3 Months!

My baby girl is three months old today! I can’t believe it. Time sure does go very quickly as a mom! I saw a newborn yesterday, less than a week old, and I couldn’t believe how tiny that little girl was, and she weighs the same as mine did when she was born. Alex has grown so fast, and is very healthy. I’m so thankful that she hasn’t been sick yet (knock on wood) and is doing so well! I am doing an awful job at writing stuff down while it happens, so I thought I would share some of the latest events here. Forgive me if this is boring, but it’s interesting to me… :)

Schedule & Feeding: A few weeks ago, as soon as we got back from Colorado (she was 10 weeks at the time), knowing that I was going to start work in two weeks, we started implementing a schedule, loosely based on Babywise, specifically the ordering of activities: eat, play, sleep. We have now established a loose schedule, and a bedtime routine, and these have helped us go from waking at least four times per night to waking usually once, and a few nights we haven’t had any waking at all! And there has been no crying it out in our household. We’ve had a little crying (mostly on my part) but no more than 5 minutes at a time. She’s way too young for the real CIO stuff, even if Babywise tells you otherwise.

Here is our schedule of feeding: 7am, 10am, 1pm, 4pm, 6pm, 7:30pm (or so). There is a nap within every increment except after the 6 pm feeding. That increment has feeding, play, bath, another feeding, bedtime. Then the hubs wakes her up about 10:30-11 pm for a dream feed. Then on the nights she wakes up, she usually wakes around 3 am. At the time of starting a schedule, I pretty much stopped nursing, except about once per day, but it’s sporadic, and really more of a treat than a planned event. I like knowing how much she is eating, and Alex seems to do better with full feedings, which we can control more considering I don’t make much milk. She eats between 4-5 ounces at each feeding, 2-3 ounces at her dreamfeed, and if she wakes up in the middle of the night, I try to get at least 3 ounces in her. If I let her fall asleep without eating enough (which happens a lot!) then she wakes up an hour or two later. That’s what happened during the first 10 weeks of her life. Due to my low milk supply, she would eat a little, act satisfied, and then want more an hour later. So then I would give her some formula, and then she would want more an hour or two later. Repeat and repeat – ALL DAY LONG!!! She never got a full feeding, and she never got more than an hour or two of sleep at a time. Which meant that I never slept either! So now I only pump, or mostly, and feed her using bottles. And both of us seem much happier! In total, she eats between 24-30 ounces each day, and usually about 15 of that is breast milk. I think (hope) that this will continue to provide her with the nutrients and immunities she needs, especially when she starts daycare on March 1. I would love to get her to 100% breast milk, but I am finally starting to accept that this may not happen… (although stay tuned – I placed an order for domperidone from an online pharmacy in India) This is taking a lot of conviction, as every day I think about quitting this pumping madness. Especially as she’s starting to sleep through some nights, and I’m still waking up to pump!

Milestones: She smiles a ton, and has started little giggles. Not real laughs, but little gasps which seem like giggles. She really seems like she’s figuring out the world, and it’s all so fascinating! She loves watching the TV, which I hate as I can picture her little brain cells frying while I watch her. So I keep it off as much as possible, but daddy doesn’t agree with this approach… In the last week, and especially the last few days, she’s fascinated by her hands. I sit her up on the couch, supported by the cushions, and all she does is stare at her hands, moving them around. So very cute watching her discover these things! She grabs onto toys a little, and starts to bat them around. She loves her activity gym, and makes squealing noises, kicking her legs, watching the lights and listening to the music. She’s not a fan of tummy time, as she starts grunting and then yelling about five minutes in. One time when she was real little (maybe 1 month old) she rolled from her tummy to her back, but she hasn’t done it since. She consistently rolls onto her left side while in her crib. And once she’s on her side, she seems to push her way around, up to 180 degrees from how she was when she first laid down! So cute finding her all rolled up on her side – just like I like to sleep. She also is figuring out her mouth, and is having fun sticking her tongue out at us. I’m not really sure if she’s imitating us, or if we’re imitating her, but it’s a fun game.

Size: Daddy bought her an infant scale, so we just put her on the other day. She’s over 13 pounds now! She’s definitely chunked out a little once we started feeding her by bottles. I don’t think she was necessarily starving before, but she seems happier now that she’s eating more at a time. And her thighs are so very cute – starting to get some rolls! She can’t wear any of her 0-3 month clothes anymore – they’re too short. They’re fine by width but she’s too long for them. So we’ve transitioned her to six month clothes. But it’s so sad looking at the bags of clothes in her closet that she can no longer wear! And she will be wearing size 2 diapers soon, as soon as we finish up her size 1 – they’re getting a little small.

Health: In general she’s been very healthy. She had a horrible diaper rash from about weeks 3 – 10. We finally got rid of it with a regime of light cornstarch-based powder first, then thick layer of cream (we were using a prescription diaper cream (Happy Hiney) and now are back to max strength desitin), then another dusting of powder. When it was real bad, we stopped using wipes and would use Viva paper towels in warm water, real gently. We went back to sensitive wipes when it got better, but I see a couple spots that are a little iffy, so we may go back to paper towels soon. Also she has some sort of rash or dry skin or eczema or something on her face. For her first two months, she had perfect skin on her face – it almost seemed unfair when most newborns’ skin looks so awful! But in the last month she’s had some funky stuff on her face. Some dryness, some bumps. I have been putting Eucerin and some natural oils on her face, and it helps some with the scaly parts, but some of it is still rough. It doesn’t seem to bother her, but I miss her perfect skin! And the other thing is the spit-up. Boy can that girl create some fountains out of her mouth! We recently switched from the drop-ins bottles to Dr. Browns, and that has seemed to help a little, at least with the pain that spitting up seems to cause. But it’s still there. It’s mostly a laundry problem, but sometimes she seems like it really hurts, which makes me feel awful! It does seem to be better with breast milk versus formula, so that encourages me when I’m getting up in the middle of the night to pump, but it’s still not perfect.

So those are the main things. All in all, things are perfect. I give her a bath every night, which is our special time. And during that bath I tell her how much I love her, and how every day I’m reminded how lucky I am to have her in my life. She’s the best part of my life, and I’m still amazed that I get to be her mother. I can’t wait for her to grow bigger and tell me what she’s thinking, but I wish she would stay this perfect little bundle of goodness forever.

And for those of you that made it through this lengthy update, here is a snap from this morning, wearing my favorite onesie for my little IVF baby. Made with Love (and Science!)