Abey Baby

This is what my baby boy does when you point a camera at him....

He looks like he's laughing in that last picture, doesn't he? I know they say babies don't start to laugh for another few months, but I swear Abe is laughing right now. Whenever he gets really excited and has that big smile on his face, he makes some little staccato "heh heh" noises and I know it's laughter. What a happy little guy.

Abe is 2 1/2 months right now and he brings so much joy to us and completes our little family. Right now his main interests are mama, mama and mama, but he lets daddy hold him quite a bit. Even though we have a co-sleeper right next to our bed Abe usually starts off there and ends up right next to me by morning. I've never really been into bed sharing, but for now it's enabling us all to get the most sleep possible. I'll probably wait another 3-4 months before transitioning Abe to his crib since he and Ben will be sharing a room. We'll see how that goes:) Lately I've noticed that Abe likes to have a lot of LOUD ambient noise around when he's drifting off to sleep. Put him in a darkened room with a white noise machine and try to rock him to sleep and it takes FOREVER, but if I just nurse him while Ben is running around screaming and the dog is barking and the tv is on then he's out like a light.

Abe got out of the harness at 6 weeks and everything looks great with his hip. He still keeps his legs in a frog position though! We had a little disappointment at his 2 month appointment because his weight isn't up to speed. He weighed 8.3 pounds, which put him in the 3rd percentile. I don't know exactly why this happened, but I'm pretty sure part of the issue was a hindmilk/foremilk imbalance, plus a sleepy baby. Somehow we got into a pattern of nursing where he would stay on the breast for only 5 minutes (meaning he probably was only getting the "skim" milk) and then drift off. Instead of stimulating him and making him eat, I just assumed he was full and would put him down to sleep. And because Abe is so laid back, instead of being fussy because he was hungry, he just slept more. As this pattern continued he was sleeping longer and longer and nursing less. Basically, he was content to starve. I started to get pretty concerned around week 6, but because he was never fussy I convinced myself he was fine. The good news is that he had a weight check on Thursday, and he gained a WHOLE POUND in two weeks! That means he gained an ounce a day, which is perfect. Our pediatrician said he couldn't expect more than that. I'm glad I was able to figure things out and put us on the upswing. Abe is a new baby since I started forcing him to nurse for longer periods. Almost overnight he started sleeping A LOT less (ahem) and became more demanding about food. Now I think he's well on his way to being a chubby tubby!

Speaking of...looks like baby Abe is up AGAIN. Gotta run....