9 Month Comparison: Ella and Miles

I made 2 quick collages.

Look at the difference in legs!  This wasn't a good photo comparison for me but in some you could tell I was way thinner last time.
Miles weighs 4 lbs more and is less than an inch taller.  Miles's head circumference is 3 cm larger too.

Here they are sitting. Both kids took off their 9 month stickers!  

Miles's 8th Week (11.5.16)

Miles developed cradle cap this week.

Most days he slept like crap during the day but his night time sleep has been much better.

We had a busy week and it would have been busier but our Tuesday meeting and Wednesday photoshoot were moved.
Monday we went to Ella's preschool and set up a photo booth and took pictures.  Then hung out at school for an hour. Then we went immediately to trick or treating. I baby wore him for the most part during picture taking and during trick-or-treating. Killing time I carried him.
Tuesday we went to the park then to Lucky.
Wednesday we picked Ella up from school.
Thursday, we went to PT and to pick Ella up from school.
Friday we had Angie and Maddie visit. Then we had about an hour break and then Chessa, Mary, and Annie visited. They left close to 5 pm.

I weighed him one day this week and he was 13 lb 9.5 oz.

Every time I try Miles takes a bottle from me. It's amazing. Dave tried to give him one and he cried but I think sitting in the office versus his comfortable room are the reason for that.  He still never takes a pacifier. I've tried a few times.   I'd say he's at about 75% for how often he cries when he's in his carseat. The car seat straps need to be adjusted and I haven't gotten to it. His shoulders are so high now.

I started dressing him in 6 month clothes this week. They fit a lot better.  Some are actually still too short in the torso.

All photos taken on 11/5/16

Miles is still on high alert around Ella but he doesn't cry right away now since she's been gentle a lot more.

His eyes are looking so blue now.

1 Kid versus 2 Kids

I titled this post 5 weeks ago and didn't get any text into the post. That almost says everything that I'm about to say.

I remember back before kids, I thought I was busy. Then I had Ella and thought oh this is busy; I was not busy at all before.  Then Ella gets older and it gets easier and you forget how hard it was at the beginning. Then you have your 2nd kid and BOOM it's so different.

When you have 1 baby, you can just nap in the middle of the day if you actually get the baby to sleep. With one kid if your baby won't sleep unless you are in the quiet and holding them, you can just do it.
With 2 kids, you have to do all the baby stuff and do all the toddler stuff. It's so exhausting. It doesn't help when your 2 year old loves her baby brother and always wants to hug and kiss him. Then he doesn't like this so he starts crying just when she gets near by.

I've heard a lot of people say they had to baby wear their 2nd child or nothing got done. Most of the time, Miles does not let me wear him so then I struggle even more.

I've brought multi tasking to a whole new level.  I was icing my knee, eating, and driving. These are easy to do at the same time but before I wouldn't have thought of it.  I was also bathing Ella, nursing Miles, and eating at the same time.  Both of these examples are from the same day. I just try to think of what I can do at the same time now because there just isn't enough time.  Days Ella is at school are a lot easier but then I don't get everything done that I need to/want to.

When I have to be somewhere, I start preparing 2 hours early and so far I've only been a little bit late. It's hard to get myself dressed, Ella dressed, Miles dressed, and everyone fed before we leave. Sometimes nursing is a 5 minute session but it never fails that when I want to leave he wants to nurse for 20 minutes.

I don't get to benefit from Miles's longest stretch of sleep because Ella is still awake for 2-3 hours of that stretch. I can't go back to sleep each time I get miles back to sleep because Ella will wake up so I get even less sleep there.

It's after midnight as I type this and I should be sleeping but don't want this to keep sitting around.

It is so nice to see how caring Ella is. She told me to be patient with Miles when he was crying once.  Sometimes when Miles is crying in the car, Ella gets really sad. She doesn't like that he's crying. She's starting to be more accepting of it.

Ella tries to be really helpful she's just too little to actually be able to help so I have to be on my toes.

I still can't believe I managed holding Ella and baby wearing Miles. I also did this while trying to take group photos. They turned out like crap though so holding a crying toddler really does lower the photo quality.

C-Section Vs VBAC

I had to have a c-section with Ella but then I wanted VBAC if at all possible with Miles. I thought the recovery would be easier.  I tried googling it to see what other people thought about a 2nd c-section or VBAC.

The first week or 10 days I was in more pain than I was after my c-section. I couldn't believe it. 4th degree tearing is no joke.  I didn't realize there is a weight restriction after a vaginal birth just as there was from a c-section.

After 2 weeks, I feel better than I did after the c-section so I guess it was the 2 week mark. I did go for walks after the c-section and didn't go on a single one in 2 weeks after VBAC.

I'm so much more lightheaded this time around. I never recovered from a day of labor without food. I think every day for 2 weeks I got lightheaded at least a little bit. Some days worse than others.

So much information I found while researching is what people are trying to decide what to do and not what actually happened. So many mention the weight limit for lifting after a c-section and I didn't find anyone mention the limit after VBAC yet I was told I'm not allowed to lift anything heavier than the baby for 6 weeks which was the same thing I was told after the c-section. (A friend just had her 2nd vaginal delivery and she was also told the weight restriction for 6 weeks.)

I ran a half mile the day of my 6 week appointment after I was cleared to exercise.  I read online that after a 4th degree tear you have to wait until you are fully healed to exercise and some of the online sources say that takes up to 12 weeks. I'm sure some c-sections take longer than 6 weeks though. I guess I need to update this when I'm actually healed.

I wrote the above after 3 or so weeks.   Now it's been 6 weeks and I had my checkup. I am cleared to workout now. I was told the stitches healed but I'm still healing since the tearing was bad and that it could take some time.   I just have not been able to exercise because my knee is so bad. The only thing I can figure out is that I somehow hurt it during delivery.  I didn't do anything else to trigger it and it started hurting about 3 days after I gave birth.

After 6 weeks, I'm not even sure it was better to go with a VBAC than a c-section.   With less or no tearing I'd say c-section would be worse.  But then again I also know people who had a 2nd c-section and they did so much more the second time around than the first time too.

I figured I'd type this and thought I'd include more research I found but I kept not finding anything good. I'd see a lot on message boards and most people posted were trying for a VBAC but didn't see much about the actual outcomes and what people thought of it. I can't think of what else to write but ask a question or 2 and I'll answer and then more information will be contained here.

Comparison: Ella and Miles

Just in the first little over a week of Miles's life I have noticed so many difference with him and with Ella. He's more like a normal baby in the differences I've noticed. I'm just going by memory so there may be even more things I realize later as I read the older posts from Ella.

• Ella cried in the car and Miles is a perfect content baby. He falls asleep or he sits there awake and doesn't make a sound
• As of the first week, we had given Ella a pacifier twice and she wouldn't take it either time. We didn't even have the need to give him a pacifier in the first week. I tried last night for fun but he wasn't even fussy and just pushed it out to chill there in my arms. So I'm not sure if he'll take one or not. 
• Miles can fall asleep and not be swaddled and we can swaddle him and get him to his crib just fine. If Ella wasn't swaddled when she fell asleep I had to hold her to sleep or she woke up. 
• Miles can be started with his startle reflex and then put himself back to sleep. Ella never could 
• Ella's legs were so long. Miles's look so short but I think they are normal baby length.  Pants are too long on him and they were always too short on Ella. 
• You could never rock Ella to sleep. Even if I was nursing at the time if I was rocking, she did not want me to rock her.  Ella had to be nursing to fall asleep. Miles can be done nursing and I can just rock him in the rocking chair and he falls asleep. 
• Ella hated her swing. Miles has fallen asleep in it 2 or 3 times already. He fell asleep each time I put him in it. He was fussy a little an hour ago when I was done nursing him so I just took him to the swing and he was asleep in less than 2 minutes and then I carried him to his crib.  This bullet is like 2 things. Ella had to be nursing to fall asleep and she hated the swing and Miles will fall asleep nursing or just with rocking and seems to enjoy the swing.
• Miles cries a bit at a diaper change but that's when he wants to nurse. There have been times I changed his diaper after nursing and he just slept right through it. Ella would not do that. In her first week, we had to cough while we undid the velcro to try to make her not cry as hard. We also had to put blankets on her chest to block of what we were doing to her diaper!
• Ella liked it cold. She did not like layers. We even stopped putting her feet fully zipped in the sleep sack.  Miles on the other hand wears the sleep sack plus is swaddled in a blanket. He gets quite cold if he's not all bundled up. We used to sit or stand in front of a fan with Ella. And Ella was born in the winter weather around here.  His umbilical cord stump did not fall off yet but I'm excited to see how warm we have to make the room for his first bath since he likes it so warm. 
• Ella probably burped twice ever after nursing. I used to try and try and then I gave up. Miles gets burped 2-3 times in a nursing session and burps about 3-4 times each time I try to burp him. 
• Ella never spit up during burps (well burp attempts) and Miles has already spit up 2x. 
• Ella loved how fast my milk flow was and I feel like it took quite some getting used to for Miles and there are plenty of times he stops sucking but keeps swallowing to play catch up with it all. 

A few days ago I started making some comparison collages. All pictures are just within the first few days they were both alive. I was going to do more but only got to 4 before Miles woke up from his nap.

The picture of Miles sleeping in the crib is probably one of the only times he slept without a hat on.

How similar or different do they look?  What do you think of the differences highlighted above? I wonder what else I forgot about too.

Baby Tracking App

I've had a few people ask me what app I use for Ella. Mostly people ask when I type milestones or when I know about milestones later. The app I use is Baby Care Lite.  I got tracking for free but paid $2.99 for charts. It will predict the next activity and it says it in the top.

This is how I track milestones.

Since I not only track milestones but still track food, diapers, and sleep, I can get all this information.

This is what milestones look like within the app, but you can click the folder in the corner and email yourself a pdf. The PDF is only cut off it is really long.  If I want to look at anything I use the PDF instead of using the charts. If I want the summary of sleep average per month then I'll look on the app. 

This is a screen shot of the sleep PDF

The 2 screen shots above are for the app. If you notice the screen shots within the app are different for me than advertised. I think because the new iphone is narrower. That is one thing that bugs me. If you look at my first screen shot on the page you will see sleep duration is cut off. You only get the hour and tens place. You don't get the ones place. Or if a nap is 1 hour and 5 minutes you get the 5 but you have to look to see if that is for 5 minutes or for 50some minutes. 

I actually ended up with this app by mistake. I was at the hospital and thought I picked another one. I did try two other ones after I had this one but the other ones required a lot of clicks and required information. I like this that I can start a feeding and that's it. I add which side I started nursing on in the comments and if I switch sides, I put when I switch. But sometimes I don't put anything because I'm in a hurry and I like that I don't have to put anything. I do have to go back in to update the time of nursing.  It's funny how the app gets to know Ella and will predict how long she will nurse once you start the feeding clock and so many times it is so close. This is odd to me because sometimes she has a 2 minute snack and sometimes a 15 minute meal. 

Do you use an app to track your baby?  I plan to stop using this once Ella is consistent but then I'm torn because I love the data. 

4.15

Ella woke up near 5:30 instead of 6:30 so then she went back to sleep before Dave woke up. Then he left for work minutes before she woke up. Poor Ella didn't get to hang out with him before work.

We walked to Safeway before lunch. I bought some groceries and 2 donuts. I ate them both on the way home. We were walking. Sometimes it was a little challenging to push a stroller and eat but that was mainly when I was trying to take selfies at the same time.

I can add pictures to my snr site again so I did a few of those while Ella played on the floor. We still have to get a lot working with this site.

We were trying out the jumperoo. I don't use it often. She's still a bit little for it.

I had ella lying on the ground while I emptied the diaper genie. Within a few seconds she shimmied herself out. She actually moved the closet door. It's one of those that is attached at the top and slides from the top. I'm going to have to baby proof soon.

Dave read her a book. This was the first pic I took. All other pictures she was looking at the camera. She'd pay attention to the book until I tried to take a picture then she'd have to look at the camera.

4.13

Sometimes hanging out in bed involves quite a few minutes of Dave still asleep.

I realized one of Ella's non-homemade onesies fits. She's so dang tall that it's almost too short for her. I need to pay better attention to her clothes inventory.

I take so many pictures of Ella everyday but most end up blurry or grainy. That's what happens when I never use a flash and when I keep blinds closed.

4.11

When I don't use a flash and also have poor lighting then I end up with blurry pictures of Ella. You can still tell how cute she was.

She was starting to grab her foot more and more. She mainly would grab her left foot.

Ella preferred lounging in her dress.

She likes her football!

We went shopping. I wore her in Target since I had to buy more than I could carry in a canvas bag while pushing a stroller.

Sometimes when Ella is motivated she lifts her head up high.