Holy moly, our baby girl is 12 weeks old! These have been the absolute best, and most challenging/trying, 12 weeks of my life…but I wouldn’t change a thing. (Ok, maybe I would’ve changed the first 6 weeks of breastfeeding, sleepless nights, but oh well). I honestly never knew how amazing motherhood would be and it continues to enrich my life in so many ways each day. I know it sounds cheesy, but I feel like I’ve found my purpose in life. Adriana lights up my whole life. I am incredibly excited for everything we get to experience with her in the future.
I mentioned last week that I’m going to try to do weekly recaps now. I’m not sure if I will be able to achieve this goal every week, but I will try my best. Hey, I did it this week!
Earlier this week, we sent out Adriana’s birth announcements from Minted. I’m so happy with how they turned out! I went with a soft pink and gold theme to match the newborn photo I selected. You can get $25 off your first order of $50 or more through my refer a friend link.
This week, Adriana had her longest stretch of sleep EVER – 7 hours on Dec 8th! Yes, I know the exact date it happened, haha. She slept from around 10:45pm until 5:45am. I woke up in utter shock. Sadly, this hasn’t repeated itself yet (and we had a couple poor nights of sleep after that), but oh was it ever glorious. It gives me hope that one day we’ll be sleeping through the night!
Naps continue to be fairly unpredictable, but they have been getting a tiny bit more predictable recently. She tends to have a short morning nap around 9am for 30 minutes. Then another short nap around lunchtime. She really doesn’t seem to need much sleep and everyone is always commenting on how alert she is! Her longest nap (and most consistent nap) is always late afternoon/early evening where she can sleep for 1.5-2.5 hours at a time. It’s usually my most productive time of the day (that’s if I can peel myself away from the baby monitor…haha). I forgot to mention in the last update that I’ve been making a point to bring her to her bassinet in our bedroom for most of her naps now. Before, I just let her sleep in the Mamaroo (or occasionally in the bassinet in the family room), but I was starting to worry that she’d become too dependent on the motion of the mamaroo. It’s also easier on us to have her in the bedroom with the monitor on because we don’t have to worry about our noises waking her up. She’s a very laid back baby, so putting her in the bassinet for naps has been pretty good. She usually fusses for a few minutes or so and then falls asleep on her own. Sometimes she’ll cry and I’ll go in to check her; if she’s alert and doesn’t seem sleepy I take her out and we try again later. Other times I can soothe her to sleep by just putting my hand on her and rubbing her belly for a few minutes. I’m getting a bit better at picking up on her sleepy cues, but it’s no exact science that’s for sure. I’m not naïve enough to think that she will always be easy to put down…it could all change in a heartbeat. I hear that 4 month sleep regression is a biotch!
Adriana comes up with new and strange sounding noises all the time. Her newest thing is making “hoo” noises like an owl! She just goes, “Hoo, hoo, hoo, hoo, hoo” over and over. Cracks me up. She also currently loves to practice standing up – we hold her under the armpits and she stands up her legs. She is so proud of herself when she does it and has a big smile until her legs collapse beneath her. Still no rolling over since the couple times she did it the other week. She seems to be more intent on trying to move forward now because I’ve been putting stuffed animals in front of her during tummy time. She also still loves playing airplane and playing with her animals books with fuzzy textures!
Since you guys seem to love the stories where I (or Eric) act a fool (let’s never forget the Booby Tubes incident), I will tell you another story from my early breastfeeding days. You know how I had a really hard time with breastfeeding for the first 6 weeks. Well around the 1 month mark out of sheer desperation I bought some Avent nipple shield protectors. If you don’t know what nipple shields are, they are dome shaped things that you place over your nipple to protect it. It also has the dual function of catching milk if you leak! Anyway, this was around the time when my nipples were so raw I couldn’t even put on a t-shirt without crying out in pain, so I figured it was worth a shot. I had previously tried the homemade tissue rings (just roll up a tissue, shape it into a ring, and place it around your nipple to prevent rubbing against clothing), but I didn’t find it worked as good as I needed it to. So I put on the nipple shields and I had instant relief – no more nipples rubbing against my bra or t-shirt! It was progress. The only downside was that 1) they aren’t super comfortable (hard dome shaped things, remember), and 2) They made my boobs look like Madonna’s cone boobs from the 80’s. Embarrassing, but functional so I really didn’t care as I wasn’t planning on impressing anyone. So of course one day the doorbell rings and it’s a delivery. I think you can see where this is going…I answer the door, sign the package, and engage in a little small talk. After the delivery man leaves, I open the package and go about my morning. Maybe an hour later I’m in the bathroom and I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror – MADONNA CONE BOOBS answered the door, and to make matters even more glamorous, I had a big spit up stain all down the front of my shirt. Classic! I thought the delivery man was acting a bit awkward and now I know why. So there’s that. #newmamaproblems
Still not digging: the bottle (wah) or pacifier, but she loves chewing her Sophie the Giraffe (she prefers the mini-sized version right now). Ok, I’ll admit we did slack a bit this week with trying the bottle…so we need to keep at it.
New nicknames: toot toot girl :), munks (short for monkey)
Worrying about: Our upcoming 4 hour plane ride! Tell me parents – how do you change a messy diaper on a plane? Is there a change table in the tiny bathrooms or somewhere else on the plane? Or do you have to do it on the seats? #clueless
Exercise: Still following the same routine as I mentioned last week!
Last but not least I wanted to share a couple quotes from my sisters this week. The first is something my sister Kerrie wrote to me in a recent email (sharing with their permission!). I thought it was so beautiful and true. As tiring as the newborn times can be, they really are like nothing else in the world.
“I think back to that time and miss it so much! I miss the snuggles and really miss the middle of the night feedings … may sound crazy when you are oh so tired but they truly were peaceful times.” ~Kerrie
and just to balance it out, here’s a text from my other sister Kristi that she let me share because I almost peed myself:
“So tonight A gets upset with me and clearly is not impressed. He grabs a box of tampons and says, ‘I’ve been asking you for two years what these are. When are you going to come clean?’”
DYING. Oh this kid…if you only knew him. He’s a character. Six years old going on 16.
PS – Be on the look out for Adriana’s nursery tour coming up later this week!