The Journey of Parenthood…

Spear’s Week 4 Summary

This summary covers the 4th week of Spear’s life, from Friday Dec 22nd through Thursday Dec 28th. He was 3 weeks old during this week!

Feeding: I wanted to take the time to go through how we feed Spear. Breastfeeding and bottle feeding are two totally different games! As a former exclusively breastfeeding mama I’d always heard how easy formula feeding can be and my mission was to make this experience truly as easy as possible. Why complicate it if I don’t have to? So I keep it simple!

We use Nursery Water at room temperature and store it in a big jug on the counter so it’s easy to make bottles. We use Evenflo bottles and have plenty of them to make it so we don’t have to wash them right after each feeding (currently using medium flow nipples). They only have three pieces to clean…the actual bottle, the nipple and the ring. Easy!

I keep a Boon Drying Rack on the counter with the flower and tree accessories to make it easy to dry all the parts to the bottles. We use dish soap, a bottle brush, and a nipple brush to hand wash the bottles between feedings. We use Enfamil Gentlease Formula and for night time prep we’ll go ahead and put the water in the bottles and measure out the formula into a formula dispenser so it’s easy to make in the middle of the night.

For this week he drank a 4 oz bottle at 10 PM then 6 oz in the middle of the night (around 2ish) and 4 oz again at 7.

It’s been going SUPER well with the bottle switch! He’s eating a good bit quicker and adjusted well to the quicker flow nipple and bottle type. 

Even though I’ve had FOUR babies now I still forget stuff. This week a light bulb finally went off when I remembered that Target makes THE BEST gas drops! The dropper is in the lid which makes it SO easy to use them and they are super cheap (like $3 and they keep sending me coupons for them too). 

Spear is a pretty gassy baby so I do the drops prior to each feeding. I also had a friend tell me to put them IN the bottle too and it’s crazy b/c you can actually see it working and the bubbles fading away. So I do a little in the bottle then the full serving directly in his mouth prior to feeding. 

Sleeping: This week the schedule continued to be the same with eating 4 oz at 7, 10 (breastmilk), 1, 4 (breastmilk), 7, we bumped the dream feed to 10 rather than 9:30, and waking to eat middle of the night roughly between 1:30-3:00. He’ll drink 4 oz and sometimes even more at the motn feeding so it’d def a hunger waking still at this point!

He is a great sleeper overall and still have very short awake times (mostly just eating and then diaper change and a little bit of awake time then to sleep). 

I can for sure tell temperature is something that affects his sleep which I don’t think I’ve ever experienced before. When he’s cold and tends to wake more. We noticed at Zach’s parents house on the 24th that he was chilly and then when I double swaddled he slept better! I still use a Miracle Blanket as his swaddle and then use a receiving blanket on top. He also sleeps in a footed sleeper for nighttime sleep but I keep him in “regular clothes” of like a onesie and sometimes pants for daytime sleep. 

I’m in several Babywise groups on Facebook and people are always posting “Babywise For the Win!” with a photo of there baby sleeping in random places. I always do a bit of an eyeroll when I see those because ALL of my Babywise babies have always slept in their CRIBS for basically ALL their naps. 

With Spear I WANT to be a “Babywise for the Win!’ Type mom. Since he started out having to be so flexible I want to keep that rolling. I want to obviously be super routine and hardcore like I always am (and tend to get more hardcore each kid) but I REALLY want to keep some level of flexibility too. Sleep on the go at times! I say that every baby and I never actually do it haha but I do think a lot of it depends on the kid too and their ability to be flexible. A high sleep needs baby may sleep anywhere, a low sleep needs may not. 

This week was a bit CRAZY with Christmas and all the celebrating and Spear did very well with it all. At Zach’s parents he did get fussy after a lot of “passing the baby” so I think it’s important not to pass him around too much but he did do great sleeping in our arms a bit. Since he struggled after being passed around, he didn’t sleep for that nap so we just held him and let him sleep in our arms and that went well. While obviously I don’t want him to nap in our arms often, I think it’s good to have the ability to do so for times like those where we were opening gifts among the adults and didn’t want him fussing the whole time since he wasn’t sleeping! 

He has so many traits that remind me of the other kids. Britt was my highest sleep needs baby and Spear is similar. He is sleepy when he eats still and sleeps pretty solid for all of his naps. He’s also very “textbook” like Kye where he will wake exactly when the books say he will (mid-nap during transition). 

We let him nap in the bouncer on our Core Crew Christmas so he could be part of the gift opening and it went great!

My Moms on Call books never arrived so they resent them to me! I ordered the complete set because we all know how hardcore I am about being hardcore. I love having another parenting tool to add to my toolbox and I read through the first book super quick. It’s a VERY easy read. Very to the point, very easy to follow. Not lots of examples (which I usually skim over anyway). I liked too that it says to aim for at least 2 naps a day in the crib. I think they try to set the baby up to be flexible which is good for me and something I needed to see in writing to feel better about it! Spear naps in his crib EVERY nap but it’s good to mix it up a bit and feel like I won’t mess up his sleep! 

For Christmas Santa got Spear a playmat! I’ve used the same one for all of my kids and still have it for Spear but I LOVE the size of this one and especially love the little kickable keyboard!!! 

Spear also loves reading stories during his brief awake times 😉

Things Going On This Week: Whew it was BUSY for us all! It seems like the theme of Spear’s life so far has been BUSY ha! Guess it’s probably a 4th kid thing 😉 

We had our Core Crew Christmas

He attended church for the first time

And we celebrated Spear’s first Christmas!

Gifts and Visits: 

Kye wrote a message in the book he got for Spear for Christmas. I love it!

And this is what I wrote in his first bible that we gave to him for Christmas!

Colt and Payton came over early in the week to get to meet their newest cousin!

Aunt Cheryl and Mema also came for a visit!

Sweet Colt made this for Spear 🙂

And Target randomly sent Spear a gift! Such a cute little onesie and it cracked me up because it said for the baby to wear to their first Target visit…Spear had already been to Target like 5 times haha!

Julie also came to visit and catch up and brought us THE yummiest meal! I ate these enchiladas left over for DAYS. I def need to make them!!!

Tess: I will probably say this every week but this girl has just truly been so incredible in the big sister roll. Her love is so genuine and pure. It makes me SO glad we have this age difference. Kye and Britt were both closer to 2 ½ when they became big siblings and Tess is about an entire year older than they were and it’s AWESOME. I for SURE recommend a 3-4 year age difference over a 2-3 year one. At least so far! I just LOVE it!!! 

Sweet video of her reading the book she and Britt got him for Christmas to him 🙂 

Sibling Comparisons:


Kye

Britt

Tess

Gabe made this beautiful burp cloth (and a super cute bib) as a shower gift and I absolutely LOVE it! I got some photos of him with it before using it for the first time. Isn’t is SO adorable? 

I also want to comment on Spear’s skin. It’s seriously SO CLEAR and SO PRETTY. I read up a little bit about delaying that first bath (the hospital where Spear was delivered waited 12 hours before bathing him for the first time, remember?) and supposedly it really helps the baby’s skin! No wonder his is so pretty!!! Def makes sense! 

I also took some pics this week of him with Uncle Spear’s shirt…you can learn more about the meaning behind it (and Spear’s name!) here!

Andddd I couldn’t resist a few Star Wars themed pics of our newest Jedi 😉

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Emily Parker
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