Braden will be four months old tomorrow (June 3). How time flies!

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His sleep, unfortunately, has regressed lately. Before, he would sleep from 8 p.m. to 4 a.m. Now, he wakes up at 10 p.m. and 2 a.m. We’re not sure why this is. Maybe he’s teething?

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Brian will be in Washington, D.C., for a conference Wed-Sat. Kristin will be staying overnight at her parents’ new house Thursday night.

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Braden’s hand-eye coordination is getting really good. He can easily grab objects in front of him and put them in his mouth. He is really close to learning to hold the bottle and feeding himself.

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Braden rolled over the other day! We’re not 100 percent convinced he did it intentionally, but he did it nonetheless.

Journal new skills, sleep

Despite the monsoon-like conditions, we decided to still participate in the CrazyLegs walk on Saturday. Fortunately, we had just purchased a jogger for Braden; it’s enclosed, so he was protected from the rain.

So while mommy and daddy (and our friends Holly and Lindsey) got drenched, Braden slept and stayed dry the entire race. We think we finished third or fourth amongst “walkers with accessories.”

We had to check the jogger outside with all the other joggers/strollers before entering Camp Randall Stadium. Brian then carried Braden in the Baby Bjorn and covered him with Brian’s jacket. Braden slept off and on; he was startled awake by some crazy woman next to us in the stands who felt it necessary to scream at the top of her lungs every five seconds.

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After CrazyLegs we went to our friend Amy’s birthday/house-warming party. Two other babies came. It was funny to see a baby that was born Feb. 28 (23 days after Braden) be half of his size. We are NOT being biased, but he was definitely the cutest baby there.

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Braden must have been pooped-out from such a busy day, because that night HE SLEPT THE ENTIRE NIGHT. Seriously. We even woke up several times at night just to check on him.

Journal other babies, sleep

Kristin returned to work yesterday. It was difficult not only because she hadn’t been at work since late January, but also because she was away from the baby for the longest time yet (eight hours). Still, she said it was like nothing changed as she was extremely busy, which she said was good because it kept her mind off of being away from Braden.

For those who are wondering, we are very fortunate to have our moms take care of Braden while we’re at work. Kristin developed a schedule of who’s watching Braden when.

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Braden now can sleep at least six hours straight on a consistent basis. Last night, for example, he slept from 8:45 p.m. to 3:30 a.m. He then woke up again at 5:30 a.m., but then fell asleep on his own (that rarely happens).

Journal sleep, work

Wow, it’s been two months already!  We took Braden for his check-up and to get his shots. Here are his stats:

Weight: 15 lbs. 2 oz (95th percentile)
Length: 24.5 in. (86th percentile)
Head size: 41.2 cm (67th percentile)

Braden is a big boy! The pediatrician said not to worry; he will eventually “average out.”

Besides taking a vaccination orally, Braden also received three shots (two to one thigh, one to the other). We had never heard him cry like that  before. He did get over it surprisingly quickly, and that night he slept six straight hours (a record). The next day, though, he hardly napped and didn’t have much of an appetite.

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We also moved Braden to his crib in his  bedroom, so he’s no longer in the playpen in our room. That’s because he has outgrown the playpen. Speaking of outgrowing, he’s also too big for his 0-3 month-clothes already, despite being two-months old (should be obvious based on his weight!).

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About a week ago, Braden learned to suck his hands. He has also just learned how to rub his forehead, where it gets itchy. We have since begun using some hydrocortisone to relieve the itchiness.

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Sorry for the lack of updates recently. Brian was in Calgary Sunday through Thursday for work. Brian’s mom came on Monday, Kristin’s sister and her husband came on Tuesday and Kristin’s parents came on Wednesday to help out. (THANKS!)

Brian will be traveling again, this time to Las Vegas Sunday through Wednesday for work. He usually doesn’t travel this much–it just happens to be taking place around the same time.

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Big congratulations to our friends, Nathan and Ruth Howard, for the birth of their daughter, Belen, on Monday, March 30. Brian has already made the joke the Braden and Belen could date some day.

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Braden has now cracked the four-hour mark for continuous sleep, accomplishing this on Wednesday night and nearly duplicating it on Thursday. This is extremely exciting for us.

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We’ll have Episode 7 of “Brian and Kristin Plus One” soon!

Journal congrats, sleep, work

In the past few days, Braden didn’t sleep much during the day, and only for an hour at a time at night, making for very tired parents.

Last night (Tuesday), however, Braden slept in two three-hour blocks followed by a two-hour block. By comparison, we felt like we slept 10 hours and weren’t as groggy in the morning.

Now that we’re writing about this, we know we’re probably jinxing ourselves and that he will revert to his old habits. Or maybe, just maybe, this is a sign that he’s finally going to start sleeping more.

Fingers crossed!

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Braden is definitely smiling a lot more now–it’s so cute! We’re trying to get a picture of it.

Journal sleep

Over the past week or so, we’ve noticed Braden has been smiling a lot. Right now, he’s not smiling in reaction to anything. Rather, he’s smiling accidentally, but it sure is cute! He even smiles in his sleep.

Speaking of sleep, Braden “talks” a lot now at night. What he does is he makes a lot of “ahhh” noises. Unfortunately, this makes it harder for us to fall asleep, especially because we’re worried he may wake himself up and want to feed again. Last night, for example, we each got maybe four hours of sleep due to a combination of incessant feeding and baby noises.

Journal sleep, smiles

Brian celebrated his 29th birthday today. We decided to eat at the Nitty Gritty since it was so close, despite eating there every year (we had been hoping to go somewhere else).

Braden began feeding around 5:40 p.m., and after 30 min. or so, he was done, and we quickly packed up and left. He fell asleep in the car ride over, and slept the entire meal (a little less than an hour long).

As soon as we got home, he woke up and told us he was hungry!

Sadly, we went to bed at 9 p.m., the earliest we’ve hit the hay for either of our birthdays in a long time.

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Braden is now 9 lbs. Apparently, within the first three weeks, babies can be insatiable. So hopefully, his relentless hunger will subside soon (and subsequently, we can sleep more).

Journal birthday, feeding, sleep

We had about three 2.5-hour intervals of sleep last night.  Seven-and-a-half hours seem like a lot, but not when they’re broken up. Still, it was nice to be in our own bed for the first time in almost a week.

We took Braden to see the pediatrician at 11:30 a.m. to check his biliruben levels. The good news is that his weight has increased by almost 5 oz. (a lot!), but the bad news is that his biliruben levels rose from 15.2 to 16.6. So we have another appointment at 9:15 a.m. Sunday.

While we were in the waiting room, Braden had the hiccups. We will be posting this video soon.

Kristin’s sister just came over, so Kristin will take a quick nap and Brian is going to go work out. It’s 2:08 p.m. now. We’ll check back later.

Journal, Video pediatrician, sleep

Brian ran home today to get some clean clothes (remember he got peed on?) and picked up some other things from he and Kristin, since we had only packed enough for two days. (Don’t worry, he did this when Kristin’s parents came.)

We’ve been trying to take pictures of every possible face Braden can make. You’ll see more variations on the Day 3 pics page.

Even more staff visiting us in the early morning–the new shift of nurses, the OB, etc., plus today we had a med student come in and ask questions (you could tell he was thinking about what to ask; he was very nice, though). The tough part is they come every 20 min., so we never can get any sleep.

It’s about 2:45 p.m. We’ll update again soon!

Journal, Pictures sleep