One Month Update

It’s currently 8:08 a.m. and I have already been awake for 3 hours.

Yes, that’s right. I’ve been awake since 5 a.m. Not by my choice, as I’m sure you can imagine. Rather, Claire decided that a) she was hungry (and it had been almost 3 hours since she had last eaten, so I fully expected this) and b) she had had enough of sleeping flat on her back. She really doesn’t seem to enjoy that, so if I have time – and if I remember – I may search around for ways to elevate one end of the mattress in her crib and see what she thinks of sleeping in there. It should be interesting since she currently sleeps in our room and she may not be terribly fond of sleeping in a totally separate room from us, but I can’t do anything about the mattress in her playpen or the mattress in our room, which are the two places she currently sleeps.

Neal put her in her swing –

NOT taken today

– and she drifted off to sleep for a bit, but only long enough for me to finish my tea and toast, say goodbye to Neal as he left for work, and lie down on the couch. I probably got 10 minutes of nap-time before she woke up, hungry again.

(Apparently no one told Claire that a baby at one month in her percentile should be drinking 20 oz per day – according to a book Sherry gave me – because she definitely drinks more than that most days)

So I fed her, she still fussed, so I changed her diaper, and she still fussed. She’s currently in her vibrating chair grunting and farting in a very unladylike way, ignoring the fact that the vibrating of the chair is supposed to soothe her and make her sleepy.

This is, actually, the second day in a row where she has fought sleep in the morning, although yesterday we did manage to stay in bed until 8 a.m. I was baffled yesterday when she managed to stay awake from that hour until noon when she finally conked out for a few hours – long enough for me to stuff a quick lunch down my throat and lie down for a nap myself. In a very naive sort of way, I keep hoping this is her sorting out her days and nights and soon I will have a baby who sleeps for 5 or 6 hours at night when Neal and I are sleeping.

Funny, I know!

In other baby-related news:

* She had her one-month appointment with the doctor on Friday and she weighed 8 lbs, 13 ounces, so the doctor was happy with that.

* We’re trying to figure out what kind of formula is best for her. In the hospital, she was on Similac. Then we put her on Good Start at home since that’s what we happened to have. It seemed to make her gassy so we switched back to Similac. A few days later, I noticed that her poop started to get runny and I worried that she was having diarrhea and might get dehydrated. We took her to the duty doctor who checked her over and determined she was doing well and to keep an eye on her – as long as she still has wet diapers and tears when she cries, then she’s not dehydrated. Still, we worried, and at her one-month appointment, our doctor – who didn’t seem overly concerned about her poop – said that we might as well switch back to Good Start, but didn’t appear to think that it would make a huge difference either way. So we put her back on Good Start. Almost immediately, her poop stopped (as had happened when we had her on it before) and she started getting fussier. So now we’re back on Similac and we’re going to see what happens. I will be very happy when we figure out what damn formula is good for her!

* Claire gave Neal precise instructions and on her behalf he picked up a box of chocolates and card for me for Mother’s Day. I was standing at the kitchen counter when I looked over at her in her vibrating chair and noticed the box stuck in with her. Neal also made me breakfast, lunch and supper. Otherwise it was a pretty quiet day – we hung out at home for a bit and then went out to buy Claire some more sleepers since she’s growing out of her newborn ones.

She actually seems settled now so I may just go lie down on the couch and see how long I get. For your enjoyment, some pictures:

My father-in-law isn't excited at all about the birth of his grand-daughter, as I'm sure you can tell!

Not impressed by hats. At all.

Dressed up for Mother's Day, and doing her favourite thing ever: eating!