The Harvey Family: Blake

This was my third week back at work and things seem to be going well with pumping during the day. I was really worried that the stress would cause me to stop producing milk as soon as I went back to work. For the most part I produce at least an ounce an hour. (Sorry if this is TMI but I wanted to make a note of this for my future reference, haha.) Normally in the mornings around 6am, after sleeping through the night, I'll get about 7 oz, sometimes more (the most I've ever pumped at this point is 9 oz and that was when it had been 10 hours since Blake last nursed). Then around 11:30-12 I'll get between 6 and 7 oz. This week I've started pumping in the car on the way home to try and get the most use out of my drive home. It seemed silly to drive an hour home then spend half an hour pumping. This happens some time between 5-6pm and I'll get 5-6 oz. I hope to keep this up for as long as possible. Once Blake starts going to daycare, we'll send him with formula to eat there and then he'll have pumped milk at home so we don't have to worry about it being wasted (all you breastfeeding mommies know how painful it is to waste pumped milk!). I remember being so worried about not producing enough milk at first, and now I've convinced myself that it's ok if Blake gets some formula supplement. Most days we can get away with just a few oz of formula. I tried so many things to try and get my milk production to go up but what ended up working the best was just being patient. Time seems to be the only thing that has helped.

Enough with the technical stuff, and onto the mushy mommy stuff. Now that I'm back at work I'm really missing snuggle time with my little man. He's growing so fast and he's starting to go to bed earlier so some days I only get to see him for a few hours at night and some of those might even be spent taking a nap. We started dressing him in some of the cute sleeper outfits and I just can't get enough of how cute he is in them! While this stage brings its share of crying fits, it also has a lot of holding and snuggle time that I worry will run out shortly. Now that he's starting to have a lot more control of his head, he is finding other things much more interesting to do and look at and is becoming less interested in just sleeping on my chest.

This week, Blake:

has really gained a lot of upper back/neck control. When I walk him around I don't have to hold onto his head nearly as much. He'll even look from side to side with quick movements.
has been sleeping from 9:30pm - 6am... it is awesome! I seem to wake him up as I am getting ready for work.
has continued to eat a lot each day. His feedings are getting more on a schedule where he'll eat 5-7 oz every 3-4 hours or so during the day.
has started taking his feedings from an 8 oz bottle for some feedings instead of the 4 oz bottle which got refilled multiple times during a feeding. This makes things a lot easier when getting food ready for him.
is exploring with his mouth a lot more. This week he has started trying to eat his right fist more than other things. Sometimes when I let him hold my finger, he'll try and pull that into his mouth too. He'll typically lose hold of my finger before he gets it to his mouth though.
has been really active with kicking his legs on his back. Instead of pumping both legs together, now they're starting to alternate more like a bicycle.
has started holding onto toys that fit into his little fist. We have to pry his fingers open to get it in there, but he'll hold onto them for a little bit. He will hold onto his hanging panda toy but loses his grip as he pulls it toward his mouth and it won't go that far.
has moved up to size 2 diapers. We'll put him in size 1 if we're fairly sure he won't have a bowel movement since they don't exactly contain his poop anymore.