Tag Archives: newborn

Baby Update – Averie Month 2

Leave a reply

2012 023Averie’s 2nd month continued to be pretty easy.  For the first half of the month, she slept a lot during the day but started to have a fussy period between 7-11pm, during which she’d cry unless nursing or held.  This was tough because Aaron gets home from school around 5:30 and needs to be fed, bathed and put to bed by 7:30-8:00.  Usually, I serve him dinner and nurse/hold her while he ate, and during his bath time, I put her in her crib.  Sometimes she’d hang out staring at her mobile without any issues, but usually she’d be crying by the time we finished.  By 8pm, I’d be wiped out.  Breakdowns/tears usually happened at this time.

After a few weeks though, we settled into a sort of routine and I got used to running to her crib and comforting her, so it’s gotten a lot better.  I need to invest in a battery-powered mobile that runs for longer than a few minutes to help keep her distracted in the evenings, and possibly to help soothe her when I start training her to nap in her crib during the day.

Speaking of naps, she’s started to consolidate her daytime sleep and have longer wakeful periods in the day.  Now her routine is something like this:

6:30am – eat, back to sleep
8:30-9 – eat, play
10:00 – eat, play
12:00pm – sleep3:00 – eat, play
4:30 – sleep (maybe)
5:30 – go with mommy to pick up Aaron – sometimes she’ll be asleep in the car, lately she’s been awake the entire trip
6:00-8:00  – play/nurse, sometimes fuss/cry in crib during Aaron’s bath and bedtime routine
8:00 – bath, bedtime routine
8:30 nurse before going to bed
11:30 – dream feed (only sometimes if I’m worried my boobs will feel engorged in the middle of the night)
4-5am – eat, back to sleep

On good days, she’ll fall asleep and wake up quickly just once for another nursing session before going to sleep for good, but most nights she’ll fuss/wake up at least 2x.  We usually give her 2 oz of formula that helps.  I’m not sure why…either it’s because I’m emptied out by this point, or she associates the formula with sleep (maybe both?)

Overall, month 2 continued to be pretty smooth for us, as we started to establish a sort of schedule and I got the hang of juggling 2 young children.  I have less than 2 weeks before heading back to work so I’m trying to treasure every moment of my time with my little one. She’s just so good, happy and healthy that the thought of leaving her makes my heart ache…hope I won’t fall to pieces my first day back!

Baby Update – Averie month 1

Leave a reply

2012 194

Unlike the first few months with Aaron, the time with Averie has gone by way too quickly – I’m in shock that she’s already 10 weeks old!  We were blessed with an even chiller, more easygoing kid the second time around, and I’m definitely grateful for that.  Here are some highlights of Averie’s first month:

  • After an interesting l&d with some unexpected drama, we came home with a very sleepy baby.  Because my milk took a few days to come in, she was super hungry and wanted to nurse constantly, to no avail.  I felt horrible and gave her some glucose water here and there to take the edge off, but in retrospect I wish I gave her some formula instead of torturing her with hunger pains.  She cried and fussed a lot until my milk finally came in the next evening (hooray!)
  • 3 days after coming home, we went for our first pediatrician visit to find that her jaundice was getting worse, so the doctor sent us to the hospital for light therapy.  We stayed for 24 hours, where she stayed under the lights constantly except when nursing, changing her diaper, or getting her heel pricked to check her bilirubin levels. I heard that most babies fall asleep under the lights, but she hated it and cried most of the time she wasn’t in my arms.  Needless to say, neither of us got much sleep during our stay and we both conked out as soon as we came home.
  • After the jaundice subsided and she got enough milk, she went back to sleeping a ton with 2-3 brief wakeful periods a day.  She was so good that sleep deprivation wasn’t a big problem for me as it was with Aaron when he was this age.
  • She did however, eat a TON and wanted to nurse at least every 2 hours, sometimes every hour, which was exhausting.  Fortunately, she was able to go for slightly longer stretches at night, sleeping anywhere from 2-4 hours.  Nighttime sleep went for longer stretches on her own, and by the end of October, she was starting to sleep 4-5 hours.  Yay!
  •  Breastfeeding wasn’t as painless as I thought it would be – with Aaron, I had issues ranging from lower supply to super painful, blistered nipples.  Fortunately, I haven’t had supply issues this time around (though we still do supplement a few ounces of formula before her bedtime on occasion), but I did have sore nipples that finally went away around week 6.  Since breastfeeding isn’t new to me, I didn’t think I’d have any issues, but with her voracious appetite and barracuda mouth, my boobs didn’t stand a chance to come through unscathed.

2012 339

The first month was a blur, but because I was a somewhat more experienced mom and she was so good, it was much better than what I expected.  The hardest part was learning to juggle the needs of a newborn with that of a capricious 2 year old.  Hubs and I find ourselves saying, wow this would be a piece of cake if Aaron wasn’t here, haha!  Not that I’d have it any other way, though.  Posts devoted to Aaron’s hilarious antics to follow soon.