Welcome Baby Girl!
In early November we welcomed our sweet little angel, Kathryn. Weighing in at 9 pounds 6 ounces and 21 inches long momma was quite surprised to see just how big she was. Those big blue eyes immediately stole both mine and my husband's hearts. This was our first child so we didn't really know what to expect, but we did our homework and felt well prepared. Turns out we were well prepared and everything went very smoothly. I went on maternity leave the Friday before my due date which was the following Sunday. She ended up coming 3 days late, after much complaining on my part.
Contractions started about 11pm after going to bed at 10pm--woke me up. They had never woken me up before and were about 15 minutes apart. So, I got dressed after an hour realizing they weren't getting any better or going away. Didn't want to wake my husband because I knew I would need him alert and sane during the labor and delivery process. Thankfully my kindle was charged so I sat in my glider in the nursery reading between contractions. After several hours they were too close together to make reading possible so I went in to wake up my husband and go to the hospital. About 18 hours of labor later we got to meet our baby girl and she was perfect! After they placed her on my chest I was already smitten. I cried, of course, and Brad had never smiled so big.
She lost 9% of her body weight within 4 days, but immediately started gaining weight on day 5. Our pediatricians have several doctors and nurse practitioners who rotate between several offices. We had to take her in to be weighed every few days which was very stressful because some of them were not very supportive. Even after she began gaining weight I was then told she wasn't gaining weight fast enough and would have to supplement with formula. This was very stressful for me and my husband, but thankfully my mother was able to give me the assurance I needed to trust my supply. Sure enough by her 2 week check up she had regained her birth weight plus 3 ounces which felt good to stick it to the nurse practitioners who doubted me. At her 1 month check up she was in the 83rd percentile and has been holding around there ever since.
From the beginning she has been a great sleeper. After about a week she hated being swaddled. If her arms were pinned she would get really fussy until she wiggled them out of the blanket. For a about a week or two around the 2-4 week range she became very obsessed with me. If anyone else tried to hold her she got fussy real quick and would only sleep if she was in my arms. This made it tough for me to sleep, but we found a good routine eventually. I had to let her sleep on my chest which I know is a HUGE NO NO, but it worked for us. After having the baby I have become such a light sleeper that anytime she moved or made a noise I was wide awake. After this stint, which felt like it was never going to end, she was able to sleep in her bassinet in our room with a sound machine. She really likes the wave noise of the sound machine which was the least obnoxious of the noises allowing it to not bother our sleep either.
We celebrated her first Thanksgiving with my husband's step dad's family and got to see all of the families for her first Christmas. Christmas day we spent at home with just the 4 of us (can't forget the dog). She was able to meet all of her cousins, my cousins, her grandparents, Brad's grandparents, and everyone fell in love. She is the first girl on Brad's side of the family and I believe she has all of them wrapped around her little finger already too.
For her 1 month birthday we were able to take her to the beach. She was calm long enough to snap a few pictures and then I bundled her up in our carrier. It was quite windy and cold that day so she cuddled up against my chest and fell right asleep.
Pretty quickly she started sleeping mostly through the night with only one feeding. With her larger size she was able to eat enough to fill her belly and sleep for 6 hour stretches within about a month. At about 7 weeks we decided to start putting her in her crib in her own room. As any new, paranoid mom I read a thousand articles and talked to all of my mom friends. So many of them said you can't sleep train a baby any younger than 6 months. I'm here to tell you that all babies are different because I did before 2 months. Keep an eye out for a later post on what worked for us.
At about 8 weeks she was outgrowing her 0-3 month old clothes and size 1 diapers. She outgrew her newborn clothes within a week and only wore newborn diapers at the hospital because they were WAY too small. Unfortunately our changing table was well stocked with newborn diapers. Thankfully a coworker's wife was pregnant so we were able to stock them with all of the newborn diapers they'll need. Anyway, I was moving out her 0-3 month clothes to make room for her 3-6 month clothes in her chest of drawers. She needed a few more cotton and fleece footed jammies and some supplies for daycare so we made a quick trip to Babies-R-Us since we had several gift cards.
On the clearance rack I found the cutest snow suit I just had to have. I held off getting her one before because I thought you just wrapped babies in blankets at this age or kept them inside. Well, she was so big and didn't like to be bundled up anymore so she needed one with it getting so cold. Good thing I got it for her because a week later it snowed and iced so she got to rock her new outfit which Brad dubbed her tanooki outfit. For those not as familiar with Super Mario Bros. games, like myself, the tanooki is the racoon power-up which allows Mario or Luigi to fly.
We are just in absolute heaven and she still amazes us how quickly she's growing. It's fun to look back at the first few pictures of videos and see how much she's grown. She loves to smile, play, and be naked!Save