Bringing Home Baby

This experience of having a baby has been so entirely different than when we had Ava. The biggest difference being that we got to leave the hospital just over 24 hrs after having him, opposed to 6 days later and staying at the hospital that whole time.  I've also recovered extremely well and faster than I imagined - being able to walk around tin the evening of the day I had him.

I'm also bringing a baby home to another child who isn't far from baby herself!  That transition has also been smoother than expected but that is also HUGE thanks to Devin's mom who has been here to give Ava lots of attention and taking her out of the house to do fun things  (and much more).  However, I still feel this overwhelming sense of needing to show Ava my love  more than ever.  I felt during this pregnancy that my patience with her had gone downhill so fast and only expected it to get worse with a new baby added to the mix. But when we came home with Owen I felt this overwhelming sense of love and need and desire to be patient with her, knowing that  patience might be all it takes for her to feel loved right now while sharing my time. She has been especially sensitive to anyone wanting to try and take her away from me, so I'm trying to let her be with me and the baby at the same time as much as possible so she knows it's not one or the other.

I knew Ava would be sweet with Owen because of how much she has shown a LOVE for babies in the last little while. But I didn't realize HOW sweet and careful she really could be.  It doesn't freak me out to have her near him, she just gets really close to him and either gives kisses or strokes his head or touches and labels body parts that she knows, and she seems to understand that eyes are off limits.  Every time she comes home from doing anything she immediately asks to know where the baby is, for now I think she wants to make sure he's staying in our family :)

 

 This pic was taken after our second night home.  He stayed swaddled all night and only woke up twice to eat, it was great!

Owen took a binky on the first day as well as latched on and has been nursing really well. Both of these things have made night time pretty good with him, as long as he is swaddled - he is so good at sneaking his little hands out and waking himself up!  The hard part has been trying to get to him in time before Ava wakes up to his cries. So far she only slept through the night once since he's been home-but she was waking up at least once in the night before we had him too - that's been a difficult thing to figure out.  We're going to try another night of him sleeping in the crib in his room and if it's problematic with Ava again then we'll prob nice him to a pack and play in our bathroom or something.  As far as my sleeping goes, having Devin's mom here has been great because she'll get up with Ava and take her for a walk or to the nearby playground while I sleep in because Owen usually sleeps until after 9 and that has helped me SO much., at least during this first week while my body is still repairing and recovering.

Owen at 3 days old and Owen at 6 days old

 We took our first outing last night as a family to The Village to watch the fountain light show, let Ava run around, enjoy the BEAUTIFUL weather and got some frozen yogurt. We just kept Owen covered up and he slept the whole time. I'm interested to see how we do this weekend with Devin's mom gone - she's probably wondering how we're going to do it because she's been doing so much! Haha she's been cooking and cleaning and doing laundry and playing and shopping and listening and all that we could ask for! We're so very grateful.
  I'm excited to have my mom come next week too when I'll hopefully be feeling even better, she hasn't seen our house and hasn't seen Ava since she was just one!

 Owen really has been a very mellow baby and we  just love watching him change a little but every day!

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