Oliver's homecoming

You can see Oliver's homecoming in one of the videos. Ben was a little scared of him at first. Since then Ben has been really sweet to Oliver most of the time. He wants to hold him quite often, he brings him his pacifier ("wire") and tells me it is time for him to eat and does other sweet helpful things. He likes to kiss him too.

So we haven't seen any conscious or outright jealousy. We have seen an increase in behavior problems though. Ben has just been having extra tantrums or bad spells, as if he is really tired, which must be unconscious reactions to the baby. With my hormones doing crazy things to me, I usually end up crying with Ben. If he is having one of his "heartbroken" tantrums, it breaks my heart too. Otherwise, I feel hopeless about how to deal with him or how to help him, and sad that we've changed his life so much. I guess we're all saying goodbye to our old life that revolved around Ben, and that is hard.

Oliver is doing well. He seemed to catch onto breastfeeding a lot easier than Ben did and eats well. At his 2-week appointment he had gained a pound exactly, which is great news. He seems a little more easy-going than Ben was. He does cry when he is left alone, but at times he'll sit alone and awake and content without crying. He loves being in the wrap or sling and moving around with me. Colic tends to start at three weeks and end at 12 weeks, so we'll see what happens this week! In retrospect, Ben was pretty colicky - he cried a lot.

So far Oliver has been in the newborn stage of sleeping a ton, so we're not too tired (except for the continued attempt to catch up from the first all-nighter). Ben was a pretty good night sleeper until later months. I'd really love to do my part to prevent sleep problems with Oliver, so I'm more conscious of trying other ways to soothe him besides comfort nursing, and I want to try to avoid nursing to sleep. Wish us luck!