One Month

2 Days Old- Leaving the hospital

1 month old

So don’t mind the fact that my baby will actually be 8 weeks tomorrow.  Here are some things about her at one month. 

Her stats:

Weight: 10lbs 12oz (89.7 percentile)

Length: 22.835 inches (95.9 percentile)

Head Circumference: 14.567 (49.0 percentile)

Week One: A pretty eventful week

(this part is really for me to remember everything, so it may be boring to every one else)

We brought her home from the hospital on Sunday the 9^th.  She did not sleep for longer than 10-15 minute stretches those first two nights and screamed for a good portion of those nights!  Richard and I were both more than a little worried about what was in store for us.  She also was not eating very well, so that was not helping the sleeping situation.  She went to the doctor at 4 days old and had lost 9% of her body weight and was down to 7lbs 7 oz.  He wanted us to supplement with formula and come back the next day to weigh her again.  In addition to telling us this, he mentioned just about every single terrifying situation of how we could unwittingly kill our child with the preface “I don’t mean to scare you, but…”, so that was super reassuring.

  

So naturally, I having had no sleep, and having hormones surging through my body was a nervous wreck and couldn’t stop crying because I was starving my child to death.  I set up an appointment with the lactation consultant for the following day (through my sobbing on the phone).  After hanging up with the lactation consultant, I tried nursing her again.  I was trying not to cry through it when I heard an unfamiliar sound; she was swallowing.  She had finally figured it out.  Apparently it just took giving her a bottle for her to figure out that if she sucked, she would get food.

I found that as the day progressed and it got closer to night, the knot in my stomach got bigger and bigger.  Richard was going back to work the next day, so he was sleeping in the basement that night.  I was going to be on my own with her and I was terrified at the prospect of another sleepless night.  But with a little food in her stomach, she managed to sleep!  And she slept for about 3 hours before I had to wake her up to eat.  I felt like a new person the next day because I had actually gotten a few hours of sleep.  She was weighed again, and was up to 7.11lbs; 4 ounces in a day!  We went to the lactation consultant and she latched on, ate, and showed no signs of the bumbling mess that we were just 24 hours earlier.  So of course I looked like an idiot, but oh well, she was eating now. 

She was now eating and sleeping pretty well for a newborn. She was weighed again on Friday and was up to 8.1 lbs.  But apparently she had developed thrush at some point that week, and luckily my friend managed to see it and explain what it was to me so that I could show the doctor.  So we got to swab her mouth with Nystatin 4 times a day for 10 days.

Lucy with Grandpa A

Week 2:

Richard’s parents made the long drive to us so that we could bless her on Sunday, at just a week old.   Then by Tuesday, all of the parents were gone, Richard was at work, and it was just me and her.  I was glad to be able to figure out some of the parenting thing without everyone watching me, but I was also nervous at the prospect of actually taking care of her with no one else watching me.  Let's be honest, I was just making everything up as I went.  But we survived and slowly started to figure each other out.  At the doctor, she still had thrush so we continued with another 10 day cycle of medicine. She weighed 9.1 lbs.

After the first bath

Week 3:

We started to get somewhat of a schedule this week.  We dealt with the first bout of congestion.  She went back to the doctor for her “2 week"  checkup and was up to 9.11 lbs.  She had her 3 week growth spurt and the first round of baby acne. 

We like to play with her hair after bath time

Week 4:

The first week since she was born that we didn’t go to the pediatrician at all!  She started sleeping longer stretches at night and I felt like I didn’t need to set an alarm to wake her up to eat by this point seeming that she was gaining weight well.  Her weigh in was 10.12lbs (that's right, she gained over a pound in 10 days!)

Preaching to those in her dreams

        Things we have learned about Lucy so far

• She likes to suck on anything, but especially her hands and a pacifier.  She has tried repeatedly to suck her thumb ever since she was born.
• She has figured out that she has hair and that she can grab it.  She likes to grab it while she is asleep, if she is not swaddled.
• She loves to wiggle.   That is why we have to swaddle her to sleep at night and during naps. Otherwise she punches herself in the face…a lot.
• She is very alert, especially for a newborn.  She will watch everything.
• She pees, either on us, her old diaper, or her new diaper nearly every time we change her.  Something about that air hitting her reminds her she still has some left in her bladder.  Most of the time it just pools, but sometimes there is enough force behind it that it can actually shoot up (mind you, not as high as a boy, but still).
• She is a really easy going baby and does not cry very often.  We think she is the best baby ever made!
• She gets cuter every single day. It's a fact.