Baby Kate,
Where do I even begin my sweet baby girl? (queue your hormonal overly sensitive mama). Overall, this past month has been amazing and I am high on life right now and never want this fairytail to end. I am overwhelmed by how good God is and how grateful I am for this little family of ours. You are such a healthy, good, mellow and cute baby. You just go with the flow and have yet to let us know of something you don’t like. You sleep great, are eating well and your big brother and sis just want to eat you up. Additionally, having Daddy home is pretty much the best thing in the world. We all just get to hang out together as a family of 5 every day (minus the work daddy has to do). There is no rush for anyone to get up and get out of the house each morning or pressure to be in bed by a certain time. Both mommy and daddy have the freedom to run errands in the middle of the day and take one or two kids, but not be overwhelmed by all three. There are two sets of hands here almost all the time to either make meals, clean meals up, snuggle you or put someone to bed. We’re able to stay on top of keeping the house put together, laundry and making meals and it just feels so good to not have any of those ‘chores’ sitting on my shoulders.
The weather has been gorgeous and I am totally soaking up all the vitamin D whether it is going for walks, watching the kids ride bikes, playing in the pool, working in my garden/house projects, having ice cream treats or pushing the big kids on the swings. I’ve spent a lot of time thanking God for this gift of time together and for blessing us with such an amazing family. I’m doing my best to just soak in this time and not stress about it coming to an end (which unfortunately, I know it will–the weather and this fairy tail).
Monthly stats
- Weight: 8 lbs 5 oz (28%) (crazy that you are a month old and still smaller then your big brother was at birth!)
- Height: 21.61 CM (82%)
- Head circumference: 14.61 in (80%)
- Clothes: newborns
- Diapers: just moved up to size 1 (because sister can pee and fill up a diaper like Whoa!)
Sibling Love
As I mentioned above, your big brother and sister are enamored with you. Both love to ask where you are at all times and love to look at you and give you 50 kisses a day. William was lying next to you in your bedroom one afternoon and asked me if I could tickle your toes? He then turned to you and asked, ‘Do you have toes? Look at my toes!!!’ He also likes to tell you ‘not to throw a fit’ when you’re crying as we commonly use the phrase, ‘you get what you get and you don’t throw a fit’
Your newness hasn’t worn off on Lexi either. She loves to do tummy time with you and pick out your clothes and hair bows each day. She also gets right up in your face, like centimeters away to check you out. We’ve had to institute a new rule, you must be a hands distance away from your face unless you’re giving a quick kiss–no lingering. She also likes to use a ‘baby voice’ when she talks to you. She raises her voice two octaves and she says ‘Hiiii Beatle, Hiiii’ while stroking the top of your head. And then I die on the floor because it is too sweet.
Eating
I pretty much had to wake you for every feeding for the first two weeks. Around week 3, you started to become much more alert and would wake on your own and cry when you wanted to eat. But, as soon as I picked you up, you stopped crying (reason 483 why you are the best baby). You’re still nursing on one side for each feeding. It still takes awhile to latch on. You’re on and off and on and off and after about 3-5 times of this, you usually stay on. I think this is mostly because you have gas when you wake up and you’re trying to work through it and I feed you too quickly. You do spit up quite a bit, usually right after a burp, but then you’ll continue to spit up for about an hour after eating–especially when you’re on your back or doing tummy time. You have also taken a bottle a couple times and just chowed down.
Side note: The few times I have pumped I’ve gotten about half of what I used to get with your big siblings. Obviously, you need less milk than they did, but hoping this won’t be a problem for the future)
Sleeping
The first two weeks of your life were pretty darn sleepy girlfriend! If I had to guess, you would sleep around 20 hours a day. The only time you were really awake was to eat and even then, I had to wake you up almost every time. Noises didn’t startle you and we could put you down and pick you up without a peep, so easy!
Then, around week 3, you started to wake up on your own to eat or when you had a dirty diaper. At night, we would put you in a onesie and the fleece swaddle and you would sleep anywhere from 4-6 hours. Most of your naps were either in the rock’n play or in someone’s arms. Snuggling against a warm body is by far your favorite and when you sleep best and for the longest stretches. You usually wake pretty quickly if you are put down after snoozing in someone’s arms.
You are by far my most cuddly baby. You love to curl up in a ball with your scrawny little legs in a frog position and snuggle on my (or anyone’s) chest. And my oh my, is it the best. I am trying to soak up that delicious smell of your sweet head, the short little breaths that trickle across my chest and the little grunts you make while cutting some zzzz. When we’re really lucky, and you fall into a deep sleep you pur like a little kitten.
Like most babes, you really like the white noise and that also seems to help get you some longer sleep stretches
Nicknames
You have generated quite a list of nicknames. When we picked out your name, we thought we would call you Kate, which we are, but we do call you Katelyn a lot too. Right away, Lexi started calling you ‘The Little One’ and daddy started calling you ‘Baby Beatle’ or Baby B and Lexi and William have both gravitated to that and regularly call you that. William also calls you Baby Tate as he doesn’t pronounce his ‘K’s’ very well yet. I have a feeling Beatle is going to stick just as Bood did for William.
Personality/Development
As I’ve mentioned several times before, you are world’s best baby and just are so mellow. You’ve started to cry a little more in the last week or so, but for the first 2-3 weeks of life, you would really only cry if you had some bad gas or were pooping. In the last week, you’ve started to cry when you’re hungry, when you need your diaper changed or when you are uncomfortable (too hot, too cold, funky position)
Around the 2.5 week mark, some baby acne came in. It isn’t terrible, but I do miss that absolute perfect baby complexion. We’re trying to wash your face each day to keep it in check and that seems to make it less red. Around this same timeframe, Daddy and I both noticed you started to bulk up a little. You’re legs weren’t as scrawny as they had been and your cheeks were a little more full. You’re also fairly dry and your skin is peeling as well.
Sister, you have got some BIG feet! Almost everyone that sees them comments on the length of them and your ‘finger toes’. You have also developed a blister on the top of your lip from sucking. It comes and goes, but I remember Lexi having this too.
So far, you love sucking on your pacifier to help sooth yourself and for the most part do pretty well in the bouncer, car, swing and ergo. You also seem to really enjoy bath time. You just lie in your little bathtub and look around.
Also, right around week 3ish, your eyes got goopy, little green stuff coming out and little white. You also were having these incidents where you would start gagging of choking on your back. Goopy eyes turned about to be some clogged tear ducts and we never figured out the choking thing, but you spent a couple of nights sleeping on my chest in the rocking chair as I didn’t trust you anywhere else and we eventually transitioned you to sleeping in the rock’n play each night.
My recovery
As mentioned in your 1 week post, my milk coming in was the most painful with you, but everything else recovery wise has been the easiest. By week 2, I pretty much felt 100% back to normal and felt good enough to go work out (I didn’t but felt like I could). By the time I delivered you, I had gained 17 lbs. and by postpartum week 2, 12 of them were gone. However, the last 2 weeks, the number on the scale hasn’t budged and neither has anything with my body and I don’t think it will change moving forward. I’m going to need to exercise and eat right to make any changes, which isn’t the worst thing in the world, but it is also nice when you can eat anything you want and the lbs. just fall off, or your body continues to shrink back to its original size. Although, I’m only up, 5 lbs. from my pre-pregnancy weight, my belly is definitely bigger and flabbier than it was pre-preggos. Per my gush fest above, I’m fortunately not suffering from any kind of postpartum depression, just the opposite. The only other thing to note was I felt like I bled longer this time around. I’m still wearing thin pads and really hoping this ends soon because pads just suck.
In summary life is amazing right now, you are an awesome baby that everyone is obsessed with. What a lucky little girl you are right now.
Love, Mama
Peanut Smiles 