Sunday, August 24, 2014

Caroline's 1 Month

Miss Caroline turned one month old already on August 7th, 2014.  It has been a crazy first month indeed!  Life with 3.5 year old twins, a newborn, Kevin's new job, and still trying to get moved into a new house can be a bit of a challenge to juggle at times. 
 
Caroline Joy
1 Month
July 7 - August 7
 
 
Weight: 9 lbs 6 oz - 65th %tile
Length: 21 inches - 46th %tile
Head: 13.75 inches - 9th %tile

 
At ONE MONTH you are wearing size 1 diapers and are in 0-3 month onsies and sleepers.  You are very long and skinny and little shorts or bloomers just fall down your skinny waist.  You're such a little peanut!

 
You still have a lot of hair - most of it is on the back of your head.  So far it seems to change colors in different lights to darker, golden blond, and can have a tint of red cast.
 
You still have the 'stork bite' (as they call it) on yourright eye lid and markings on your forehead from coming out of the birth canal face up.

 
At ONE MONTH you are not the best sleeper.  You like to 'cat nap' during the day.  You love, love to be held and will easily fall asleep in our arms but once you get put down you wake right back up. It's a bit frustrating, baby girl!  I don't know how you can be so sound asleep and the moment we set you down you wake up.  Some days it felt like you barely sleep in between each feeding.  We do a lot of walking around and rocking you to get you back to sleep or to stop fussing.
 
At ONE MONTH you are sleeping at night in our room in your rock n' play.  You like it best if you are swaddled with your arms in but are a pro at getting your hands out if it's not swaddled tight enough.  You like to sleep snuggled right against our chests laying on your side.

 
At ONE MONTH you have been mainly breastfeed with only a few bottles.  You are eating on average about 20 to 25 minutes at each feeding and are a great nurser. You are eating about every 2 to 3 hours. Sometimes you wanted to eat about every 1.5 hours. The first week we brought you home you sleept a few 5 hour night stretches. That soon ended and you started going every 2 hours on average with a few 3 hour stretches. Those were some very long, long, long nights for the first month! 

 
You have been spitting up a lot after each feeding.  Your peditrician gave us a reflux medicene, Zantex, to try and see if it would help with any reflux discomfort if that was causing your fussiness.  We tried it for about 2 weeks but didn't see much of a difference so you are no longer taking it.  You still seem to spit up but don't seem to be bothered by any pain with it.  To help you not spit up as much we keep you upright for 20 minutes after each time you eat.

 
At ONE MONTH you have seemed to find your thumb a few times and liked sucking on it.  I was thinking maybe you were going to be a thumb sucker.  The first two weeks you weren't intersted in taking a paci.  Luckily, we found one you liked and that has helped with keeping you from wanting to eat every hour and aslo has helped calm your fussiness.  You are quite the lil' rooter!


 
At ONE MONTH you started having a regular fussy time.  At around 6ish in the evening you started your crying time and wouldn't fully get settled until 10:00/11:00 that night.  Nothing seem to calm you down except for a lot of walking around or rocking in our arms.


 
At ONE MONTH you went to your first ever wedding!  Aunt Jenny (your Daddy's sister) got married to Uncle Drew in Waterloo, Iowa on July 19th.  You were not even two weeks old! You were such a trooper with all of us bridesmaids and bride Aunt Jenny the day before and of the wedding going to: rehearsal, getting hair and make-up done, wedding pictures, wedding reception, gift opening, etc.  You stayed pretty close to mama as much as we could.  In fact, you took your first bottle of breastmilk at the wedding reception.

 
Your big sister Kate and big brother Matthew are great helpers!  Matthew loves to help give you your paci when you're crying and likes to have you lay on his blanket.  It's so cute how they pronounce name, baby Car-o-yine. The kids and us also love to sing to you the song, "Sweet Caroline".  You actually seem to really like it and will calm down and listen. ;)
 
 
 
At ONE MONTH you like to be held, white noise on the sound machine, looking out the window at the bright light, watching the ceiling fan, nursing, being sung to, swinging, holding onto our finger to help calm you down, and having your chest padded like your being burped.

 
At ONE MONTH you dislike it when the car stops when riding in the car.  You like riding in the car as long as is it in motion.  You aslo don't like it when you are eating and we have to stop you to burp. 

 
At ONE MONTH you love to have your hands up by your face especially while you sleep and eat.  And sometimes when you are upset or unsettled you move your arms all around making you one crazy, wiggly girl.

 
This first month has been fun and at the same time such a learning game trying to figure out the little "tricks" and "in's and outs of you", Caroline.  We couldn't be more in love with you and the joy you have already brought to our family!