After a week

Oscar and Kristy have been home for a little over a week now, and overall, I think it’s been a pretty good week.

He’s a good little man! He sleeps quite well through most of the night, and only demands to be fed once or twice in the wee small hours. During the days, he does what most babies do – feeds, sleeps, and poops like a machine!

We’ve only really had two problems that have given us a bit of grief. Firstly, he likes to fall asleep during feeding! This happens about 20 minutes in, and waking him back up can be rather tricky! Tickling his belly sometimes works, but not as well as the mid-feed nappy change, which Kristy is now an absolute pro at! That wakes him up quick smart!

Problem number two is The Arsenic Hour. Apparently a lot of babies succumb to this at around four weeks of age, but our little over achiever seems to have discovered it a few weeks early! From about 4 PM until about 10 PM, his mood is very unpredictable, and when he gets upset, he gets really upset, which means a lot of screaming. I’ll be the first one to admit that this can be very hard to cope with. It’s really upsetting seeing the little man so worked up, and not being able to do anything to calm him down.

Eventually he settles though, but it never seems to correlate with anything that either of us has done – more like, he just had to get it out of his system. And given that the only real way a baby can burn energy is by crying, I guess that’s perfectly reasonable. But – well, it’s difficult. I’m always glad when he settles down for the night, and calm is restored to his little body.

In the grand scheme of things, both of these problems are pretty minor, and we’re thankful that we don’t have anything more serious to contend with! We had his first check-up with the doctor yesterday, and she confirmed that he’s doing very well so far – and, he’s already back above his birth weight (which means he’s feeding well). Go little man, go!