The Low Down

Alright so I said I would do a post about everything (Cole, me, life, etc) post-partum.

So I'll start with Cole. When he was born he weighed at 9lbs 5oz... crazily enough at his 2 month appointment which was a month ago he weighed 15 lbs 4 oz! Thats almost 6 pounds more then he weighed at birth, thats like a normal sized new born baby almost. Crazyness. He's huge, and so healthy. He lifts his head up, in fact he's been doing it for far too long, he started doing it pretty early. Along with a lot of other things... I know every mother must think this of their child, but he's sooo ahead of the game on EVERYTHING! He already sleeps through the night (mostly), he LOVES to stand using only the support of holding onto my fingers, which lead me to believe that he would LOVE his Jolly Jumper...Oh and does he ever love it. Jolly Jumpers are averaged for babies AT LEAST 3 months old, Cole was only JUST 2 months when we put him in it, but he absolutely adores it.
I remember the first time I woke up in the morning after Cole had slept through the night. I literally freaked out and went to go check if he was still breathing. From before that point he would sleep for a good 4 hour stretch and then he would literally be up ever 2-3 hours. It was a joyus day, I finally got my sleep stretches back...okay not my 10 hour sleep stretches that I was used to when I was younger, but a 8 and a half hour stretch is good enough for me at this point. So for a while I had a routine with him we would do all his pre bed stuff by 10 then I would settle down with him infront of the tv with a bottle ready and watch whatever was on in the 10 Spot on MTV that night, Teen Mom, Real World, Jersey Shore, whatever. And like clock work at about a quarter after he'd start to get a little fussy, so I would give him his 4 oz bottle while he fell asleep in my arms and then by about 10:30 he would be in his crib asleep. And from then on he would sleep until about 7:00.
I then realized that the fact that I either rock him to sleep every night or whatever can't be good for his self-soothing abilities, which I'm a big believer on. So I decided I would start to put him down a little differently. My whole routine changed, he would get a half hour in the jolly jumper to tire him out and my 8:30/9:00 he was in his crib (post-bottle). The first time we did it we decided we would do the 5/10/15 minute rule. Let him cry it out 5 mins the first night, 10 the second and so on and so forth. So on the first night we were like okay 5 minutes and we'll go in and get him, he cried for a while( it seriously seemed like forever) but it was only 3 minutes...then the crying stopped, I went in to check on him and he was OUT. So thats what normally happens now, no more than 5 mins of crying and hes fallen asleep. We're truly blessed with a wonderful baby.

Now about post-partum me. I'm feeling great. I seriously wasn't for the first month and a half after I had him. From the traumatic delivery to other physical stuff I was just not feeling good. On top of that I was having a really hard time breastfeeding. I really wanted to breastfeed it was always something I knew I pictured myself doing as a mother. Let me tell you it's not easy. Maybe it had to do with the fact that we didnt get any bonding time right away, I didnt get to hold Cole until 24 hours after he was born. On top of that my poor baby had a broken arm which I'm sure didnt help him feel comfortable feeding in weird positions so that I didnt squish that arm of his. But in reality everyone I saw about it said I was doing great, his latch was perfect, he was gaining weight, and all that good stuff. But it hurt like hell, I got past the 5 day hump and it still hurt like hell. By the third week I couldnt do it anymore so we started supplementing with formula and I would pump as well. Then eventually we just used formula primarily. I'm happy with my decision and clearly its not affecting Coles growth at all so it's all good.
I've been going to the gym to see a personal trainer after my 8 week post partum doctor appointment gave me the okay to work out. It's hard. I gained ALOT of weight when I was pregnant. Way more then average I believe. I started at about a range from 125 to 130. And by the time I gave birth I was about 185 lbs... Thats a total weight gain of 60 lbs.... that's a friggen 6 year old chils for god sake. But since I'm so young after I gave birth I dropped 40 pounds like nothing. So now I'm about 145 lbs...and my god these last 20 pounds are outrageously difficult to lose. I'll admit I'm not eating the healthiest and I know thats a HUGE part of losing weight... we'll see how everything goes.

Lifes pretty much awesome. I never knew I could feel love like this for another human being. It's seriously amazing. When I hear people say they don't want to have kids.. I don't understand it. If you have the ability to have this amazing gift in your life why would you give it up?

Bloggin' Take Two

So I think we all know that my first blog was a COMPLETE failure, so hopefully this one will succed so Cole has a lot of cool stuff to look back on when he's older.

So I'm sitting here in my dinning room, while Cole bounces away in his Jolly Jumper. Man he loves that thing. He's only 11 weeks old and everyone said he's waaaay too young for it. I knew he would adore it too the fullest. He always tries to stand up and if hes fussy and he stands and holds on to my fingers with his hands he immediately becomes coo'y and smiley. He doesn't do much crazyness yet, just enjoys standing, sometimes he'll make really loud noises of pure enjoyment untill I look over or say something back, just too let me know he's still there and having tons of fun! And then every so often he'll go into huge sparatic movements trying to bounce himself around... he's still getting used to it.

Today I went to Yorkdale and bought a bunch of really cute stuff for him from BabyGap. This ADORABLE furry sweater with ears on it... holy crap he looks cute it in. It's weird that I'm buying 3-6 month old clothes for him now. Me and my dad we're just talking about how 3 months doesn't seem like that long, but it's like Cole's been around forever.

So here's a quick update, I'll do a better one later with all my postpartum stuff and how much he's grown since birth etc. But for now it's time for Jersey Shore and then a good nights sleep for my personal training work out session tomorrow.

Love, Meg&Cole(in the flesh now!!!)