It is hard to believe that Abigail turned one month old on Monday. It is hard to believe she is already that old but it also feels like she has been with us forever! Here is an update on what has happened in the last month.
Nicknames: Munchkin, Sweet Pea, Sunshine, Angel
Temperament: Most of the time happy, alert, curious, attentive, but fussy when overly tired
Item/Toy We Love The Most: Boppy, swaddle wraps, the rubber ducky song
Item/Toy You Love The Most: the skylights, the rubber ducky song
Things We're Loving Most Right Now: singing to you, cuddling with you, doing floor time and tummy time, your range of expressions, watching you get stronger and bigger
Things You’re Loving Most Right Now: nursing, sucking on our fingers/pacifiers, sleeping on Daddy's chest, hanging out on the changing table, taking baths especially having your hair washed, stretching, being sung to
Eating: Over the past month, Abigail and I have gotten into a great routine for nursing. It took a little while to get things figured out, and we had to learn how to limit her nursing for comfort, but now she is eating well and efficiently and gaining weight. She usually eats around every 3 hours during the day but can go longer at night. We tried one bottle feeding in late December and she was happy to take the bottle, but promptly spit up most of it once she finished. We are working on this in January to get ready for my return to work in February.
Sleeping: At first, Abigail fell asleep fairly easily and stayed asleep well as long as she was being held. When we tried to put her down, we were often greeted with her eyes popping open and had to begin the process of getting her to sleep again. Because she was nursing on demand as well, this also meant that I would be up for 4-5 hour stretches in the middle of the night because she would eat, doze, wake up when I tried to put her down, and then be hungry again. Thankfully, we have had steady improvement and she is now doing much better at being transitioned to her bed from being held and is staying asleep for longer periods. We also went through a week or two of Abigail being fussy and hard to soothe from about 10-1 at night but that has also improved although it is not yet gone.
While things have been improving, it made a huge difference to have a team approach to Abigail's nights. For all but five nights of this first month, JP and I had extra people to help us with Abigail, primarily my mom, dad and JP's mom when we went to Phoenix. Now that she is settling in to a routine, it is less daunting to think about handling the nights on our own, but I really appreciated being able to get up and feed her and then hand her off to someone else to put her down while I went back to bed. We will see how things go once it is down to JP and I again next week.
Playing: Since Abigail is so curious about the world, we have enjoyed doing floor time with her almost every day. She likes the chance to stretch her arms and legs and is beginning to track a toy from side to side. She will also hold and wave a rattle briefly if we place it in her hands. She is very responsive to sound toys like her silver rattle. We also do tummy time fairly regularly and are impressed with her head and neck control already. She can raise her head pretty high off the ground and has good control at lowering it back down. We also love to hold her facing us and sing to her and dance with her and she enjoys that. She also likes to look at some of the brightly colored wall decorations we have and she loves to watch our skylights in the living room.
Growth: On the day after her one month old birthday, Abigail's weight was up to 8 lbs, 10 oz, half a pound above her birth weight. It took her a little while to begin to gain consistently but now she is doing really well. We are beginning to see the changes in her as she adds the weight and continues to grow. It definitely seems like she gets longer every day and her feet no longer fit in some of her sleepers. She is still wearing mostly newborn sized clothes, like the adorable cupcake onesie pictured here that was sent by my Aunt Peggy, but is starting to wear some 3 month sizes as well.
It has been an exciting, tiring, whirlwind of a first month and we can't wait to see what the next month brings!
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