Whoa!

Said in my best Joey Lawrence voice

I just got another Explanation of Benefits from my insurance for my hospital visit. Guess how much it cost. Are you sitting down? $34,635.25. WHAT?? And guess how much the negotiated rate for my insurance was...$6,919.00. Thank you, Chuck, for offering such great insurance that we only paid $250 for labor, delivery, room and board. Speaking of room and board, Felix was charged over $5,000 for room and board. Ok, he spent a total of less than 3 hours in the nursery and had way less than one bottle of formula. How does that "cost" $5,000? Anyway...

We've been having a rough go of it lately. I guess Felix is in the middle of his 6 week growth spurt, although he is past 6 weeks now so maybe that's not it. Last week he stopped pooping everyday so I thought that was his problem. He strains a lot and I can tell the poor little boy is uncomfortable. It makes us so sad! He does go every few days, which is totally normal for a breastfed baby. This poop strike coincided with a nap strike that started last Wednesday. Boy, Mommy does not like this at all. Not that I napped when he did because I am not a napper (I try, I promise, so please don't get on my case about it. I occasionally could nap for 15 minutes or so around Jeopardy! time), but he only wants the breast and this makes for a mentally, physically, and emotionally tired Mommy. He will nurse for 10-15 minutes, fall asleep, I'll try to put him down after 5 minutes or so of sleeping, he'll sleep for 10, 20 minutes max and wake up and want to nurse. Talk about tiring! Luckily, he is still a rockstar at night and sleeps normal hours. He did have one night of waking every two hours, but other than that it is 3-4 hour spans, with even a 5 hour one thrown in the other day! :knocks hard on biggest piece of wood around:

Everything we read says that 6-8 weeks is the peak of fussiness for babies. I am hoping that we can go from birth and not due date on that, because 3 more weeks of this might just send me screaming from the house one day. The fussing started at 5 weeks, so hopefully he is ahead of the game on this one. Maybe he will be perpetually early for everything. We can hope. I would be OK if he didn't take great naps during the day. I could learn to live with that. I just wish he would be happy when he is awake. It breaks my heart that he is so sad all of the time lately (unless eating). Yesterday we did get in a good 20 minutes or so of tummy time and playing throughout the day and it was wonderful. I love our little boy so much. Right now he has been asleep for an hour and a half. Thank goodness! The worst part is that I can see how tired he is, but he just won't sleep. We are trying something new this weekend by putting him down in his bed for naps. He used to be able to sleep in the snuggle lamb wherever we were, but he is more tuned in to noises these days so we're trying this out. Sammer also mentioned that maybe he needs it dark since he sleeps so well at night. This seems to be working so far. We'll see how today goes.

Alright, he is up! At least he got in a good amount of sleep this morning, much better than his recent 20 minute naps.

Felix is 6 weeks, 3 days old