{Our little piano man.}
This week began with Zane going to the doctor for his one week checkup, a weigh in, and his circumcison. We were thrilled to discover that his growth was right on track. After the scare that he was losing weight, it was a huge sigh of relief to discover that everything was okay. We are still weaning Zane off of his formula supplements and are thankfully almost done with formula all together. Our little guy is down to one bottle feeding a day which is his 11pm feeding. This has actually been working out pretty perfectly the last few days. I feed him at 9pm and then head straight to bed, leaving Zac to feed him a bottle at 11pm. His next feeding isn't until 2am which gives me about four and a half hours to sleep. (Since Zac is already back to work I let him sleep during the middle of the night feedings.)That chunk of time is so wonderful! I try to nap with Zane throughout the day but it doesn't happen often so being able to catch up on sleep a little bit is incredibly important.
{Our Little Tough Guy}
Zane's circumcision went very well. The doctor and nurse were surprised that he slept right through it. The rest of that afternoon and the days to follow, he slept pretty well. Zac and I had prepared ourselves for a miserable little man and were all set to hear some screaming, but Zane took it like a little champ. Diaper changes were the only time that we heard a peep out of him. Putting Vaseline on his wound was less than fun the first few days but once it started to heal a bit, he didn't mind that either. We think that we got pretty lucky with the way that Zane handled the whole thing. From what we had heard from other people, those few days following the procedure could have really been miserable.
{Big Yawn}
Just a few days ago, Zane's umbilical stump fell off. (Looks like our boy has an innie.) Since his little mister seemed to be healed pretty well from his procedure, we were all set to start cloth diapering full time again. It came just in time, too because we were just about to use the last disposable diaper we had left from the hospital. The pack of 40 diapers that we were given only lasted about three and a half days. At that rate we'd be buying two packs of diapers a week. We decided to check the price of the diapers while we were picking up some items at Target and found that they wer $10 a pack. Needless to say, the cost of those diapers were going to add up pretty quickly if we had decided to use disposable diapers exclusively.
For the last few days we've been able to try out all of the diapers in our newborn stash. The prefolds are, surprisingly, much easier to use than we had anticipated and are quite absorbant. For anyone who is considering cloth diapering and is on a tight budget, I highly recommend starting out with prefolds. For just under $70 we purchased 24 newborn prefolds and 3 covers. Considering that you'd easily spend more than this in four weeks of disposable diapering, it's probably the most economical cloth diapering option.
{My sleeping boys.}
Zane found his voice this week and started to get a bit fussy. Before this he had been quite content and we didn't hear much out of him (with the exception of outfit change time). We quickly discovered that Zane was going through his first little growth spurt and just needed to be fed more often. I was feeding our little guy every two hours after the time that he finished eating. Now I feed him every two hours from the time he starts eating. Zane nurses for about 30-45 minutes, so by the time he's done I have just over an hour until I feed him again. I'd be lying if I said that this feeding routine hasn't left me feeling a bit exhausted, but our Zaney boy is content and well fed and that's all that matters. Plus I love the time that I get to spend with my boy. The way he holds his hands while he eats melts my heart.
Zac has today off from work and we will be spending it together. Our morning started out with a walk to a nearby park. The day has been absolutely beautiful! Zane got his first bath in his bath sling, got all lotioned up, and is looking quite handsome. As you can see from the picture below, our tiny baby is still swimming in a lot of his 'newborn' sized clothes. We took a trip to Target today to pick up a few more outfits for him. They are still a little big but he'll grow into them soon.
As for my postpartum week two, things are still going great. (Read about postpartum week one here.) I'm feeling better and better with each passing day. The walks around the neighborhood and today's walk to the park have helped. I get my circulation going and the vitamin D is a plus. I'm down 18lbs now since giving birth to Zane. From what I've heard from my mama friends, the first 20lbs seem to just melt off but everything after that takes a bit of work. I've started to use an app called My Fitness Pal again. It was the app that I used a while back when I was working out and trying to get in shape. Back then I used it to count calories and make sure that I wasn't overeating. This time around I'm using it to make sure that I'm taking in enough calories. I know that breastfeeding can burn anywhere from 300-500 calories a day which is something that I can track using the My Fitness Pal app. By taking note of this I can be sure to make up for those calories later. Breastfeeding requires you to eat a little more and definitely drink a lot more liquids (which is something I've always had a hard time with). I feel better being able to keep track of my daily intake. I'll focus more on losing the baby weight once I get the okay from my doctor to work out again.
So what does week three have in store for us? Well, this weekend Zac's family will be coming into town for Sarah's baby shower. This will be the first time that Zac's parents, his sister Sarah as well as her husband Donnie and her son Grayson will be seeing Zane. It should be an exciting weekend!
