Happy One Month Annie!

Can you believe my sweet baby girl is a month old?!  Yeah, I can't either!  I feel like I say this every time I blog... but it's still true:  I still can't believe that I even have a daughter.  It seems surreal that I was pregnant a month ago.  That I gave birth.  That I have been a mom for a month.  It's one of those things that I have yet to wrap my brain around.  Perhaps I'll never be able to.

Anyways, the girl is one month old.  She is growing and she is beautiful!  For the first two weeks of her life (or her life with us at home), she was perfect.  She nursed right on schedule every three hours to the minute almost.  She was content, she didnt fuss.  She didnt spit up.

That all changed around week three.  Annie has a personality and she is quite the diva.  She HATES, and I mean HATES getting her diaper changed.  The child would rather stay in a stinky diaper (which she is actually quite content with) than be changed.  She squirms and fusses as I pull it off. During the wipe she starts her whimper.. and when I put her diaper on - all heck breaks loose.  And this has been true since she was even in the NICU.  Then once I put her foot back into her sleeper - she's quiet.  Speaking of diapers - we started cloth diapering about a week ago and it is going extremely well! It's even easier than I imagined it would be.  Now that we've figured out how to fold our flats to fit her tiny booty.. it's cake!  We've had no blow outs and that girl can stink up a diaper like you can't imagine.  Not to mention they are insanely cute! 


She is slowly starting to get more efficient at nursing.  I've started giving her a bottle (of breastmilk of course) at night just to save my sanity.  She's typically very slow and falls asleep.  We've tried everything imaginable to keep her awake & when she sleeps... she sleeps.  Having the bottle at night ensures that she is eating enough so that she'll sleep until the next scheduled feeding.  If I don't bottle her... she wakes up every hour and a half ready to eat.  When I do bottle her, we make it three hours.  Totally worth it.  It has been about a week since I've tried nursing her at night, so perhaps I'll give it a shot sometime soon just to see if she has improved.  I nurse her during the day and she does it like a champ.  She is insanely aggressive.  I have an overactive letdown so we are still dealing with that, but all in all she does great!  At her 3 week checkup she weighed 7lbs 6oz!!  (She weighed 6lbs 2oz when we brought her home a week prior to this appointment.  yeah. She's not missing a meal!)

Speaking of eating, we have learned that our tiny love has a dairy sensitivity.  She was SO gassy - to the point of in pain - earlier this week.  She would scream and cry and burp and toot... and even chuck her lunch.  I've been dairy free for about four days now and it is amazing how much she has improved!  No more fussing.. and minimal spit up.  Praise the Lord!  Do I miss milk? Absolutely.  Is it worth the sacrifice?  Absolutely.  Once she is 100% I may try to introduce soy milk into my diet to see if she's able to tolerate it.


Lets see... what else?
She smiles a lot and it melts my heart.  She is so alert when she is awake and seems so aware of the world.  She loves to be talked to and she likes lifting her head up to look around.  She hates being swaddled even though it helps her sleep better.  She doesnt sleep very well when someone is holding her.  She has grown fond of getting a bath as long as we have our space heater blowing on her.. though she isnt a fan of the getting dressed part.

I'm trying to soak up every single moment of her while she is so tiny.  I love to cuddle her and hold her tiny little hiney in my hands.   However, I will be glad when she starts sleeping through the night.... but i wouldnt dare rush it!