Dear Kate,
My sweet little Kate. Happy 2 months. Life is pretty grand right now. We are loving the warm sunshine and playing outside and for the most part not having a worry in the world (which means I create them for myself). We are all happy, healthy and loving being a family of five! This month, you really started to fill out more. You’re still 2 lbs. smaller than your brother and sister were at this age but growing at a healthy rate. You continue to be more observant of your surroundings, sleep like a champ and really are just the sweetest, mellowest baby ever and we all love you to pieces.
Stats
- Height: 22.2 inches (41.3%)
- Weight: 10.3 lbs (30%)
- Head Circumference: 15.5 inches (86%)
- Diapers: Size 1 (going through about 130 a month)
- Clothes: 0-3 month
Sleeping
You continue to be the worlds best baby sleeper. At 5.5 weeks you slept for 8.5 hours straight! Then a couple days later slept for 10 straight hours!! I, however am not getting that much sleep as I never go to bed when you do and always wake up before you because I’m worried about you not breathing or some other irrational thought and my boobs hurt. With that said, you still do have a couple nights a week where you sleep 5-6 hours and I’ll get up in the middle of the night to nurse but you always fall asleep right away. All in all, no complaints on the sleep front and haven’t even needed a nap since your first week home. High-five baby girl!
Your naps are all over the board and are nowhere close to being on a schedule, but have started to develop a routine. Most days you cat nap throughout the day from to 20-60 minutes and this usually happens between every feeding. You eat, play (lay or walk around with me) and then sleep and then rinse and repeat 6 more times throughout the day. Naps are usually had in one of three places: your carseat, the rock n’ play or the bouncer. If I’m really lucky you may take one 2-hour nap at one point in the day.
Eating
Nursing continues to go really well. You have a good latch and nurse on one side about every 2.5 hours or so. I can always tell when my milk is gone or has really really slowed down as you bop your head around and latch on and off. I’m not sure if you’re still hungry or you just want to nurse/sooth yourself, but as long as I put a pacifier in your mouth after you start bopping around, you seem fine.
Spit up has decreased this month, it still happens, especially if you’ve gone more than 3 hours without nursing and I have more milk, but you’ll spit up maybe once or twice verses every feeding in your first month of life. I rarely burp you anymore, just put you upright and you’ll burp by yourself. I have been pretty lax about pumping this go-around and only do it if you’ve taken a bottle or you slept completely through the night and I’m super full in the morning. A mid-day session will give me about 3 ounces and the morning I’ll get 5-6 ounces (especially with righty!)
There were a couple days were you had some angry painful cries so we popped an ounce of apple-prune juice into a bottle and it got you pooping again. However, when I mentioned this to the Dr, she said babies can go as long as 14 days without a poop as breastmilk is just so efficient your body uses everything up and there isn’t much left to poop out-crazy!
Development
You do pretty well on tummy time–assuming we time it right and you don’t have a full or empty belly. You’re lifting your head well and if you have your pacifier, you’ll often fall asleep, so clearly your pretty comfy on the tum-tum.
I’ll probably write this same thing for the next 3 months, but you get more and more alert everyday. You have HUGE eyes and you love to look around at everything. You’ll open your eyes so big, they look kind of bug-like! We’re starting to get lots of comments about how you look similar to William and I think the eyes are a big reason. He’s got some big beautiful eyes (not to mention killer eyelashes, so if you inherit those you’ll be a lucky girl)
Around 6.5 weeks we started to see a very little smile/smirk sneak out of you. It doesn’t appear very often, but we’ve seen it sneak out a couple of times. In fact, the low frequency made me pretty nervous and was worried there may be something wrong with you as Lexi and William would light up every time they saw us. But the Dr. (and your wise Daddy) told me to chill out.
You may have a fell in love for the very first time, with a pacifier. You love this miracle piece of plastic like nobody’s business. It really soothes you and I love it because it helps you be this calm, innocent little nugget of love that we just can’t get enough of. I would say the pacifier is in your mouth 90% of the time you are awake, and even often while you sleep (side note: which may be why you don’t smile as much, as your so busy sucking ?!?!). I’ve questioned myself a couple of times on if we’re giving this too you too much and building this dependency, but then I read William’s 2 month post and he had a small love affair with his as well and he vetoed it by himself at 6 months. I also decided, that even if you do become dependent on it, I’ll deal with that later and enjoy you as a sweet mellow little babe with this magnificent invention.
Other things you like: the bath, snuggling, blankets wrapped around you–especially by your face. If you’re sleepy or fussy, but fed and changed, I’ll wrap a blanket around you, hold you close and you drift off into lala land. It is a trick of the trade for you sweet one. It’s kind of humorous to watch this unfold. You can be crying pretty good and I’ll wrap you in a blanket and your eyes will look at me and almost say ‘thank you’ as you can see the relief on your face. You also love going for walks–although we don’t go that often as you’re big brother and sister never want to go.
This month, you also made your first trip to the cabin. You did awesome on the 3 hour car ride and slept most of the way. You loved the fresh air and were just a gem!
Auntie Beca got married this month, and you got to come along for the party. Again, you did so good and slept your way through most of it. You had the cutest little dress on, and of course I didn’t get a pic of just you alone in it, but did get one with you and Mommy and Daddy. The big kids were at the cabin and it was so strange to just have one kid again–it felt so easy!
Sibling love
You are one loved little girl! Lexi is straight up obsessed with you. She requests to give you a hug and a kiss every morning when you wake up. ‘Mom, I wanna see Beatle. I wanna give her a Kiss. Ohhh Hi Beatle!! You’re so cute and sweet!’ The moment you start to cry, she runs over to you to put your pacifier back in or cover you with blankets. Total mini momma. With that said, she is a little rough with you. She tries to give you hugs while you’re sleeping and often wakes you up and will squeeze you pretty hard when she wants to snuggle. I struggle with this, because my first instinct is to yell or scold her for being too rough, which always makes me feel bad because her intentions are so good and pure. She just loves you so much and always wants to be with you, but just doesn’t realize her strength or how smoothering she can be.
William loves you a lot too and is much more gentle. He loves to lie next to you on the floor and talks to you in his sweet little baby voice. Overall he has shown very few signs of jealousy and I feel his transition to your arrival was much smoother than Lexi’s when William was born. He is much more concerned about Lexi and what she is doing.
Post-partum
Overall things are really great. My mood is fantastic and haven’t shown any signs of post-partum depression. My hair loss is in full effect and you would think I was an animal shedding their winter coat by how much hair I loose every time I shower and brush my hair.
I’m officially back to my pre-preggo weight and can fit into jeans. They’re a little tighter than what I remember, but I can wear them. I even bought several new pairs as the dress code changed at work and we can wear jeans more frequently and my jeans were getting pretty worn when I got pregnant last fall.
I had my 6 week checkup with my Dr. and everything looked good. I have yet to exercise though. I know I should and I want to build up some strength again, but am not motivated enough yet to prioritize it. It will come, eventually.
That is it sweet Kate. You are such an amazingly good baby we are so lucky to have you. It is so hard to believe that you’ve already been with us for 2 months AND that you have only been with us for 2 months. You are the perfect little caboose to our family and am so excited to continue to watch you grow.
Love,
Mama
Peanut Smiles 