August 18, 2017 by Stephanie

Daphne-3 Months

It’s going too fast. How do I have a three month old?

Weight: She is 12 lbs of sweet cheeks.

Health: For the most part she is doing really well. The probiatic drops have been helping her not be so gassy and fussy in the afternoons, which is great! She was diagnosed with torticollis. Basically this means that she has a head tilt to one side, so she will mostly look or lay to that side. In her case, she prefers to rotate and tilt to the right side. I noticed that she was getting a flat spot on the back of her head and the beginnings of a misshapen head. I brought it up to our pediatrician, and she referred us to a physical therapist. This can happen for a variety of reasons, but whatever the reason when they tilt predominately to one side it causes the muscles to only get stronger on one side so it exacerbates the issue. So we have been working on environmental changes like changing the direction that we change her diaper and how she lays in the crib so she will start looking to the left more. We also have some stretches that we do every day again to get those muscles more evenly developed. Both our doctor and physical therapist seem confident that we can remedy it this way and hopefully avoid a helmet later on. She still prefers the right side, but I can see a difference over the past month after being more diligent with the environmental changes and what not.

Diet: She is still breastmilk only. She is doing much better on taking bottles, and so far I haven’t noticed an issue when she nurses with the transition. She isn’t comfort feeding as much now, which is a relief. You can tell by her cheeks she is doing just fine getting what she needs. I also have to brag on myself, because I have been much more easy going about our breastfeeding experience this time around. I have fed her in public on several occasions which is something I never did with George. I think a lot of it has to do with the thought of normalizing breastfeeding and not wanting to stop living our lives due to her feeding schedule. But I also have the best nursing cover that is so easy to use and makes me feel comfortable and covered in public. My goal is always to just make it to the next month, so here is to month 4!

Clothes: She is fitting perfectly into 0-3 month clothes. Most 3 month things are still way too roomy for her. She is in a size 1 diaper. I was able to put on her first pair of shoes last week! Get ready girl.

Sleeping: Those probiatic drops have helped so much with her sleep during the day. She takes several hearty naps, usually at least three a day. Then we put her to bed at 7:30 pm and she does not wake up until 6:30 am. PRAISE! I don’t know how we got so lucky with two really good sleepers. So good, and I will ride this out as long as we can!

Likes: Eating. Riding in the car. Kick and Play. Mornings-She has the biggest smiles for me when I sing to wake her up. I love singing “Good Morning” from Singing in the Rain, and she loves it too. She also likes her head to be rubbed, and she has the best peach fuzz to do so.

Dislikes: She does not like a dirty diaper. She hates the hours between 5-7pm. Dinner is always interesting, and I spend a lot of time eating standing up because she knows when you are sitting while holding her. She is not a big fan of her swing.

Milestones: Started rolling from tummy to back. Being away from me for more than 4 hours. She went to her first baseball game! We may have lost but I think she still enjoyed herself.

Nicknames: Sister Friend, Doodlebug, Sweet Cheeks, DC, Daphie, Daph, and Daphne June. Most of the time it is Sister.

Quirks: She is very empathetic already. She can read people’s emotions well, and she plays off that. She is ridiculously strong. She is trying to sit up already. She has the best pouty lip.

We parents are: doing alright. We are on opposite shifts, which is always hard because Tom misses out on a lot with the kids. We also are still trying to get some things done around the house, so our days off are filled to the brim. If you aren’t following me on Instagram-we knocked out several walls in our living room this week. I went back to work this month, so that has been a transition for everyone. The house is a little less clean and I’m a little more tired, but all in all it’s been a smooth move back into work.

George is: a great big brother. For the most part he had been ignoring her, but we have seen a dramatic change in his demeanor towards her once she started going to the sitter’s with him. We were really worried because Brenda’s is his place so I wasn’t sure how he would react. He had been telling me that Sister needed to stay in the car when I would talk about her coming with him. But the last two weeks he has been so wonderful about the transition. He is overly protective of her, and won’t let other kids near her saying, “She’s my sister.” He lets adults know when Sister is crying, and is persistent about the information until you deal with it. He tries to console her now too which is so sweet. Sometimes he is sweet and says, “It’s ok Sister.” Other times he sings to her. Other times he likes to shake her play yard toys over her head (kind of aggressively) and says, “You calm down now.” When he is fed up with me, he uses Sister as an excuse to get rid of me-“You need to go feed Sister.” He does not know how to say her actual name; he thinks we are saying Daddy. So her name is Sister.

The dogs are: doing their thing. Grace stalks Daphne when she is on the floor to lick up spit up. Crosby does seem to protect her and will lay at my feet when I am feeding her.

Here is George at 3 months.

This girl looks like a perfect little doll here. We make pretty Gerber babies.

July 19, 2017 by Stephanie

Daphne-2 Months

Weight: She is 10 lbs 13 oz (36%), 22 inches long (28%), and her head is 38 inches (42%).

Health: She is a pretty gassy lady. She only poops every two or three days, so it seems like she is backed up with extra gas. Even though our doctor and chiropractor both say that this poop schedule is perfectly normal, we can tell that she is in pain with passing gas. She is still projectile vomiting. Our doctor recommended giving her some probiotic drops to help her digestion a little more. I tried giving up dairy for two weeks (I eat soooo much cheese so this was a hard two weeks!) to see if that helped, but her behaviors didn’t change at all. So we’ll see how these drops go!

Diet: She is still breastfeeding. She does really well, but she still likes to comfort feed in the afternoon/evening time. She will eat every 3-6 hours overnight and in the morning, but once lunch hits she wants to feed every hour, and of course she barfs it back up so it is a constant battle. She’ll scream until she is nursed. Our doctor says that since it is the same time every day and this drastic change is predictable, there is nothing to worry about. She said that Daphne is still trying to figure things out, but with me going back to work we need to work on her just working things out without being comforted by nursing and also starting to pump again to get her used to the bottle. Wish us luck!

Clothes: She went up to size one diapers. I just moved her up to 0-3 month clothes this past weekend, but she has a couple newborn clothes she can still fit into. She still can’t fit into any of her shoes.

Sleeping: She is still a great sleeper at night, so it is hard to complain about her afternoons. She goes down for the night around 8pm. I wake her up sometime between 11 and midnight before I go to bed to have her eat again. Then she doesn’t wake up until about 6am!! The mornings aren’t consistent, but she will fully sleep 2-3 hours between feedings. Once lunch time hits though, all bets are off. She will do small cat naps between the comfort feeding screaming, and she has to be held all afternoon and evening. Over-night/morning she is now sleeping in her crib! The move to her room just happened this last week.

Likes: Nursing. Me. Riding in the car is mesmerizing for her. She loves it. She doesn’t necessarily love these things, but I want to note how different she is from George because he hated getting lotion on, having a bath, and tummy time. She tolerates them and doesn’t cry the way he did.

Dislikes: She does not like pacifiers. We keep trying to make it happen, but she only keeps them in for 10 seconds before she spits it out. I just think of Gretchen Weiners trying to make “fetch” work in Mean Girls. It’s not going to happen. She hates the hours between 12-8pm. Lunch to bedtime is a struggle in our house right now. Yesterday she screamed for a solid hour while I was showering and getting other stuff done, and Tom holding her just wasn’t working. She also does not like her swing.

Nicknames: Sister Friend, Girlfriend, Sweet Cheeks, DC, Daphie, Daph, and Daphne June. Mostly though we call her Sister. George can’t say Daphne (it comes out Daddy), so we stick with Sister.

Milestones: She has started smiling and gurgling a little bit. She is holding her head up really well. When she is on our chest, it is like she is doing the cobra pose when she holds her head up. When you hold her in a standing position, she is putting her weight on her legs really well.

Quirks: This girl has no shoulders. It is hard to keep the seatbelt on her in the carseat because of it. They are constantly falling off.

We parents are: We have been surviving Tom going back to work. I also have started working out, and I am feeling more like I have my body back. We are feeling really confident about being a parent of two, but we’ll see if that feeling remains when I go back to work in 3 weeks.

George is: doing amazing. I haven’t mentioned it, but we have put him in pull-ups for when he is sleeping. He is doing awesome during the day with going to the bathroom, but night time is still a little rough. With his new room, he doesn’t come out of his room until we come to get him. I don’t know if he thinks he will be in trouble or what, but he won’t leave and will just sit/sleep in pee. So we decided that we couldn’t do that to him or us for that matter right now. So while he sleeps he gets the “night time” underwear. He has been doing great otherwise. Now that we have been doing tummy time with her, he likes to lay next to her and giggle at her. He does try to steal her pacy. We have been slowly throwing away his stash, and we hope to be done with them by the end of this summer.

The dogs are: doing alright. Crosby still has stitches from his surgery, which has been interesting to keep him from messing with them. For the most part, they ignore Daphne. Crosby does join me when I nurse her in her room, and he lays behind he rocker. Grace is still the diva that she always has been. She does try to lick Daphne’s face when we are doing tummy time though. She knows there’s some food there somewhere.

I am trying not to count down the days until I go back to work. I am loving this time we are having together this summer. So here’s to making the most of the next few weeks with my sweet girl!

Here is George at two months.

November 26, 2014 by Stephanie

George-3 months

Weight: He weighs 11.4 lbs now. He has more than doubled his birth weight. I don’t know where my tape measure is right now to measure his length, so maybe I will find it before 4 months. It’s hard for me to see how much he has grown sometimes since I see him every day, and then I look at pictures and think holy moly he is a big boy.

Health: An update on his heart scans: they went well. He still has some holes, but the doctor seems optimistic that they are normal and will close on their own. They are getting smaller, but they aren’t on par with most kids his age so we are going to have to go in again for another scan at 6 months to just keep checking the progress of them closing. The doctor did say that George is not reacting negatively to them so that is a positive sign that he is just fine. So hopefully that is the case. Otherwise, this kid is doing super health wise. He still spits up, but we now think most of that has to do with the fact that he just eats too much so it has to come back up. And now it is not violently painful for him so that is good news. He still looks like he is in pain when he farts/poos. The gas drops made him throw up more so we stopped giving him those. So we are just working through the gas issue with rubbing and warm cloths to make him not so tight.

Diet: Still exclusively breastmilk. This last week he has been pretty awful during nightly feedings. He will shriek in the middle and right after the feeding all the while doing windmills and burpees on my chest. I don’t know what his deal is, but he usually calms down about 20 minutes after we barrel through the feeding. He is not doing this when he is fed through a bottle or our first feeding of the day. Who knows. I did buy formula again (our previous back up stash is in KY.) I have not been pumping as much as he is eating through the day so we depleted our frozen stash again. Plus sometimes I don’t have the time to do a full pump session at work. I had to start pumping right after he does his first feeding in the morning to make that little bit extra for him. I think it is interesting that I can’t pump enough to feed him but yet he was doing just fine when he was just breastfed. So anyway, I bought formula again to have on reserve. I plan on writing more in depth about our new feeding adventure with pumping here soon too. Funny story about feeding: George’s cousin Ava, who is 5, is around him quite a bit. She gets upset with me all the time because I don’t let her feed him since I am breastfeeding. She said to me the other day that if she had a kid she would let me feed them. Way to guilt trip me Aves. She is helping babysit him today so hopefully she will get lots of feeding time with him to hold her over for a few days.

Clothes: We put away all the newborn clothes a week ago. Tear. He is rocking the 0-3 month clothes and some select 3 month items. Most are still pretty roomy but he is slowly filling them out. Another note about baby clothing items, I think it should be a rule that all pants are made with built in feet/socks. Baby socks are worthless 90% of the time because 90% of the time they do not stay on.

Sleeping: He does so well sleeping. He is still taking several naps a day, but he is also sleeping through the night. Which makes for one happy momma. His down for the night bedtime is 10pm. Then sometimes he will start stirring about 4:30, and then we wake up officially at 5am to get ready for the day. Since we are in limbo with our living situation and currently staying with my in-laws, we don’t have a crib. We were trying to make the Rock and Play still work for him, but he outgrew it for a full night’s rest. He can still nap in it for short periods of time, but when he fully stretches he bumps his little head on the top. My sister-in-law gave us a Pack and Play to use in the meantime until we get a house and unload the crib. I was concerned about him laying flat on his back and throwing up on himself which is why he was in the inclined Rock and Play for so long. But he has been doing great in the Pack and Play! I don’t think he has thrown up on himself during sleep time once since the switch, which was not the case a couple months ago.

Likes: Gosh this kid loves to snuggle and be held. I don’t mind that one bit! And since we are living with Grandma and Papa right now, he really is never put down for the most part. He LOVES ceiling fans. We joke that he is making love poems about them. “Oh fan of mine…” He likes to stare out windows and at Papa’s fish tank. He loves being sung to and talked to. He is pretty content when he is put in his baby swing. He still wants a pacy a lot, but it is getting less and less the more talkative he gets. He still loves the Kick and Play Piano…and by love I mean he kicks the dickens out of it.

Dislikes: He still hates being naked and diaper changes. The worst part of his day is lotion time. It is absolute torture for him. Just dreadful. He screams so hard that I usually have to stop halfway and hold him so he will remember to breathe. Yes it is that awful for him. He does tolerate baths now, but not the dreaded lotion. He does not like it when you stroke his spine, which is the same ticklish spot that I have and makes me quiver. So we just have to remember to pat and not rub his back. He also is still not a fan when we are actively attempting to do tummy time, but he does nap on his tummy sometimes. Weird kid…

Milestones: He can hold his head up on his own now. We joke that we should have made him a bobble head for Halloween because that is what he looks like when he is trying to steady himself. He will stand (with much holding assistance); he likes straightening out those legs and putting his weight on them. He smiles and responds to people now. BEST THING EVER. We can get him to imitate a howling noise, and he will go back and forth with you. I am overcome with joyful emotion when he does this (seriously I have tears sometimes), but of course he doesn’t ever do it as well when I am trying to record it. Geez George, just trying to capture the memories. Anyway, he is definitely trying to find his voice now and figure out what that mouth can do. He rolls his tongue a lot and sticks it out like a lizard. And that stinkin’ smile is just adorable. He is doing great at the babysitter’s. The other kids love him, and I know he is just loving all the attention he gets. This past weekend he rolled on to his side. I don’t think he realized what he did because he has only done it that one time. He is throwing his booty up in the air quite a bit though while he flails his little legs around on the Kick and Play. I wish I had that sort of enthusiasm when I was doing leg lifts…So I think constant rolling is in our near future. So there’s that.

Quirks: He can raise one eyebrow. It is hilarious that he knows he is giving you the stink eye. He curls his toes, which is something that I do as well.

We parents are: doing fairly well. This month has been a little rough because we are apart and doing A LOT of transitioning. Tom is officially out of the Army on December 5th, and we are in search of a new home. So there is still a lot of things in a state of flux right now on top of the new job situation. We are making it work though. I have been trying to figure out a new workout routine because I have definitely been feeling like sludge since starting my new job. Also I am hungry 100% of the time. Breastfeeding can also be coined the suckage of all calories out of my body. Tom has been super bored by himself in KY, so it will be nice to be back together so we can be homebodies again.

The dogs are: freaking out with the move process. They obviously aren’t with George right now, but they are definitely not acting themselves with us gone. Tom is in the midst of packing our home in KY, and they do not like living amongst all the boxes. They do move permanently back this weekend though, so we are happy about that reunion. They can be a big drooly mess together.