Day 7: Eviction, spoiling, and we all made it through the first week!

We made it. It's the morning of the 8th day as I write this. My mother is arriving today, but that's another few posts

I can see why the midwives, docs, books, etc. say to stay very home bound in the first week, at least, if not more. We're just now getting stabilized a little. 

Yesterday I was reminded by skimming the Happiest Baby on the Block book, about two fascinating things we've learned about babies in the last few million years.  

1. You can't spoil a baby in the first four or so months. Toughening them up by letting them cry it out, in the first few months, is a fallacy, proven by study and data. Respond to crying. Hold them. Take them for adventures around the house and property.

2. Babies are evicted from the womb about three months early. MUCH earlier and in a way more immature state then we realize. Babies are not horses. Why is this? Some think it has to do with the large size of our brains, and it happened as our brains got bigger. Large brains have to get out before they will be too big to make it out. Even with eviction a trimester early, evolution still had to come up with a head that can compress via plates in the skull that slide to make the head smaller! And all sort of other tricks, like only making the brain smart enough to do basic stuff at birth...really basic, like breathing, pooping, eating and crying.

We broke out the mobile that is supposed to help brain development. Black and white shapes first. Then color later.

Ivy is continuing her job of sleeping all day, except to cry, poop, eat and occasionally look around like a deranged person while her limbs move around on a program she is not the master of. Then she passes out again.

It's a lot the end of many lives, except that she eating with a vengeance and progressing in the opposite direction.

 Shaw passed out again, around 5:14pm this time. We elected to let him sleep, and he did, until 5:30am. He woke a few times and we gave him a bottle of milk quickly and he was back down. He seems much better today.