3 Months

This week I said goodbye to my newborn baby. I joyfully and thankfully waved farewell to the "4th trimester" but looking back at the last three months I already miss the tiny babe I could easily carry with one hand and all the strangers who stopped to look at my teeny tiny baby. Charlotte will never be a sleepy newborn baby again, she has grown into an active and chubby little girl who loves to smile and "talk" to me. 

As I watch her struggle to roll over, hold her head up like a pro and see her kick her feet I realize before long she will be independent and won't want me to hold her for hours every day. 

However, when I see her still packaged sippy cup, her unused baby spoons, her little hair clips (waiting for hair), her summer swimsuit and her new little doll I am excited and antsy for the little person I am about to get to know. I can't wait to see her chubby little hands hold a cup for the first time. I am so excited to paint her little toenails and am anxiously awaiting the day she holds out her arms for me to pick her up. 

Truly, I love newborns and love all the little noises the faces and itsy bitsy clothes that come with them, but I am so happy to be through the first 3 months. I am much more excited for the next 3 months, where she will start to eat big girl food, sit on her own and maybe even start to wiggle across the floor a bit. 

Updates on her 3rd month of life:

(November 24-December 24)

Eating: It's going better than ever. My supply is more than enough for her. We have not used a drop of formula since the end of November! That was my goal. I am hoping we don't need to use any more, until she is at least 9 or so months old. (if ever) So, if anyone wants some unused formula. :) I still have a few bags in my freezer, and am working on adding to it. I get at least a bottle of pumped milk every day. It is nice to always have some in the fridge in case something comes up and Matt needs to feed her or something. I feel more able to take a nap on the weekends, or run an errand by myself, etc. She is up to 5 oz, per feeding now and I think that has helped stretch out the time between feedings a bit. It is much more consistently 3 hours between feedings now. There are obviously exceptions, at least one or two a day. But, I am loving the 3 hour stretches that we get. 

Sleeping: Well, there goes that schedule. Naps are hit and miss, mostly miss. I try and help her get at least one substantial nap a day, but that only happens maybe half of the days. It is a very rare day if she takes 2 naps. We are working on it. At night she does pretty well. She is a little less predictable than she was a month ago. She was sleeping 5 hours straight, than 2 or 3 more hours every night. Now she sleeps 7 hours straight some nights and some nights she does a couple of 4 hour stretches. She gets a decent amount of sleep every night, regardless but I am never sure how long she will sleep at a time. She is also going to bed earlier than she used it, and it may have to do with the no nap thing. She usually goes to sleep around 9:00 and is up for the day around 7:00. The biggest downside to the night is the fact that it never takes less than 1.5 hours to get her back to sleep if she does wake up. We take turns dealing that with those fun times. 

Pooping: Lots of poop explosions. Lots of outfit changes. Ask my sister Emma about the worst poop explosion in the history of all babies. She was there, and she even got to catch it in her hand. What a lucky aunt she is. (It was coming out like lava. :)

Growing: She is gaining weight and getting longer. We weighed her on the 21st and she weighed 13 pounds even, according to our fish scale. I am not convinced it is super accurate, but it shouldn't be more than a couple ounces off. That would mean she gained a pound in 2.5 weeks. I don't know how tall she is, because measuring her is just not worth the effort. But, she has definitely gotten longer because about a week ago all of a sudden everything was too short. She is now wearing 3 month and 6 month clothes. She wears 3 months onesies and shirts, but her legs are too long for the pants and sleepers so she wears 6 months of those. I think we will probably be in all 6 months stuff in another week or two, especially since we got some cute clothes for Christmas. Still in size 1 diapers. We have been using some size 2 ones for Christmas though, because they are elf diapers. We have about 2 small packs of size 1 though and we will finish those up and move on to size 2 after that. 

Nicknames: sweetie butt, little lovie

Charlotte's favorite things her third month:

1. watching the Packers finally win a couple of games

2. meeting Santa at the mall and taking pictures with him

3. playing at 3am, for 2 hours

4. opening her presents on Christmas eve (her 3 month birthday)

5. learning to play with toys and put them in her mouth

Mama's favorite things during Charlotte's third month:

1. buying Christmas presents for Charlotte, and everyone else in the family

2. showing off Charlotte to extended family

3. daddy being home for 2 weeks to finish the semester

4. decorating the house for Christmas

5. the fact that Charlotte can entertain herself for 20 minutes at a time with her toys

6. The first snow storms of the season

Charlotte's least favorite things during her third month:

1. tummy time

2. getting held by too many people in one day

3. taking naps

 4. not wanting to take a nap 

Mama's least favorite things during Charlotte's third month:

1. no nap days

2. not fitting into any clothes

3. running out of money because it is the end of the year and not being able to buy more Christmas presents

Charlotte's New Skills

grabbing/playing with toys (Dec 4th was when something clicked)

putting things in her mouth

holding her head up perfectly

talking with more extensive sounds

This was the funnest month ever. The Christmas season with a baby was the funnest Christmas ever and I am already excited for next year when she is running around, playing with things and ripping open presents. 

As I said in my last update 3 month old babies are my favorite. I just LOVE them. I will try and take in as much as possible during this next month. I am very excited for more visits with family, working on scrap booking projects, date nights and playing with my little girl. 

To end with, here are some pictures.

2 Months

Another month has passed. My little girl is getting so big. She is getting bigger and definitely better. I love her more and more and she is nearing my favorite baby age... 3 months. I love babies who are three months old and since she is advanced for her age (at least I think so) she is basically there already. 

I decided to wait to write the update until after her 2 month doctor's checkup, which was today. So, it is a little late but here it is at last. 

So I will just dive right in-

Eating: My little girl loves to eat. Once she hit about 6 weeks we both started to figure out the nursing thing even better than we had before. By the time she has turned 2 months she has gotten much more efficient at eating. She is now eating more consistently between 2-3 hours. She is gaining weight and has gotten much more chunky during that last month. So, I think that is testament to her healthy appetite. I started to take fenugreek a week ago and that has really boosted my supply. I am actually starting a frozen supply of pumped milk. I have been wanting to be able to stockpile some milk for backup and I now have an entire 8 ounces of frozen milk. I also try to have 6-8 ounces of milk in the fridge every night so that Matt can give her a bottle in the night. So, I think at 10 weeks we are finally off of all formula. That is a good feeling. I have also discovered the joy of breast feeding. The first 8ish weeks I thought everyone had lied to me about how breastfeeding is so great. I didn't like to be chained down to the chair for hours while a baby lazily gnawed at my breasts. Now that she isn't so fragile and she is a little more efficient I have come to love snuggling with her as I feed her. She grabs my shirt and looks up me with slow blinks before she inevitably closes her eyes and nestles in. I love it and am so glad I stuck with it. 

Sleeping: She is finally getting herself into a semi-schedule! Hooray! The last months things have moved into place in our lives so that she has much more predictable patterns. That is more fitting to say than schedule really. I would estimate that, with a little help, 4 days out of the week she is able to take a longer morning nap and an afternoon nap. Pretty much every other day of the week she will at least take a longer nap in either the afternoon or morning. This is fantastic because from about 2-6 weeks she basically only took catnaps during the day. At some point around 7 weeks she decided to take longer naps. So, on a typical/good day she will wake up around 7:00am and take her morning nap from 9:30-11:00 and then take her afternoon nap from 2:00-4:00 and then she starts getting sleepy again around 9:00pm. She is usually in her room asleep for the night between 10:00-11:00pm, sometimes a little earlier. She sleeps a SUPER predictable 5 hours after she falls asleep for the night. So, if she falls asleep at 10:00 she will wake up at 3:00am to eat and sometimes she will go right back to sleep, but usually it takes more like an hour to get her back down. So, she will back to sleep around 4 and then usually sleeps for a few more hours, so she would be up around 7:00. 

Pooping: She has settled into a typical 1-2 poop day. It isn't really much more exciting than that. 

Growing: My baby girl is growing up. She outgrew her newborn clothes and has moved onto 3 month clothes. We also said goodbye to newborn diapers around 6 weeks and moved onto size 1. I got a little teary when that happened. She fit into some 0-3 month clothes until just this week, but she is pretty much done with those now. At a quick doctor visit to check to make sure she didn't have thrush on November 25 she weighed 11 pounds, 9 ounces (we had just changed a diaper, so I think it was a few ounces short) and today at her appointment she weighed 11 pounds, 15 ounces (52.35%), was 23 1/4 in (69%) and her head was 15.24 inches (51%). She has gained 5 pounds in the last 2 months and is finally the size her Uncle Nick was when he was born. AHHHHHH!!! 

Nicknames: Sweetie pie, sweetie butt, little love (all of these are mama's nicknames for her), Matt has started to call her Charlie sometimes, and even Chuck at times. It's cute. 

Charlotte's favorite things her second month:
1. Grammy and Grandpa visits
2. Driving in the car
3. When Daddy comes home after work or school
4. Meeting her aunt Emma
5. Smiling and talking to Mama in the morning

Mama's favorite things during Charlotte's second month:
1. Talking to Charlotte
2. Visits from grammy and grandpa
3. Breastfeeding triumphs
4. Shopping for Christmas presents for Charlotte
5. Dressing her up in her dozens of 3 month outfits
6. Singing Christmas music to Charlotte

Charlotte's least favorite things during her second month:
1.Having gas
2. Laying on her tummy
3. Being hungry

Mama's least favorite things during Charlotte's second month:
1. Consistently waking up at 4am
2. Being alone all day, with only Charlotte for company
3. Being 20 pounds heavier than before Charlotte

Charlotte's New Skills
First real smile was on October 28th for great grandma
Started "talking" around 8 weeks
Has excellent neck control and can hold her head up when sitting


So, there is our last month in a nutshell. Lastly, she got her first round of shots today. It was hard for me. All morning I was dreading the afternoon doctor visit. I got a little teary  thinking about it. I held her all morning and gave her lots of kisses. I made Matt skip school and come with me to the doctor in case it was just too much for me. I was so glad he came. I was almost glad when she started to get fussy right before she got the shots, it was time for her nap. She got 3 shots today. By the last one I was trying really, really hard not to cry. Matt and I both held one of her little hands and the minute she was done I picked her up and gave her lots of snuggles. She screamed so loudly when they gave her the shots. I am so glad it didn't last long. 10 minutes after her shots she was asleep and she slept for 3.5 hours. I snuggled and nursed her for 3 hours straight after she woke up. She seems to be a little sore on her legs tonight and much more fussy than normal. But, she fell back to sleep and I am hoping she gets lots of sleep tonight. 

Now for a couple pictures.