The Little Bean is 8 weeks old!
At her doctor’s appointment on Monday, she weighed 8lbs, 10 oz and was 21 inches long with a 15″ circumference head. Growing growing growing! (And yet still smaller than a couple babies I know of who were born this year–at the time of their birth!) She is still pretty much wearing newborn size exclusively, which blows my mind since the majority of babies get one wear (or none at all) out of some of their smallest clothes. She got a fleecy sleeper for Christmas that is 0-3 months and it is still HUGE on her, so it seems to depend quite a lot on the brand or style. She did go up one diaper size though (which I determined after several instances of peeing out the sides of her diaper. One night I changed her swaddle twice. Ick.). She got her first round of vaccinations on Monday and she did great. I think it was harder for me than her! She only screamed a little, nursed in the office, and then immediately fell asleep for several hours. She cried and fussed really bad for about a half hour a little later, but it was not nearly as bad as I thought it would be. Her eyes are still dark gray/blue, but she has a little smidgen of brown in her left eye. I am hoping she will keep the gray (daddy’s eyes are gray) but heterochromia does run in my family, so maybe she will end up keeping that little brown spot. Hair is starting to come in light golden blonde, another of daddy’s features, so I have a feeling she is going to be all Carruthers.
We are still dealing a little bit with the colic, but it is definitely better than it was. We have been giving her daily probiotics (though the fiasco with trying to find/administer those is a post in and of itself) and at her appointment this week her doctor thought she might have a touch of reflux, which could explain why she hates to be transitioned from one position to another, so he put her on Zantac also just to see if it helps. So, instead of having almost daily screaming fits, we have one or maybe two episodes a week which has helped so much. Breastfeeding is going much smoother now, too, thank goodness–I was really ready to throw in the towel on that one.
At the risk of jinxing myself, she has been sleeping great. She is in her own crib in her own room! I started sleeping back in our own bed on Christmas and although it was pretty tough that first night I have to admit it is easier than sleeping in her room. (More importantly it helped Cameron and me start feeling like we were married again instead of just being roommates, which had been an issue.) I usually put her down at 8:30 or 9 every night and she will typically sleep for at least 3 hours at a time, though sometimes more (5 hours one night!). I am getting up to feed her on average 3 times a night and getting up for the day with her around 7:30 or 8 each morning. Sometimes if she wakes up after 6 I will just bring her into our bed and let her snack and snuggle for a little while longer so that I can catch a few more Z’s too. I am just now starting to implement a daily nap schedule, with pretty hit-or-miss success so far. I know that at 8 weeks she is still sleeping upwards of 16-18 hours a day, so keeping her awake in between those nap times is often difficult, but I know she’ll start being awake for longer periods soon. Mostly, my point in putting her down in her crib for naps at least 3 times a day is to get her used to it. She catnaps a lot (usually on me) and while this is fine, I am not interested in getting her into the habit of only napping when she’s being held. Plus, it’s hard to get shit done during the day when she is always attached to me, and in the interest of me not going insane, it’s important for me to be able to get shit done. All things considered, though, I am really pleased that she is sleeping in her crib at night by herself, because setting up good sleeping habits from the beginning was a huge goal of mine.
She is starting to show interest in stuff like toys. She loves looking out the window in the morning. She isn’t quite grabbing for things yet, only incidentally, but I can tell she is focusing on toys when I show them to her. She seems to like things that rattle; her favorite toy on her playmat is a bulb that has little balls inside it and for Christmas she got a Nemo fish that clicks and rattles and she has actually been reaching for it (it’s attached to the side of her crib), but not quite grabbing yet. She can follow someone walking across a room and is responding to noise stimuli which is sometimes and good and sometimes not–good when it’s her glowing seahorse that plays music, bad when it’s the dog barking at dumb shit. She loves to be upright (a possible symptom of the reflux) and look at stuff, so I try to put her in her booster seat (it’s an off-brand Bumbo) at least once a day. Sometimes she’s into it and sometimes she’s like NOPE. She usually wants to be really active and she is already trying to push herself up on her arms when she’s lying on her tummy, so I have a feeling she’s going to be mobile in no time. Bathtime is still challenging, but she loves to shower with me. (So much that the other night she got so upset when we took her out that she actually threw up.) So we’ll see how my little water sign does when she is big enough to sit up in her tub on her own because so far it looks like she got mommy’s “fuck water I hate water” gene.
Some personality is starting to appear. She may look like her daddy, but she is all mommy in personality so far. She knows what she likes and what she wants and she better get it NOW if you want to avoid a meltdown. (Obviously right now that is pretty much limited to boob and binkie, but you get my point.) A few weeks ago I had her on her changing pad and leaned down to kiss her head and she was not having it–she squawked and smacked me right in the face, little bum. I can tell she is not going to be satisfied with sitting around letting the world pass her by, which is a good trait to have in my opinion.
Oh, and best of all–we have real smiles!
Two Lattes and One Bean 