thought possible and I couldn't possibly love that sweet baby boy any more. We are so blessed to have him in our family. I love being a momma of boys and cant wait to see what sweet little personality emerges!