One Month Update

Greta's one month birthday was last Thursday. Here's an update on how she and we are doing.

Greta today (at 5.5 weeks old). Casey's son Asher is in the background. Many thanks to Casey for taking the photo!

Stats
Birth Weight: 7 lbs, 6 oz on March 18.
First Pediatrician Appointment Weight: 6 lbs, 8 oz on March 21.
One Month Weight: 8 lbs, 13 oz on April 19.

Birth Length: 20.5"
One Month Length: 21.25"

Head Circumference at Birth: 13"
Head Circumference at One Month: 14.25"

Since newborns are said to "eat, sleep and poop," I will start with a rundown of how she's doing in these areas.

A sleepy Greta, on her way to her first pediatrician appointment. 

Eating
Greta had to be fed on a strict 3-hr schedule when she was first born because she wouldn't wake up to eat. She takes a long time to eat anything (and would often fall asleep if not actively tickled and burped throughout the feeding), so this often meant that we were finishing one feeding only an hour or less before the next one was scheduled to begin. At our 1-month pediatrician's appointment (which was held a little early), we got the green light to start letting her sleep longer and letting her wake up to eat. The positives of this change are that we can often get a little more sleep in a stretch and we aren't having to spend as much energy keeping her awake when we can barely stay awake ourselves. The drawbacks are that she's completely unpredictable and hard to schedule.

While it's been difficult to schedule her, we have developed some patterns. We usually nurse during the day, except when I need some time out of the house and she ends up getting a bottle from another caregiver. In those cases, I just pump when I get home. Because she takes so long to nurse, and because I'm so terribly exhausted and afraid I'm going to fall asleep and drop her, we've developed a routine of Ben or another caregiver giving her a bottle of breastmilk and me pumping. This has its inconveniences (washing bottles and pump parts), but keeps the actual feeding time a little shorter so that we can get down to the business of coaxing her back to sleep. We also typically give her a little formula in the evening. The formula sticks with her a little more and keeps her asleep longer.

My goal is to start nursing more at nighttime, since she'll be getting bottles during the day when I'm back at work. I'm still a bit nervous when it comes to nighttime nursing, but it's a transition that I think will be good for both of us in the long run.

Sleeping
Speaking of transitioning back to work, I'm not sure when I'm going to sleep once I'm back in the classroom. When pregnant, my work schedule involved a 5:30am wake-up time in order to get ready to be at work at 6:45am. After work, I'd come home as soon as possible and I'd try to start getting ready for bed at 8pm.

And I thought I couldn't get any more tired. Oh, how wrong I was.

So, I'm estimating that when I go back to work I will need to wake up 45 minutes earlier than that if I am pumping in the morning and 1-2 hours earlier if I am nursing. So I'm looking at needing to be up (and stay up) sometime between 3:30 and 4:45am. Right now, Greta is falling asleep around 11pm most nights and getting up sometime between 2 and 3:30am to eat. Eating and falling back asleep takes about an hour or two and then she's usually up again sometime between 5 and 7am. This varies a ton, though, and it's difficult to get her to move her bedtime, so I'm at a loss for how this will work when she needs to be more on my sleeping, working and pumping schedule. I'm particularly scared of how it will affect my working schedule, as the work of a teacher does not end at the last bell of the day. I'd love it if I could come home and just nurse her and sleep with her during her naptimes, but I know that somehow I'm going to need to squeeze in at least a few hours of worktime between the end of work and when we all get some sleep. If anyone has tips for keeping up with a job that requires a lot of "out-of-office" time, I'd appreciate it!

Pooping
Greta has a hard time with gas between the hours of 8pm and 11pm most evenings, which I believe is the reason that it is so difficult to try to get her to change her bedtime to earlier. This is her "fussy" period. Overall, she is not a terribly fussy baby (at least not yet! Knock on wood!) and so we've struggled with this time of the evening. Speaking from The Future (I started this post right at the 1 month mark, but I must admit that I'm still working on it in little bits and pieces, so I am writing this part at about five and a half weeks), I can say that she's been getting a little less fussy the last few days. I don't know if it was the change of scenery (we're back at our house now, after staying with Ben's parents for most of the last 5 weeks) or whether she just hit a groove, but she's been a little less fussy at that time of day recently.

There isn't much else to report on pooping. Today she "projectile pooped" for the first time, though. That was . . . quite the experience. Many thanks to our dear friend Casey for helping to clean our carpet.

Other Awesomeness
We've had some nice visits from family. We've stayed at Ben's parents' house for most of the last five weeks and they've been really helpful. My mom also came during the first week and stayed for a few days, and then she, my dad, my sister and my brother-in-law came as well. My sister is pregnant, so it was especially fun to see her with Greta and think about how exciting it will be for Greta to have a cousin who is close in age to her!

Michelle and Greta, with Greta resting her feet on her future cousin.

Greta has been getting so much bigger and more robust. She always had a pretty strong neck right from the beginning and would hold her head up when someone was carrying her or relaxing with her on their shoulder. If she is on the chest of someone who is seated and starts to slide down their chest a little, she will push off of their legs with her feet and try to pull herself back up.

That's Ben trying to keep her from lifting her head back too far.

Again, speaking from The Future, she flashed her first smiles and cooed for the first time in her 5th week of life (so, just a few days after her 1 month birthday). She enjoys looking at light fixtures and faces. She likes being on her back and moving her limbs around vigorously.

I know that this is all normal baby stuff for this age, but it's pretty exciting for us, since she hadn't done much except sleep in the beginning. Now we're finally starting to get a sense of her as a little person, and that is very fun! She's also napping less during the day -- or at least, we're swaddling her and putting her down less. It used to be that she'd fall asleep in-between every feed, but lately she's been eating more frequently during the day and just chilling for awhile in-between feeds, with catnaps here and there. It's definitely more fun, although it certainly can get a bit draining. Luckily, she likes her swing and her play mat, so we don't have to hold her all the time.

Greta in her swing, a gift from her Great-Aunt Doris and Great-Uncle Lee. 

She's a lovely baby and we're very happy to have her in our lives! I think we'll keep her!