Samuel these days...

Samuel is almost 3 months old and weighing in nicely around 12 pounds.  I'm not sure how many weeks he is anymore.  I lost track.  :)  Too many children I suppose to keep up with anyone's age in weeks.  Years are hard enough when you have five.

He has settled nicely into a routine.  When we first came home from the NICU I didn't try to keep him on any sort of schedule.  The only thing I ever tried to do was give him a full feeding each time he ate, which would take about an hour and still does, and then follow the pattern of eat, then wake time, then sleep.  Eat, wake, sleep, eat, wake, sleep....  In the hospital he was on an every 3 hour schedule.  All my previous newborns were every 2 to 2 1/2 hours at first for quite a while.  But Samuel didn't want to eat that often.  I didn't push it, just pushed full feedings when he did eat, and after I found out he was gaining weight very well, I even more didn't worry about it.  We just kept on with the every three hours, 8 am, 11 am, 2 pm, 5 pm, 8 pm, and then whatever throughout the night.

For a few of his early weeks I co-slept all night, even starting the night out with him right beside me, tucked up next to my chest.  I LOVED this.  It was precious to me, I think especially because he was early.  But as time passed I found it might be beneficial for him to start out his nights in his bassinet and then join me in bed the first time he woke in the night.  I feared if I kept him in bed with me all night long, he might never learn to sleep through the night, which admittedly, I do desire him to do eventually since I have a lot on my plate these days!

At this point he sleeps for 3 to 4 hours in his bassinet, which is in my closet due to him making lots of grunts that were waking me up, and then at 1, 2 or 3 am, whenever he wakes up I put him in bed with me and latch him on and then he and I both go back to sleep.  Maybe an hour or two later he wakes me up again and I switch sides.  That is typically all there is to it, then we wake up around 7 in the morning.  Sometimes around 5 am, if he is still grunting and kicking around I will try transferring him back into his own bed and that usually works.  But I do enjoy waking up with him nestled next to me, so I don't transfer him to his own bed again unless neither he, nor I, are getting good sleep.

During the day after he eats for an hour, he stays awake another 30 minutes or so and then starts fussing.  Then I know he is tired.  I know he is full because of the hour long feeding and it makes sense that he would be tired, one of the benefits of the loose schedule/routine.  So I generally put him in the baby b'jorn carrier (can't wait till he is big enough for the ergo!) and he falls asleep within minutes.  Then I transfer him into his bassinet.  If he wakes up during transfer or right after, I just pat his back, say shhhh...., and he goes right back to sleep.  Unless he has a burp, but typically the patting will help him to get the burp out and I don't usually have to pick him back up.  Oh, and he does sleep on his belly now.  I typically keep my babies on their backs to sleep for the first 2 months and then turn them over!

Things seem so much easier with him than with Benjamin.  I never could seem to get Benjamin on any sort of predictable schedule or routine.  It was sooo hard.  I'm thankful Samuel is so adaptable!  He is smiling now a lot.  Today when I was going down the stairs I guess I was bouncing at each step a bit and I looked down to see Samuel lighting up in the biggest smiles.  I guess he thought it was fun!  :)