1 Month with Ellie

Wow one month gone by!  I was looking back at some photos of Ellie at her birth and I can't believe how tiny she was then!  Just a 5 lbs 5 oz nugget! I am not sure how much she weighs now since we don't have our 1 month pediatrician appointment yet, but I would estimate she is between 7-7.5 lbs, what a difference a few pounds makes!  She just feels so much sturdier now.  

So here is some info on how Ellie is doing at the 1 month point:

Sleep
Ah yes the all important sleep question!  Seems this is the first thing people ask me about.  I usually respond "She is sleeping like a newborn" aka not great, but expected for such a young baby!  Since Brian has been off of work for the past week I have been able to get some longer stretches of sleep - maybe 4 hours before I am "on" and take over feeding her.  It doesn't sound like much, but when you are used to getting only 1.5-2 hours at a time, 4 is amazing! 

Usually how it works is that I feed Ellie at 8:30, then I go up to get ready to sleep and am in bed by 9:30.  Brian changes Ellie and puts her down to sleep - usually she is asleep by 10/10:30.  Then he feeds her between 12-1am and puts her back to sleep.  Then I take over when she wakes up between 2-3 am.  Then I also feed her when she gets up again at 5-6 am.  I usually try to put her back down to see if she will sleep for another hour and she usually does (although not as soundly as the night time stretches) and then we get up for good around 8-8:30 am.  So I am usually in the bed for 10 hours, but I probably only get about 6-7 hours of sleep in that time due to feeding, changing, etc!  I am a little nervous for when Brian goes back to work - since I won't be making him do the 12-1 am feeding since he has to wake up at 5:30 am to drive into the city for work.  Hopefully Ellie will start to stretch out some feedings in the next few weeks. 

Eating
This sort of goes along with sleeping, since she wakes up to feed!  Being able to give her a bottle of breast milk has been great. I no longer feel like I can't leave the house for fear that the person watching her will have to deal with a freaking out crying baby while I am gone.  She still tends to eat quite frequently during the day - as quickly as every hour, but usually every 2 hours.  This is fine since nighttime feedings are further apart. 

She spits up milk a good deal of the time, but it isn't too bad.  She latches on pretty easily now - she sort of does it on her own if I put her close enough, which is quite nice.  Sometimes she gets frustrated and bops around a bit if she can't latch  on right away.  

Outings
We took her out on a "date night" with us.  We went to Fudruckers and then we walked around a furniture store.  She did really well!  The buzz of the restaurant kept her out and she liked strolling around the furniture store too.  It was a little nerve wracking having her out, but it was a good escape! 

We took her on a walk to our town center to see santa!  We weren't going to bring her to see santa this year due to her being so young and us not wanting to stand in a line of nose drippy children, but we found that santa was visiting our town in a more relaxed environment so we quickly bopped her in there for a photo!

 We also just got Ellie's newborn photos back, but I will do a separate post on those! 

Development
She is starting to grasp our fingers more strongly.  She also looks at our faces, before she was just sort of looking around blankly.  She likes to stare at lights specifically.  We have been doing tummy time with her, which she doesn't mind too much and she can move her head from side to side - not very easily or often, but she does it!