Big Girl Move

So this week Claire has decided to change her routine now that I finally posted it. I'm not complaining, though. This is a big step. She slept in Monday morning until 6:30 and this morning until 7:30. I believe that she may have slept longer this morning because we had her in her pack n' play under the ceiling fan which she loves to stare at. We had her in the pack n' play to see how well she would handle it for upcoming trips. Apparently, it won't be a problem. As a result of her sleeping in, she now wants to nurse every hour from 5:00 until bed time. It took a while for me to figure out last night why she was so fussy. Well, she was trying to tank up so she could sleep in. Yesterday morning, she did not go back to sleep very well after eating at 6:30 but this morning she had no trouble and I think she may be getting ready to wake up in a minute.

Have a great week!

Claire at 8 Weeks

The biggest development this week is that Claire is continuing to sleep through the night. I am stunned and amazed that we reached this milestone with no effort on our part. She is such a great baby. Not only does she sleep through the night but she also goes to sleep on her own. I nurse her, change her diaper, rock her a little (this is mostly for me), and lay her down. I'll hear her on the monitor for a little while but she doesn't fuss or cry. Her only real sleep issue is that she will not nap in her crib. I can not figure this one out but I've read that a lot of babies do this. The only places she'll nap is in someone's arms, in her swing, and in the car. Yes, we'll be taking the swing with us when we visit our families.

Claire has also developed a routine for herself that is working well for me. Here is a quick breakdown of her day (the times are estimates, give or take 30 minutes):

5:00 Wake up to eat and get a fresh diaper
5:30 Back to sleep
9:00 Wake up to eat and get a fresh diaper
9:30 Play time! I'll play with her in my lap for a little while to give her food a chance to stay down. I'll then put her in her tunnel to play for about 15-30 minutes while I eat breakfast. When she grows tired of that I may put her on her blanket or she may just be ready for a nap.
10:30 Nap time
12:00 Wake up to eat and get a fresh diaper
12:30 Play time! We usually do the same things we did in the morning
1:30 Nap time
3:00 Wake up to eat and get a fresh diaper
3:30 Play time! I might take her outside on the deck at this point to get some fresh air.
4:00 Daddy's home! She may play with him for a little bit but by this point her fussy time starts so she'll probably nap or fuss.
6:00 Dinner time. Her evenings are a little erratic. She tends to be a bit fussy and she catnaps a lot.
9:00 Bedtime feeding. She gets fed, gets a fresh diaper, and is dressed in her pjs. Once she's done eating, I put her to bed. If she's not quite ready, I'll keep her up but she's usually in bed by 10:30.

This weekend saw her first road trip. We went up to Rome, GA to visit our alma mater, Berry College. We also got to visit with my college friend, Vivienne. That was a real treat. I enjoyed the visit. Vivienne is expecting her first baby, a boy, in December. She looked fantastic and silly me, I didn't even get a picture. Tim and I enjoyed walking around the campus and reminiscing. We're hoping to go back for Mountain Day so we can see everything we didn't get to see during this trip and hopefully, we'll get to see more of our classmates. Claire slept most of the time. She traveled very well in the morning but she did not like the trip home. We got going around the time when she is usually fussy at home so that was poor planning on our part. She also spent a lot of time in her carrier during the day which I think just made her mad by the end of the day. After I got home and fed her, she was a very happy baby. She stayed up and played with Tim until 10:30. I went to bed at 9:30. I was exhausted.

As far as her development goes, this week saw her, once again, gaining greater head control. Now that she can move so much more freely, she has become quite a squirmy baby. She loves standing in your lap and bouncing around. I started pulling her up by her hands from a laying position to a sitting position and she really loves that and will initiate the action on her own so you better be ready to play along. She also loves it when we make silly noises. We've noticed that when we make the raspberry sound where she can see our toungues sticking out she sticks her tongue out too. It is really cute. Her other favorite activities are staring at ceiling fans (moving or still), staring at lamps, and staring at mirrors. Who needs toys!

Here are pictures from our week:

This one is for Grandma Thomas. Aren't those pjs adorable!
I am now dressing her in her regular pjs since she is sleeping through the night.

Look at how high she can lift that head!

Looking sweet!

First visit to a restaurant.

Berry College. Tim's dormitory is in the background.

The spot where Tim gave me my engagement ring.


Aren't sleep smiles beautiful?!

Yet Another Milestone

CLAIRE SLEPT THROUGH THE NIGHT!!!!!

I laid her down at 9:30 and she didn't call me until 5:30. She was then only up for twenty minutes and went back to sleep until 8:30. Woo hoo! The other great part was that when I laid her down at 9:30 she was still awake so she went to sleep all on her own. I am one lucky mama!

Have a great Monday!

Claire at 7 Weeks

Our little girl has become so much more active and independent this week. Before, when we would put her down so that we could fix breakfast or go to the bathroom, she would cry and fuss. Now, we can put her down in her swing or play tunnel to free ourselves to do other things. As many of you know, this is huge! She is also sleeping very well. She will go five hours from her bedtime feeding to the next feeding and last night, she went five hours from her middle of the night feeding to her first morning feeding. I did have a hard time getting her back to sleep after her middle of the night feeding but then she did something new. I laid her down in her crib when she drifted off only to have her wake right back up. She was bright eyed and giggly. I stood there for a little while watching her because she was so gosh darn cute but it was 2:00 am and I was rather tired so I laid down on the bed that we have in her room and fell asleep for about ten minutes. I went over to her crib and she was still awake and happy so I turned off the light and went to bed. In the past, she would have started crying but not last night. I didn't hear a word out of her until 6:00 am. Also, this week her head control has improved greatly and her hand-eye coordination is improving as well. She is now bringing her fingers to her mouth without much effort. She is also making the most wonderful cooing noises! We have had a fun week!

This week also saw a mommy-daughter first. We finally ventured out on our own. We went and met Tim for lunch at his work on Thursday. It went very well. So far, she has done very well in her carseat and traveling around town. We may take a short trip to our alma mater, Berry College, soon as a trial run for upcoming longer trips.

I took a lot of pictures this week which I have posted below. Enjoy!

It wasn't a fluke!

I almost posted an entry this week entitled "The Missed Opportunity of a Neurotic First Time Mother" but I thought the title was too long. Claire has slept for long stretches two nights this week! Monday night she ate around 8:30 and was asleep in her crib by 10:30 (yes, the getting to sleep part takes a while). I went to bed thinking she would wake me up soon to eat since she usually doesn't go more than three and a half hours without eating even at night. Well, I woke up at 12:30 and was a bit concerned since I hadn't heard from her. I went in and checked on her and she was sleeping soundly so I went back to bed expecting her to wake up soon. I woke again with a start at a quarter til two when I realized she was still fast asleep. I decided to wake her up to eat. I researched this later and learned that babies who are at least four weeks old and gaining weight can sleep as long as they want without eating. I thought I had really missed a fantastic opportunity to catch up on some sleep. But Claire did it again last night!! She ate at 9:30 and went to bed at 10:30. I didn't hear from her again until4:00! And not only that -- she was diapered, fed and back in bed in twenty minutes! I could get used to this!

Oh, What A Night!

Our little girl slept from 9:30 to 3:30 last night! I awoke with quite a start when I looked at the clock after hearing her whimpering. Then I got up fed her, changed her and put her back to bed in just 30 minutes. What a great night!

A New Development

I started noticing yesterday that Claire really prefers for me to put her down when she is sleepy. I was holding her yesterday afternoon and I knew she was tired but she just wouldn't settle down so I decided to put her down on the floor where she could stretch out and she immediately calmed down and eventually fell asleep. I decided to try this last night to see if she could soothe herself to sleep and she did it, all night! I'm hoping she'll keep this up. I'm also hoping that maybe she'll get quieter while she's going to sleep because she grunts a lot until she is in a deep sleep. This makes it hard for me to fall back to sleep because I'm worried that she's going to wake up at any minute and start crying. Never the less, this is a huge improvement and I'm very proud of my little girl. It seems like she does something new everyday.

It truly is amazing how quickly babies grow and change. We had to get out the next size diapers for her yesterday after changing her outfit three times in 15 minutes. Her newborn onesies don't fit over these very well, either. They were starting to get a bit tight any way but they are so cute and I hate to see them go. We weighed Claire over the weekend and she is now about ten and a half pounds so all of this is just a sign that our sweet girl is healthy and well.

Claire at 5 Weeks

I haven't posted anything recently because there isn't much to report and I've been a bit busy. Claire is doing very well. She continues to roll over when we place her on her tummy. She actually did it today while resting on my chest! It's a good thing I had a hand on her! Her days have been a bit unpredictable recently as she isn't napping very well. The idea of sleeping when the baby sleeps doesn't work in this situation. During those times I try to eat, rehydrate, put on clean clothes, brush my teeth, etc. She's a very active baby and she'll wear you out while you are holding her. She likes for you to change positions frequently and she likes to push off of you with her legs. She is very strong and is lifting her head higher and for a longer period of time. She'll have good head control soon. She still isn't seeping well between her 9 pm and 12 am feedings so I'm not getting a whole lot of sleep. Tim helped out this weekend by doing her 3am feeding and he tries to help me get her to sleep after her 9pm feeding. I'm a lucky lady to have such an involved husband! I did get a social smile out of her last week so that was really special. The past couple of days she has really started enjoying playing on the floor and I've noticed more smiles from her during those times.

Claire is stirring again! I better go!

2 weeks and a day

Claire is 2 weeks and one day old today, and she got another thumbs up from her doctor. We all went to the pediatrician this morning for the standard 2-week checkup which Claire passed with flying colors.


(I just took this picture 5 minutes ago, so this is about as current as you can get.)

According to the nurse, Claire is already back above her birth weight and is now a whopping 8 pounds and 10 ounces. She has also grown quite a bit in length and is 22 and 1/4 inches long. (Although after watching this get measured, I don't think it is nearly as precise as the weight.) It was great to get official confirmation of her growth, but Leia and I weren't really worried about it because we have been watching her grow right before our eyes. Already she looks very different from the little girl I met 2 weeks ago.

The only thing we did point out to the doctor was that Claire seems to produce a lot of "eye boogers" (for lack of a proper term). We have been constantly cleaning her eyes but there has been a steady supply of yellow stuff for the past few days. The doctor said it was probably just a very minor infection and prescribed some antibiotic ointment. Leia put some of that on Claire right after we got home this morning and already her eyes seem to be producing a lot less "stuff". The doctor said this kind of thing is very common and nothing to worry about. We do not have to go back to the pediatrician until the standard visit on August 13th. (There will be shots at that visit, which I don't think any of us are looking forward to. Claire is blissfully unaware of what lies in store. I wish I could say the same for her mother and I.)

I can't believe that I haven't posted to the blog since we were in the hospital, but everything moves so fast, and every time I think I will have some time to post an update, either I fall asleep, or the baby wakes up, or I need to eat, or the baby needs a diaper change or somebody calls on the phone to see how we are doing because we haven't posted an update to the blog. :) It is all good though and I wouldn't trade a minute of it, not even the tired bits at 3 AM.

Speaking of 3 AM... The baby girl who we brought home from the hospital and was sleeping so well at night was abducted from my house and replaced with a clone that is fully alert and rather fussy from 9 PM until 2 AM. This happened sometime on Saturday. If you see another baby that looks just like the one pictured above, and that sleeps well after dark, please give me a call so we can arrange an exchange.

I'm going to go back in time now and do a series of chronological blog posts detailing the events of Claire's birth. We have a lot of great photos and those first days were packed with visits from lots of family, so stay tuned for the full story.