Month One with Max

Month one of being a mother was pretty crazy. My body was recovering and breastfeeding was brutal. I never produced enough and Maxwell was always hungry so I supplemented with formula. After a month and a half I moved fully over to formula, it was just too painful for little success.

We did love all the visitors, meals, gifts, chats and family that came. My sister and Caylee came October 13th which was super nice. They stayed for a week and were just the most amazing helpers. Scott and I even took our first date to Takashi! We kept thinking about Maxwell but it was nice to get out!

Maxwell slept in a bassinet in his room initially. We never had him sleep in our room.. we couldn’t sleep with all his sounds. Then we borrowed the snoo bed from our friends. The bed has been a miracle. It helps Maxwell sleep so well by slowly moving him back and forth all night. He started to sleep longer stretches but still woke up every 2-3 hrs. 

We loved watching Maxwell smile and laugh in his sleep. He grew a ton over that first month. He was such a quiet and observant baby. He was truly a dream baby for the first 4 weeks. He hated his diaper being changed but then by the end of the first month, didn’t mind so much. 

Colic found him around Halloween which was a big shock. We had a night where Maxwell was up all night writhing in pain. He slept in our bed that night in his dock-a-tot. We had no idea how to calm him. We ended taking him to the dr. She prescribed him acid reflux meds. They seemed to help initially but then within a few days he had the crying fits in the evening again. They would last several hours and he would scream and be so hard to console. He would cry and then eventually just fall asleep which would help reset him. His sleep length periods kept getting longer but he still had these angry evening colic periods.

We eventually switched formulas which helped him even more but he still had colic through November and most of December.  

We tried everything, different bottles with no bubbles, gas drops, gripe water, probiotics, two acid reflux meds, mylanta, swings, car drives, swaddling, black gripe water, new formulas, bouncing on an exercise ball.. the list goes on and on. What has helped us the most is the exercise ball, car rides, the fact Maxwell would calm down in his play gym for 5 mins, and mylanta when we could hear him barfing and swallowing it. 

I also think we both chose to have positive attitudes. We didn’t want to just complain about Maxwell because he had no way to control his situation. We really just accepted that it was hard but did everything we could to be positive. We learned that we just stayed home and watched the office in the evenings. Man that show is good!