Two Month Update

So the second month proved to be a big one for little miss Audrey.  She is finally starting to come into her own a little bit and this baby mama is FINALLY beginning to figure out this parenting thing!  We have developed our little routines and life is almost back to normal . . . well, a new "normal" at least :)  In addition to growing like a weed (she's up to 12 lbs now!), she's become way more alert, which means way more playful!  I just love it so much!  She coo's and smiles and "talks" back to me during playtime.  It couldn't be any cuter!  She's also beginning to develop a daily routine of eat, play, sleep (repeat, repeat, repeat!).  She's sleeping a little better through the day.  Cat naps are fewer and intentional morning and afternoon nap times are being developed.  The only way she'll sleep for longer periods of time is if she's swaddled and serenaded by some type of white noise or soft music.  Night time sleeping is getting better as well.  I've been reading about the benefits of practicing nightly bed time routines, so we've been working on that this week.  Around 7:30pm we go upstairs and take a bath, then we settle into the glider in the nursery for story time, and lastly we give her a bottle to help soothe her to sleep.  It's important that we keep a cool, calm environment during this routine, so we just keep ambient lighting on during story time and then turn off all lights and turn on the white noise for feeding time.  It seems to do the trick because she goes right down in her crib with very little fussing/crying.  The process takes an average of 45 minutes from start to finish and then Chris and I have at least 1-2 hours alone before I head off to bed (lol).  We've experimented with letting her sleep through her 11pm feeding to see how long she goes, and for the most part, she'll sleep an average of 5-6 hours (waking up somewhere between 2-3am), but then it becomes difficult to put her back to sleep - solid sleep - for the remainder of the night.  I think it's still to everyone's benefit to wake her up (even ever so slightly) for her 11pm feeding so that she'll sleep a little better through the majority of the nigh time sleeping hours.  What works best for us is for me to go to bed by 10pm and sleep until she wakes up for her middle of the night feeding (usually guaranteeing at least 5 hours of sleep), while Chris take the late night shift and sleeps through the night.  I think we probably get equal amounts of sleep at this point - but it's working for us right now :)

I have 4 more weeks left at home to try and nail down these new routines - especially the bedtime routine - in hopes that she'll start sleeping "through the night" (12-5am) by the time I go back to work.  Only time will tell . . . :)

Here are Audrey's 2 month pictures: