Poor guy... looks like he's on track for quarterly updates, unlike Adelaide's (mostly) monthly updates for her first year. We've got a typical second child situation going on over here! Here we go, a quick long break down of Mercer's life so far...
0-1 Month: He started off at the hospital being too sleepy to eat. It got to the point to where the nurses were ready to send him to NICU because his blood sugar was so low, but in the end, he ate, it finally got up and we had the best nurse in the world that night who was determined to make things work, and they did. For the first couple of weeks, he was that sleepy baby that I had heard people describe. I basically just switched him between sleeping places and fed him every couple of hours. I thought, "This is it! The second baby after baby-from-hell really will be an easy one!" Then, he woke up. And the colic that must be in my and/or Jordan's genes arrived. Overall, I'd say he wasn't as bad as Adelaide was, but he had his moments.. days... weeks, when it seemed like he was trying to capture the title. And he has the volume. The insane volume that should not be achievable from such a small human, that same volume Adelaide has. Ugh. It's the volume that makes it all so much harder! Witching hours started just before 2 weeks, 5-10 pm every.single.day. One thing about him that was amazing from the start was that he knew night was night (with the exception of one night, either our first or second night home when he was up crying for about an hour and we were sure we were in for baby Adelaide, pt. 2!) He woke up to eat several times a night, but he always went right back to sleep. None of that mixed up days and nights stuff. He also started smiling before he was even 1 month old! And he started that one-eyebrow raised expression that Jordan has... gets me every time :)
His dislikes: evenings, car rides, tummy time
His loves: being wrapped and being rocked, bounced and "shhh"d all at the same time.
1-2 Months: Still super fussy. Sorry if this is TMI, but I started noticing some blood in his poo. I ended up cutting out dairy when he was about 7 weeks old to see if he was maybe allergic or sensitive to dairy. It seemed to work because he got so much happier after that... for a little while. After a few weeks, he was back to being super fussy and was still seeing some blood from time-to-time, so I decided to give him some pumped milk from before I cut out dairy and he was no different. After about 5 weeks of being dairy-free, I went back to my regular diet and it didn't seem to have any effect on him, so no diary allergy/sensitivity. I still thought maybe it was a problem for a while after that, or at least thought that there was something in my diet causing him problems. Jordan always maintained it was just him... he was just a pain in the ass like his sister was and any improvement was a coincidence... in hindsight, I'd say Jordan was right. It was just natural phases and changes, as for the blood... who knows? It's gone now.
His dislikes: being tired, being held cradle style, the car seat (when awake :)
His loves: being held upright over my shoulder, being wrapped and in the Ergo, the monkey sound machine on his car seat (he would sit and stare at it and flick at it with his hand -as well as a 1-month-old can- helped make some car rides better! ;), when we stuck our tongues out at him, Adelaide! <-- the adoration started early!
2-3 Months: This was a month of major ups and downs! He had about a week of eating every 2 hours, around the clock. A little cold, a growth spurt, a leap? Who knows, but the exhaustion for me during that time was a whole other level than anything I had ever experienced before. (I had started my job with Stitch Fix by that time and wasn't able to nap during the day). He then settled back into a 3-hour schedule, but by the end of the month it became clear that he had an internal alarm clock that was the most accurate of any baby who had ever lived and he was waking out of habit, not hunger (he was barely eating when he woke up). So, we decided it was time for a little bit of sleep training. It took me 40 minutes to get him to go back to sleep without feeding him that first night, but it's been a steady increase since then. He went through phases of being super happy, really only crying when he was tired and phases of being a total crab, crying off and on all day about... who knows? Everything?! We moved him to his crib in Adelaide's room at the very end of this month, which worked out better than I anticipated, but wasn't an ideal situation given the multiple night wakings...
His dislikes: being tired (which was a major problem because he wasn't sleeping well at night or napping well), tummy time, being hungry, car rides
His loves: Bouncing! (he took to the jumperoo like a fish to water!), standing up, his monkey sound machine was still a hit, when we made silly faces at him, Adelaide!
3-4 Months: Sleep issues still being the major theme... we switched him to the Zipadee Zip early in the month after noticing that when he woke up at night, he woke up mad, like from sound asleep to spitting fire, and thought maybe it was the swaddle? He transitioned to the Zipadee Zip totally fine. It didn't improve his sleep, but it didn't hurt it at all. He was only eating 1-2 times a night but waking up 1 or 2 other times still. I would head in as quickly as I could to give him his pacifier so he wouldn't wake Adelaide up... he went right back to sleep, but there was the new concern of him getting accustomed to the pacifier getting popped back in his mouth multiple times a night, which was not much better than feeding him. So, we cleared out the desk in the office and shoved everything else to the side of the room and moved his crib into his own room and started letting him cry a bit. He cried off and on for 2 hours the first night I didn't give him the pacifier when he woke up (during which I didn't sleep at all), but it's been a steady improvement since then. By the end of the month he was waking up right around 10:30 every night, crying for a few minutes and then going back to sleep until around 2-3, eating and then going back to sleep until 6ish, eating and going back to sleep usually until 7-8ish.
His dislikes: Long car rides (starting to improve!), being tired, being in the car seat outside of a moving car (I don't even try to take him anywhere in it, we just unload right into the Ergo, which works wonderfully!)
His loves: The jumperoo - he loves it, we love it, it's a lifesaver!!! He has bounced himself to sleep in it on numerous occasions. Pat-a-cake, the Ergo, sucking on his hands, drooling (I mean he must love it based on how much he does it! :) Grabbing his toes, watching cartoons with Adelaide (Bad? Probably. But when he was being super fussy, sometimes putting him in the bouncer with Daniel Tiger on made him content... whatever works!) Adelaide! His face lights up pretty much everytime he catches sight of her... when she actually plays with him? Forget it :) She finally started to really take to him a bit around this time, probably because he finally stopped crying so much!
It's probably pretty clear that sleep has been our main issue with this little guy. When he's not tired, he's an angel! When he is tired.... not so much :) But now, at about 4 1/2 months, I'm finally figuring out a nap and night schedule that's working and that's mostly consistent (it contains several bouts of crying, but now I know when to go in and when I should probably wait it out). Unfortunately, we only have about 2 hours of awake time before he needs to nap again though, which makes it hard to get out much still, but I'm happy!
I hope anyone who actually made it through this novel enjoyed it. Maybe I'll be back in a couple of weeks for a 5-month update to make things much more manageable.... I'm also planning on a name post for Mercer as well as a Life Lately post about everything else. Shoot for the stars, right? Haha :)
P.S. In case anyone is curious what Mercer will look like at 90 years old, see his month one photo :)
