Two months old already. As life continues at breakneck pace it seems like Gabe has been a part of our family for much longer than two months now. He certainly doesn’t look like the tiny baby who arrived onto our living room floor back in August! As I’ve mentioned in some of my weekly Living Arrows posts we are slowly figuring things out and settling into some sort of routine. I’m still finding some days a struggle looking after Gabe and Toby – there’s still quite a lot of CBeebies getting watched but everyone is surviving and I’m just telling myself that Toby is learning some really important life lessons from Bing and Mr Tumble.

If you read my post a few weeks ago about the beginning of the end for breastfeeding you’ll already know that we were slowly heading towards completely bottle feeding. Well, I last breastfed Gabe on Friday, and it worked wonders on Thursday night when he was really unsettled after having his first immunisations, but these have only been comfort feeds and he is getting all his nutrition now from formula. I’m pleased we made to eight weeks with him getting at least some breast milk but I’m also happy that we have made the right decision for all of us as a family. Gabe is still suffering from reflux and giving him bottles means he can have Gaviscon much more easily. He’s also taking ranitidine which helps to control the acid. We seem to have things under control with the reflux, and although I’m sad he has to suffer from it at all, at least we’re managing it. And he’s gaining weight well – he was up to 10 lb 4.5 oz on Thursday, which means he’s put on 2 lb in as many weeks! He’s almost growing out of some of his 0-3 sleepsuits now too – his feet are right in the bottom, especially when he’s got a big cloth nappy on at night. Speaking of cloth nappies Gabe still hasn’t worn a disposable since he was three days old and he’s now too big for some of the newborn nappies so he’s graduated to the birth to potty ones and so both he and Toby are wearing the same nappies and I’m having to wash them nearly every day – time for some nappy shopping I think!

Bottle feeding Gabe has helped us get into a routine of feeds roughly every three hours through the day with naps in between (in theory). I’m trying my best to get Gabe to nap in his crib at home but a lot of the time I just end up putting him in our Lillebaby carrier which seems to have magical properties that send him straight to sleep. I actually think I could get him to nap in his crib more if I could spend ten or fifteen minutes settling him but I can’t leave Toby roaming the house for that long on his own so if Gabe doesn’t fall asleep within five minutes then into the carrier he goes! He’s sleeping very well at night though which is brilliant. We’ve now got our bedtime routine pretty much down and both boys are usually in bed asleep by 7:30 pm. Gabe will then generally sleep until somewhere between midnight and 3 am. His wake ups have been getting a bit earlier lately but I can sometimes put him off for another hour with a dummy and a rub on the back – that’s when having the co-sleeper crib really comes into its own. I’m usually up with him for an hour – he tends to drink his milk with a break in the middle for a burp and a nappy change. I had a few nights a week or so ago when I was up with him for two hours but thankfully we seem to back to an hour again now. After that he then sleeps until about 6 am and I’m not sure whether he might sleep a bit longer but Barry has to get up for work then and I think that maybe disturbs him. Whilst Gabe is sharing a room with us (and he will be for a while yet because we don’t really have any other options) there’s not a lot we can do about it anyway.

We starting to get a lot more smiles now which is so lovely. He doesn’t smile that often but when he does treat you to one it lights up his whole face. I still can’t tell if he’s got dimples like Toby though! He’s very alert now and always looking around to see what’s going on. He’s also a lot happier just to sit in his bouncy chair for a while which makes a world of difference to me – I can usually manage to eat my breakfast without a baby strapped to my front at least!

I’m trying not to wish away these newborn days but I can’t help but look forward to the next few months as Gabe continues to develop and starts to interact a bit more. I’m hoping that as that happens Toby might start to find him a bit more interesting too and they can amuse each other rather than constantly demanding my attention (although I am well aware that that is going to carry on for years yet!)

So, at two months old Gabe is well and truly a part of the family now. I’m proud of myself that I’m coping with two kids and despite some tough days we are all getting along just fine!