One Month Old

…and doing his best Elvis impersonation…

Trombone has been enjoying the kisses of his far-off grandparents, who are in town for 10 days. Though you cannot spoil a baby, you can spoil his mother and I am getting very used to someone doing my dishes and pouring me coffee and jiggling the baby incessantly while I pluck my eyebrows.

No, not really. The eyebrows part, I mean.

Last week’s final doctor’s appointment at the Birthing Program revealed Trombone’s weight at 11 lbs 8 oz. “Just feeding him breastmilk?” said the doctor. She said the same thing at our last visit. I know they’re curious about whether I’m supplementing with formula but I almost replied, “hmm…except for the ice cream floats.”

At about 2 weeks, my civilized eats-every-two-hours-and-naps-in-between baby started eating non-stop and not sleeping because could you sleep with all that eating to do? This lasted a day – then he slept for a day and ate sporadically – then he did it all over again. It culminated last Tuesday in a serious eating marathon and now I watch apprehensively for signs it might happen again.

In the case of the baby who eats all day and sleeps all the next day, there is a reason: it’s a growth spurt. The reason behind the growth spurt behavior is that the baby feeds more frequently to stimulate more milk production. The more suckling goes on, the more milk is made. It’s a marvellous system except for the day after, when the baby sleeps all day and I, unwilling to wake a sleeping baby because we’re both so tired from the day before, sit stunned and staring at my enormous ta-tas which have responded admirably to the call for More Milk.

(In scouring the internet one-handed, but not for the usual reasons, I found a wealth of information; some from the La Leche League, some from Moxie. However, almost everything I search for is met with an apologetic shrug and the explanation that Babies Do That, which wreaks havoc with my need for a reason. I’ve taken to making up my own reasons, as a survival measure.)

So apparently, Babies Do That. They do it at 3-4, 6-8 and 10-12 weeks and sometimes at other times. The reason I’ve invented is: to give their mothers something to write about on their internet weblogs.

Thanks be to the gods for permitting a break in the hot weather during which I could dress Trombone in clothing at least once before he goes to kindergarten. It was so hot – and he gained so much weight from all the ice cream – during his first month on earth, that all the newborn clothes and some of the three month size are going back in the box for some other, reasonably sized baby. But I have put two sleepers to use in the past few days – the white one pictured above and the stripey one below:

which is not only cute because it’s bright and fuzzy but because it provides entertainment for those who spend lots of time staring at The Baby’s Backside while he sleeps: