August 1, 2012- Sleeping With No Attachments

Learning to be a parent with a baby at home has been very hard and very exhausting and something had to give, and it has been the blog.  My apologies for not keeping up with our time at home, but I am sure that all parents out there can commiserate with my exhaustion.  

Here's the update for the past few days.  Will was 8 weeks on Monday, and he is such a little man!  He now weighs 5 pounds 12 ounces and he is looking more and more like a little baby and not so much like a preemie!  He is still small, but he is definitely filling out and his head is getting a little more round and not so flat on the sides.  We had a great nurse in the NICU who was making it her mission to round out Will's head.  She would be so happy to see it now.  We have been using the head rest from his car seat (the thing that helps keep his head from falling to the side) in his crib, his pack and play and in his swing and it makes him sleep on the back of his head and he can't roll to his side.  We have definitely seen a huge improvement in the roundness of his head.  

Will has also been off oxygen for 11 days!  We have been putting his oxygen monitor on him at night so we can make sure he doesn't need oxygen at night.  Will has been doing really well with no desats at night, so Brandon and I made the brave decision to take off the monitor last night.  This was the first time in Will's entire life that he didn't sleep with a monitor, so needless to say we were both so nervous to not have our security blanket on Will, but we knew that we needed to give it a try at some point.  I thought that I wouldn't be able to sleep last night because I would be so nervous, but the mother of the year that I am, I slept right up until Will demanded my presence at 4:45am.  I was so sleepy because Will and I were up at 4am yesterday morning, and I didn't get a good nap, so when I slept last night, I really slept.  Brandon, on the other hand, was very nervous.  He fed Will and put him to bed at 1am, and Brandon got up a few times to check on Will throughout the night.  What a good dad!

Tomorrow, Will is taking his first road trip to Idaho.  It's a whole new ballgame having to pack for myself, the dogs and for a baby!  I have made my list of things we will all need, so I hope I don't forget anything!  Wish us luck!