We kicked off the beginning of month #3 with our first tear free bath which was a momentous occasion. Baths had been a drudgery of our every 2-3 day routine and so once this hurdle was jumped it's been joyous ever since! If anything we have fun now with her splashing around. Can't wait to use our Bloomin Bath we got once she's sitting up a little better.Right now we still tag team on bath time. I'm too nervous to do it by myself. John has mastered it several times by himself and I'm ok with that. Not intimidated in the least.
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| Their favorite daddy and daughter time. |
Bryn did us all a favor by having her first full night uninterrupted sleep the last night that GG was here. GG left on the 28th and we've missed her company dearly. I am so thankful she came and gave me the help that I needed to get back onto my feet.
Totally invaluable.
So back to sleeping!
Our little bug finally slept through the night on the 28th and has been a sleeping queen since. We've had one or two early morning wake ups that were really random, but she's put herself back to sleep without much if any intervention.
She's starting to move around in her bed so we had to eliminate our little "tie down that baby!" contraption and let her have free range of her bed to scoot where she pleases.
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| Sick baby snuggles. :( |
She had a cold and was pretty congested and coughing, so we laid low for the most part. John did bring us girls flowers though, so that was special. :)
With Bryn being sick we all learned a lot together.
First off, she's a happy sicky--at least with this kind of sick.
Not sure where she got that from, to be honest. John and I are total babies when we are sick.
She would smile and coo away as we were sucking snot out of her nose. If anything I think she liked it.
Thanks so much to all of you with all your congestion remedy suggestions! We bought the humidifier that worked wonders and we just now stopped using it even though she's been well for a while.
We lowered her bed back down from an angle to help her breath/sleep easier while being congested.
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| Boomer Sooner?? |
Not thumb sucking--finger sucking...
"Hook 'em horn" finger sucking to be exact.
I was worried about her being disowned from my family when we first discovered this new habit, but considering it's not a pacifier and she uses it as a sleeping soother, we're going to forgive her a pass on this one!
We've tried to let her sleep the night with the arm out, in case she needs it, but she went back to her usual hitting herself awake, so we've continued using the swaddle sack at night time and she's been a sleeping/napping dream.
The positive side of the finger sucking vs. pacifier thing is at least she'll never lose it, she can use them by herself, AND they "fall out" when she doesn't want it anymore.
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| Our current sleeping arrangement. |
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| Asleep at the docs office. |
She even fell asleep among the check ups, shots, etc.
Another way she's not my daughter was when it came to her shots.
She scrunched up her face like she was going to cry, but by the time a cry could have come out it was done and she was fine. I was so proud (this is coming from a mom who passed out getting her nose pierced, so yeah, this is a proud moment)!!
Her two month weight was 10.12 lbs and 22 inches long.
I thought she was way more than that, but at least she's gaining appropriate weight, so oh well what I think!
I talked to the doc about her spitting up issues at this appointment and they prescribed her Zantac in liquid form. I hate giving her medicine of any type, but I conceded on this one cause I just wanted the spitting up to stop.
Here at the end of her third month I can't say it's helped or hindered, so I'm exploring other avenues to this issue and see what we can do.
Thankfully when she spits up she's never upset or cries, BUT it's after almost every feeding so it's something that I'm in contact with the lactation consultant about instead of the ped. Fingers crossed we find a remedy. Hopefully by the next monthly update we'll either grown out of it or have had some type of breakthrough.
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| Love Taylor's precious upset face. :) |
In closest to furthest order we have Lucas (2), Taylor (3.5 mos), Bryn (3 mos), and Logan (just shy of 2 mos).
Brynlee is still learning to be sociable. During this play date she didn't nap at all and was a crank for the rest of the day, but here at the end of the month she's much better and way more tolerable.
She and I both are still learning the concept of going out, either alone or with people, and not exhausting each other.
The simplest things are so hard now!
We're learning, and have totally had our ups and downs, but I think we're getting it here lately.
A big change for us has been me has been temporarily working part time as a contractor.
I decided to not go back to my job after Bryn was a little over 8 weeks old.
They counter offered to let me work from home and come into the office on occasion and I snatched it up big time.
This has kept me crazy busy during nap times and times when John's home to play with her leaving me some down time to work.
I have had to learn to balance home, dinner, baby, husband, along with a work load, but I honestly love it. I feel a sense of accomplishment and personal pride when I'm able to balance it and make it all work. It's time consuming and the laundry isn't always done when I want it to be, but so far it's working out really well.
While at the office I drop Bryn off at my friend Jenn's house.
She has four sweet kiddos so I knew she along with her sweet babes would be perfect for watching Bryn.
In this we also have started to have to bottle feed her more often than we had on occasion.
In the past when we've bottle fed her we haven't had a real issue, but suddenly the bottle we'd been using she started to reject so we changed game plans and found one she'd take and so far things have been really great.
It's SO AMAZING to be able to drop her off and not worry about her being kept on her schedule and not worry about her getting her feedings in on time, etc.
Although Bryn's been sleeping the night for almost a month now, I however have not.
I still get up in the night to pump just in order to stay ahead for these bottle feedings and because "the girls" get so full at a point in the night that I wake up hurting, so gotta do what I gotta do! I've built up an awesome system and a confident stash and it's left me wiggle room to even leave her home with John on occasion, extending over a feeding time, and not be rushed in whatever errand I'm out doing.
We've graduated to a three hour eat, play, sleep cycle finally which took some adjustments in the night sleeping arena. We had been using a 2.5 hour cycle for about a month and started to progressively work it up to three hours so we were finally on the "true" Babywise cycle. I'm glad the Babywise method is up to your interpretation for you and your baby, but getting to that three hour cycle was critical for me. Once we got over the 2.5-3 hour cycle hump, it's been smooth sailing since.
We celebrated our first Easter with the little bug this year and had a little photo session with her huge stuffed lamb that Nettie and Papa bought her for Easter. It was also her first Sunday at church and our first time back at church since she was born so it was extra special.
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| Sleeping at church. |
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| Easter fun with daddy. |
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| Easter dress a la Dana Atarama. :) |
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| I think lambs are going to become our Easter tradition. :) |
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| Such a good sport for pictures! |
She's also started to roll from her back to her side as opposed to her stomach to back, so I think that rolling full circle is well on it's way.
The biggest battle of this month has been the car seat.
Oh, the dreaded car seat.
It took me getting tired of being in the house all day to finally come to the consensus that I can't do this forever and that she needs to get over it! Especially with going over to Jenn's several times a week.
I think going to Jenn's is what's helped us make progress in this area.
We are still not completely out of the woods, but progress is progress!
This month we had our Centering Group reunion where all us mom's got together with the babies and got to share about our mommy hood experiences so far and also our labor stories. I thought for sure I'd won the "longest labor" category, but one female soldier beat me, she was in labor 36 hours poor gal!
I also thought I might have won the most "bizarre" experience/labor in our group with my whole crooked head stuck baby, BUT one of the ladies got the ER at Womack in time to get on a bed and was already crowning, another poor gal (ironically she was one of the first ladies who wanted no pain, all the meds they could crank her up on, and she was one of the only ones that had no medication in her labor).
Our midwife took our picture as a group with all our babies, but I haven't gotten them yet, so I'll post them when I get them. It's really neat to see things come full circle with all our babies!
The most exciting change (to me!!) has been the change of hair color on her! I had been saying for a while to people that her hair was turning lighter in the natural light, almost a hint of red, and no one could "see" it or believed me. Thanks to this pic I think I caught as close to proof as I am going to get for now..
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| I don't know how you could miss it! It might not be red, but it's definitely lighter!! |
I can't believe how much she's growing physically and developmentally.
Everyday brings some new experience and I just love it and can't wait to see what this next month brings!
Until then....
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| My little drooler. :) |
