Reya’s First Two Months

Reya my love, you have been an absolute pleasure of a newborn baby.

I mainly say that because you SLEEP. And for this I am so very grateful!

We got off to a rough start with breastfeeding. The first week was trying and oh-so very painful. And I didn’t expect it to be. Especially since I had the very same experience with your brother Mylo when he was born three years ago. I sort of expected my breasts to remember. But they didn’t.

We spent the first couple of weeks holed up in my bedroom with my white T-shirt draped over our cheap Ikea bed lamp the midwives put there the day you were born – to dim the room. I did almost everything but eat in the bedroom. I fed you, changed you and would lay down next to you to steal some shut eye. The cracked nipples, latching issues, raging headaches and engorgement lasted one week – one very painful week – but then we were on our way.

Since the first week of your life, you’ve been sleeping 4-5 hour initial stretches. This past week it’s increased to seven, sometimes even eight hours. That’s not to say we don’t have the occasional bad night, we do. But it’s just that: occasional. At night you start out in the co-sleeper next to my side of the bed and when you wake up I unloosen your swaddle and put you in bed between us.

You spend the rest of the early morning hours cuddled up against me, breastfeeding. We hold hands, you snort and grunt, and we nod off back to sleep. It’s not the most comfortable position for me, (I prefer to sleep on my left side) but for the first time I’m getting a true taste of what it means to co-sleep.

See, I tried to do this with your brother but it wasn’t very enjoyable or restful. I looked through other blog posts to point to proof and only found one that said he stopped co-sleeping peacefully at about five months. THIS. CANNOT. BE. I must’ve been sugar coating it.

It was difficult to know what color your eyes were those first couple of weeks. Mainly because your eyes were rarely open. But they’re wide open now and they’re a beautiful dark blue. Whether or not they’ll change, I don’t know.

You were born with a “stork bite” on your left eye lid and in between your eyes. When you were just a couple of days old you got your first case of acne. Baby acne. And apparently it’s to blame on me, or my hormones anyway. Luckily it doesn’t bother you and is no indication that you’ll have acne when you become a pubescent teenager.

When you were five weeks old your acne took on another meaning. Your cheeks became so red and raised. Dr. Google had me worrying it could be eczema but your pediatrician confirmed it was cradle cap. It was barely on your head and mostly all over your cheeks. A little olive oil, bacitracin and eliminating eggs from my diet for the past two weeks has helped nip it in the bud.

You began smiling back at me a few weeks ago and oh my is it a beautiful smile. I’m overcome by a profound pang of joy when you do this.

You love to be worn in the Ergo baby carrier that the women from my office gave to me at my Baby Sprinkle. Since you were one day old you’ve been worn all over Brooklyn.

As for the taking the bottle… that’s been a work in progress. You tricked us all when you took a bottle from dad at five weeks without even coming up for air, then not again after. But soon enough, you will have to.

I wanted another child to add to our family so much. So to have miscarried twice was such a blow. The third time though, it stuck. I then spent a good portion of my pregnancy worrying if I could hack it. Especially the newborn stage. Yet I couldn’t be happier that you are you. The child who drifted into my life and has made things pretty easy. So far.

Knowing that all my hurdles and hiccups brought me here, to this moment. Everything hard and trying that I’ve been through, has been a step closer to becoming your mom. And I am the better for it.