Bennett at 4 months

This little guy is 4 months old now.

(As you can tell by his blurry limbs, he never stops squirming.)

He is a great baby, although I still haven't decided if he is actually easier than the other two were, or if my perspective as a parent has changed. For instance, he eats every two hours and sometimes he'll stretch to three hours. As a first time parent, feeding a baby every two hours sounded exhausting. This time around, I know that babies are supposed to eat that often so I expect it. And when he does go longer between feedings, it's a happy surprise.

(I've actually noticed that literature about feeding babies has changed in this regard. When Dallin was born, the pamphlets and handouts the hospital gave me said babies nurse every 2.5-3 hours. When Bennett was born, all the handouts said babies nurse every 1.5-3 hours. I don't think babies have changed, just that experts are trying to show a wider range of normal. Some babies will happily go 3 hours between feedings and that is normal. Some babies eat more often and that is ok too.)

Another way my perspective has changed is with sleeping. I remember when Dallin was a newborn and we were talking with another young family at church. They said their baby started sleeping through the night when he was 6 months old. Six months straight without a full night of sleep sounded awful to me! Now, I'm used to not sleeping at night. I haven't slept through the night more than a handful of times in 6 years. And I actually feel quite rested most days. Bennett will sleep from about 9pm-4am most nights. Then he'll eat and sleep again until 7 or 8am. Because I have no expectations about his sleeping, every time he sleeps for a long stretch feels wonderful.

At 4 months old, here is what Bennett is up to:

He is spitting up far less than he used to as a newborn. A burp cloth can last into a second feeding now before getting soaked, which is a vast improvement from needing three burp cloths for each feeding.

He smiles all the time and at anyone who will look at him, but most often he smiles for his brothers.

He is starting to babble, giggle and laugh. Baby laughs are one of the best sounds in the world. I haven't gotten a good video of the laughing yet, but here is some babbling. In true Easton baby fashion, he spits up at the end of the video..... but what can you do?

He is an efficient eater. Each feeding is about 10-15 minutes long. Sometimes I want him to take longer so that I have an excuse to sit and rest for a bit.

He will fall asleep on his own, without any sleep training. This one still baffles me. Dallin and Connor both needed to be rocked to sleep until we did some sleep training around 6 months old. Because of that, I never even tried to lay Bennett down awake because I was sure it wouldn't work. I decided to try it out one day and he fell asleep on his own. He didn't even cry! He kind of grunted for about 30 seconds and then just laid there until he fell asleep a few minutes later. It's been working like that for almost two weeks now. He is awesome.

Connor likes to sing him songs before bed.

This one is called, "Go to sleep little baby."

Bennett has rolled from belly to back. He doesn't do it very often. That's probably because I don't give him enough tummy time, but I'd much rather look at his cute face that his butt. Just sayin'...

Right after he rolled over for the first time, at 3 months.

He is a very content baby. He is happy to lay on the floor on his own for a while, taking in the surroundings. I think it helps that his big brothers are always running around him. Laying around doesn't get so boring when there's always someone to watch.


He'll sit happily in the bouncy chair or the bumbo while I make dinner or do dishes. I'm sure it sounds like I never hold him, but I promise he gets plenty of time with me. The wrap and carrier I have help with that a lot.

(At the park on the one warm day we've had this year.)

We haven't had his 4 month check-up yet, but at 3 months old, he weighed 13 lbs 12 oz. I don't know what percentile that is and I confess that it is liberating to not care what percentile he is in. He is eating well and healthy; that's all I need to know.

January and February

(A lot of these pictures have been posted on Instagram. Sorry if it's a repeat for you, but I wanted to record these on the blog too.)

The past two months have been full of snow and cold weather.

We've played out in the snow a bit, but have mostly stayed inside for two months. And between Dallin getting sick a few times, me being sick for a week, and a handful of snow days off from school, we've been at home A LOT. Bennett has been fine with that, but the older boys: not so much. I've tried to come up with a few fun things to occupy them.

I saw this fun idea on Pinterest to put paint inside a ziploc bag and tape it to the table.

It's supposed to be mess free finger painting.

I think I should have used more paint. It didn't work very well because the boys couldn't quite figure out how to manipulate the paint through the bag. So 15 minutes of preparation bought me 5 minutes of them playing. That pretty much sums up parenting.

One craft project that did work came from the Kiwi Crate my mom ordered for the boys. It's a service that mails a few age appropriate craft projects to your house. Perfect for the winter months!

This crate had crafts related to baking. First they got to decorate a chefs hat and apron with crayons and stickers. Then they got to decorate a foam cake with "frosting" clay. They had a lot of fun with the cakes.

We've also played with the Periodic Table building blocks that Connor got for Christmas.

 

We spelled out the names for everyone in our family. Mine was the only one that could be spelled out perfectly.

The 3 boys all needed silent letters at the end of their names.

Other ways to keep life interesting when it's below zero:

Penguin sandwiches, floating through the cantaloupe-iceberg filled ocean, eating goldfish crackers. Connor loved it and has requested this lunch several times.

I found some Christmas pajamas on clearance for Dallin.

They pretty much made his life.

 For Valentine's Day this year, I didn't make valentines for Dallin's Kindergarten class. Too much effort for not enough appreciation, in my opinion. He chose Avengers cards from the store and we were both perfectly happy about that. Connor, however, was invited to a little Valentines party with some of his pre-school age friends from church, so I helped him make some train valentines to pass out.

I did it because 1) I only had to make 8 valentines, and 2) Connor was so excited about the trains and went crazy gluing hearts coming out of the smoke stacks. Worth it.

 Dallin's class had a fairy tale ball on Valentine's Day. The kids got to dress up as a fairy tale character. Dallin asked to be the big bad wolf and I almost made him this costume. Then I thought about how much time/money it would take, and then I remembered this costume we already had.

He was a dragon. The cutest dragon at the ball.

Connor, who now thinks dressing up in costume is part of Valentine's Day, wanted to wear something special to his party too.

So he went as Superman.

We've been to the doctor more times that I wanted to in the last two months. Once was for Bennett's 2 month check up, so that was to be expected.

He weighed 13 lbs 5 oz and is looking just perfect.

Dallin had a couple of ear infections. More doctor visits and antibiotics.

One morning just after Dallin got to school, I got a phone call that he had fallen while getting off the bus, cut his chin and would need stitches. From what I've gathered, his aid was holding his hand and Kendal's hand, and the Special Ed. teacher was holding Dallin's other hand as he was stepping down. Dallin was distracted looking at the other kids getting off buses, and with his coat hood up, his vision was limited. So when he tripped/stumbled/fell, he couldn't really see where he was going and his hands weren't really free to catch himself, so his face did the catching instead.

Luckily, Mckay hadn't left for work yet when I got the call, so we all drove over to pick him up and took him to urgent care.

He was pretty calm and happy by the time we saw him. 

He was cut badly enough to need three stitches. He HATED having his arms and head strapped down so the doctor could stitch him, but he was fighting so much that it was necessary. After screaming for 10 minutes straight, he was finally stitched up and we could leave.

As I drove him back to school, I told him he should tell his friends how brave and tough he was. His response was "I not tough! I was a little scared."

As for the rest of the month, we've been snuggling with Bennett

 and enjoying the peaceful moments.

The very rare, peaceful moments.

November and Thanksgiving

With Dallin being at school all day, Connor and I get to spend a lot of time together. And since he went to all my midwife appointments with me and helped me get out our baby things, he was really pretty excited for Bennett's arrival.

When I got the baby car seat out, Connor put his baby in and read him a book.

I would often find him with a stuffed animal down his shirt, pretending to be pregnant.

***

Thanksgiving was the day after I came home from the hospital with Bennett. It was a very lazy day. 

My wonderful parents cooked all of the dinner for us. I requested my favorite turkey recipe and my dad did a great job.

Here's our 7 pounder next to the 11 pounder bird.

 Ready to eat!

 For dessert, we had a delicious selection of 5 pies.

It may have been overkill for 4 adults, but we couldn't narrow down the choices. The leftovers made a good snack over the next week for a hungry, nursing mother.

A few days later Bennett got his first bath at home.

He doesn't like being cold, but as long as I kept him bundled and warm, he enjoyed it.

 I just can't get enough of his sweet face.

The excitement of a new baby hasn't worn off yet. Every morning, Dallin and Connor are so excited when Bennett wakes up and they ask to hold him.

Most of the time, they are sweet and gentle to him. We've only had to remind them a few times that Bennett can't wrestle yet.

 I made a quilt for Bennett while I was pregnant. 

The plan was to have it finished completely before he was born, but that didn't quite happen. I did manage to finish it before he was 3 weeks old, so I'm pretty proud of myself. I love the fabric and colors and I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.

And then there were five...

(I'm wayyyyyy behind on blogging, so I'll blog about October, November and December later, but I wanted to post this first before I forget all the details.)

Introducing the newest member of our family: Bennett Alan Easton!

My labor with Bennett was very different from the other two, but still pretty short like the others. With Dallin's birth, I was induced and had no regular contractions beforehand. With Connor, I was already 5 cm before contractions really started, so I went to the hospital quickly after only a few contractions.

The morning of Monday November 24th, I felt like it would be a good day to have a baby. A two day hospital stay would put me getting home on Wednesday, just in time for Thanksgiving. My parents would be flying in that night (for a Thanksgiving/baby visit). Plus, I had an appointment scheduled with my midwife that afternoon, and I was hoping that after she checked my progress she would send me over to the hospital. I was already at 4cm for my 38 week appointment, so I figured once contractions really started, things would go quickly like Connor's birth.

That morning around 7am, I started right out with several regular contractions for an hour, then a break for an hour. This kept up all day: a solid hour or so of contractions every 6-7 minutes, then a long break. Mckay stayed home from work because I felt like things would pick up. We went to Home Depot so that I could walk around and keep the contractions going strong and so Mckay could get some supplies for his latest project. That really seemed to help and contractions kept coming longer and stronger throughout the day. We grabbed our hospital bags, dropped Connor off at the home of our neighbors/friends (who would also get Dallin off the bus for us), and went to my appointment with Sharon, my midwife at 3pm. With contractions coming every 4-5 minutes, she checked me and I was about 5-6 cm. We went straight from the appointment to the hospital. Sharon was not on call at the hospital that day, so I got one of the other midwives. I'd met this midwife before and liked her, but I was hoping for Sharon since she had attended Connor's birth. 

My last belly picture at 39 weeks.

Since I tested positive for Group B Strep with this pregnancy, I wanted to get to the hospital as quickly as possible so that I could hopefully get the antibiotics in a full 4 hours before birth. (Given my previous two birth, it was unlikely for labor to last longer than 4 hours total.) We got up to the delivery room around 4 pm. The midwife told me that antibiotics had been ordered and would be there soon. I got changed, filled out paperwork, had a saline lock placed, had 20 minutes of fetal monitoring, and still the antibiotics had not shown up. We keep asking about the status of the antibiotic and was told it should be there soon. Finally at 5pm, the antibiotic was brought in and hooked up to my IV. I see no reason why it took so long to get. This antibiotic is routinely used to treat GBS. I was in a hospital on a labor and delivery floor! Why don't they just keep some stored nearby?! Right next to the saline and pitocin? Ok, I'm moving on...

After the full dose of antibiotics was in, I got into the birthing tub, planning to have another water birth. The contractions weren't very painful yet (intense, but not quite painful), but I was getting bored and wanted to do something different. We watched some TV, talked, ate some snacks, monitored the baby's heart rate occasionally and waited. My body seemed to be in no hurry. Contracts slowed a little. My midwife was hoping I could wait the 4 hours until a second dose of antibiotics at 9 pm before she would brake my water to speed things along. At 9pm, I got the second dose while I sat in the tub. Once that was finished around 9:30, she broke my water. I normally wouldn't have been so quick for her to step in and break my water, but I was getting tired and hungry and just wanted to be done. Up until this point contractions were very manageable. About 10 minutes after my water was broken, the contractions quickly become more intense, more painful and much closer together. Thoughts of "Why did I want to do this again?!" crossed through my mind. A little after 10pm, I felt pressure to push. More thoughts of "I'm crazy but it's too late now!" At 10:15pm, Bennett was out of the water and in my arms.  

He screamed and screamed and had great coloring. 

We got all cleaned up. Bennett ate. He weighed in at 7lbs, 4oz and was 20 1/4 inches long. Since the hospital cafeteria was closed by this point, Mckay went out to grab some dinner for us. He brought me back a special treat.

Smart man. 

I hope ice cream becomes a new tradition for after having a baby.

We got settled into the recovery room and got a little sleep here and there. It's amazing how quickly my body has gotten used to waking every few hours again. 

Bennett got his first bath in the morning.

Just in time to meet his brothers and grandparents.

Meeting Bennett for the first time:

Both boys were excited, but Connor was instantly smitten.

When they went home at the end of the day, Dallin kept asking if Bennett and I could come home with them. He was really sad that we had to stay at the hospital.

The "normal" postpartum hospital stay is 48 hours after birth. With both previous births, I stayed the full 48 hours, but with Bennett's birth I was feeling great and ready to get home to my family early Wednesday, especially with it being the day before Thanksgiving. I knew that with me having GBS, they would want Bennett to stay the full 48 hours, but with how great he was doing, I hoped they could be lenient. And I really didn't want to be getting out of the hospital at 10:15pm. I wanted to get home and see my children before they went to bed.

My midwife said I looked great and was cleared to go Wednesday morning. Bennett was eating well, gaining weight, no jaundice, great temperature, no signs of infection. Several of my nurses said that we might be able to leave before the normally required 48 hours because he looked so good. The on-call pediatrician (who had never met me or Bennett before) came in Wednesday morning to look him over. She came in and said, "So you want to leave early today?" I responded yes and was very hopeful things would work out. The doctor started reading over Bennett's chart: "Weight is good, that looks good, mmmhmm, good good.... Oh wait, you had GBS. (closes chart) I can't let you leave early." I was floored. I said, "Really? You were just saying how great he's doing. Can't we leave just a little early?" She responded that hospital policy is a full 48 hours to ensure no signs of infection for the safety of the baby and there was nothing she could do. 

Enter Mckay.

I'm a person that does not like confrontation, so even though I was upset and frustrated by the doctor's response, I wasn't going to rock the boat. But Mckay is good at rocking boats. He stands firm by what he thinks and is willing to work to get what he thinks is right. Mckay was not there when the pediatrician came, so he asked the nurses if he could speak with the doctor about her decision. An hour later, the nurse came back and said the pediatrician wouldn't be back at the hospital at all that day, and that the pediatrician rechecked her guidelines which said to observe baby for at least 48 hours.

Mckay spent all day researching and found the CDC's recommendations. The CDC's own algorithm stated that while a 48 hour stay for newborns is recommended, "observation may occur at home after 24 hours if other discharge criteria have been met, access to medical care is readily available, and a person who is able to comply fully with instructions for home observation will be present." Mckay told the nurse what the CDC allows and asked to get the doctor on the phone. I think the doctor was getting sick of us. She probably wanted to just enjoy her holiday at home with her family. (Oddly enough, we were trying to do the same thing....) Around 7pm, the nurse came back in and said that the doctor would allow us to leave early, but only if we brought Bennett back on Friday to complete the newborn screening test and if we took him to see his pediatrician on Friday (sooner than the Monday appointment we originally had). I think the nurses thought we wouldn't want to go through all the hassle just to leave a few hours sooner. We were packed and ready to go in 20 minutes. At that point it wasn't so much about getting home early, it was about setting a precedent that hopefully will affect future families. 

 I don't like that the doctors and hospital would have such a strict policy that didn't allow for individual cases. (This is where I get on my soapbox, so you can skip this if you feel so inclined.) Everything about my labor and Bennett's health made him a great candidate for leaving early. And it really bothered me that they tried to scare me into staying, saying that my baby would not be safe otherwise. The last time that any nurse checked on Bennett's vitals or looked at him before we left the hospital was 11am on Wednesday. Had we waited until 10:15pm to leave for Bennett's "safety," it would have been a full 11 hours since his last vitals check. No one was going to be checking on him the last part of the day. If he were to show any signs of infection or complication, it would have been up to me to notice and inform hospital staff. That's something I could do just as easily from home. If you're going to require me to stay at the hospital for the safety of my baby, you better be in my room checking on him right until the end. Ok, stepping down...

Dallin and Connor were overjoyed to have Bennett home. Their very own baby in their own house! We spent Thanksgiving and the weekend loving on our new baby. We admired his hairy back:

and marveled at his blonde hair.

He's been a great baby and we're enjoying getting to know his personality.