A Baby Story (Part 3): Waylon’s First Week

As I shared yesterday, Waylon’s first week started out a little rocky. Yet it was also a week of wonderful as Austin and I spent quality time with our sweet new son.

We also had a lot of visitors who brought glad tidings and even a few great meals which helped boost morale.

So far the best kind of visitor is one who cleans your baby and lets you take a nap. This role is usually satisfied by one’s mother. Thanks mom! Here’s a snapshot of baby’s first bath. He did not like it.

Lucky for us, bath time makes the little guy very sleepy, starting a nightly tradition of bath time with Daddy. Even though Waylon screams for most of the cleaning part (no one likes their balls scrubbed out in the cool night air), he loves being naked under the towel afterwards and always looks especially cute after he’s all clean.

Besides towel time, Baby W also enjoys staring up at the bookshelf from the dry sink, taking walks around the city in his moby wrap, and (of course) cuddling.

When he’s not awake (or eating!), he sleeps peacefully in his bed or on one of us. He prefers the latter.

One of the many things I did not expect to do was to sleep our son on his stomach. Well aware of the “back to sleep” campaign, both Austin and I were prepared to put Waylon on his back every night. What we discovered, however, is that he sleeps much better on his belly. The first few nights we tried it, I was a wreck. Already irrationally paranoid about baby snatchers, I was up every half hour checking his breathing and making sure he was still safe and sound. Luckily this anxiety has mostly disappeared. I’m too tired to worry!

Our first week home ended with a 4th of July picnic at my parent’s house with all my cousins. Baby Baer was eagerly passed around and I tried to relax as much as possible as my body is still very much on the mend.

Here is a picture of all of us. As the oldest of 17 cousins, I’m so proud of who these “kids” are growing up to be!

Grammy Baker was also there (as she was the host) and stole lots of backyard kisses.

She also helped me pose my poor helpless baby in a variety of places as he was officially a week old. Baby Daddy did not approve. He calls it Anne Geddes child abuse.

As we head into Week 2, our little Waylon is already changing so much. He’s growing every day and I can’t help but wish he would stay small forever. At this point he is still eating every two hours, day and night, spending the rest of his time digesting it in order to expel it back out with vengeance.

I just love this little guy.