It’s hard to compare Vivienne with Joseph as a newborn. I’m used to not having a life already, so that makes it all seem so much easier. Of course Vivienne sleeps much more in the day than Joseph does, so that seems easy as well. I am able to nurse her without pain, so not only is feeding her easy, it also means I can calm her at the breast if need be so we don’t have the long crying bouts we had with Joseph. The nights are not easy as Joseph is still no used to her cries and wakes up upset and refuses to sleep and when he finally does Vivienne is up again, but that is getting slowly better, so hopefully this phase will end before we reach our limits. Amazingly, they sometimes nap at the same time in the afternoon and we can catch up on a few winks, which helps. Though that is the case mostly because Vivienne sleeps longer stretches during the day than at night, she’s still young. We will very much miss Grandma, who is willing to get up with Joseph at 6am and let us sleep with the baby a bit longer.
Vivienne’s birth splotchiness is gone and she is so beautiful! I’m enjoying this time with her and the family very much. She passed her birth weight on day 6!
I was all excited to start this baby with EC (Elimination Communication) early on and create an intimate bond between me and my baby that included output as well as input and I was thrilled that from the first two days Vivienne made it quite clear when she had to poo in the night so I’ve been consistently catching all her night-time poos (usually three) in a bowl, which I empty in the morning and I just throw on a new diaper right from bed because there’s very little mess. This was thrilling until the number of consecutive nights of only getting sleep chunks of less than two hours started catching up to me. I’ve starting trying to ignore her cues (fussiness and grunting) at night in hopes that I won’t have to sit up in bed and take care of her, but she will have none of it. She knows how nice it is to be rid of her excrement rather than sit in it and will wait until I finally decide to put her on the pot to go. It’s happened too many times that I’ve waited and then she’s gone right away on the pot for it to be coincidence. I’m hopping that she’ll soon not poo so often so I won’t end up cursing the day I learned about EC. Interestingly, I’m not as good about catching her day-time poos. It is also fun to see how much Stephan has grown as a father. He takes care of Vivienne like a pro and is more relaxed about it. He’s even happy pottying her and has already caught a few day poos.
So as babies go Vivienne is an easy baby. We couldn’t have hoped for things to go better than they have. We are profoundly thankful, though of course still tired as birth and infant care is never easy!
Although Grandma will be happy to have the extra sleep, I'm really going to miss that happy face peeking in my door and calling, "Throw!" That's our early-morning (and throughout the day) game where I sit on the floor, he sits on the bed, and we toss soft plastic, colorful cubes back and forth. The cubes have numbers on them, so if you've read my first Life with Joseph post about his love of numbers, you'll guess that it often gets more complicated than a simple game of of catch. Or not catch, which may be why he calls it "throw."
