Growth spurts

As I said on my Facebook page -- I feel like the 7-Eleven with a sale on the Big Gulp. All Cole wants to do for the past few days is eat. And if he's not eating he's crying because he wants to eat and if he's not crying he's sleeping or burping or getting his diaper changed while he screams bloody murder. Bloody murder mom, bloody murder! I'm not complaining, I'm just stating the facts. Such is the life of a newborn. Tomorrow Cole will be 4 weeks old. He has gotten bigger. Grandma Carolyn came over yesterday and attested to this fact.  If I haven't been able to really see it since I see him all the time, I have noticed it when I hold him and pick him up. He's gotten heavier and even a bit longer. We shall see when they weigh and measure him at his 4 week check-up on Friday. All I know is that I hope this growth spurt doesn't last much longer because feeding him every hour or hour and a half can be quite draining. It started Sunday afternoon and has been going strong ever since.

I spoke to my doula today and she stressed the importance of burping Cole. She thinks that the root of the gassy problems he has is that he is not burping after every meal. I do burp him successfully about half of the time, but give up after a few minutes when nothing comes out the other half. I also sometimes just plain forget. She said I should stay on it - even if it takes 15 minutes.  Also, I do not always burp him in the middle of the night after he's had the second breast because he falls asleep at my breast, and, maybe it's just us, but we like him to stay asleep. That means we can sleep.

Cole's new thing while breastfeeding is also worthy of a blurb in this post. He is now Mr. Squirmer and Mr. Puller. He squirms and grunts and moans and groans while nursing and then out of nowhere he'll pull of my breast, forgetting to release the suction so that I am convinced the next time he does this I will be left with an elongated nipple. Johanna, my doula, says this is a boy thing. I read online, however, that this tends to happen with the growth spurts. So maybe this too shall pass.

Keith did something with Cole the other day that he was particularly proud of - he helped Cole fart. His words exactly: "I helped Cole push out a fart." I think he did this by massaging his tummy, a technique we learned in The Baby Book. He plans on telling Cole when he is about 13, just to embarrass him, but really to show him how much he loves him. This is a picture of Cole Monday night while Keith was holding him and helping to relieve some of the gas. We call this "Buddha Cole." How cute are those little feet?