2 Months have gone by! Wowzer
Sleep
Sleep has improved dramatically from 1 month, but it is still far from predictable. Most nights she is going from 10 pm until 3:30 am and then up for good at 7 am. Some nights she doesn't get to sleep until 11 pm and may sleep until 4 or even 5 am, then go back to sleep until maybe 7:30/8 am. A couple of times she has slept until 6 am - I think maybe twice.
Feeding
Breastfeeding has been going well. I am trying different things to stretch out her feedings a bit since during the day she might want to eat every 1/1.5 hours at some points, which seems really frequent for 2 months. I think part of it might be that she isn't always hungry, rather she might be tired, etc and I am misinterpreting her signals. I am trying different things (see book review below).
She nurses fine during the day, but at around 5 pm she starts getting really fussy and it gets very hard to breastfeed her. She eats for a minute then pops off my breast crying. She does this over and over again. What we have been doing is bottle feeding her breast milk at night and this seems to be helping. I will give her a 2/2.5 oz bottle at 6ish then Brian will give her a bottle around 8:30ish and this also helps to get more milk into her to help her sleep longer (I think).
Body
I have been feeling pretty good lately now that I am usually only getting up once per night, which is a very manageable schedule for me (we shall see how this feels when I start back with work). I am down about 10lbs below my pre-pregnancy weight and I am actually fitting into clothes that didn't fit me before I got pregnant - who would have thunk it? My body has changed a bit though, my stomach is smaller than before, but is looser - the skin doesn't really sag in my mid section, but definitely feels looser and Brian said the same thing. I think that with some exercise I will be able to tone it up a bit, at least I hope so.
I have not really done much exercise since I have been cleared to do so at 6 weeks because I seem to be loosing weight without it and I don't want to exhaust my body too much at this point. I am looking forward to taking a lot of walks with Ellie and Winnie once the weather gets nicer (although it is currently like 10 degrees here now, so the nice weather seems very far away!).
Brian and I gave the "bed dance" another go around, but unfortunately I had to stop because it hurt too much. I am still feeling a lot of pinching down there when we do it and I am not sure if this is something we need to work out together or will be resolved with more time and healing. I also spotted a bit again this time. It is a bit frustrating not to be back to normal yet and to have to restrict things, hopefully it will resolve soon.
Developments
I was getting nervous because in all of the baby books I was reading they would say that the baby would start to "socially smile" around 6 weeks, but I hadn't seen a "real smile" from Ellie at this point. We had only seen gas smiles or poop smiles at this point. Around 7 weeks I am happy to report that she found her smile and it is the best thing! Now we can smile at her and most of the time (if she is in a good mood) she smiles back.
Her neck is also getting much stronger - she can't fully support it yet, but she can pick it up higher and for longer periods of time when she does tummy time. Her vision has also changed a lot too - she used to just stare out into the distance and look a bit cross eyed, but now she can focus on things and is beginning to follow items with her eyes.
Field Trip
I am still on maternity leave until February 17th, but I took Ellie in to work so everyone could see her. I work in the finance department at work and every month we have "cake day" to celebrate the birthdays of the month. I figured this would be a nice opportunity to stop by and get to see everyone at once. One of the women I manage had a baby the week before I did so I coordinated with her so that she would also bring her baby to work that day.
It felt a little odd to be driving to work and even more odd doing it with a baby. It felt good to see my coworkers and I am glad they got to meet Ellie and I got the chance to meet my coworkers baby.
Book review
My cousin lent me the book "The 90 Minute Baby Sleep Program" and I am trying it out this week. It talks about how babies (and adults) have 90 minute sleep rhythms and that babies will have 90 minutes of awake time then will probably need a nap. I will report back on how it works out!
Feelings/Thoughts
Sometimes people ask me if anything has surprised me about being a mother. One of the biggest things is a feeling of not being complete when I am out without Ellie. I think it is because since she was born I haven't spent more than 3 hours away from her and when I am out without her I am constantly looking around for her! It is like I go from wanting some time to myself, but then when I get it I immediately want to go and pick her up again!
Also I had no real idea of how hard it would be to get things done with a baby. My cousin had told me that things take so much longer, but until living it I didn't really understand why. It is like a constant carousel of feeding, changing, rocking, etc that seems to make the day get away from me! I try to say to myself things like "wow you did 2 loads of laundry today" to make myself feel better ;)
Brian and I were commenting the other day how we probably end up kissing Ellie on her head about 100 times a day (each) she is just so snuggleable right now that is hard not to.
By some miracle on Sunday night Ellie slept from 10:15pm until 6:15 am. That is right folks - she slept 8 hour straight! I could not believe it. I of course did not sleep 8 hours straight because I was staring at the monitor waiting for her to wake up! The following night she slept 10:15-5am. Not too shabby! Only problem was that at 5 am she was bright eyed and would not go back to sleep, but hey I can't blame her after sleeping for 7 hours. Sadly last night she woke up at about 2:45 am then again at 7 am so we did a bit of regression.
The good thing is that I know she has it in her to sleep a full night, so when she decides to do it for a night it will be a blessing/treat for mom and dad.
I was debating whether or not to write this here, but I decided to go ahead since I am using this blog for documenting the journey purposes! After my 6 week OB appointment, DH and I had sex for the first time since Ellie was born! We had been doing the bed dance up until I was induced, not as frequently as before I was pregnant, but I was proud of us for still "getting jiggy with it" at 9 months pregnant!
I was a bit nervous about getting back at it since I tore a little when Ellie was born and had a few stitches and I spotted a bit after my 6 week post partum visit. Overall it was a bit uncomfortable, but still enjoyable! I felt a bit of pinching during it, which I hope will go away with repeated use!
Ok that is all you are getting out of me!
I wanted to put this down in writing. Last night Ellie slept from 10 pm until 3:30 am! It isn't sleeping through the night, but it was 5.5 hours! Then I got her back to sleep at 4:30 am and she slept until 8:20 am. Wow that was some great sleeping - she just turned 6 weeks old.
The only problem with the long stretches is that my boobs start to leak like crazy after about 4 hours. The doctor said that will eventually go away as my breasts won't hold all the milk, rather they will make milk on demand instead.
Also I am becoming more comfortable taking her out on errands with me. I went grocery shopping with her in the bjorn carrier and it worked out really well.
I think from here on out I will probably do a monthly Ellie update and if I have anything else to note in between that I want to remember later then I will do a separate post.
So here goes:
Sleep
We had the best night's sleep so far last night - woohoo! I went to bed at 9:30 pm and Brian fed Ellie and got her asleep in her rock n play about 10:15 pm. This is one of his early nights since he has to get up at 5:30 am he only does 1 feeding. So Ellie slept from 10:15 to 2:43 am that is a 4.5 hour stretch folks - longest yet! She probably starting stirring around 2:20, but she didn't get to "get up now and feed me mom" status until 2:43 so that is how I will count it.
I fed her then and put her back to sleep (this process took close to an hour because I had to change her diaper 3 or 4 times (it got fuzzy) because I changed it right when I got her up, then while I was feeding her I could tell she pooped. Then right after I got her all changed and clothed she 1) spit up all over herself so I needed to change her clothes and 2) pooped again! By this point she was pretty would up so I fed her a bit and rocked her. She wasn't asleep at this point, but she was quiet so I was able to put her down and she fell asleep with minimal "squawking."
Then she slept until 7 am! So yes, that was a 4.5 hour stretch followed by a 3 hour stretch (counting from beginning of feeding to the next beginning of feeding - not actual sleep time). But I will take it! She has been doing better at night since she hit 5 weeks - she usually gives us at least one 3.5 hour stretch a night. So this meant that Brian got to sleep from 10:30 pm to 5:30 am and I only had to get up once during the night!
6 Week Postpartum OB Visit
Had my OB appointment today with my normal OB doctor (although she didn't end up delivering Ellie) she covered:
Birth control: Ha, yup don't think I will need that, but you never know! Since I am breastfeeding and have PCOS and don't get my period or ovulate on my own I doubt I will resume my cycle anytime soon. So she told us to use condoms but I think our birth control method will be infertility! and if we are blessed with another child by some weird cosmic shift, then we will be very excited/grateful. I asked her when it would be safe for us to "try" for another and she said that in most cases she tells people not to have the kids closer than 1 year in age (no Irish twins allowed) but in our case of Ellie being so small she said having babies spaced 18 months out would be better (so my body has time to fully heal and better nourish another baby). So all in all we won't be "trying" for another yet, but we won't necessarily be "not trying" either.
Down there check:She checked me out down south and said we could resume sex and I could do whatever exercise I want. I noticed I had some spotting on my underwear when I got home from her checking me so I will tell the hubby to "go slow" the first time back at it. I am excited to start working out again. We got a treadmill for the house and Brian has been using it and puts Ellie next to him while he runs - and the vibrations and noise put her right to sleep!
Placenta Pathology: After I delivered Ellie they sent my placenta to pathology to see if they could figure out any reason for her being so small. For better or for worse there was nothing of note in the pathology report. No calcification of the placenta or anything funky. They noted it was smaller than average, but so was Ellie so that is not unexpected. I am going to assume since Ellie was healthy and the placenta was normal that I just have small babies!
While I was at the OB Ellie hung out with her Aunt Becca! This was the first time I left her with someone other than my mom and the first time she had to be fed by someone other than Brian. Things seemed to go well so maybe Brian and I will go on a date night or something soon! It felt like a little "me date" going to the OB because I played the radio really loudly in the car and I got a milk shake on the way home - woohoo! I am a cheap date I guess!
Ellie had her 1 month appointment this week (a little late due to the snow storm cancelling her original appointment). Everything looked good and she is up to 8 lbs 9.5 oz! May not seem like a lot, but she is up over 3 lbs from her birth weight and went from the 3rd percentile in weight to the 15th (at least I think that is what the doctor said. She also went from 18" to 20".
We got Ellie's newborn photo shoot pictures back and I love them! We hired a friend to take them and I showed her my pinterest page of newborn photos so she would get an idea of what types of photos we like. I was going more for the natural baby/family poses rather than oddly posed ones. We used the photos to make a birth announcement. Here are some of my favorites:
