Ty's First 6 Weeks

I could not resist the cartoon.  I have to admit that I was afraid of what Tyson would end up looking like!  Of course, being a parent, you think your child is adorable.  But I actually asked my mother the other day if Tyson was as cute as I thought, or if he was actually hideous and I couldn't tell!  She assured me that he was cute but she is the grandmother and would be biased as well!  I guess I need to ask someone impartial. 

So I am going to try to sum up Tyson's first 6 weeks.  But that is difficult because new motherhood and being sleep deprived blends it all together!  I am going to feel like I missed noting something significant.  The next posting will be much easier to narrow things down week by week.

There's a saying, "A baby changes everything."  Just to give you an example, one thing that Heath and I realized the other day, we had not rented a Redbox movie in Tyson's first 6 weeks (we just broke that streak in his 7th week).  To some of you that may sound like nothing big, but you have to understand Heath and I.  We used to rent a movie nearly every night - at least 5 out of 7 days.  We are huge movie fanatics, so this is a big feat.  Isn't it funny, I did not miss it at all!  Another thing that has changed is our bedtime.  We would usually go to bed around midnight, but with Tyson getting up during the middle of the night, we would head to bed around 10:00.  Another change was that we were letting the dogs sleep with us (instead of being in their crate) at night until Tyson's middle of the night feeding, just to give them special time with us.  That is one perk that they have gotten with Tyson being here!  One other perk that they have gotten is that they get to ride in the front seat with me on trips.  We had them banished to the backseat BT (before Tyson) but with Tyson in his car seat, we did not want the puppies to be messing with him.  At first we were worried about them attacking Tyson, but now we are just worried about Reeses licking him to death.

 Snickers getting her "Daddy time"

Heath was able to be home with Tyson and I for the first two weeks.  Having that time together the three of us was precious.  To say that Heath is a hand-on father is an understatement.  I have to pry Tyson out of Heath's arms continually.  Before Tyson was born I said that I HAD to breastfeed because it would be the only time that I would be able to hold him!!  And that is definitely true.  Heath did so much with Tyson that I was petrified when Heath went back to work.  Would I be able to handle it all on my own?  Would I crack under the pressure?  Surprisingly, it went better than I thought!  It is nice to have Heath home in the evenings, to hold him when he fusses, so I can make supper without interruptions, etc.  The full knowledge of what Heath does on a nightly basis stared me straight in the face last week.  Heath got sick with chills, fever, sore throat, and upper respiratory infection.  We were freaked out that Ty was going to get sick, so Heath was sent to the guest room and did not hold Tyson for a full week.  The exile has seemed to work and neither Ty or myself have come down with it so far.  But all I want to know is, how do single parents do it?

 Heath holding Tyson during Thanksgiving

Another great thing in the first couple of weeks was having my parents nearby.  Mom would make supper for us and then Dad would come over too and we would all have dinner together every night.  Cooking is just about my least favorite thing to do, so this was so helpful.  Heath and I would have the leftovers for lunch the next day, so the meals fed us twice.  It was great!  I appreciated it so much!  It was nice to have that time together, too.

Aren't they proud grandparents?  Too bad you can't see Tyson's face...

In Tyson's second week, we tore our whole house apart.  Unfortunately, it is not completely back together but it is getting there.  There were things we were trying to get done before he was born, but it just did not happen.  First of all, we were replacing all the carpet in the house.  I hope we never have to do this again!  Having new carpet is fantastic, but getting it was a different story.  We had to move every piece of furniture, knick-knacks, collectables etc. out of the rooms and put them all either in our screened-in porch, on our deck covered with a tarp, or in our kitchen/dining room.  What a mess!  They were able to lay the carpet in a few hours but then we have had to move everything back!  We have the majority done but still somethings are not back where they need to go and that is due to the next project.  We are putting hardwood floor down in our kitchen, dining room, and our hallway.  So everything in my kitchen and dining room is sitting in my family room or my guest room.  The floor just needs to be finished in the hallway and then I can move everything back finally!  One of the other projects we did was get new appliances.  Of course, nothing could be easy for us!  After measuring for the refrigerator multiple times and changing models to make sure the fridge would fit in our space, it still did not fit!  We had to remove a cabinet and repaint above the fridge before installing it.  In the meantime, we were using our old fridge in the entrance-way.  Now, those of you who do not know, I am obsessive compulsive.  I can not stand it when there is clutter around and having to live in a construction zone for 5+ weeks has been so difficult, but what can you do?  I try to be patient, but as Heath will attest to, I usually will have a melt down over the mess every couple of weeks.  But I know Heath is going as fast as he can, which I really appreciate!

 Seeing these pictures makes me think we have made some progress!

Tyson's sleeping during his first 6 weeks was not too bad!  He would always give us at least 3-4 hour stretches at night.  The trouble was getting him to go to sleep!  We figured out early on that Tyson would prefer to be held continually.  We think maybe it was from being held constantly in his first few days with all the visitors that he had.  He would be completely asleep in our arms, but then we would go to put him down in his bassinet, and he would last about 10-20 seconds, realize that he was alone, and start screaming bloody murder!  Sometimes in the first few days the only way that he would fall asleep would be in Heath's arms.  So we did that for awhile, but we knew that we did not want to co-sleep indefinitely.  We just kept working at it and now he is fine sleeping by himself.  I can't remember the last time he slept in our bed.  In the first couple of weeks, his clock was entirely switched.  He would sleep almost all day and then become completely awake at about 10 PM.  I tried and tried to keep him awake during the day to no avail.  I could wake him up to eat and that is it!  But at about 4 weeks, he switched his clock and started to be awake during the day, at least slightly!  But the best thing at the 6 week mark was that he was sleeping a good 6 hours straight - from midnight to 6 AM.  I felt on-top of the world!  Of course, the first night he did that, I was in a panic that he was not breathing, when I awoke at 6 AM and he was still sleeping!  Another moment of motherly pride.

 One of the nights he had to sleep with us!

I am a "Babywise Believer."  My friend, Shannon Nelson, gave me this book called "Babywise" and told me that it "saved" her life.  I read it and loved it.  The premise is that you get your baby on a schedule.  Again, because I am obsessive compulsive, I need schedules and routines.  The schedule that they advise for the first 8 weeks, I am still doing.  The whole point is to set your baby's wake and sleep cycles.  I am feeding Tyson on a 3 hour schedule. 3 hours from the beginning of one feeding to the next.  Usually he is eats at 7 AM, 10 AM, 1 PM, 4 PM, 10 PM etc.  After each feeding, there is a period of "waketime" and then you put the baby down for a nap.  The nap should be about 1 to 1.5 hours long each time.  I did not start doing this until Tyson was about 4 weeks old because before then, he would not be awake during the day at all!  When we first started this, I was retarded.  I would force him down for a nap when he might not even needed one.  I would fight with him for about 40 minutes for him to fall asleep each time.  But I am a stickler for rules and routine, so I thought I was doing the right thing.  However, during week 5, I had an "aha" moment.  I realized that every baby is different and maybe Tyson would not fit into the "Babywise" cookie-cutter mold.  Now I watch for his cues.  If he is giving me tired cues, then I put him down for a nap.  Usually then he goes right to sleep and I don't have to fight him at all.  That is priceless!  You would think a normal person would have figured this out immediately, but what can I say?

 Another thing that we learned early on is that Tyson probably inherited my weak stomach.  This is a shame because Heath has a stomach of steel, but what can you do?  Poor Tyson has had a few horrible nights when we figured out that he does not tolerate garlic, raw onions, and broccoli.  The onion and garlic thing is really difficult for me because I love them so much.  But one look at Tyson, in a colic state, tooting, burping, and pooping continually will cure anyone of their love of any type of food.  He will be so miserable!  This will sound horrible, but it was so funny that I had to laugh.  Tyson was having a colicky night and was screaming at the top of his lungs, "waa, waa, waa", then he let out the loudest explosion into his diaper that I have ever heard, and immediately stopped crying.  There was dead silence.  Poor Tyson, but I just laughed and laughed.

One of his colicky times, poor bugger...doesn't he look miserable?

During the first 1.5 weeks, we did not give Tyson a pacifier.  We had heard that you could get "nipple confusion", so we wanted to definitely avoid that.  He did not need one and did not cry that much in the very beginning.  But then we decided to give it a try when he started to get fussy, and oh my goodness... does he ever love that thing!  We only have 2 of them currently and one has gone missing.  Heaven help us if we lose the current one.   I will try to upload a video at some point to show one of the cutest things that he does.  When he is crying, we will put the pacifier in his mouth, and he will start sucking on that thing like there is no tomorrow - but he is still crying at this point. So he starts groaning and grunting in time with each suck - it is so cute, it is to die for!

 He loves the binky so much, how could we deprive him of it?

Rockin' the binky again and the hat that Shannon gave him

Tyson has the most nicknames of any baby that I know of! The obvious one is Ty. But then there is Ty-Ty, Ty Man, Ty Guy, Peanut, Nugget, Sweets - and we use them pretty frequently! He is an absolute joy and already has some cute antics that are all his own. He is quite a stretcher and will stretch and leave one of his arms straight up in the air. He will sleep that way a lot! It looks like he is in school and wants to be called on. Heath and I always say, "Yes, Tyson, do you have a question?" Another thing that he has done from day one, is shake and move both of his arms in such a manner that it looks like he is a maestro for an orchestra. So we always call him, "Mr. Conductor" when he does that! 

 "Ty, do you have a question?"

"Mr. Conductor!" (excuse the crazy eyes)

Below are some highlights from his first 6 weeks. Next week will have a much shorter entry!  I promise!

 1 week 

 2 weeks (first time in church)

3 weeks

4 weeks

5 weeks (4 generations - Nanny & Papa came to visit)

6 weeks