Week 2: Lots to Learn

March 26, 2013

Ryan and I both knew we didn’t come to parenthood with a ton of experience – Ryan is an only child and I was the baby of my family who pretty much did NO babysitting during my teen years as sports were way more important in my eyes over earning a few bucks watching after the neighbors kids. That in mind, I have to say we are doing pretty good as we are starting to slowly to figure out the difference between a Finn “damn I am wet” cry or a “why did you stop feeding me?” cry. He clearly likes to be a bit more alert and awake during the nights so we are trying to keep him up a bit more during feedings in the day as I am pretty sure I have slept through a few alarms – thank goodness Ryan is a bit of a lighter sleeper than I!

“Banana” Baby

So I think everyone knows by now that Finn is the spitting image of his father – from his nose, mouth, fingers, and toes – he is all Sasse. That said, he also inherited his Dad’s “long and lean” body shape. I was reading one of the many books given to me during a quiet moment of just me and the breast pump one morning, and learned that babies with this shape are called “banana-babies.” Now Ryan didn’t really like that description but these type of babies tend to grow longer first but don’t gain as much weight overall so tend to be in lower percentiles of weight gain. Well, that was confirmed as we got back from our 2nd pediatrician visit today and Finn had grown to 19.5 inches long (up from 18 3/4 at his birth) while also gaining some weight as he passed the 6 pound mark, which we were pretty excited about – even if he is a banana baby! Who knows – his shape may change. Finn’s tummy is definitely starting to fill out some which is nice to see knowing we are trying to fill him up with breast milk calories as much as possible.

Time to Bathe

We got great advice from a good friend recently who said “wait on the bath with Finn – just give yourself some time before venturing into what no doubt will produce a very loud, screaming baby.” So we waited and decided to venture into a sponge bath seeing that he had probably was starting to gather a little funk in his baby wrinkles.

The bathing station is neatly prepared by Ryan.

Wipe down of his little mop of hair.

Can’t hurt to let him suck on my finger a bit to soothe his anxiety of being naked.

All done!

The Many Faces of Finn

So our biggest pleasure, given that Finn primarily sleeps and poops/pees for about 20 hours out of the day, is getting a glimpse at the many faces and hand gestures that Finn graces us with. Here are a few – enjoy!