Smith Francis: One Week Old

Never have seven days been so enchanting and such a string of hours rather than an obvious split into day and night. Smith spent his first two nights testing out his new hobby of nursing instead of sleeping but has finally decided to sleep almost all of the day AND night away. He is alert for 2-3 hours every morning and then it's nurse/nap/poop/frown for twenty minutes before starting it all over again. It's kind of my favorite that he sleeps on me all day. I know this won't be practical forever since there are three other people and a dog that depend on my attention as well but babies don't keep, right? So, all day cuddling sessions are going to happen a little while longer.

We had to let Brett go back to work this week as his paternity leave can't start until the end of the month due to a few other soldiers in his shop being on leave already. I was anxious about having to transition to the regular week without him around to help but we've made it work and with the generosity of some lovely friends, both local and long-distance, we've not had to sit down to cereal for dinner and there have only been two hormonally induced crying sessions on my part. We've had a few moments throughout the week where we can see the kids trying to figure out their new roles with a baby around and letting us know when they're needing more attention but they're pretty smitten with him, too.

The biggest concern we had all week was keeping an eye on his jaundice. Both Sebastian and Ruby had it and the pediatrician and midwife we used for each of them both suggested sunlight and breast milk to clear things up and neither needed to go under the lights at a hospital. We decided to treat Smith with lots of sunlight and milk as well and then two days in added in lavender, lemon, and geranium essential oils after realizing there was probably an oil (or three) for that. Within about 14 hours after applying those to his feet and on his belly near his liver we noticed a big change in his coloring and his eyes. A full day and a half later and he was back to his healthy looking self.

Disclaimer: Although essential oils helped us with his jaundice it's always important to take into consideration the professional opinion of your pediatrician or midwife on the severity of your baby's jaundice. Sunlight, milk, and oils were a reasonable option for us but may not be for all babies.

We're so thankful my mom was able to fly out soon after Smith was born to help keep the big kids occupied that Brett and I could have some special bonding time focusing mainly on this new baby and getting some rest ourselves.

I've been sharing daily pictures on Instagram and will continue to under @smileandwave although blogging may be spontaneous for a bit. Thank you again for all of the congratulatory comments, texts, and e-mails. We're enjoying this new baby boy and this special time in our lives so much.

-Rachel

P.S. For those who may be interested, there's a tutorial for making the black and white abstract quilt here, the pants and hat were handmade and based loosely off of another pattern I already had. His shirt is from Mabo Kids and was a gift. It's my favorite because it's organic cotton and so, so soft. The moses basket and stand can be found on Amazon, the Goodnight pillow is from Juniper Wilde, the bunny was gifted, and the white swaddling blanket is from AGraffDesigns.