Today I’m sharing miscellaneous thoughts on life with Charlotte so far. I also wrote about my breastfeeding experience this time around, but that “little” treatise made this really REALLY long, so I’ll post that separately tomorrow.
Yesterday we celebrated Charlotte’s 1-week birthday with cupcakes, just like we did for Emma a little over 3 years ago. One week! As expected, it was both a very long and very short week — Charlotte’s birth already seems like months ago. So far, she has been an AMAZINGLY chill baby. She only cries when hungry or when she needs to burp. Part of me is waiting for the other shoe to drop, but mostly I’m optimistic that she is just content, and that Jose’s and my lower stress levels this time around are picked up by Charlotte as well.
Charlotte has had a bit of day/night reversal but that’s been improving each day. She has a few periods of being awake, mostly in the afternoon or evening, and has been doing SO GREAT at night, especially in the midnight-to-six wee hours that are by far the toughest for me to deal with. Although I’m sleeping in shorter chunks, I’ve managed to get 6-7 hours of sleep in total for the past several nights. It probably goes without saying, but this has done WONDERS for my stress levels, mood, and general disposition.
(I couldn’t resist a side-by-side comparison in the same onesie! Emma was ~2 weeks old here and Charlotte was 3 days old, but they are both around 6.5 pounds give or take a few ounces in the pictures. Emma had a little more hair, but they both have the same funny hairline. I think they have the same nose, cheeks and chin but slightly different mouths and eyes? Oh, and Charlotte’s eyes are blue-ish like Emma’s.)
On Monday, Emma started running a fever, and it was even higher on Tuesday. Having a newborn around a preschooler with a fever is obviously something we were trying to avoid, so the timing was…not great. And since it meant Emma had to stay home from daycare, we had to keep Emma away from Charlotte as much as we could — which is not exactly practical when you’re all sharing the same space. (The good news is that Emma’s fever is now gone and Charlotte hasn’t shown any signs of it so far. Hopefully we have dodged that bullet. Fingers crossed.)
Jose is home for another two weeks, which is awesome. My mom is here until Sunday and it’s going to be tough to see her go. She’s been a huge help, especially with Emma, and especially after Emma had to stay home from daycare the extra days this week because of her fever. But we’ll only have a day or two on our own before Jose’s mom arrives for several days to meet her new granddaughter.
All in all, things are really good…except for what is clearly my baby-related nemesis: breastfeeding. More on that tomorrow but spoiler alert: my boobs don’t work well enough. Again. (Also fair warning to skip my post tomorrow if you don’t want to read about boobs.)
Jennifer says
Charlotte is adorable. She appears to have really long legs! Hopefully she is just happy! Briony was definitely happier than Isla, and I honestly think it was just because she had an easier time digesting things and was less gassy.
Fever sounds super stressful. Glad you guys dodged that bullet.
Sorry to hear you’re having a tough time with breastfeeding. Hopefully your experience last time is helping you deal with it in whatever way is best for your family.