3 weeks!

Simon is 3 weeks old today! He continues to have a good appetite and I swear he's getting heavier every day. It's especially noticeable when I pick him up at night to feed him. His next appointment is at 1 month so we'll see how much he's gained then.

Speaking of appointments, we're going to bring him in for a blood draw tomorrow. Poor little guy. I'm really dreading the inevitable wailing that's gonna happen when they poke him...I'm such a wimp, I can't stand to see him uncomfortable/sad even if it's only momentary. Praying that he'll have a good test result and that he won't be too irritable after.

We had a rough morning today because he was pretty fussy (he usually is in the morning but it seemed a bit worse today), and I thought he was still hungry and fed him from the bottle, and he barfed it all up right after finishing the bottle, which then required a bath and wardrobe changes for both me and him. Sometimes he doesn't seem to know when he's full (but only happens with the bottle, never with nursing) -- I need to learn to read his cues better and next time I'm going to try a pacifier and see if that helps. It's just that after he nurses I have a hard time knowing how much he actually ate (one of the annoying things about breastfeeding) so when he's fussy after feeding it's hard to know if he's still hungry or fussy for a different reason. I'm hoping it gets easier to tell because when I go back to work he's going to be bottle fed for most of the day and obviously we don't want him barfing all the time.

Sleep wise there hasn't been much change. Most nights he goes to sleep around 9 pm and usually sleeps for 3 hours during the first stretch, but then wakes up every 2 for feedings. Depending on the night he'll either go back to sleep right away or starts fussing, which then takes a bit for him to go back to sleep. It ends up being a cycle of feeding, falling asleep but then waking 5 min later hungry again, nursing again, falling asleep, but then he poops and diaper needs to be changed, which wakes him up again. Then sometimes he's still hungry/fussy at which point I start debating whether or not it's worth giving him a bottle (and risk barfing) or waking up Jeff (although helpful, does not always end up with me getting any extra sleep since Simon will want to nurse again in about 30 min to an hour). Anyway I know he's only 3 weeks old so this is expected but I strongly hope that he will start sleeping in longer stretches by the time I go back to work because otherwise I will likely keel over and die from sleep deprivation.