Oh cranky baby!

You know those babies that will just drift off to sleep wherever whenever they are tired?  I do not have one of those.  For the first 3 weeks he was very sleepy.  At his 2 week checkup, our pediatrician said she tells parents not to make any judgments about their baby's disposition until week 3.  She sure was right.  Finn "woke up" at week 3 and the screaming began.  I'd always thought colic only happened in the evenings.  Not for us.  The screaming started sometime in the morning and lasted until he went to sleep.  The 5 S's kind of worked, and I've spent hours swaying with a swaddled baby trying to calm him down.  Oddly, there has never been a night where he cried or woke up more often than every 3-4 hours to eat.  I suppose that's my reward for dealing with it all day long.  Since he has no issues sleeping at night, the pedi and I ruled out silent reflux or a dairy allergy.

How much of it is actually colic and how much of it is overtiredness?  I can't say for sure, but Finn is very sensitive to the amount of sleep he gets.  Sleep definitely begets sleep in our house.  I've read Healthy Sleep Habits Happy Child about 5 times and he MUST be asleep by 2 hours after his previous wake up time or he becomes a maniac.  I'm talking screaming, flailing maniac who is difficult to calm down.

Now that we're approaching week 12 things have gotten immensely better.  I'm much better about reading his sleep cues and getting him to sleep before he becomes crazy.  He mainly naps in the swing, but I'll take what I can get right now.  If I can't transition him by the time he can roll over, then he'll have a date with Dr. Ferber because so far my attempts at getting him to nap in the crib haven't been very successful.

Now that I've vented about having a cranky baby, here's what's awesome about him.  He never spits up.  Seriously.  I think he's spit up less than 10 times in almost 12 weeks of life.  He now catches my eye and grins.  It's the cutest thing in the world.  Speaking of cute, he's the most adorable baby I've ever seen (but I'm biased).  He's also extremely alert, which is good and bad.  He takes it all in during the day, but it's hard for him to settle for naps.  I think once he can sit up we'll have a great time taking walks around Colonial Williamsburg because there's a lot to look at.

The return.

I'm back!  Hopefully to stay now that I am kind of (more like barely) beginning to get the hang of this motherhood thing.  The brief rundown of Finn's entry into the world:

I was induced at 2pm on Oct. 29 due to high blood pressure, protein in my urine, and elevated liver enzymes.  All signs of HELLP.   27 hours later Finn was delivered by c-section after being face up, not budging with pushes, and starting to become distressed.  Highlights of this experience involve my epidural failing twice, having horrendous back labor, holding onto the rails of the bed yelling for more drugs as I'm wheeled to the OR, and then telling my OB that I felt like Shamu as I was lifted onto the table (I'm not sure he understood I meant I felt like Shamu when Shamu is lifted from the water on a large tarp).  Finn was born at 5:41 on Oct. 30 and weighed 8lb 0.7oz and was 20 inches long.  When my OB said I could try for a VBAC if I have another baby under 8lbs, I laughed and said "No thanks!".

Finn was awake for 4 straight hours after being born, apparently waiting for me to get out of recovery!  "Oh, he's so alert" we exclaimed along with the doctors and nurses.  The alertness would come to be a good thing and a bad thing.

More to come on Finn....