Baby Marcus is Two Weeks Old!

As of Wednesday, Marcus is two weeks old! It's crazy how time flies! He has been a very good baby so far! I keep thinking maybe he'll start showing his true self and start being more difficult. The twins were SO hard. They seemed to cry all the time! I just assumed Marcus would be the same but so far he cries very seldom. I hope he stays this way! I know that baby fussiness peaks around weeks 6-8, so I'm not holding my breath. 

There's a lot of things I'm doing different with Marcus than I did with the twins. The biggest thing is breastfeeding in the normal fashion. With the twins, I resorted to pumping and bottle feeding. I was the QUEEN of pumping! I pumped up to three times at work, while driving, in the middle of the night sometimes. I worked very hard on getting a supply sufficient for both twins, and I was pumping around 60oz at my peak! With them, I always felt like I always needed to pump as much as I could to reduce the amount of formula I supplemented with (which I no longer needed to do around 3 months or so).

This time around, it's totally different! He's been nursing like a champ from day one! It's so hard to drop the "we need more milk" mentality. When I was super engorged the first few days, I hand expressed in between feedings so I could start a freezer stash, and now I'm using this Milkies Milk Saver thing to collect milk that's leaked from the opposite side while he's nursing. Let me tell you, this Milk Saver thing is freaking awesome. I use it at most feedings and I'm able to save about 10-12 ounces a day! I've got quite the freezer stash going. But I know it's a little silly to build a huge freezer supply. I just can't stop myself from saving this extra milk! Maybe it will come in handy when I go back to work, maybe this freezer stash will mean I won't have to pump so many times. Then again, I know if I don't pump enough, my whole supply will drop, which I don't want either. It's a total conundrum! If all else fails I can always just donate it if I can't figure out a way to use it myself.

I initially figured if I have a huge freezer supply I could stop nursing early, which I wanted to do with the twins since pumping all the time sucked so much. But with him, it's rather nice having our nursing sessions. I don't think I'll mind doing it for the whole year or maybe beyond. Breastfeeding like a normal person has been 100 times better than pumping. I can actually relax and be comfy, AND I get quality time with Marcus. No pump parts to wash all the time either. It's great! I was prepared for feeding Marcus to suck, so I'm really pleasantly surprised. Even the night time feedings have been fine! We've been doing two feedings at night, and he goes right back to sleep. If I were pumping so that John could feed, I would still need to get up in the middle of the night to pump in order to keep my supply up, so feeding directly is still better in that regard.

Things are pretty good, but with all three kids to take care of it is pretty overwhelming for just one person, and even with both John and I home it can be pretty hard. Our goal for the next few weeks will be to figure out ways to simplify our lives. Potty training the twins will be a huge help, and maybe we'll hire a pool guy and/or a maid to help with the house chores. I think we'll need to figure out how to simplify dinner time as well, when we both work it's going to be a huge challenge to also get dinner on the table after collecting the children from their grandparents' houses.

So that's us for the time being! Adjusting!