Lillian's 2 Month Doctor Visit

Lillian had her 2 month doctor visit today. It went way better than I was expecting it to. She is a trooper.

First Doctor's visit sticker

Lillian's Growth:
Weight: (3/19 birth) 8.6lbs  (4/9 3 weeks) 9lbs (5/22 2 months) 12.4lbs
 Height: (3/19 birth) 21.5in  (4/9 3 weeks) 22in. (5/22 2 months) 23in.

She is in the 80th percentile for weight and 75% for height. It was very reassuring to see her weight and know that she is growing. I had been concerned she wasn't getting enough to eat since she doesn't eat long and she spits up a lot but the doctor said she looks perfect. When i mentioned my concerns about the spit up he said to have her sit at a 30 degree angle for 30 minutes after her feeding. I told him she seemed to spit up more if she was sitting up verses laying down. He asked if she was a loud eater and I said yes. He mentioned that she could be eating fast and getting lots of air bubbles causing the spit up. He suggested to give her the Mylicon (gas drops) to her while feeding and after a few days see if it has helped. I tried it at her first feeding when we got back from the appointment and also had her sit in her bouncer and she barely spit up anything and didn't have near as much gas as she has been. Hoping this will continue to help.

Poor baby also got all of her shots today. She had a total of 3 and then one was a liquid by mouth. The shots were Hep B, Pneumococcal, and the last shot was 5 in one; Polio, Diptheria, tetanus, Pertussis, and Hib. I was stressing about the shots so I made Kevin come with me. She was amazing. They give the shots in her thighs (more muscle) and had me lay her down on the table. The nurse gave her the first shot and poor Lillian started crying so hard. I have never seen her cry that hard. The nurse quickly gave her the other two shots while i tried to soothe her then gave her the liquid. As soon as Lillian had the liquid in her mouth her eyes dried up. She has not cried once since that last shot. I was so proud of her. We went by Walgreens to get her  some infant Tylenol. Doctor said to give it to her every four hours for soreness but not too worry about big reactions. He said that babies don't get high fevers as often anymore after shots like they use to.

Scooby Doo bandaids

Daddy soothing Lillian after her shots. Best Daddy in the world! 

Doesn't he look so handsome holding that sweet girl.

The doctor gave us some more helpful advise. He said once she starts to be mobile she may fall  and bust her mouth. If there is a lot of blood don't freak out, first check and see if the frenulum, this is that little piece of skin on the gums between the two front teeth. If that's where the bleeding is coming from just apply pressure and she will be fine. That is why I love this doctor. He helps first time moms be prepared for the random things that might happen to our babies. 

Lillian's Week 9

People kept telling me how much Lillian has grown but I hadn't noticed it until this last week. I look at pictures of my friends babies and realize my baby girl no longer has that infant baby face.

9 weeks old

Nursing: Similar to last week we have officially weaned off of the nipple shield or any other nursing aids. It definitely hurt me more until I got use to it but it has made things so much easier not having to worry about washing the shield every time and making sure to have it with me. The only negative thing about not having the nipple shield is my milk comes out faster so she will occasionally get choked up. There is a good thing about that though, Lillian is down to nursing between 16-20 minutes. Her legs are getting chubby rolls so we know she is getting plenty to eat. She still spits up quite a bit.

Schedule: I tried to change up her schedule to get her to sleep longer at night but then decided I just needed to stick to one thing. I kept it very similar to last weeks. She sleeps pretty well for 3 1/3 hours and I liked starting her day at 7am so we started from there. 7am, 10:30am, 2:00pm, 5:00pm, 8pm, and 10pm. I didn't like waking her to feed at 10pm because she would wake up at 5am which was too close to her 7am feeding. I dropped the 10pm feeding for now so her last feeding is between 8 and 8:30pm. She does wake up about 7 hours later between 3 and 3:30ish. I don't mind waking up at this time because it gives me time to fall back asleep and also express some milk to help with engorgement. After another week or two maybe we can eliminate that 3am feeding.

Sleep: As for falling asleep she is a pro. She has an awake time of around an hour from when she first starts feeding. I keep an eye out for tired cues she usually yawns a lot so that's when I'll put her down. She will go down fine but then fuss after about 2 minutes sometimes so i go in and put her paci in and she doesn't make another peep until its time to eat again. That's how i know her schedule is working. 

Other Happenings:
-Lillian is even more talkative. We have full conversations of babble.
-She is such a good baby. She hardly ever cries. Only occasionally when she first wakes up to eat or if she needs to burp.
-Lillian's hair has started to fall out. You can see how she is balding on the sides here but she still has her "toupee" as I like to call it.

-Nana and Poppa came to visit again.

Kisses from Nana

And secrets from Poppa

More pictures

She loves baths still and snuggling in her towel

Lillian's Week 8

8 weeks old today! "Every good and perfect gift is from above" James 1:17

Sleep: On Mother's Day May 12th Lillian slept through the night for the first time on purpose. I say on purpose because one time around 6 weeks she slept from 10-5 but we weren't expecting her to. It was a perfect Mother's Day gift. I felt so rested. Unfortunately it hasn't happened again yet but we are working on it. She still only wakes up once in the middle of the night so I'm ok with that. Keeps me from worrying about her.

Nursing: this week we were nursing solely on the breast. No nipple shield at all! I'm so happy we no longer need the shield however nursing has become uncomfortable again. My nipples are usually tender and raw after I feed her so I use the lanolin again. Luckily no cracking or bleeding. I think it hurts because she doesn't open her mouth fully so she is just on the nipple and not the areola. If it gets really painful I just pull her off and have her latch in again. She has also been spitting up huge amounts this last week. Every feeding we both would end up covered in spit up. I read online that sucking can help keep the milk down so I would feed her on one side, stick her paci in for a few minutes then feed her on the other side then paci again. This actually really helped. We would just have to be careful not to jostle her around too soon after she ate and wait to burp her as well. She is pretty good at getting herself to burp anyways. I thought this might help keep the spit up contained but it actually soaks through the towel so I just always have two burp cloths on hand.

Her nursing time has dropped significantly. For the first month she would nurse for 20 minutes on each side the it dropped to about 12-15 minutes, and now I'm lucky to keep her on for 8-10 each side. While it's nice for me I worry if she is getting enough to eat, but she never wakes up early hungry and still has good diapers. I'm hoping we have gone from quantitative feedings to qualitative. 

Schedule: she has been eating about every 3-3 1/2  hours, she could go longer but I'm trying to get her to fill up on feedings during the day to help her sleep longer at night. We tried a couple different schedules  Here is an example of what we tried last week:

7am wake up, eat, diaper change,and awake time for an hour

8am back to sleep

10:30am wake up, eat, diaper change,and awake time for an hour

11:30am back to sleep

2:00 wake up, eat, diaper change,and awake time for an hour

3:00 back to sleep

5:00 wake up, eat, diaper change,and awake time for an hour (only 3 hours here so I could get an extra feeding in later and she is using hungry by now)

6:00 sleep

8:00 wake up, eat, diaper change,and awake time for an hour, sometimes a bath if she didn't already have one that day. She gets a bath every other day at night unless she has a blowout diaper or big spit up then it is immediately.

8:30-9:00 she sometimes took a little longer to fall asleep here

10:00 one last feeding hoping she would sleep through the night but she would wake up around 2:30 or 3:00 to eat again.

Yesterday and this coming week I am trying the 3 hr schedule to see if that helps fill her up more so she sleeps through the night. It would be something like eating at 7:00, 10:00, 1:00, 4:00, 7:00, & 9:30. This fits our schedule better so I'm hoping it works. Any thoughts or suggestions would be appreciated. 

Other happenings:

- We celebrated Mother's Day this week you can see that post Here

- We took lots of videos this week too:

      This Video shows she has found her feet,and this Video shows Lillian has learned to follow an object with her eyes

My First Mother's Day

I have been so blessed to become a mother to this beautiful gift from God.

Not the best picture but here is the outfit she wore to church. Lillian's 2nd cousin Amy made it for her. She looked so cute and this outfit makes me want to learn how to sew.

Lillian is my full time job and this is by far the best job I have ever had. Sure, it's 24/7 but the moment she looks up at me and smiles or grabs hold of my hand it's worth it. I had a great day with my family, thanks to my hubby he really helped make my first mother's day memorable. This was my mother's day gift, it is an 18x20 canvas

Here is a close up 

you may have seen it in my previous pictures because it arrived from UPS early and I opened when Kevin wasn't home not knowing it was a surprise. It is my favorite picture of our family. Kevin still had a gift for me on Mother's Day. He told me I was not allowed to do any chores/cleaning of the house (he did it all) and I did not have to change any poopie diapers. Sounds silly but it was the perfect gift, because I didn't feel obligated to clean anything. I got to catch up on some crafty organization projects I had been wanting to do. Here is what I made so far.

I covered a diaper box with fabric, right now it holds our chips until I can find a better use, but this has helped declutter the pantry for now. 

After church we went to eat lunch then headed home for Lillian to eat then headed out to the park as a family.  We went to one of the Greenways here in Huntsville. The Greenways are open spaces and trails along natural features and scenic roadways throughout Huntsville for pedestrians and bicyclists to enjoy. The weather was perfect, almost a little chilly when the wind blew. 

Here is a video of how we finished off our night relaxing together and Lillian entertained us with her smiles and chatter. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3HhI09xIdg&feature=youtu.be

I am so thankful for my own mom who has taught me so much about being a Mom just by example. I don't have this whole Mom thing down to a science, no one does (except maybe Michelle Duggar) 

 but that is what makes this job so great. It is ever changing and you learn something new everyday. One of my friends posted this on Facebook and I thought it was so true  "I breathe. I sleep. I eat. I mother. That’s what mothers do. That’s what love does. We’ve been entrusted with these little sculptable balls of clay that we paste together, paint and glitter up with love."

As Lillian grows I pray that I have raised her/sculpted her to become the Christian that God requests of us.
Proverbs 22:6 
Train up a child in the way he should go;
even when he is old he will not depart from it.

Flashback Friday: Baby Pictures

I am linking up with my friend Emily's blog over at The Journey of Parenthood for Flashback Friday.

I recently found some old baby pictures and thought it would be good to see who y'all think Lillian resembles. Kevin and I still don't really see either one of us but I do think she has his eyes. Anytime anyone says she looks like Kevin, he says, "don't say that, she is going to be beautiful like her Mommy" of course I wouldn't mind if she looked like her Daddy, he's a handsome devil to me.

First we will do my pictures. Unfortunately, I don't know exactly how old I am in any of these except two.

This was a preschool picture so probably 3 years old 

This was September of 1986 so I was about 16 months old 

I feel like Lillian may have my face shape and chubby cheeks

And here is my precious hubby's baby pictures. They aren't as clear because they are glued down in a scrapbook so I had to take pictures of them with my phone.

So what is the verdict? Is she more like Mommy or Daddy?

Party time

This last week we had quiet a few parties and celebrations going on. My birthday was Thursday May 2nd. We left for Atlanta on Friday so we could be at my nephew Brody's birthday on Saturday, and then we had a fiesta for Cinco de Mayo on Sunday with our old church bible class.

Kevin always gets me the best presents, whether big or small and he somehow always manages to surprise me. For my 28th Birthday he got me these B-E-A-Utiful rose pearl and diamond earrings.

The perfect gift because I only wear studs but have always been so cheap and bought crappy nickel or silver ones that always ended up turning my ears green. Kevin said I am a grown up with a baby so I should have nice adult earrings. He also got up when Lillian woke up early and brought her into the bed to snuggle with the birthday mommy.

He also brought me breakfast in bed (excuse the mess that is my morning hair)

I didn't want to worry about going out for dinner and taking Lillian so of course I chose Pizza for dinner. We always get the pizza box from Pizza Hut because it comes with pizza, cheese sticks(my favorite), and cinnamon sticks! We ended up not doing a cake that night since we had the cinnamon sticks but he surprised me with an ice cream cake on Friday night after we had dinner with his family in Georgia. I love ice cream cakes and would choose that over any other cake. It was a great birthday and Kevin always makes it so special for me because he knows I love to make a big deal about birthdays because that is YOUR day and no one else's (except Kevin who shares it with his twin).

Saturday was my nephew's, Brody, 4th birthday. We were so glad we were able to be there, it had been awhile since we saw him and our other nephew Bryson because every time we were home they were sick and we didn't want Lillian getting sick. Brody had a spider man birthday!

Spiderman shooting his web

 Two of his gifts were Iron Man and Captain America costumes. He was so sweet and let his little friend Caleb be Iron Man

 Me with the Birthday Boy

 Uncle Kevin and Brody being silly

Spiderman cake from Publix was so Delicious

Sunday was our fiesta! It was so wonderful to see all of our friends and of course they loved seeing Lillian. She was passed around like a hot potato. They had a pinata for the kids and we had tons of yummy Mexican food and needed a siesta after our fiesta.

Just a great weekend all around spending time with friends and family.

Lillian's Week 7

You hear moms say it all the time, "They grow up so fast" and that ain't no joke. (yes I realize ain't is not a real word) I cannot believe we have been blessed with Miss Lillian for 7 weeks already!

Sleeping: The first half of the week Lillian had trouble falling back asleep after she ate during the day unless I was holding her. Not even the swing would calm her but by the end of the week she was sleeping great both during the day and night. Her awake time has been extended she'll stay awake about an hour now including her feeding time which is about 25 minutes or so. Sometimes she will fall asleep sooner especially during the evening and first feeding in the morning. I am not as stressed if she wakes up early or doesn't fall asleep as quickly but we still stick to the schedule as much as possible because we know it is working.

Nursing: Still going well, I continued to use the nipple shield until Sunday. This weekend we went out of town and I forgot my nipple shield so when we got back in town I pumped for a few minutes to draw out the nipple and had a bottle already pumped for the middle of the night feeding. I was going to go buy another nipple but I have been needing to come off of it anyways and Lillian has been doing so well. Monday instead of pumping every feeding I used a nipple shell about 15 minutes before I needed to feed her and that draws out the nipple. She fed the whole time on both nipples, Momma was so proud! She only eats for about 20 minutes now too. It definitely hurts more without the nipple shield though. Here is a picture of the nipple shield

  

and here is what the nipple shells look like. I use the Medela brand for both. 

Lillian has also started spitting up quite a bit more this last week too. We went through two burp cloths after one feeding. She dribbles it out here and there but she always has one moment when she spits up 3 times in a row and it seems like at least 2 ounces that comes out. She never seems hungry afterwards and still has a good amount of diapers so no need for concern right now I guess. 

Other things Lillian has been doing:

- Lillian had her first laugh on May 2nd , it was the best birthday gift for Mommy. We were sitting at the table eating dinner and talking to Lillian and she all of the sudden just belted out a laugh. Kevin and I both were like "did you just hear that!"

- We had our first "playgroup" today with some people at our church, its called the Little Lights Playgroup. They do a small service project then let the kids play. Lillian obviously just slept the whole time but it was nice for Mommy to be around other mommies.

- She has grown out of her newborn onesies  :(

- She is still in size 1 diapers, haven't had nearly as many leaks or blow outs this week.

More pictures because mommy got camera happy. 

Precious little feet with monkey toes like Mommy

Here she is sticking out her tongue which started happening a lot more this week

 Smiles

 Waving bye bye