We know you are excited to see the baby.

A good friend of mine just had her baby this past Monday and a recent texting conversation with her has reminded me of something that I wanted to pass along.

Unless you are an immediate family member or extremely close friend...don't ambush the hospital to see the baby right after it has been born. We know you are excited, but the parents and the baby have just been through something major. The Mother has either had surgery or pushed a basketball though her smallest area. Either way, it takes a major toll on her body and she is exhausted. Not only that, she now has an infant to figure out how to take care of and learn to breastfeed if she chooses to do so. These are not easy things.

So...when you come busting up in there with the absolute best of intentions, she has to force herself to be polite. It is a mixture of emotions for her. She WANTS you to meet her new baby and she WANTS to see you because she loves you, but she is completely exhausted, emotionally overwhelmed, terrified about her future and overloaded with hormones. This is a strange combination that she has to figure out how to balance out.

So please. Send her a card. Call her or send her a text message. But don't try to visit the hospital right away. Let the new parents get the baby home into their comfortable and semi-normal environment where they are better equipped to entertain guests.

Just thought I would pass that along, because most likely, they would never tell you that because they don't want to hurt your feelings.

We had a good night!

I put Alex to bed right around 7:30pm. He woke up around 10:30pm to eat which makes sense. He had 3 tablespoons of oatmeal at 6:45 mixed with 2 oz. of formula. I gave him the additional 2 oz before bed but he typically eats 6oz. at a meal. So that makes sense. Slowly figuring it out here.

It is 5:42am now and he hasn't woken up ALL NIGHT! I did...but he didn't. Every 2 hours I pretty much woke up and went in to check on him.

Alex has started sleeping on his side with his face pointed sort of down which completely freaks me out. But he is strong and has been holding his head up since birth so I hope that human instincts will take over here. He did roll onto his stomach at one point. I heard him start to cry a bit. This was around 5:15am so I got up figuring he was up for the day. When I went in there he was on his STOMACH! Ahhhh!!!! Sheesh kid. So I rolled him back on his side and put a long semi-hard caterpillar stuffed animal under his arm to keep him from rolling. And now...I am watching him like a hawk on the video monitor. Great gift by the way.

We are slowly figuring out how to sleep through the night and it has not required the "cry it out" method which I am just not strong enough to do.

Will I get a full nights sleep soon? Something tells me that he will, but I won't for awhile.

CHILD! Would you please go to sleep!

So, Alex is 21 weeks now. We are getting closer and closer to sleeping through the night and I am anxiously awaiting the glorious time when that happens. Last week, there was one night that he slept from 11:30pm all the way until 6:30am!!!! Of course...I didn't sleep that whole time. I got up every couple of hours to make sure he was still breathing. I wasn't able to relax. I thought that one night of full sleep was the beginning of many nights and that finally after more than a year I might be able to actually sleep like a normal person from pm to am? Not so much...that was only one night.

He is getting ready to hit his stride, I can tell. But this morning at 3:30am when I had fed him and changed him and he STILL refused to go to sleep? I found myself at the end of my rope. Completely exhausted. Most times I am completely patient. But this morning I actually found myself getting aggravated with him. It's not his fault. WE just haven't figured out what is best for US to make the full nights sleep happen.

I put the baby down in the crib and paced the hallway to calm myself down so I could go in and sooth him. As I was pacing I considered the "let him cry it out" method. But I'm not sure I'm a fan of that. Well just as I was about to go back in and pick him up, he stopped crying and went back to sleep. This is about 4:30 now. So I went back to bed. At 5:30am he was awake cooing and just chilling out in his crib. So I woke up, put some toothpicks under my eyelids and managed to get myself into the shower. I stayed awake with him until about 7:30am when he got tired and I decided we both needed a nap. That nap helped. Sort of. It's 10:22am now and I feel like I need another nap.

When will the lack of sleep end? Ever?