7 Weeks

So I had been meaning to do a 1 month post and then post monthly updates about Phoebe from there, but I've pretty much missed the 1 month mark now so I'll do 7 weeks and then probably another one at 3 months to get back on track.

SO MUCH has changed in the last 7 weeks; its hard to believe!  Its crazy how much we love her!  She's so sweet and so much fun!  A much welcomed addition to the team.  I'm so glad I'm able to stay home from work for 12 weeks!  I can't imagine going back right now.  Its also crazy how little I get done now.  Its not a bad thing, but between pumping and feeding, playing, and just watching her, it seems to take me at least twice as long to get through my to-do list as it used it!

We went to the doctor last Monday (just shy of 6 weeks) and Phoebe weighed 8lbs 2oz and was 21 3/4in long.  She was in the 25th percentile for weight and 75th percentile for length.  At about 6 1/2 weeks she started fitting into some of her 3 months clothes, but most of the newborn clothes still fit too.  We're trying to get some wear out of the summer 3 month clothes before it turns cool!

We've been trying to follow the recommendations/scheduling from On Becoming Babywise by Gary Ezzo and Robert Bucknam.  The general gist of the book at this point is keeping an "eat, play, sleep" schedule.  So after she eats we have playtime and then naptime and then the cycle starts over.  Of course during the first few weeks it was challenging to keep her awake after she ate, but she's doing much better now.   We certainly don't hold to the book perfectly all the time, but its worked out pretty well so far.

Eating:  Phoebe is eating well.  She's taking 3 1/4ozs at each feeding and eating 7 times a day right now.  I'm still pumping for her and I actually have been pumping out more breast milk since I stopped trying to nurse her- probably because of the decrease in my stress level.  Right now I'm able to feed her my breast milk for about 5 out of those 7 feedings and donor breast milk for the other 2.  She's not picky about what she eats either.  I know some babies can be picky about certain things in mom's diet.  She'll switch back and forth between eating my breast milk, donor breast milk, or formula with no problem or complaints.  And she HARDLY ever spits up.  I can count on one hand the number of times she has spit-up, (4 or 5) so that's been a blessing.  I call Chris the burp wisperer.  I must admit I am not very good at getting Phoebe to burp, but Chris can get her to burp easily almost every time!  I really have no idea what I'm doing differently!  It was slightly amusing (and annoying), a few days ago I was working to burp her and finally handed her over to Chris and she burped just as soon as she was in his hands- he only patted her once!

Look mommy, daddy taught me how to hold the bottle all by myself!

Playtime:  We've really enjoyed reading to Phoebe.  One of our favorites right now is the Big Picture Story Bible.

So we'll read to her after she eats or put her down on her playmat, which she loves!  She'll just lay there and smile (as of the last week or so) and make some noises and hit and kick the little toys.  She's not purposefully hitting and kicking, they just happen to be in her way when she moves, but its fun because it makes noise when she does.  She also is starting to focus more and look at her mobiles.  Chris' biggest complaint is that the mobiles aren't mobile!  They don't move on their own at least.  The mobile we have on her bed does have a motor, but the ones on her swing and playpen do not.  So she'll look at it if you spin it and move it side to side, but you have to stand there to do it.  She also has a sweet lamb in her playpen that plays "Jesus Loves Me."  She likes to look at it and hear the music.  We have music playing through Pandora on the TV almost all the time, so she's certainly used to background music.

Rapping to Nelly (yes, really) with my celeb shades

Sleeping: Phoebe is sleeping 6 to 6 1/2 hours at night.  I'll pump and feed her at nine and then we both go to bed around 10.  Chris stays up and wakes her up at midnight to feed her and then puts her straight back to bed.  Then I'll get up with her in the morning to feed her when she wakes up around 6 or 6:30am.  I'm also getting up to pump around 2-2:30am.  I know this might be silly, but I'm just too scared to go all night without pumping since milk supply has been an issue.  Phoebe sleeps best when she is swaddled.  We don't do anything special when we put her down at night except swaddle her in a Summer Infant SwaddleMe blanket and give her her paci.  If she's not swaddled she startles herself and wakes herself up.  We don't swaddle her with the SwaddleMe blanket for her naps typically, and she always wrestles her arms out of the blanket we've swaddled her in so that they are up by her head.  She has been in a cradle in our bedroom, but last weekend we moved the cradle out of our room and into her own.  I'm not sure why we did this, I just decided it was time.  I wasn't having any trouble sleeping with her in our room and the first night I was actually sad she wasn't there.  (Even though I was sleeping anyways and didn't ever notice whether she was there or not when I was asleep...)  But we've started using our video monitor now, so that's been fun.
      Every once in awhile she's overstimulated or overtired and so I'll bounce her for 3-4 minutes and then she'll fall right asleep.   Did you know that the beat of a mother walking is 60 beats/minute?  This is what babies are used to in the womb and subsequently what they best fall asleep to as a newborn.  Bob Marley's "Buffalo Solider" is 60 beats/minute.  So yes, Chris and I will sing Buffalo Solider and bounce her to the beat.  This is a fun fact found in Be Prepared: A Practical Handbook for New Dads by Gary Greenberg and Jeannie Hayden.  Chris and I have both found this book helpful, practical, and quite amusing.  I would reccomend it for new dads.

Nap time

Nap time.  I got my arms out...

Diapers: At 6 weeks we finally moved out of newborn diapers!  Quite a few of you have asked me about cloth diapers and how it's going and the answer is we haven't started them yet.  The original plan was to try to transition to cloth around 4 weeks after the initial shock and adjustment of having a newborn.  But 4 weeks was right in the middle of my breastfeeding troubles and I had no energy to jump into a new challenge.  Plus, the cloth diapers I had chosen to use, bumGenius 4.0 One-Size, are for babies 8-35lbs, and she wasn't 8lbs.  (I have 12 of these diapers thanks to my Northside friends!)  The One-Size diapers will grow with you baby, but because of this they are also a little too bulky for Phoebe's little bum right now.  So a few weeks ago I saw a sale and bought 6 size small bumGenius 3.0 diapers which supposedly fit babies 8-16lbs.  They are a little less bulky so they should be good to start out with.  I finally washed the diapers yesterday so we'll hopefully start using them this week.  I'll let you know later how its going...  Also, as far as cloth diapering goes I did a lot of reseach and read a lot of people's blogs about it before making the decision to use them.  (Thank you Anna for all those blog links...I'm still not sure how you of all people could reccomend so many cloth diaper blogs, but I appreciate it!)  But if you've seen or read other blogs about cloth diapering please leave a comment with the link below!  I'd love to check them out!

Personality: Phoebe has been a VERY laid back and easy baby (aside from not nursing...).  I mean I'm not sure what we're going to do if we have future babies with a different temperment.  We have been spoiled.  She is also very serious.  A lot of the time she has this concerned/serious look on her face; she furrows her brow like her daddy.  I'm not really sure what she has to be concerned about or contemplating at 7 weeks old... She really doesn't fuss much at all, she sleeps well and is very easy-going.  Around 6 weeks she started intentionally smiling and laughing some and that has been SO fun!  I'm having trouble being quick enough to catch it on camera though... She's also starting to coo and make more verbal noises, so that's been fun too.

Randoms: We had been crossing our fingers that Phoebe would keep all her hair and so far she has!  It has lightened up a little bit since birth so its not so dark, but almost all of it is still there.  No bald spot either.  Her eyes are looking even more blue than they did at birth so we hope they'll stay blue :)  A few people have said she looks like Chris and a few people have said she favors me, but we don't really think she looks like either of us.  What do you think?

Cousin Love- Phoebe at 4 1/2 weeks

Fun shoes