Baum Squad: The Baum Family Blog: Lilly's 2 Week Update

Welllll time has gotten away from me again, I haven't posted in a few days - sorry! Sleep deprivation is catching up with me in a big way and I've been spending any spare seconds I have napping. :-) Two things happened this week that I am having a hard time wrapping my head around. First, if I were still pregnant, yesterday would have marked week 39. It is so hard for me to imagine life without Miss Lillian Grace - to even think that she may not have been here yet had nature been able to take its course is so crazy to me. Secondly, today marks two weeks from the day she was born! I can't believe two weeks have already passed. Oh, and I just thought of one more crazy thing - I got an e-mail today entitled, "13 Signs You're Ready For Another Baby." Dear the bump, didn't you get the memo that my first is only 2 weeks old?! I promptly deleted that one. Of course these posts always get lengthy so I guess I should get down to business. Here goes with the two week stats:

Weight/Length: She was sleeping when I tried to measure so I'm not sure how accurate it is, but it looked like almost 21 inches. That seems like it may be a lot - she was 19 3/4 when she was born. Maybe my measurement was wrong, who knows. In terms of weight, she is back up to birth weight (7 lbs 6 oz up from 6 lbs 15 oz a week before) per our pediatrician visit last Friday, yay! She is turning in to quite the chunky monkey.

Sleep: She has been sleeping really well up until the past two nights, when she decided that night sleeping was for losers. I am not sure if it is too early for her to be confused between night/day or what. I have stopped having to wake her up to feed her - we got the pediatrician's blessing to feed on demand, so prior to the past two nights she's been going 4-5 hours stretches at a time from the beginning of one feeding to the beginning of the next (which after feeding/cleaning up time means 3ish hours of sleep at a time for Mommy). I have been trying to keep her awake more during the day in hopes that she'll sleep more at night, but seriously when this child is out she is o-u-t and there is no waking her up. I have held ice cubes to her feet, and all she does is flinch and then go right back to sleep (I know it sounds cruel but it is pediatrician approved as that's how we were trying to keep her awake while feeding). Last night (or this morning rather, around 5 am) I finally gave up and enlisted Dan's help (I've been trying to let him sleep since he has to work and I can nap during the day when she does) and he got her to sleep in her little bouncer in our room. At that point I did not care that she wasn't in her own room, I just needed sleep. I am trying to figure out if I've eaten something different that's made her more gassy/uncomfortable - hopefully it was just a 2-night phase and she'll sleep like a champ tonight (please God). :-)

Feeding: I still owe you a breast feeding post - maybe tomorrow. She is eating well (obviously, since she was up from 6 lbs 15 oz to 7 lbs 6 oz in the span of a week), but we are still having to have a little help breast feeding. We visited the lactation consultant at Rex last week as well as the pediatrician and both told us that she is eating better than a lot of one-month olds and for me to stop being an overachiever, so I suppose I should be happy that she's doing well no matter how she's doing it. As I mentioned above, the pediatrician gave us permission to feed on demand now (not to exceed 5 hours from the beginning of one feeding to the beginning of the next), so she's been eating every 2-4 hours during the day (yesterday she ate every two hours, literally it felt like all we did was nurse all day long) and then just waking us up at night - usually around every 4.5 hours (twice/night), which isn't too shabby. She's doing great!

Developments: She is growing more alert with each day. She's very serious and just likes to take in the world around her. She'll stay awake for a longer period of time each day, and she just looks around a lot and takes everything in. She holds her head up a lot more and for longer periods of time now as well. Also, I'm not sure if she is actually cognisant of it but she has managed to find her hands and suck on them quite a few times over the past few days. I haven't enlisted the help of the paci yet because I'm trying to avoid nipple confusion (yes, there is such a thing), so it would be nice if she kept it up with those hands and learned to self-soothe. Also, her umbilical cord fell off:

I know it still looks a little weird, it's because the doctor put something in it (silver something or other) to help dry it out. She said it looks like it's going to be a "pretty deep innie," which she must get from her mother. :-)
Firsts This Week: I never know what to put for this one, because I list developments above. She stayed with Daddy alone for the first time yesterday, does that count? I put together some goodies for my favorite nurses who took such good care of me during my hospital stay, and I ran them over to the hospital yesterday afternoon so Dan came home and stayed with her. [Side note: Any of you who are my Facebook friends know that I posted about this and asked what to do for them, so in case you're curious, here's what we ended up with: homemade oatmeal cookies (made by my Mom, best ever), muddy buddies, a LOT of Valentine's candy, a thank you card with a gift certificate to a sandwich shop across the street from the hospital (I was going to do a Starbucks gift card but not everyone likes coffee, plus they have tons of it at the hospital), and some pictures (I took a picture of all of us with each nurse, so I included those as well as a picture of the three of us and then a picture of just Lilly). I called ahead of time to make sure they'd be working - it was so nice to see all of them and all were very surprised and grateful. We felt like it was the least we could do!] Additionally, we had our first nights/days alone without any help. I was terrified and cried all day Saturday because my Mom was leaving, but everything went well. Also, it hasn't happened yet but she's going to get her first real bath (read: actually in her tub, not a sponge bath since we don't have to worry about getting the umbilical cord wet anymore) tonight. I'll try to take a video of the cuteness and post it. :-)

What I'm Thankful For: Same as always - wonderful friends and family, all of your thoughts and prayers and the food you're (still) bringing us. Also, a good, very happy baby. The doctors have all told us that she has done so well considering she was born early and slightly less developed, and we are so grateful for that!

What I'm Looking Forward To: Visits from everyone! My Aunt Hopey came to visit today, which was so nice - she kept us company, played with Lilly, grocery shopped for me and cooked dinner. Fabulous. Katy also came for a visit today, she's spending the night and heading out tomorrow. Mom and Dad are coming back on Thursday to hang out until Saturday morning - Mom is going out of town for a few weeks for work and wanted to get some extra snuggle time in (pretty sure they should just move here? please?), and of course we're okay with it and love having them and having the help. They also offered to keep Lilly so we can go out to an early Valentine's Day dinner on Friday if we want to - we'll see how it goes, I'm not sure whether I'm ready to leave her for that long yet! Then on Saturday, Dan's brother and his wife and kids are coming to visit - we're so excited to see everyone!

Next Pediatrician Appointment: Since we had three weight checks within her first week of life and they are so pleased with Lilly's progress, we don't have to go back for our two-week appointment - we just have a one month appointment in March. Go Lilly!

How Mommy's Doing: I'm doing well - finally starting to feel semi-human again. I graduated to wearing my normal underwear this week from the mesh hospital panties (TMI? LOL) - I feel sure Dan is thrilled, ha! I'm still sore, and there is still some pretty heavy bleeding (sorry if it's TMI again, but while we're at it, that's supposed to continue for 4-6 weeks), but all things considered I feel great. I haven't weighed myself since the last post when I was down 20 lbs - I am still slightly swollen (but MUCH less than before) and fleshy, but I'll get to work on that as soon as the doctor gives me the OK! As I mentioned before, I'm mainly just so. tired. but that comes with the territory - and is (obviously) worth every second of lost sleep! I am pretty hormonal - more so than I was when I was pregnant, I think - but that is allegedly normal. Probably the lack of sleep magnifies it as well. Overall, I can't complain!

So, I guess that's it for this week, hopefully I haven't forgotten anything. I'll leave you with some of my favorite pictures from the week. Lilly changes so much with each passing day it seems, I wish time would slow down!