Return to Work

Today was my first day back to work. However, I'm not in the office but instead I'm at a training in Chicago. This made it extra difficult since it's the first time I've left Alexa for more than a few hours. I drove up to Chicago this morning so I didn't have to spend an extra night without her. Last night after her bedtime routine I didn't want to put her down. She had fallen asleep while she was eating and I just held her in my arms. I feel like she knew I was leaving her because all day yesterday she kept staring at me with this look like "I love you Mommy." And she was so smiley. I think she was trying to get me to stay home :-) Unfortunately I had to go. Since she's started sleeping through the night, bedtime was the last time I got to see her before heading to Chicago at 4am. I cried all the way to Bloomington. I tried to fight it but I couldn't stop thinking about how much I was going to miss her. Fortunately my training is pretty interesting and is keeping my attention so I'm not focusing all day on how much I miss her! I did take advantage of my time here in Chicago though, enjoying a beautiful night shopping and eating at the Cheesecake Factory. I bought Alexa Winnie the Pooh and Stitch (Lilo and Stitch) stuffed animals from the Disney Store and I can't wait to give them to her! Brian is also out of town for work so Alexa is staying with GG and Grandpa Fisher until I get back on Thursday afternoon. I hope she continues to sleep through the night for them!

Next week I return to the office and Lex will be starting daycare. I'm sure this will also be hard for me, to go from spending every hour of every day with her to just seeing her for a couple of hours each day. Fortunately my work is less than 10 minutes from the daycare and I can pop in and see her whenever I want!

2 1/2 Month Update

Alexa is 2 1/2 months old now and each day is getting more and more fun to spend time with her. She is so much more alert now and hardly fusses at all unless she's sleepy. We are making so much progress with sleeping too! Prior to Friday she was still waking up around 2:30am every night. I was beginning to lose hope that she'd sleep through the night by 12 weeks as my book had indicated. One thing I remembered reading in the book though is that she should be taking in about 24 oz of food in a day, which means in order for her to go without a nighttime feeding she needs to be eating about 6 oz at each daytime feeding (4 times a day). I was pretty certain she wasn't getting anywhere near this much when I nurse her, not because I'm not producing enough, but because she gets lazy and stops nursing after she feels a little full. So on Friday I decided I would start pumping and giving her bottles so I can monitor exactly how much she's eating. I basically had to force her to take down 4 1/2 oz at each feeding on Friday because she would keep stopping. But ultimately I think it paid off because she ended up sleeping 8 1/2 hours on Friday night (8pm to 4:30am). I did the same thing yesterday but gave her 5 oz with each bottle and she slept 11 hours!! I'm planning to continue bottle feeding her so I can monitor her food intake and hopefully she'll continue to sleep through the night! Unfortunately I haven't been able to get that much sleep even though she's sleeping. This is mostly because I keep waking up throughout the night thinking she's going to wake up. I'm sure I will get over this eventually and finally get some sleep!


Pumpkin Festival
On Wednesday night, Alexa went to the Morton Pumpkin Festival with me, Grandma, and Aunt Nikki. We had a lot of fun but I didn't realize how chilly it would be! I dressed her in a cute summer outfit and when we got there and realized how cold it was I ended up having to buy her a t-shirt to wrap her up in to keep her warm!



Fun night with friends and the kiddos!
On Friday night we went to our friends Jolene and Brett's house. All of the rest of our friends with their babies were there too. There's 2 other little girls, Johannah (6 months), Avery (1), and one little boy, Hayden (1). We tried to get a picture of all of them but it wasn't quite working out! That night we ended up putting Alexa to bed in her pack and play in their living room because her bedtime is at 7:30pm. She fell asleep right away and stayed asleep even through the girls talking, motorcycles, trains, and beer bottles dropping! She didn't even wake up when we put her in her carseat to go home and ended up sleeping all the way to 4:30am that night once we got home!


Pouty Face
Recently Alexa has started making a pouty face. It is seriously the best pout I've ever seen! Sometimes it leads to a cry but a lot of times she'll actually start to smile after she does the pouty lip. She probably smiles because everytime she makes the face I am laughing so hard! I can't help it, it's just too cute!

2 Month Well Baby

Just a quick note about Alexa's 2 month well-baby. She weighed in at 11lbs 2oz and measured 22 1/2 inches long. The doc said she was around the 50th percentile for all measurements. She also had her 2 month vaccinations today. I hate needles so Brian held her arms while the nurse gave her three shots, two in one thigh and one in the other thigh, and one oral vaccination. After the first shot, Alexa's face turned bright red and she started screaming crying. It was so sad and I cried too :-( By the time we got out to the car though she had stopped crying and fell asleep. The nurse said to give her some Tylenol. Well I made the mistake of not picking some up right away. Instead, I went home and put Alexa down for her nap and then after her nap we went to pick up the Tylenol. This turned out to be a huge mistake! By the time we got home from the store the pain had started to settle in and she was really crying! It took almost 2 hours for that damn Tylenol to kick in. She seems to be better now. We'll see how the night goes! One piece of advice I have though is to make sure you have the Tylenol on hand! I learn something new every day!

2 Month Update

It's only been 2 weeks since my last update but so much has happened!

Six to Eight Week Nightmare (new moms understand what I mean!)
First, I have to start off by giving a heads up to all the new moms and soon-to-be moms out there regarding the six to eight week period. Oh how I wish someone would have warned me! Beginning at week six (almost exactly on the dot) we noticed Alexa went from sleepy baby to being awake more often. While we enjoyed having more interaction with her, the time that she was awake was not pretty! She was constantly fussy and there was nothing we could do to calm her. If we went anywhere with her we were frantically trying to keep her asleep to avoid the monster! We couldn't figure out what was wrong with her. We assumed we were doing something wrong or we just had a fussy baby. It was during this time that both Brian and I considered never having anymore children. Then, last week on her eight week birthday I went to Borders to read some more parenting books. I picked up this book called "The Baby Sleep Solution." As I'm reading the book there is a chapter for weeks six to eight. It talks about how all babies go through a transitional period where they are constantly fussy between feedings. No real medical explanation, it just happens. It said at about 8 weeks, the fussiness usually diminishes. I almost started crying when I read this! I was so relieved to know that it wasn't us or her...it was normal and there was light at the end of the tunnel! As I mentioned, I read this on Alexa's eight week birthday. And just as the book had predicted, the next day, we noticed the fussiness had subsided! She still has her moments, but since then she is so much happier and we are no longer afraid when she's awake!

All Smiles
Around the same time that her fussiness subsided, Alexa also began to become more alert and full of smiles! We can usually make her smile now by smiling at her, kissing her, or talking to her in a funny voice. She seems to be the happiest after her first morning feeding. I've been putting her in the Bumbo every morning and she absolutely loves it!

Bedtime Routine
I ended up buying that book I was reading in Borders because it had a great program for getting your baby to sleep 12 hours by 12 weeks. One of the things the book emphasizes is establishing a bedtime routine. My cousin has a 9 month old and had mentioned they have 5 B's to their bedtime routine. This sounded like a great idea, so I decided to institute our own 5 B's of Bedtime Routine:

1. Bath
2. Book
3. Baby massage
4. Boob
5. Bed

So far it seems to be working. Alexa seems to know that all of these things signal bedtime and after her feeding she is ready to go to sleep. Unfortunately we haven't quite made it to the 12 hours yet, but we still have 3 1/2 more weeks to go! Right now her last feeding is at 7:30pm, so her bedtime ends up being around 7:45pm. Then she usually gets up at about 1:00am and then again around 6:15am. This isn't too bad but I would really love to get a full nights sleep!

Naps
The program in the book has a schedule that includes one 1 hour nap in the morning and one 2 hour nap in the afternoon. It also encourages putting her down for naps in her crib (as opposed to the swing) and putting her in there awake/drowsy. I've been following this advice consistently for the past few days and it seems to be working. The first couple times were a struggle, but I think Alexa knows the routine now. She (generally) doesn't put up a fight and will go to sleep on her own. If she does wake up before the hour or 2 hours is over, I put her paci in, turn on her aquarium or gently rub her tummy to get her to fall back to sleep. Again, this all seems to be working!

First Overnight Trip
This past weekend, Alexa had her first overnight trip to visit family in the Ozarks. Grandma and Aunt Nikki joined as well. It was a six hour drive and Alexa did great! She didn't fuss hardly at all in the car (thanks to Grandma replacing her paci!). She was an angel once we got there too! Brian was at the Illini game in St. Louis on Saturday so we decked Alexa out in her Illini cheerleader outfit. Maybe next game she'll get to join Daddy!

Carseat Update
In my previous post I had mentioned that Alexa hated being in the carseat. While she still has some issues with it, it is getting better. Yesterday I put a toy on her carseat that I had gotten from a co-worker. Alexa just loves it! She was awake for the car ride to Wal-Mart and didn't fuss at all. Then, once we were in Wal-Mart she was smiling so much at this little toy. It kept her entertained the whole time and on the car ride back home. Amazing!