This is a summary of Spear’s 5th week of life. Friday December 29th through Thursday January 4th. He was 4 weeks old during this week!
Feeding: This week we started to play a bit with his schedule and since we were at home more and getting into a better family routine, I was able to THINK a little clearer and really see areas where I needed to tweak things.
Spear spits up the least of all my babies (which is funny that my breastfed kids were such big spitters…I now know FOR SURE it was due to my oversupply!) but he started spitting up a good bit at the end of his last feeding of the night (10 pm). It was not a fun way to end my day and wasn’t what I thought should be happening at that feeding! Ending the night spitting up, I felt like, was leading to him wanting to eat more in the night?
I always give this advice to new moms and I stand by it: give yourself a LOT of grace in the early days. Let yours older kids watch movies, be spoiled, eat treats. Once your baby is sleeping through the night and you can function normally again then you can get back on your hardcore parenting ways…but during the early baby days? Just do whatcha gotta do to get through it!
I switched from the slow flow nipples to the medium flow nipples to help speed up his feeding times. Often he was SUPER slow with his eating (he really reminds me SO much of Britt!) and even the motn ones he’d sometimes take 1-2 hours for his feeding. Moving the nipple up def helped to improve his eating speed!
Sleep: Spear’s schedule from 2 weeks old until this week was: feeding at 7, 10 (breastmilk), 1, 4, 7 (breastmilk), last feeding sometime between 9-10. Then we’d let him sleep until he woke and he typically was waking between 1-3 am. For each feeding he was drinking 3-4 oz and was often drinking 5 oz for that motn feeding.
I decided to switch things up a little bit this week due to his spitting up more frequently at the last feeding of the day. I was hoping to push things later and therefore get him to sleep longer in the night as well. I also looked back at my other schedules and noticed I did more of a cluster type feeding in the evenings so I was thinking that might help to “tank him up” as well. So this week we switched to feedings at: 7, 10 (breastmilk), 6:30, 9:30 (breastmilk), then dreamfeed at 11:00. We did his bath at 9:15 prior to that feeding.
The first night of this it didn’t go so great. He barely ate anything at 9:30 or at the 11:00. He still woke at 3:30 for a feeding and still slept solid after that until 7:15 (he’s my only baby not to ever really wake during the 5 am hour!). I decided to move the breastmilk feeding around. I did it at 10 and 4 rather than at 9:30 and decided to stop doing dreamfeed!
His new schedule was: 7, 10 (breastmilk), 1, 4 (breastmilk), 6:30, 9:30
Without the dreamfeed he was waking around 2:30 rather than 3:30 but he was still only waking that one time in the night and it allowed me to get in bed earlier and have more solid sleep.
I’ve always been a big believer in Sids Prevention and do all I can to keep my babies safe and to monitor them. However, it’s been struggle city with this kid. The Snuza has been a HUGE pain for me. I had to buy a new battery for it and I purchased it directly from the company but as soon as I installed it I’ve had nothing but issues. It has tons of false alarms (something that never happened before) and would totally wake him up. So frustrating! I called the company and they literally told me “just turn it on and off a few times” Um thanks? But that did NOT help.
With his new schedule and no dreamfeed he did start to wake up around 4:45ish after having eaten in the 2:00 hour. I would just put him in the swing and he’d sleep solid until 7:15 with no issues. I’m a believer in that anything can become a sleep prop but that the same things that could become props can also be used as tools as long as they are used wisely and with caution. Using the swing for motn wake ups avoided it from becoming a prop because once he slept solid in the night, he’d no longer be using it!
Started the New Year feeding this sweet boy!
Sleepy hugs!
Nothing better!
Other Things About Spear:
His hair is really starting to lighten up! I have people saying it looks red but I truly think it’s just the dark color fading to lighter!
It’s getting so light! I love the length in the front!
His skin stayed SO pretty for SO long and is still really nice looking but did start peeling some this week for the first time!
I’d just squirt a little breastmilk on it during the breastmilk feedings and rub it in and it really helped!
I’ve had a son before but with two girls after him I kinda forget about the “boy things” like aiming that squirter DOWN! It’s so funny to me how the pee from boys can leak out from any angle haha!
I asked which was worse…being peed on or puked on and mostly everyone said puked on!
Moms on Call suggests bathing baby nightly for the routine and to give their scalp a really good scrubbing with one of those infant brushes the hospital gives you. Supposedly it helps prevent cradle cap by doing this routine so we went for it!
With the quicker flow nipple he started eating quicker and actually having a bit of awake time! Our house is very LONG so I’ve found having two bouncers is really convenient for us with our babies because I can keep one on one end of the house and one on the other 🙂 I had this bouncer for all four babies and I just love seeing all my kids use and enjoy the same items! This bouncer has a detachable owl which a) the kids always love as a challenge to try to grab and get SO PROUD when they are able to pull it off and b) makes me have to pat myself on the back for keeping track of that thing for 8 years and not having lost it yet!
Visitors:
We had more food from our Meal Train this week which is just SUCH a blessing. If you have a friend who is pregnant it’s seriously the BEST gift to them to set up a meal train. It helps so much to have the food, the company, and the organization that the meal train provides!
Our sweet neighbors brought super yummy dinner from Cracker Barrel!
Including fudge ring cookies!
Brandie brought us dinner too and got to visit and snuggle!
And so did Ashley!
Other Fun This Week:
Spear celebrated his first New Year’s!
And he got to experience his first snow 🙂
Siblings: With the end of Christmas break nearing, the kids really soaked up Spear a lot this week. Kye especially 🙂
You can also compare Spear’s 5th week summary to his sibling’s here:
Kye (didn’t have a summary this week)
More cute pics of this boy from this week!
I also adore this video of his sweet sleeping sounds and that smile!!!
It freaks me out SO BAD when baby’s eyes cross!!!
I adore these pics with an elephant we got Kye for his nursery as a baby!
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Boy OH Boy!! I do love keeping up with that Spear!! He is growing so quickly and changing more each day. I cannot wait to meet him one day. It is so cute to watch him with his sisters and brother. You can really tell Kye is so smitten. Tess too , I don't see as many with Britt,but I remember your saying she was the last to get close. I keep praying for him, you and Zach. Can you believe he is here and how great is our God? He can move mountains, part seas, perform miracles even still today. Hugs to all. Keep on writing!! I am enjoy sharing via your blog…hugs and love again!! GiGi