Another month in the books! Elliott is still a great baby. This month she has started to bring out a bit more personality. She is happiest when she is busy and doesn't sleep as much during the day. She will smile a bunch when awake which I absolutely love. She really likes to be held facing out so she can see. She also is constantly searching for her hands to suck on. One thing that melts my heart a little is when she's sleepy, she searches for my hand to hold.
Breastfeeding is much, much improved. We are officially out of the painful stage and have moved on to only occasional discomfort. A month after her tongue tie revision when she was still not getting it, I I took about 3-4 days off of nursing. We gave her mostly bottles and I would nurse just here and there when I needed. That did wonders for my healing and I think it did train her a bit to latch deeper. She also started to take a paci during this time! We still aren't perfect, but we are really getting there. I never thought I'd see the day where nursing didn't hurt! The spitting up has definitely increased probably due to her getting more food. She is also super duper gassy, so we live on gas drops and I've learned to burp her as much as possible. She still does one side most of the time but eats frequently, still going every 1.5-3 hours through the day, longer at night. Thankfully she eats efficiently and usually doesn't take more than 10 minutes.
Elliott is a near perfect kid during the day. She rarely has fussy periods that aren't easily fixed. Evening is definitely the witching hour. I'd say about 6 is when she gets fussy and needs the most attention, but it's still really doable. Bedtime routine consists of diaper/clothes change, then she gets swaddled, I turn on the lullaby music on her bassinet, and I feed her in the dark in bed. She almost always fall asleep easily with this routine. If I stay in bed with her she sleeps wonderfully. My old self would hate this, but we have pretty much accepted at least partial bed sharing. She will still sleep in her bassinet, but since she's been spitting up more she always wakes up! And conveniently she spits up right after I set her down, even if I hold her upright for 20 minutes after a feeding. Although it's still really important to me that she sleep in her bassinet, if she has trouble going down I will just keep her with us in bed.
She is so fidgety in her sleep thanks to gas (we should buy stock in gas drops). The swaddle is definitely a must in the bassinet because of that. We have weeks where she sleeps with us constantly and others where she's in her bassinet all night perfectly so it just depends on how her evening goes. I keep telling myself that if Landry's happy disposition has anything to do with bed sharing then we may not be in trouble after all.
She goes mostly 3 hour gaps in the night with one longer period usually. And at night she doesn't ever get upset, she just starts to wiggle and root for her hands to signal she's hungry. Andy is hardly ever bothered. And she is super duper great about falling back asleep no problem in the middle of the night. If I'm awake more than 20 minutes it's my own fault. I'm working on transitioning to her crib for at least 1 nap a day. She hasn't lasted in there for more than 45 min to an hour but we will get there. Blackout curtains and lullaby music help. I am in zero hurry to transition to crib for night time, and won't even consider until she's consistently waking up one time or less during the night.
She loves the sound of running water, so now she sits in the bathroom when I shower. This might be her favorite time of day because she's always happy in the morning, plus it's bright and a nice change of scenery. She also likes being outside. We have had a few afternoons by the pool and she is calm hanging out. The water she is just okay with. She does much better driving in the car, and if she is upset putting her window down usually does the trick. Elliott still loves the bath and hates getting her clothes changed. She has started to really enjoy lying on the floor or bed and kicking away. She likes to look at ceiling fans. She is spending more time in the mamaroo when awake and has even put herself to sleep in it a few times.
Elliott absolutely loves the k'tan wrap! Not only does it make running errands easy but if she is upset it almost always does the trick. She will sleep in that thing no matter how much I move or make noise. Super heart love it. I just got out some of her 'toys' so we will see how she likes them.
She has moved on from loathing wet diapers, so now we can go all night without changing unless we need to. We put cloth in the rotation and I'd say we are using them about half of the time. She is almost always in cloth when I change her, although at night it's easier to keep her in disposables since we go so long between changes. Andy only changes her to disposables for the most part. The washing is not hard or time consuming, it's only the leaking I have to perfect, but I'm getting the hang of it! It really is surprisingly easy.
Elliott is getting used to some time away from me thanks to cheerleading. And Andy is getting the hang of being with her alone. She did amazingly well on her first overnight trip to Chicago. She has also been to two weddings and done great there, too. So, she seems to be a social baby which is great. We haven't had to rely on sitters yet. I'm saving that for when I really need them, since I can cart her with me almost anywhere I need to be. She is my responsibility (a responsibility that I love). Plus with nursing it's a million times easier to keep her with me because I'm a slacker at pumping. We only have maybe 10 oz of milk frozen now.
After 6 weeks off from the doc we know that she weighs 10 lb 3.7 oz and measures 22.5 in. She jumped a little on all her growth percentiles so we know she is doing great! She is pretty much out of all newborn clothes. 0-3 month and 3 month fit perfectly but we can get away with a few 3-6 month things too.
We just love her to pieces and I think I tell her she's beautiful about 80 times a day.
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