The Foltice Family Blog: Bryan's Vacation/Paternity Leave Comes to an End

As they say, all good thing must come to an end. Bryan went back to work yesterday after 2.5 weeks of combo paternity leave / vacation. I can't express how helpful it was to have him home and sharing the duties of caring for little Dylan. I think I've said numerous times since he's been born "How do single parents do it?!"

Dylan is now 6 weeks old and getting huge! At least, we think he's huge. You may ask, "how huge is he?" Well, we don't own a scale, so we're not quite sure. His next Dr's appointment is in 2 weeks, so we'll find out his weight and length then. Here is what we do know:

He doesn't fit into most of the 0-3 month onesies that we have and is wearing some 3-6 month onesies already. Did I mention he is only 6 weeks old?
When I carry him in his car seat, I have to use both of my arms because it is so heavy.
He drinks 4 full ounces at every feeding, sometimes insisting on a 5th or 6th ounce to top it off. I think "normal" is 2-3 ounces per feeding, but he knows if we try to short-change him and will freak out.

Speaking of eating, for those of you who have had the pleasure of seeing either me or Bryan when we're starving (aka: cranky and short-tempered), Dylan has inherited this endearing character trait. When we finally get the bottle ready and put it up to his (wide open, screaming) mouth, he quite literally attacks it. Although I am not breast feeding anymore (thank goodness!), sometimes watching him voraciously suck at the bottle makes my breasts (or, as Bryan likes to call them, "the not-so-fun bags") ache in pain just from the memory of his barracuda-like nursing style.

Everyone asks us "So is he sleeping through the night?" Unfortunately, no, not yet. He is on a feeding schedule of every 3.5 hours, so we are still up twice a night to feed him. We're very hopeful that by 10 weeks he'll at least be sleeping 6 hours in a row and we'll only need to get up once a night to feed him.

Here are some recent photos: