6 Weeks Old

Little Joe is 6 weeks old today and has been doing very well so far. His original due date was last week and he weighed in at an even 7½ pounds - right about where he would have been had he been born on time. For all the worry about having a premature baby, the fact that our biggest concern 6 weeks later is the reflux he seems to get in the evenings is a wonderful thing for Rachael and I.

In the last few days Joe has become a lot more responsive to Rachael and I, including looking at us when we talk and what I think was a smile last night when I was holding him. Small things, but considering that up to this point he's been mostly sleeping or crying it's great to see some personality come out a bit.

Now that he's up to a normal delivery weight the pediatrician has told us that we can work some flexibility into our feeding schedule. We're trying to figure out how we might be able to get him to sleep longer overnight and we've had a few nights where we could get him to 4 hours. I'm still sleeping on the couch at night so that I can sleep for work and we're hoping that in the next week or so we can work things out so that he's only getting up once a night and I can move back into the bedroom to help out.

The next few weeks look to be quite busy for us - we have family coming to visit and see the baby 3 of the next 7 weekends. My mother and grandmother come down the weekend of the 22nd, Rachael's sister Holly comes the first week of May and Rachaels father is planning to come for Memorial Day. We're excited to let everyone spend some time with our new family member and now that he's starting to react to his environment we're looking forward to see how that will go.