Emelia at one month

One month. I said the same thing with Olivia and now I’m saying it with my beautiful Emelia. I can’t believe it’s been a month.

A month of multiple wakeups a night. A month of having a baby on my chest 75% of the day. A month of washing pumping parts and bottles. A month of hearing baby cries and grunts.

When I had Olivia, I cherished those days. I wasn’t sure if I would ever have that again, so I cherished it. And now I have the opportunity to do it again. But this time I know this is the last one. There will be no more baby smells and fuzzy hair and gas drops and swaddles. And it makes me want to cry, but it also feels pretty normal. I mean, fertile people do this all the time. Cherish the last baby by choice. And that feels good.

Seeing Olivia and Emelia together is… I don’t even know. It’s amazing. It’s surreal. Olivia loves her little sister and Emelia really enjoys staring at her.

We’re done with the beautiful fall weather here in Minnesota. This was one of the last nice days and it was nice being able to get out as a family of four because Olivia was born in the middle of November and we couldn’t do this stuff with her.

Nicknames: Meals, Melia

Weight: 8 lbs

Length: A little over 19 inches I think.

Diaper size: Newborn

Clothing size: Newborn, some 0-3 months

Eating

I’ve been working with lactation weekly where she’d come in and do a before and after weight nursing. We’d adjust her bottle/breast ratio from that. We were doing about 7 two-ounce bottles/24 hours and then breastfeeding. Now, after finding out she was taking in 2.4 oz breastfeeding, we’ve done away with the scheduled bottles. She’s exclusively nursing now around the clock as of November 5th and then will have a 1 oz bottle if she needs a top off and a 2 oz bottle if she’s too tired to nurse or doesn’t nurse well. Day one of this has gone well and she hasn’t needed a bottle yet.

She’s been doing really well nursing and will go from anywhere to 10-20 minutes. Sometimes she’ll take both sides, but I’ve noticed she needs a “breather” in between before she’ll take the other one. I feel like I’ve been now nursing incessantly, which of course is what my goal was since she was born, and what I’m most familiar with, but now that we’ve been doing these bottles, it makes it easy to want to just do one. But then this little face looks up at me. She loves nursing way more than bottles. I might be biased, but I’m pretty sure this is true.

I started out pumping every three hours around the clock. Gradually this went down to 6 times a day, and then four, with one of those sessions being in the middle of the night. Now with the exclusive nursing plan, I’m cutting back. For a few days, I’ll pump three times, then I’ll go down to twice a day and then I’ll just be pumping once in the morning as I did with Olivia. I can get anywhere from 4-7 oz a time, sometimes more or less, and I’m hoping to stock up to give her breastmilk from a cup her whole second year as I did with Olivia. I’m definitely not going to miss washing and sterilizing all these bottles and pump parts.

Sleeping

She’s a good sleeper. Really, she is. She’s up every 2-3 hours like a normal breastfed baby. Sometimes more, sometimes less. When we first got home, she’s was on the NICU schedule of eating every three hours, but gradually that changed to every two hours. We’ve recently gotten some three hours stretches and actually the first night we did the exclusive nursing, she slept 3.5 hours after massively cluster feeding and getting another ounce in a bottle before bed, and then another three hour stretch after that. She snoozes a lot during the day in stretches of a few hours at a time.

Unlike with Olivia, we aren’t doing the swing much for naps since I know how hard that was to break her of that habit. Emelia is usually asleep on the couch next to me while I blog or pump, otherwise, I’ll put her in her crib or the bassinet in our bedroom.

Milestones

She does so good at lifting her head up on tummy time. She’s making eye contact with me periodically, which of course melts my heart.

She’s so noisy. She’s the loudest baby I’ve ever heard. Her grunts make everyone crack up. In fact, right now she’s hanging out on the couch next to me grunting up a storm, possibly trying to work out a poop.

Health

I have a very gassy baby. Way more than Olivia was. I know a lot of it is because she was five weeks early and her digestive system is very immature. We’ve been doing gas drops and she’s most gassy after a bottle, so hopefully, nursing will cut down on it. I do intend to get her started on probiotics here soon and get her into the chiropractor.

She’s had some reflux, with some days being worse than others, but there was only one day where it was really bad.

Likes

Nursing. Being held. Skin to skin. Pooping. Dare I say baths with me where she can float around in the water. She doesn’t cry, at least. Looking at her big sister. Her hands, especially up by her face.

Dislikes

Having clothes put over her head. Gas pain. Bright lights. Being taken off Mama.

Undecided about

Being put in her car seat. Wearing slippers. Diaper changes.

Looking Forward To:

Seeing her awake more. Putting her in her Thanksgiving outfit. Wearing more headbands (most are too big on her, whereas her big sister could hardly wear them because her head was so big).

The first month was eventful, starting out with her NICU stay. Things have been so much better since we’ve been home. It’s been normal. I’m not looking forward to the dark and cold of winter, but I do get some baby snuggles out of it.