Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Watch Aubrey Grow - 4 Months
Wow, a third of Aubrey's first year has already passed! We are loving our sweet girl more and more every day!
Monday, November 28, 2011
A First....and Hopefully a LAST!
WARNING! LONGEST, MOST RAMBLING POST EVER!!!!!! :-) No, seriously. Don't even attempt to read this unless you have a good 30 minutes - ha!
I'm VERY late blogging about this, but such is life these days! In September, we had a little scare with miss Aubrey! She came down with a fever and ended up in the hospital for 3 nights. It was not a fun experience!
That Thursday (9/15), Caleb went to MDO and Aubrey and I hung around the house. She slept the entire day and at the time, I did not think too much of it because she was/is still a sleepy head and still sleeps a lot in general. We picked Caleb up from MDO at 2:15pm and then came home. I put her down in her bouncer after we got home and was working on printing some stuff I needed to take to our Sunday school Ladies Night Out that I was planning to go to that night. I was having issues with the printer, Caleb was acting up and I was also just not feeling too well myself. I had this weird all-over muscle achiness/soreness that had started the day before. I had no other symptoms and otherwise felt fine, but it was a bit of a rough afternoon. Oh, I should also mention that Aubrey had just gone through what I assumed to be her 6-week growth spurt by eating every 2 hours from Mon-Weds of that week. SO, I was a little tired and a little stressed. All of a sudden, Aubrey woke up choking and coughing up mucus. She did this for a minute or so and it freaked me out. By this time, I kinda had a little mommy meltdown so I called Rhett and asked if he could come home from work early. He said he'd get home as soon as he could and I think he got home around 4pm.
By the time he got home, things had settled down a bit and Aubrey was back to sleep. However, when she was awake and crying, I had noticed that her cry just sounded different. I thought it sounded weak. She didn't feel warm to me, so I did not take her temperature right away. After Rhett got home, I decided that I'd just have him go drop off the stuff I needed to take to Ladies Night Out and I would just stay at home. We fed Caleb and then he went with Rhett to drop it off at our friends, the Pendletons', house. They also had to go by the Verizon store for something for Rhett's phone. By the time he got home it was nearly 9pm. He had picked up Firehouse subs for us and we sat down to eat after he quickly put Caleb to bed. Aubrey was awake and sitting in the bouncer by me in the kitchen while I ate. She got fussy and started crying and this time, I was sure that her cry sounded different...very weak-sounding and muffled. To me, she still did not feel warm but I kept telling Rhett that I thought something was wrong with her and she was freaking me out. He said let's just go ahead and take her temperature just to see. Well, we could not find our digital rectal thermometer! I have another thermometer that I have for adult use, but I figured it would work just fine rectally, especially since we didn't have anything else. Luckily, I have those little disposable plastic covers for it so we took her temperature with that. It said 100.7. Now, I sometimes have a hard time believing these cheap-o thermometers so I still wasn't completely convinced, especially since neither of us thought she felt warm. We decided to look for the other thermometer again, and I thought it was in Caleb's closet so Rhett snuck in there and tried to quietly search for it. He did end up finding it and that thermometer said 101.3. SO, we figured by these two readings that she must, in fact, have a fever.
By this time, it was feeding time again so I sat down to feed her and Rhett called his mom (she's a nurser practitioner). She told us what all would happen if we took her in the to ER and she indeed did have a fever - none of it sounded good! We decided to finish feeding her and then take her temp once again to double check. When we did, she did still have a fever so we decided that Rhett would take her to the Pediatric Urgent Care clinic first before heading into the full-blown ER experience. It was about 10:45pm and they close at 11pm so I called to see if they had an age minimum. The lady told me birth to 17 years...so Rhett headed there. They pretty much turned him away at the door and said they don't see babies that young. Um, hello! You just told me BIRTH to 17 years! Anyway, by this time we resolved to just go ahead and take her to the ER. I guess we were delaying the inevitable but we just wanted to make absolute certain that she needed to go (given all that they would have to do to her). I also put in a call to our pediatric clinic after hours line just to talk to someone there about it. Rhett's mom suggested taking her to a children's hospital if we could because she knew they would do a spinal tap on her and the pediatric ER doctors would have much more experience with this. Since we are close to Texas Children's, he left to take her there and then I was going to meet him once his dad arrived to stay with Caleb. Luckily, he was at their house in Magnolia (35 minutes away) even though his mom happened to be back in Louisiana with her mom.
After Rhett left for Tx Children's, our pedi clinic called and the doctor there said to definitely take her in just because she was only 7 weeks old and fever in a baby that young can be very serious. I knew that all along but we didn't want to make an ER trip if our janky thermometers were giving us a bad reading. But, better safe than sorry, I guess. I told her Rhett had already left for the hospital and she asked which TCH he was going to - Med Center or Katy? I told her we didn't know there was one in Katy and that he was headed to the Med Center. She said she would recommend going to Katy because the wait should be much shorter than at the main hospital. I called Rhett and told him to detour and head to Katy instead. This turned out to be a much better idea because they pretty much got in immediately. Supposedly, the wait at the main hospital in the Med Center can be over several hours - yikes!
Rhett's dad got to our house around 11:30pm and I headed straight to TCH-Katy. When I got there, they were attempting to start an IV, which is no easy task on such a young baby, even for a well-trained professional. I think it took the guy 3 attempts and he finally got one started in her right hand. We answered all the questions and filled out paper work and they took a blood sample to test for bacterial infection. They also needed a urine sample (to test for UTI) and put this collection bag over her privates to try to collect urine. That was interesting - I'd never seen one of those and it was not the easiest to collect urine from her. It kept leaking and they had to change it out several times. Also, since she was so young and infections can be so dangerous in young infants, they had to test for bacterial meningitis. This meant a spinal tap - not fun! We both opted to leave the room while they did it. I just could not bear to watch. It was hard enough hearing her cries from out in the hallway. :-(
Once they finished all their poking and prodding, I was able to nurse her (which was a challenge with her hooked up to the IV). She was a tired little girl and just ate and went to sleep. They gave her fluids and IV antibiotics in case it was a bacterial infection. She also got acetaminophen and this actually broke her fever for a time. The doctor from the floor where they were sending us came down to see us and she asked questions and listened to Aubrey's breathing, heart, etc. She heard Aubrey's heart murmur and said something about it, so I explained we already knew she had one and she'd been checked out and everything was "normal" with that. She said something to the effect that it didn't sound normal to her and that we would need to do an ECHO while she was in the hospital. She did say that fever can make murmurs sound louder, but just the way she said "it doesn't sound normal to me" really freaked me out. I was already so worried about her fever and this did not help one bit! (more on that later).
Rhett was trying to sleep in the ER room but then decided he'd go out to the car and sleep while we waited to be moved to a room. I attempted to sleep on the gurney holding her, but it wasn't easy and people kept coming in and out....bad thing about hospitals!! (well, good thing too!) We did finally get moved to a room at around 4:30am. The rooms there (actually the whole hospital) are very nice and accomodating to families. The room was huge and had a sleeper sofa-type thing that slept 2 adults. Also, as a nursing mom, I got all meals for "free" (I'm sure we paid for it somehow) and got to use their awesome hospital-grade Medela breastpump. We settled in and tried to sleep as much as possible. By this time (Friday morning) we were exhausted! Luckily, for the first 24 hours, all Aubrey did was sleep. She also did really well nursing that first day, too. We were told this was a good sign that she was both sleeping and eating well. Rhett and I took turns going home to shower and bring back other things we needed for our stay. It was pretty much what you would expect from a hospital stay....vitals every four hours. I remembered this well from my own hospital stay when I was on bedrest! They gave her acetaminophen around the clock for the fever and would check one hour after each dose to see if her fever went down. A lot of times, her fever would go down and even broke a few times but there were other times it did not go down. Honestly, it has been so long that I can't remember what her highest temp was but I think it was around 101.7 or so. It really could have been much worse and we are thankful it didn't get any higher!
We had to keep her undressed and uncovered as much as possible but she did not like that! She wanted to stay wrapped up so if we unwrapped her too much she would not sleep well. Like I said, the first 24 hours, she slept constantly. Then Friday night she did NOT want to sleep and that was a pretty miserable night. She would sleep some if one of us was holding her, but she would not sleep at all if you put her down. We tried to take turns holding her. Rhett could get some sleep while holding her but I just could not. I was miserable and exhausted. Not to mention, I still had to nurse her and she was still get vitals and APAP every four hours! Man, hospitals are not made for sleeping!
Saturday, we were told that her 24 hour cultures had come back negative so that was a good sign! We still had to wait 48 hours total for a definitive answer, though. Saturday was much of the same...vitals, APAP, temp checks, etc. Sorry if this is TMI but gotta document the details.....she sprayed poop all over one of our poor nurses when she was getting her temp checked, LOL. Those sweet pediatric nurses...I'm sure they get much worse than that all the time! Also, on Saturday she did not nurse very well. I had to pump quite a bit and this actually continued through Monday. She just seemed too tired to want to work for it so we mostly bottle fed her on these days. Sunday morning, we got the results back from the 48 hour cultures and they were negative - praise the LORD! This meant that it was a virus and it just had to run it's course so we were released to go home and got home sometime in the afternoon. By this time, she had developed a rash all over her little body (another sign of rash and the same rash Caleb had earlier in the week) I continued with temp checks and APAP at home and her fever actually broke around midnight on Sunday night! Again, she continued to not want to sleep unless she was being held so we tried our best to do this while sleeping on the couch. I pretty much got no sleep b/c I just could not sleep while holding her. I don't know why but it was impossible. Oh, and I forgot to mention that Caleb went to Rhett's parents' house for the weekend and then we asked if he could stay until Wednesday b/c Rhett had to go back to work. There was no way I would have been able to care for him AND her while she was still so sick and I was so exhausted. We were very thankful that Rhett's parents kept him for us and that they live close enough that his dad was able to come over on short notice!
Monday morning, I called for an appointment with her pediatrician and they worked us in that afternoon. She was still fever-free but the rash had gotten much, much worse. She was covered in it and looked so sad and pathetic. We were told to come back for another checkup on Wednesday. I asked the NP about what the hospital doc had said about her murmur and needing an ECHO (which they later told us they had decided against) and the NP listened and said that the murmur did sound louder than before (she'd listened to it several times, although I have to say that I don't know how they remember how loud it is??). She said she thought doing an ECHO just to be safe was a good idea but we'd wait til she was all better. (this is the reason we had the ECHO done and later found out that all is well with her little heart!!).
Anyway, I think I have rambled on enough. This is the longest post EVER and probably doesn't make much sense b/c I wrote half of it over a month ago and now I'm just trying to get it finished once and for all!!! Aubrey continued to stay fever free after midnight on Sunday and slowly but surely got back to her normal self. I think she finally started feeling noticeably better that weekend after all of this happened. And we were so excited to see Caleb that Wednesday - Thurs to Weds was too long!!
Oh, and since all of this I have been so afraid of her getting sick again!! I have not even put her in the nursery at church yet and Caleb went in around 2 months. We are going to have to soon, though, because she is getting more loud and talkative and too distracting during church and Sunday school. I'm not ready, but will have to do it anyway.
Ok, here are the few pics I took on my cell during our hospital stay.....
poor little baby, she was so exhausted! (and this was before she found her thumb and lost most of her hair - ha!)
giant crib...sick little baby....
this was after they took her IV out. you can see the little bruise on her hand where they attempted it.
back home but still feeling crummy....
and this was after Caleb got home from being spoiled rotten at NiNi and G-Dad's. he was crying saying "I wanna go to NiNi's houfe!!!" LOL
I'm VERY late blogging about this, but such is life these days! In September, we had a little scare with miss Aubrey! She came down with a fever and ended up in the hospital for 3 nights. It was not a fun experience!
That Thursday (9/15), Caleb went to MDO and Aubrey and I hung around the house. She slept the entire day and at the time, I did not think too much of it because she was/is still a sleepy head and still sleeps a lot in general. We picked Caleb up from MDO at 2:15pm and then came home. I put her down in her bouncer after we got home and was working on printing some stuff I needed to take to our Sunday school Ladies Night Out that I was planning to go to that night. I was having issues with the printer, Caleb was acting up and I was also just not feeling too well myself. I had this weird all-over muscle achiness/soreness that had started the day before. I had no other symptoms and otherwise felt fine, but it was a bit of a rough afternoon. Oh, I should also mention that Aubrey had just gone through what I assumed to be her 6-week growth spurt by eating every 2 hours from Mon-Weds of that week. SO, I was a little tired and a little stressed. All of a sudden, Aubrey woke up choking and coughing up mucus. She did this for a minute or so and it freaked me out. By this time, I kinda had a little mommy meltdown so I called Rhett and asked if he could come home from work early. He said he'd get home as soon as he could and I think he got home around 4pm.
By the time he got home, things had settled down a bit and Aubrey was back to sleep. However, when she was awake and crying, I had noticed that her cry just sounded different. I thought it sounded weak. She didn't feel warm to me, so I did not take her temperature right away. After Rhett got home, I decided that I'd just have him go drop off the stuff I needed to take to Ladies Night Out and I would just stay at home. We fed Caleb and then he went with Rhett to drop it off at our friends, the Pendletons', house. They also had to go by the Verizon store for something for Rhett's phone. By the time he got home it was nearly 9pm. He had picked up Firehouse subs for us and we sat down to eat after he quickly put Caleb to bed. Aubrey was awake and sitting in the bouncer by me in the kitchen while I ate. She got fussy and started crying and this time, I was sure that her cry sounded different...very weak-sounding and muffled. To me, she still did not feel warm but I kept telling Rhett that I thought something was wrong with her and she was freaking me out. He said let's just go ahead and take her temperature just to see. Well, we could not find our digital rectal thermometer! I have another thermometer that I have for adult use, but I figured it would work just fine rectally, especially since we didn't have anything else. Luckily, I have those little disposable plastic covers for it so we took her temperature with that. It said 100.7. Now, I sometimes have a hard time believing these cheap-o thermometers so I still wasn't completely convinced, especially since neither of us thought she felt warm. We decided to look for the other thermometer again, and I thought it was in Caleb's closet so Rhett snuck in there and tried to quietly search for it. He did end up finding it and that thermometer said 101.3. SO, we figured by these two readings that she must, in fact, have a fever.
By this time, it was feeding time again so I sat down to feed her and Rhett called his mom (she's a nurser practitioner). She told us what all would happen if we took her in the to ER and she indeed did have a fever - none of it sounded good! We decided to finish feeding her and then take her temp once again to double check. When we did, she did still have a fever so we decided that Rhett would take her to the Pediatric Urgent Care clinic first before heading into the full-blown ER experience. It was about 10:45pm and they close at 11pm so I called to see if they had an age minimum. The lady told me birth to 17 years...so Rhett headed there. They pretty much turned him away at the door and said they don't see babies that young. Um, hello! You just told me BIRTH to 17 years! Anyway, by this time we resolved to just go ahead and take her to the ER. I guess we were delaying the inevitable but we just wanted to make absolute certain that she needed to go (given all that they would have to do to her). I also put in a call to our pediatric clinic after hours line just to talk to someone there about it. Rhett's mom suggested taking her to a children's hospital if we could because she knew they would do a spinal tap on her and the pediatric ER doctors would have much more experience with this. Since we are close to Texas Children's, he left to take her there and then I was going to meet him once his dad arrived to stay with Caleb. Luckily, he was at their house in Magnolia (35 minutes away) even though his mom happened to be back in Louisiana with her mom.
After Rhett left for Tx Children's, our pedi clinic called and the doctor there said to definitely take her in just because she was only 7 weeks old and fever in a baby that young can be very serious. I knew that all along but we didn't want to make an ER trip if our janky thermometers were giving us a bad reading. But, better safe than sorry, I guess. I told her Rhett had already left for the hospital and she asked which TCH he was going to - Med Center or Katy? I told her we didn't know there was one in Katy and that he was headed to the Med Center. She said she would recommend going to Katy because the wait should be much shorter than at the main hospital. I called Rhett and told him to detour and head to Katy instead. This turned out to be a much better idea because they pretty much got in immediately. Supposedly, the wait at the main hospital in the Med Center can be over several hours - yikes!
Rhett's dad got to our house around 11:30pm and I headed straight to TCH-Katy. When I got there, they were attempting to start an IV, which is no easy task on such a young baby, even for a well-trained professional. I think it took the guy 3 attempts and he finally got one started in her right hand. We answered all the questions and filled out paper work and they took a blood sample to test for bacterial infection. They also needed a urine sample (to test for UTI) and put this collection bag over her privates to try to collect urine. That was interesting - I'd never seen one of those and it was not the easiest to collect urine from her. It kept leaking and they had to change it out several times. Also, since she was so young and infections can be so dangerous in young infants, they had to test for bacterial meningitis. This meant a spinal tap - not fun! We both opted to leave the room while they did it. I just could not bear to watch. It was hard enough hearing her cries from out in the hallway. :-(
Once they finished all their poking and prodding, I was able to nurse her (which was a challenge with her hooked up to the IV). She was a tired little girl and just ate and went to sleep. They gave her fluids and IV antibiotics in case it was a bacterial infection. She also got acetaminophen and this actually broke her fever for a time. The doctor from the floor where they were sending us came down to see us and she asked questions and listened to Aubrey's breathing, heart, etc. She heard Aubrey's heart murmur and said something about it, so I explained we already knew she had one and she'd been checked out and everything was "normal" with that. She said something to the effect that it didn't sound normal to her and that we would need to do an ECHO while she was in the hospital. She did say that fever can make murmurs sound louder, but just the way she said "it doesn't sound normal to me" really freaked me out. I was already so worried about her fever and this did not help one bit! (more on that later).
Rhett was trying to sleep in the ER room but then decided he'd go out to the car and sleep while we waited to be moved to a room. I attempted to sleep on the gurney holding her, but it wasn't easy and people kept coming in and out....bad thing about hospitals!! (well, good thing too!) We did finally get moved to a room at around 4:30am. The rooms there (actually the whole hospital) are very nice and accomodating to families. The room was huge and had a sleeper sofa-type thing that slept 2 adults. Also, as a nursing mom, I got all meals for "free" (I'm sure we paid for it somehow) and got to use their awesome hospital-grade Medela breastpump. We settled in and tried to sleep as much as possible. By this time (Friday morning) we were exhausted! Luckily, for the first 24 hours, all Aubrey did was sleep. She also did really well nursing that first day, too. We were told this was a good sign that she was both sleeping and eating well. Rhett and I took turns going home to shower and bring back other things we needed for our stay. It was pretty much what you would expect from a hospital stay....vitals every four hours. I remembered this well from my own hospital stay when I was on bedrest! They gave her acetaminophen around the clock for the fever and would check one hour after each dose to see if her fever went down. A lot of times, her fever would go down and even broke a few times but there were other times it did not go down. Honestly, it has been so long that I can't remember what her highest temp was but I think it was around 101.7 or so. It really could have been much worse and we are thankful it didn't get any higher!
We had to keep her undressed and uncovered as much as possible but she did not like that! She wanted to stay wrapped up so if we unwrapped her too much she would not sleep well. Like I said, the first 24 hours, she slept constantly. Then Friday night she did NOT want to sleep and that was a pretty miserable night. She would sleep some if one of us was holding her, but she would not sleep at all if you put her down. We tried to take turns holding her. Rhett could get some sleep while holding her but I just could not. I was miserable and exhausted. Not to mention, I still had to nurse her and she was still get vitals and APAP every four hours! Man, hospitals are not made for sleeping!
Saturday, we were told that her 24 hour cultures had come back negative so that was a good sign! We still had to wait 48 hours total for a definitive answer, though. Saturday was much of the same...vitals, APAP, temp checks, etc. Sorry if this is TMI but gotta document the details.....she sprayed poop all over one of our poor nurses when she was getting her temp checked, LOL. Those sweet pediatric nurses...I'm sure they get much worse than that all the time! Also, on Saturday she did not nurse very well. I had to pump quite a bit and this actually continued through Monday. She just seemed too tired to want to work for it so we mostly bottle fed her on these days. Sunday morning, we got the results back from the 48 hour cultures and they were negative - praise the LORD! This meant that it was a virus and it just had to run it's course so we were released to go home and got home sometime in the afternoon. By this time, she had developed a rash all over her little body (another sign of rash and the same rash Caleb had earlier in the week) I continued with temp checks and APAP at home and her fever actually broke around midnight on Sunday night! Again, she continued to not want to sleep unless she was being held so we tried our best to do this while sleeping on the couch. I pretty much got no sleep b/c I just could not sleep while holding her. I don't know why but it was impossible. Oh, and I forgot to mention that Caleb went to Rhett's parents' house for the weekend and then we asked if he could stay until Wednesday b/c Rhett had to go back to work. There was no way I would have been able to care for him AND her while she was still so sick and I was so exhausted. We were very thankful that Rhett's parents kept him for us and that they live close enough that his dad was able to come over on short notice!
Monday morning, I called for an appointment with her pediatrician and they worked us in that afternoon. She was still fever-free but the rash had gotten much, much worse. She was covered in it and looked so sad and pathetic. We were told to come back for another checkup on Wednesday. I asked the NP about what the hospital doc had said about her murmur and needing an ECHO (which they later told us they had decided against) and the NP listened and said that the murmur did sound louder than before (she'd listened to it several times, although I have to say that I don't know how they remember how loud it is??). She said she thought doing an ECHO just to be safe was a good idea but we'd wait til she was all better. (this is the reason we had the ECHO done and later found out that all is well with her little heart!!).
Anyway, I think I have rambled on enough. This is the longest post EVER and probably doesn't make much sense b/c I wrote half of it over a month ago and now I'm just trying to get it finished once and for all!!! Aubrey continued to stay fever free after midnight on Sunday and slowly but surely got back to her normal self. I think she finally started feeling noticeably better that weekend after all of this happened. And we were so excited to see Caleb that Wednesday - Thurs to Weds was too long!!
Oh, and since all of this I have been so afraid of her getting sick again!! I have not even put her in the nursery at church yet and Caleb went in around 2 months. We are going to have to soon, though, because she is getting more loud and talkative and too distracting during church and Sunday school. I'm not ready, but will have to do it anyway.
Ok, here are the few pics I took on my cell during our hospital stay.....
poor little baby, she was so exhausted! (and this was before she found her thumb and lost most of her hair - ha!)
giant crib...sick little baby....
this was after they took her IV out. you can see the little bruise on her hand where they attempted it.
back home but still feeling crummy....
and this was after Caleb got home from being spoiled rotten at NiNi and G-Dad's. he was crying saying "I wanna go to NiNi's houfe!!!" LOL
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Color Wonder
I am trying to do more art & learning projects with Caleb while Aubrey is napping. His attention span is pretty short, but he will usually sit and color for a few minutes. I bought these Color Wonder markers for him and these pictures are from the first time we used them. (they will only mark on the special paper) Not only can we work on our coloring skills, but it's also a good opportunity to work on colors and hand eye coordination! (by putting the caps back on the markers)
(pics from 9/9/11)
"it's boooo!" (blue)
typical Rio - he kept trying to get Caleb to play ball
Since he liked the markers, I later bought the Color Wonder fingers paints when I found them on sale at Target. The paints were a little more difficult to work with. He's still a little young to understand that you just lightly dip your finger in whatever color you want and then paint with it. He wanted to plunge his finger all the way down into the paint and scoop it out to play with it - making quite a mess! We didn't finger paint for too long b/c it ended in a fit when I wouldn't let him scoop out and waste all the paints. We'll wait a little longer to get these out again!
(pics from 10/25/11)
(pics from 9/9/11)
"it's boooo!" (blue)
typical Rio - he kept trying to get Caleb to play ball
Since he liked the markers, I later bought the Color Wonder fingers paints when I found them on sale at Target. The paints were a little more difficult to work with. He's still a little young to understand that you just lightly dip your finger in whatever color you want and then paint with it. He wanted to plunge his finger all the way down into the paint and scoop it out to play with it - making quite a mess! We didn't finger paint for too long b/c it ended in a fit when I wouldn't let him scoop out and waste all the paints. We'll wait a little longer to get these out again!
(pics from 10/25/11)
Saturday, November 19, 2011
Aubrey is 3 Months Old!
I am seriously behind on posting this....and pretty much everything else I want to blog about! Aubrey will be 4 months old in 10 days so I figured I'd better get her 3 month post up. Problem is, I can't remember back to 3 weeks ago when I should have posted this - ha! Oh well, let me see what I can recall...
* She weighed 11 pounds on the dot when we took her in at 3 months to check her heart murmer.
* She has one fat roll on each leg and a little chub around her armpit area! This might be the closest we will ever get to having a chubby baby!
* She is wearing size 1 diapers during the day, size 2 at night, and 3 month clothes still.
* She's lost a lot of hair and has a major bald spot on the back of her head!
* She started sleeping for 7-8 hours at night shortly after turning 2 months old. At the moment, her last feeding of the day is between 11pm-12am and then she sleeps until 7-8am. So nice!! She is definitely beating out Caleb in the sleep department (compared to when he was a baby...he didn't really start sleeping through the night until about 4 1/2 months) Can't wait til she goes 10-12 hours!
* Shortly after she turned 2 months, we decided to try to get her to sleep in her crib instead of her bouncer. I was nervous about the transition because she was sleeping well in the bouncer and would fight sleep in her crib. Well, I guess something finally clicked because I just put her in there to let her cry herself to sleep and she did....and she's been sleeping there ever since! It is so nice! I am interested to see if this changes at all as she gets older and more mobile and curious. If I can get out of "sleep training" her like we had to do with Caleb, I will be amazed!
* She is a great sleeper, so for that, I am extremely thankful!! I finally figured out that she doesn't want to be rocked. She just wants to be put down in her crib. She finds her thumb, rolls to her side, and goes to sleep within 5 minutes most times. Every now and then she will fuss/cry for longer and I will go in and try to calm her down. She doesn't want the paci...just her thumb! I have mixed feelings about this and "mommy guilt" is telling me that by letting her suck her thumb, I am going to ruin her teeth and make her the kid who sucks her thumb and gets made fun of in school. :-( But, she soothes herself so well and sleeps so well it is hard to make her stop. Oh, what to do......
* She is eating 6 times a day, about 4 ounces per feeding (yes, we still have the scale so I know exactly how much she is eating). Sometimes I can get 5 oz in her, but not often.
* We are still having nursing issues, so I guess it's not going to change. She is just an inefficient eater, I guess. Most times, she takes 30-45 minutes just to get 2-2 1/2 ounces and then I have to give her the rest in a bottle. I am trying my hardest to pump enough to be able to give her pumped milk but if I don't have enough, I will give her formula. If I have to give her formula, I try to pump that much to make up for it at some point in the day. Breastfeeding is supposed to be easier than bottle feeding, right? Don't have to make bottles. Milk is always ready and waiting. Well, not for us. I weigh her, nurse her, weigh her again and determine if she's gotten enough, warm up milk if I have it or make a formula bottle, give her the bottle, then I pump unless I don't have time to. This process takes at least an hour. It's exhausting and I'd be lying if I said it wasn't stressful. I'm constantly worrying about her getting enough. If I don't give her a bottle, she won't be getting enough most times. The exception is the first morning feeding. She always gets enough and sometimes more than enough at this feeding. I just don't know what else to do. I definitely don't have an oversupply of milk, but there's enough because I can always pump more after she nurses...she's just not getting it all! Frustrating!! I'm torn between keeping up the routine so that Aubrey gets breastmilk or throwing in the towel to save myself the time and give me more time to just play with the kids.
* She had an echocardiogram done on her heart to see more about her murmur. Apparently, she had two murmurs, one of which showed up on the echo but the doctor can no longer hear. (normal for it to go away with time). The other one that she still has is called a Still's murmur and this one is also benign and not a sign of any heart defect. It might go away or it might not. Either way, her heart is perfectly normal - praise the Lord!
* She loves to watch Caleb and seems very intrigued by him. He doesn't pay her too much attention yet, although he does like to lay on the activiy mat with her.
* She loves being on her changing table. She get's so happy she starts kicking her legs and smiling. She also smiles when I rid her nose of boogers using the suction bulb (a little strange). Caleb always hated it, as I'm sure most kids do!
* She is doing a little better "playing" by herself, but she really prefers to at least be in the same room and within eyesight of someone else. She doesn't like to be left alone, although she will tolerate laying in her crib under the mobile for a little bit.
* She is starting to "talk" more and it is the sweetest sound! When she smiles, she sticks her tongue out and it is so cute! Isn't everything your own child does the sweetest and cutest thing?! :-)
* She doesn't cry much and usually just fusses when she's ready to go to sleep...or if you leave her alone for too long.
Well, that's all I can think of at the moment, so here are some pics!
at cousin Jake's football game in Pearland...
Caleb always lays on the activity mat with her.
this one insists on loading sideways
I made this little A&M onesie dress for her! I haven't found a maroon bow or flower headband to match, so she kinda looks like a boy wearing a dress in this picture - ha!
playtime in big brother's bed! this is his idea of sharing - piling things on top of her!
love this one!
sweet girl!
look at that precious face!
cutest pumpkin in the patch!
this is her bald spot!
can she get any cuter?!
tummy time
* She weighed 11 pounds on the dot when we took her in at 3 months to check her heart murmer.
* She has one fat roll on each leg and a little chub around her armpit area! This might be the closest we will ever get to having a chubby baby!
* She is wearing size 1 diapers during the day, size 2 at night, and 3 month clothes still.
* She's lost a lot of hair and has a major bald spot on the back of her head!
* She started sleeping for 7-8 hours at night shortly after turning 2 months old. At the moment, her last feeding of the day is between 11pm-12am and then she sleeps until 7-8am. So nice!! She is definitely beating out Caleb in the sleep department (compared to when he was a baby...he didn't really start sleeping through the night until about 4 1/2 months) Can't wait til she goes 10-12 hours!
* Shortly after she turned 2 months, we decided to try to get her to sleep in her crib instead of her bouncer. I was nervous about the transition because she was sleeping well in the bouncer and would fight sleep in her crib. Well, I guess something finally clicked because I just put her in there to let her cry herself to sleep and she did....and she's been sleeping there ever since! It is so nice! I am interested to see if this changes at all as she gets older and more mobile and curious. If I can get out of "sleep training" her like we had to do with Caleb, I will be amazed!
* She is a great sleeper, so for that, I am extremely thankful!! I finally figured out that she doesn't want to be rocked. She just wants to be put down in her crib. She finds her thumb, rolls to her side, and goes to sleep within 5 minutes most times. Every now and then she will fuss/cry for longer and I will go in and try to calm her down. She doesn't want the paci...just her thumb! I have mixed feelings about this and "mommy guilt" is telling me that by letting her suck her thumb, I am going to ruin her teeth and make her the kid who sucks her thumb and gets made fun of in school. :-( But, she soothes herself so well and sleeps so well it is hard to make her stop. Oh, what to do......
* She is eating 6 times a day, about 4 ounces per feeding (yes, we still have the scale so I know exactly how much she is eating). Sometimes I can get 5 oz in her, but not often.
* We are still having nursing issues, so I guess it's not going to change. She is just an inefficient eater, I guess. Most times, she takes 30-45 minutes just to get 2-2 1/2 ounces and then I have to give her the rest in a bottle. I am trying my hardest to pump enough to be able to give her pumped milk but if I don't have enough, I will give her formula. If I have to give her formula, I try to pump that much to make up for it at some point in the day. Breastfeeding is supposed to be easier than bottle feeding, right? Don't have to make bottles. Milk is always ready and waiting. Well, not for us. I weigh her, nurse her, weigh her again and determine if she's gotten enough, warm up milk if I have it or make a formula bottle, give her the bottle, then I pump unless I don't have time to. This process takes at least an hour. It's exhausting and I'd be lying if I said it wasn't stressful. I'm constantly worrying about her getting enough. If I don't give her a bottle, she won't be getting enough most times. The exception is the first morning feeding. She always gets enough and sometimes more than enough at this feeding. I just don't know what else to do. I definitely don't have an oversupply of milk, but there's enough because I can always pump more after she nurses...she's just not getting it all! Frustrating!! I'm torn between keeping up the routine so that Aubrey gets breastmilk or throwing in the towel to save myself the time and give me more time to just play with the kids.
* She had an echocardiogram done on her heart to see more about her murmur. Apparently, she had two murmurs, one of which showed up on the echo but the doctor can no longer hear. (normal for it to go away with time). The other one that she still has is called a Still's murmur and this one is also benign and not a sign of any heart defect. It might go away or it might not. Either way, her heart is perfectly normal - praise the Lord!
* She loves to watch Caleb and seems very intrigued by him. He doesn't pay her too much attention yet, although he does like to lay on the activiy mat with her.
* She loves being on her changing table. She get's so happy she starts kicking her legs and smiling. She also smiles when I rid her nose of boogers using the suction bulb (a little strange). Caleb always hated it, as I'm sure most kids do!
* She is doing a little better "playing" by herself, but she really prefers to at least be in the same room and within eyesight of someone else. She doesn't like to be left alone, although she will tolerate laying in her crib under the mobile for a little bit.
* She is starting to "talk" more and it is the sweetest sound! When she smiles, she sticks her tongue out and it is so cute! Isn't everything your own child does the sweetest and cutest thing?! :-)
* She doesn't cry much and usually just fusses when she's ready to go to sleep...or if you leave her alone for too long.
Well, that's all I can think of at the moment, so here are some pics!
at cousin Jake's football game in Pearland...
Caleb always lays on the activity mat with her.
this one insists on loading sideways
I made this little A&M onesie dress for her! I haven't found a maroon bow or flower headband to match, so she kinda looks like a boy wearing a dress in this picture - ha!
playtime in big brother's bed! this is his idea of sharing - piling things on top of her!
love this one!
sweet girl!
look at that precious face!
cutest pumpkin in the patch!
this is her bald spot!
can she get any cuter?!
tummy time
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