Life with a Newborn

Today Elijah turned 3 weeks and 1 day old.  I have one word to describe those 3 weeks: easy!  Elijah is the easiest baby.  Being a new Mom is the opposite of what everyone told me.  He sleeps so much that I have plenty of time to spend to myself.  As long as I time it right (i.e. right after he's eaten) I can still go out to dinner, go grocery shopping, do whatever I did before he was born.  He eats pretty regularly, around 2 1/2 to 3 hours between feedings during the day, but he'll go up to 4 hours during the night.  At night he eats and then goes right back to sleep.  I haven't been any more tired in the last few weeks than I was during the pregnancy.  Breastfeeding has been really easy too.  I actually think that formula feeding would be harder- I don't even have to leave my bed at night to feed him.  And I can't imagine how much money we would be spending on formula.  Elijah doesn't even poop very much- every other day he saves it all up and poops 3 or 4 times within 5 minutes.  He very rarely full on cries.  Most of the time it's just a little fussing and 9 times out of 10 it's because he needs his diaper changed.  The other 1 time it's because he's hungry.  Once I take care of that, he stops fussing immediately.  This baby is so easy!  My only complaint is that he isn't able to breastfeed without a nipple shield.  It's annoying that I always have to have one with me to feed him, but it's really a minor inconvenience in the grand scheme of things.  He is staying awake for longer periods every day and I just love to see his eyes wide open.  Sometimes he stares at me so intently it looks like he is memorizing my face.  I think he is the most beautiful baby.  My favorite thing is to watch Daniel interact with him.  He is such a natural- he knows exactly what to say and do even though Elijah is still in that kind of boring stage where he doesn't smile or coo or anything.  Daniel is back at work almost full time- he's working 30 hours a week now- so I'm really on my own most of the day.  Feeding Elijah takes up the majority of my day, but in between feedings I have plenty of time to clean the house, go grocery shopping, or meet Daniel for lunch.  I really appreciate having this time to focus on being a mom.  Any time I feel even a little bit stressed, I remind myself that right now my most important job- my only job- is to take care of him.  And everything else comes second.  It will be a lot harder when I have to go back to work, but knowing that we are sending him to a fantastic day care makes me feel better.  In the next week we are going to start introducing bottles.  I have been pumping pretty much since my milk came in, so I have a ton of milk in the freezer.  It will be nice to start using it up.  I'm hoping Daniel can take some of the nighttime feedings so I can sleep a little longer, but I don't know if I can go more than 4 hours without emptying my milk.