2 weeks old - little darling!

Well, Christopher was 2 weeks old yesterday. My they have flown by, it seems like he's been here for much longer though, somehow! Life has just seamlessly sown him into our lives, and goodness knows if I am tempting fate by saying this, but he is such a calm, peaceful, and dare I say it - easy baby. I cannot remember the first two weeks being so easy with Robert. Yes, I know the first week of it we spent in hospital, the majority of that with him in special care. And then adjusting to actually having a little person we were suddenly soley responsible for, adjusting to changing nappies, breastfeeding, settling him down for naps, learning how to do things around the house while caring for a baby...

This time, everything seems to just be second nature. Breastfeeding is going extremely well. My supply is settling down and I'm no longer painfully engorged at night or between feeds. I still do get slightly uncomfortably full, and I am leaking like crazy from the other breast whenever I feed one child or the other from a full breast. Sometimes if I don't check my breastpads very often I don't realise that it's soaked through before I start leaking again with a feed and it just soaks through EVERYTHING! Yesterday after a feed, I had to change my bra, my t-shirt, AND I had to change Christopher because it had soaked the leg of his sleepsuit!

I am coping well with the nightfeeds, although it is still tiring as I don't often doze off during a feed (although I feed lying down in the dark), and then after he's finished, he needs burping, and occasionally changing too. And then sometimes feeding again if he wakes up after a change ;) And then another burp before he can go back to his cot.

I still can't get over how little he feels to me. Compared with my chunk of a newborn Robert, Christopher seems so teeny tiny, his legs and arms are so spindly, although, I noticed with some satisfaction today that his little thighs do seem chubbier than they did even a week ago. :) The health visitor came to see me when Christopher was 11 days old. She weighed him and he gained back to his birth weight of 7lb 9oz.. in fact because they go by kg, he was very slightly over. Looking up the conversion chart, Christopher's birth weight was actually more like 7lb 8.5oz rather than 7lb 9oz, and going by the conversion chart after the Health Visitor left, Christopher was just over 7lb 9oz. So yes, he's gained weight well considering at 5 days old he had lost 10oz from his birth weight. :) I am confident that things are going well, he has lots of wet and dirty nappies, and he sometimes splutters at the breast with the speed of my let down, which is completely new to me as with Robert I found that although I had enough milk, it was never a fast let down and he usually had to feed for ages before he had had enough!

Emotionally I am so much calmer, happier and less anxious than I was with Robert. I do not feel worried at all at the prospect of looking after Robert and Christopher by myself, maybe this is partly due to the fact it's my second baby, partly due to the fact that Christopher seems so much more laid back than Robert was, and partly due to the hopeful absense of post-natal depression. Jonathan goes back to work tomorrow, but my Mum is coming down for the week like she did with Robert, to help see me through the days in whatever help I need of her (although this help will be somewhat limited this time due to her injuring her thumb through knitting too much!!). I am also wondering what the likelihood will be that I will be able to maybe go to the salon in town and get my hair cut will be... and how confident my mum would be on looking after both boys for the hour or two I'll be gone, or if maybe I should/could take Christopher with me and see what happens there!

My newest little boy is such a darling I can hardly put into words how much I love him, although at the moment it seems to be more of an infactuation and just still generally "babymoon"ish. I could sit and stare at him, or have him laying on my chest for hours on end. He is just so unbelievably delicious, and all of a sudden I am swamped in these old memories of Robert as a newborn, remembering the darling little birdy faces, snuffling sounds and just adorableness of a rooting baby, kissing his little cheeks and mouth to make him swing his head from side to side to get at what is touching his cheeks.

He is so much more alert now, we are getting lots of interested looks, and so many lovely facial expressions, and he even manages to copy a surprised look sometimes with a lovely little O for a mouth ;)

What is also amazing is how in these 2 short weeks how much it has grown to look like his big brother. I know a lot of people think he always has done so, but I think due to him being so small his face was a lot more screwed up and it was hard to see, ut I think now he's beginning to get a bit of chubb on his face and his wrinkly face is smoothing out a bit, I can definitely see the likeness between them now!




I am just so excited to see my tiny one grow up, to see his personality begin to shine out, and to watch how his relationship with his big brother blossoms. :) And while I am cherishing these newborn moments, I am also really looking forward to his future developments and achievements, all his firsts!