Recap: Months 5 & 6

These last few months have literally flown by.  I've had so many distractions come up that it's been difficult to find the time or energy to update Audrey's stats.  But alas, the time has come.  As I settle into my comfy couch, peppermint tea in hand, I am finally ready ... let's begin ...

Month 5:
Audrey really started rolling around a lot!  First it started out as a simple flip from one side to the other, then came the double roll, then the triple, and before I knew it, she was rolling all over the floor!  She also began eating a lot more baby food.  I absolutely love making her food!  We started with organic whole grain rice cereal at first, but it wasn't long before we moved into more flavorful foods like bananas, sweet potatoes and green beans (in addition to her 5 oz bottle of milk as well).  We spaced her feedings out to every 3-3.5 hours now too.  She's really progressed with her hand/eye coordination and loves playing with her toys.  Her favorite toys right now are the excersaucer, "Jenny" the giraffe teether, and a ball.  She's sleeping very well ... two 2-hour naps a day and a short evening nap (about 45 minutes).  She's made it abundantly clear that she is ready for bed by 8pm, so we've moved bedtime back up :)  But she's goes right to sleep as soon as we lay her in her crib, so she's adapting very well.  She used to respond best to her swing, but I've been very intentional about all rest times being in her crib so that she would begin to learn and understand that it is the primary location for sleeping.  We had a few rough naptimes where I had to let her cry in her crib instead of move her to her swing, but she eventually got used to it and now we're good to go!  Sometimes I just look at her and it feels like she is growing up so fast!  I'm so fortunate to be staying at home with her during this time because she changes so much from day to day and I would be devastated of I missed even one second of it. Here are some pics of our baby girl at 5 months old:

Month 6:

Everything seems to be happening quickly now that she's hit the 6 month mark.  If you're not careful, you'll miss something!  Audrey is definitely sitting up very well on her own now.  At 5 months, she could sit up on her own but was still wobbly so I never really left her alone for fear that she would fall over and hurt herself.  But now she's much stronger and sits up so nice and tall!  She's eating like a champ too!  Her daily menu consists of any of the following foods: bananas, pears, apples, blueberries, pineapple, mangoes, sweet potatoes, carrots, butternut squash, green beans, broccoli, and avocado.  She's also moved up to 6 oz bottles and meal times every 4 hours.  We introduced her to "puffs" as well ... teaching her how to use her tongue and jaw to eat and she also drinks juice from a sippy cup too!  I make her juice just like I make all her food.  We have a great juicer so I've started out with fresh apple juice and will soon be adding carrot juice into the mix as well.  She is weighing in at 18 lbs and has grown to 28.5 inches.  She is perfectly proportioned in the healthy weight range and is still showing to be >97% in height.  As a result, even though she is only 6 months old, she is wearing 9 month clothing because she is so long.  We completely skipped all 3-6 month clothes altogether - ha ha!  Her doctor says that her coordination and protective skills are advanced for her age and she is very socially aware.  She follows very well with her eyes and shows great signs of understanding when she is spoken to.  We have recently entered into the phase where she needs mommy in her presence all the time.  She fusses and cries if I ever leave the room.  Sometimes I find it to be a little exhausting, but most of the time I cherish this phase because I know she won't always need me like this.  I never mind holding this sweet girl in my arms ... ever ... I was born for this!  She is definitely teething so ev-er-y-thing goes straight to her mouth :)  She really enjoys her teething toys and tag blankets especially ... the toys feel good on her gums and she finds the tags to be fascinating.  Her sleeping patterns are changing too.  Her morning nap has condensed to an hour but both her afternoon and early evening naps are around 2 hours.  The best part is that she sleeps a solid 12 hours a night now!  How wonderful!  She plays pretty hard throughout the day.  She has several interactive toys (with lights, sounds, and music) that really entertain her but her favorite thing is watching "The Cat in the Hat Knows a lot About That" on PBS Kids every morning and evening ... she is absolutely mesmerized by that cartoon!  I'm looking forward to reading more with her.  Right now she likes to look at the pictures in the books but would rather be eating them instead :)  She is growing up too quickly and I can hardly stand it but I'm pleased with how well she is doing it and can't help but feel a little proud of the smart little thing she has become :)

4 month update

well our little ladybug is growing like a weed!  She had hr 4-mo doctor's visit today where she got another round of shots :(  The blood curdling scream/cry that immediately follows is absolutely heartbreaking!  Fortunately it only last for about a minute - she's such a trooper!  She doesn't seem to be having any trouble with her growth and development.  Dr. Mock says she's very aware and socially interactive and those are very positive things!  She's also very strong!  She now weighs almost 16lbs (15.15 to be exact) and is 26.5" long - that puts her in the >97th percentile!  she's grown 5 1/2" in 4 months!  She has really found her voice and loves to "sing" to her mommy and daddy - it's a fabulous form of entertainment for us!  Chris named that alter-ago "Terry the Pterodactyl" bc that's what she sounds like!  He'll often ask her "has Terry come out to play???"  - so funny!  She loves her feet and has definitely begun rolling around in her crib and on the floor.  Such a cutie!

3 month update

there's a lot of change that happens around the 3 month mark - a lot of which we weren't quite prepared  for yet :)  Sometimes we're in denial about how quickly she's growing up!  Here's what's been going on with our baby girl over the last month:

She went through her first major growth spurt!  She gained a pound and grew 1.5"!  wow!  she'll definitely take after her mama when it comes to her height :)

She started rolling over!  She did this several times for several days but then kind of decided she didn't want to anymore - ha ha!  But I still try and work with her on it as much as I can :)

She's now eating five 5-6oz bottles a day ... so far so good :)  I think it's really helped with sleeping through the night as well

not only does she swipe at her hanging toys, but she grabs onto all her toys as well!  This is a little advanced so I'm super proud of her!  He favorite toys are her rattle, activity mat, crib mobile, excersaucer, and squishy books (about colors, animals, etc).

she's now considered to be an "assisted-sitter" - she loves to sit up and look at the things around her from a new perspective.  She does quite well when propped up by her boppy or sitting in her bumbo seat (side note - I'm aware of the voluntary recall and have ordered a restraint strap for her bumbo.  But I also don't put her on a raised surface either!).

She loves to watch TV!  Curious George is probably her favorite TV program right now and mine too seeing as it comes on PBS during the times that I'm typically fixing breakfast and dinner :)  whoohoo!  Chris is afraid that she's already watching too much TV (lol) but I've assured him that she just enjoys all the colors, sounds, and movements and it's good for her development at this stage.  Obviously we will set TV parameters when the time is right!

She also loves music (go figure)!  We play her lullaby CD at every rest period and it really helps her to fall right to sleep, and we also play her Praise Baby CD during our playtimes together.  I've been working with her on clapping to the beat of the music ... oh, and we love to dance too!

By far her favorite part of every day is bath time!  Oh how this girl LOOOOVES to play in the bath!  She is a fierce kicker and splasher already - mommy usually walks away with a wet shirt!  But she is certainly the happiest in the water and she smiles the whole time she's playing.  It's the most precious thing we've ever seen!

She also wakes up from every rest period with a huge smile on her face!  This is mommy's favorite thing about our days together!  I love having such a joyful baby - it sure beats the alternative!  Sometimes she's a little too joyful at say, oh, 3am!  But it really just melts my heart more than anything else, despite desperately wishing we were both soundly sleeping in our beds instead :)

She enjoys being outside as much as possible and we've just started going on afternoon walks together.  I'm hoping that we can transfer that into after-dinner walks soon so daddy can join us (as he so badly wishes he could do).

We've recently changed her nightime schedule a bit in an effort to get her to sleep through the night sooner rather than later.  All of our other friends with babies around Audrey's age have been sleeping through the night for weeks (some even months!) but we have yet to experience that!  So now, instead of starting her bedtime routine at 6:30pm and putting her down at 7pm, we pushed that out to 9:30pm bath time and 10pm bottle/bed time.  We've dropped all middle of the night feedings at this point and she seems to be fine with that.  She usually wakes up at least once but will go right back to sleep.  Now, when Chris gets home, instead of immediately putting her to bed, he gets way more time with her every day.  A much-needed fix!

One thing we've noticed through all of this sleep training we've been doing is that Audrey definitely sleeps her best when she's in her swing.  This can be good or bad.  She always starts each rest period in her crib, but if I know she hasn't completely finished out her nap, or if we want her to sleep several more hours at one time in the middle of the night, we transfer her over to her swing to help out.  I hope this habit can be easily broken as she gets older and starts to enjoy sleep more.  I guess we'll see.  I keep telling myself that she just needs to get used to these new sleep routines first and then this shouldn't be a problem for us anymore.  I hope I'm right :)

And last but certainly not least, she has started the teething process!  Chris says he can see a little tooth budding on her bottom gumline, but I can't quite see that for myself.  I do, however, feel the ridges on her gums, so perhaps that's something noteworthy.  But over the last week she went through all (and I mean all) of the teething symptoms!  It is still a little early for this process to begin, but totally possible to start as young as 3 months.  So I'm thinking it was just the beginning of what's still yet to come ... but a little practice can help us feel more prepared for when the time finally gets here!

So as you can see, there's been a lot of growing in our baby girl over the last several weeks!  Sometimes I just look at her and wonder where my tiny little newborn went?  The time has just gone by so very fast!  But there are some things I appreciate about her getting older, so I guess it's just a trade off :)

Here are some pics from her 3-month photo shoot with mommy!

oh how I love to laugh and play with mommy!

rise & shine little bunny!

pouty lip

my little doll baby!

Audrey's First Round of Immunizations

Today Audrey had her 2 month well check-up.  Thank goodness she has such a wonderful doctor because on today's agenda were 8 immunizations (3 shots and 1 oral).  He started with the routine check up stuff.  Our little ladybug is now 23.5 inches long and weighs 12.2 pounds.  She is in the 75th percentile for height and weight and 10th percentile in head circumference.  Poor girl, she's got mama's big feet and daddy's small head :)  Everything else about her looked perfect ... good eyes, ears, heart, lungs, etc.  Praise the Lord for a healthy and growing baby girl!

But then the nurse came in with a tray of needles and my heart just sank :(  I laid her down on the table and she very quickly administered all three shots (in both legs).  At first there was a moment of silence and then came the wailing.  I was being introduced to her "hurt" cry - one that I had never heard before and one that will certainly never forget.  Needless to say, it made ME cry!  Well, I teared up at least :)  I was able to calm her down in about 3 minutes and she fell right to sleep (thanks goodness!).  We stopped by the pharmacy on the way home to pick up some childrens tylenol just in case she had a reaction to the shots.  Then we ate lunch and she went down for a 3 hour nap!  I would much rather her sleep this day away then cry and be fussy all day because she wasn't feeling well from the small amount of virus that was injected in her today.

first boo boo's

I was a big girl for you today, mommy!

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:

One Month Update

It's hard to believe that our bay girl is 1 month old already!  Seriously, where did the time go?!  On the one hand, it feels like only yesterday when we bundled her up in her car seat for the first time and brought her home from the hospital, but on the other hand, these last 4 weeks have been such a transition for us that it feels like we've had her forever.  I'll be honest, this has been the hardest month of my life!  I could never have predicted how much hard work bringing home a newborn would be.  I realize that every baby is different, I just expected that mine would be perfect from the very start (lol).  In addition to sleepless nights, schedule changes, and getting used to not showering at the beginning of the day (lol), we have battled cluster feeding, chronic gas (in Audrey of course), trouble with breastfeeding, and fighting sleep.  This little girl came out kicking and screaming and hasn't stopped since - lol!  But there are also plenty of moments when she is just a perfect little angel, so happy and content - mostly in mommy or daddy's arms :)  I tend to hold her all the time which I realize is only going to make things more difficult for me in the long run.  But for now, she'll only be 1 month old one time in her life, and if she wants to be held and soothed by her mommy, then by golly I'm gonna do it!  One of my favorite things to do is rock her in the glider and sing to her.  I made a CD when I was pregnant with her of all my favorite lullabies that I wanted her to grow up listening to.  These aren't traditional lullabies, they're songs from my favorite Broadway musicals or old jazz standards inspired by my mom and dad that I wanted to pass down to her.  So we rock together and I sing her songs that are close to my heart - such a sweet time for us both :)  I have even come to enjoy those middle of the night feedings because the quiet time alone is priceless to me and I know it won't last forever.  Even on the nights when she sleeps 4+ hours in her nursery, I'm up checking on her every hour b/c I find myself missing her and wanting to be near her.  She is just precious and I couldn't love her more!

Now down to the nitty gritty.  I'm not gonna paint a happy picture of the last 4 weeks because it's been extremely challenging.  The first week was great.  Audrey was perfect in the hospital and the days following her arrival home.  She fed well, latched on instantly, seemed to eat until she was full, and slept a lot and often.  However, week 2 was an entirely different story.  She cluster fed for 5+ hours every evening and I was thoroughly exhausted.  There was one night when I only slept for an hour and a half!  Thoroughly. Exhausted.  Despite that, however, her 2-wk doctor's appointment reflected that she hadn't gained any weight since she left the hospital.  I cannot even begin to tell you how disappointed I was with this news.  I cried.  Many times.  For many days.  After a visit with the lactation consultant, I quickly learned that even though Audrey was feeding at least 20 minutes on each side and unlatched herself when she was seemingly full, she was only digesting about an ounce and a half of milk.  She should have been consuming between 2.5-3 ounces instead.  Now it all makes sense!  We had a cranky, fussy, non-stop eating machine baby because she was not getting enough milk!  The truth of the matter is that she just became a lazy eater and would fall asleep on each side.  No matter what I did to wake her up, it never really did the trick.  So she'd stop herself short every time.  To remedy this, we chose to pump for each feeding for a while so we could see how much I was producing and how much Audrey was taking in, and anything shy of 3 ounces we supplemented with formula recommended by the lactation consultant (Gerber Good Start Gentle).  This was certainly less than ideal, and even today, 2 weeks later, I am terribly ashamed and feel extremely guilty for introducing formula into her tiny little body at all.  I remind myself constantly that it's just what we have to do to make sure she is growing and healthy, but that rationalization seems to offer no comfort whatsoever.  To date, I have days that are great and I can produce enough milk on my own that we don't have to supplement at all, and I still have days when I'm not producing enough.  I'm even taking 16 pills of Fenugreek every day to help boost my supply, but sadly it's not working as I had hoped.  It's a very real possibility that Audrey may not be able to breastfeed as I had so badly hoped, but all I can do is what's best for her, and what's best for her is making sure she is eating well and gaining weight appropriately.  Still, my heart sinks every time I admit that truth.

She has a hard time sleeping as well.  There have been a few days when she seems to nap all day long.  She's even slept through the night twice!  But most days she cat naps and fights sleep like no ones business and it is exhausting.  I've gotten into a terrible habit of coddling her and holding her FAR too much thus resulting in a baby that will only sleep well if she's being held and cries when she is not.  I have a hard time listening to her cry and even though I run through this list in my head before coming to her aid (is she fed? is she changed? is she hot/cold? does she have gas? etc ...), I still can't seem to let her "cry it out".  Whether she's in the crib, vibrating bassinet, swing, boppy, etc. I still want to pick her up every time she cries - mostly because I know it will be the end of her crying!  However, once again, I fear this is probably the wrong approach and I am constantly paying for it!

I often feel like I'm making all the wrong decisions.  It's very disheartening when the important things, like nursing, aren't going as you had hoped.  I used to think I knew how to handle a baby . . . these days I'm constantly doubting myself.  So I read a lot and recruit the advice of my mommy friends as much as possible.  But at the same time, I know that if I can just give her my undivided attention and unconditional love, I know that I'm doing something right.  Naturally my maternal instincts will kick in and I'll choose to do what I think is best for my baby.  It might not be the conventional way of doing things, who knows . . . but if my little girl is happy and healthy, to me, that's all that matters.

She is still our little bundle of joy and although our first month together has been rocky at best, it's still been the most rewarding and satisfying adventure of my life!  This little girl is so precious.  I often find myself just wanting to watch her sleep (instead of sleeping myself) because she's so beautiful and so peaceful and that fills my heart with the utmost joy.  Despite it all, I love being a mom more than anything in the world.  Experiencing this kind of love and satisfaction is incomparable to anything else and I'm so happy to finally be at this place in my life.

Here are some pictures of our sweet little girl on her 1-month birthday: