Arden at ONE month
(plus 2 weeks, ha!)
Weight: 9 pounds 2 ounces (50th percentile)
Birth: 6 lbs 14 oz
Height: 21.5 in (75th percentile)
Birth: 19.5 in
Head: 15 inches (92th percentile)
The absolute best thing lately is that baby girl has started smiling and cooing! It will seriously melt your heart. We've also learned that A is totally a morning person. She wakes up so happy (just like her momma!) and is especially sweet and charming first thing in the morning.
Arden is chunking up. Seriously. Did you see those stats? Baby girl was well above her birth weight at her 2 week check (8.2 lbs) and our pediatrician was even surprised! She's officially out of newborn sized clothing (tear!) and is wearing 0-3m. I had to go buy a bin so I could pack up all her outgrown clothing, it was sad! We're still in newborn sized diapers for now, but I think we're coming to the end soon. Oh and her head - can we talk about that? Baby girl is rockin' a big noggin, that's for sure. It makes pulling onesies over her head a bit rough & even a few bows are getting to small for her!
In the last month we had her first bath at home...and she loved it!! We switch off between bathing her in the sink and bathing her in the shower with us. As long as she's warm she's as happy as a clam in the water - we learned that the hard way! We usually keep a large washcloth over most of her body and move it around as we need to to get her clean.
Arden can see patterns and will fixate on things above her like ceiling fans or something on the wall.
Baby girl doesn't love getting buckled into her carseat, but once she's in she's fine and will fall promptly asleep once the car starts moving.
In the past few days, Arden has discovered her hands. She doesn't quite understand that they belong to her yet, but she's getting good at swinging one into her mouth and keeping it there for a few seconds before swinging her arm away.
She's also recently discovered her tongue and lips. It's pretty adorable to see her stick out her tongue!
She's also recently discovered her tongue and lips. It's pretty adorable to see her stick out her tongue!
EAT
Arden eats every 2-3 hours.
Right from birth we were pretty successful at breastfeeding (so thankful for this!) and now it feels like we've both really gotten the hang of it. It was painful for about the first two weeks but since then has stopped hurting at all.
In the beginning she was eating for 25+ minutes at a time (yeesh!) but now we're down to a groove of about 10-14 minutes per feed.
We've learned to watch for hunger cues from her (lip smacking, turning her head from side to side, etc.) so that we can get her fed before she's in a total state of panic (ie crying whaling so much that it feels like she's saying: "whyyyy are you people starving meee?").
Miss A is a spitter-upper, so we've learned to keep the little miss upright for about 10 minutes after feeding her (so diaper changes are best to happen before she eats!).
I started pumping a little after the first two morning feedings so that I can start to build up a stash of milk for when I go back to work (and so that just maybe one of these days we can leave A with her Gigi and Pops {Taylor's parents} for more than 2 hours at a time). We also wanted to try to give A a bottle sooner than later, just so she could have time to get used to the idea (the recommendation is to wait until 1-2 weeks before you go back to work but that seemed a little risky to me!). So far dad has bottle fed her twice and she handled both times like a champ!
In the beginning she was eating about 10-12 times per day and now that has tapered down to about 8 times per day. We're still very much in the demand-eating mode (ie she eats whenever she wants and not on a set schedule - totally normal for an infant), but I'm starting to see patterns in her eating habits so hopefully we'll be getting on a schedule soon!
PLAY
We're definitely in the mode of eat-play-sleep around here. Typically the cycle lasts 3 hours and during the daytime it goes a little something like this:
*Miss A wakes and we change her diaper (5-10 minutes)
*Eats (10-15 minutes)
*Sits mostly upright (10-15 minutes) - Sometimes she's drowsy the entire time, but usually this is a fun time to talk or sing to her since she's usually on my lap
*Play (about 45 minutes) - I read somewhere that it's ideal for infants to only be awake for 1.5 hours out of every 3. So for those of you keeping score, that leaves us with about 45 minutes of time left. This doesn't always work of course, but I've absolutely noticed a difference if A doesn't get in some kind of substantial nap in-between feedings so we try to follow this when we can. "Play" typically just depends on what we're doing at that moment. If we're just hanging out at home, we do tummy time, read books, talk to her in French, or just set A in her swing or bassinet and she stays awake and alert. If we're out she kind of just gazes around, taking in the sights around her.
SLEEP
Ah sleep. What's sleep?
Just kidding.
In the beginning sleep was very, very limited! Between long feedings and needing to eat more frequently - and not to mention the fact that A had her days and nights mixed up - we only got a few hours of sleep at a time for probably about the first month.
Gradually she's been sleeping for longer stretches, and now we tend to get at least two good 3-4 hour stretches of sleep per night. Doesn't sound great, I know, but it's wonderful.
Last night she actually went 5 hours between eating and slept for a whooping 4.5 hours straight!
Like her eating habits, I'm starting to see a pattern of sleep emerging. We typically try to feed her right before we go to bed so that we can maximize sleep time (which ends up being somewhere around 9pm-11pm). Then she wakes up around midnight, 3am, and 6am. Lately she's been skipping one of the middle-of-the-night feedings and only waking up once, around 3am, to eat.
In the beginning, when her days and nights were still mixed up, middle of the night feedings were rough because when she woke up she'd want to stay up and play - frustrating for a sleepy parent!! Now she's doing much better and manages to usually go right back to sleep after eating (so unlike the daytime where we add "play" in after eating, at night we feed, rock her for a few minutes, and then set her back down to sleep). Like eating, I think we're getting close to getting her on a schedule - definitely something that we'll need to do by the time I go back to work!
Since we brought her home she's been sleeping in a swing by the side of our bed. We tried having her sleep in a pack-and-play but she didn't like it - I think laying flat right after eating wasn't working for her (plus I think she likes that the swing is a little more cozy). Eventually we're going to try it again though since we want her to get used to sleeping on a flat surface (like a crib!).
During the day baby girl naps a ton - she really is a great baby. We follow the 3 hour cycle as much as we can and she tends to get in at least a good 1-2 hour nap pretty frequently throughout the day. The naps tapper off towards the evening (which I guess is good because then she's tired and ready for bed!), and by around her 6-7pm feeding, she stays awake for the entire 3 hours.
Arden Elisabeth, we love you so much!
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