Category: Mommying

Leah’s Two Month Update – Smiles & Giggles!

Posted on by Sarah Marshall

Yesterday Leah hit the two month milestone. It’s so cliche but it seems like she just got here and that she’s been a lot longer than two months at the same time.

I think one of the biggest changes from last month to today is the smiles and giggles!!

Leah at Two Months:

Size: The 0-3 month clothes have been packed and are waiting to go to the consignment store. She’s been in 3-6 month clothes for about two or three weeks now. Doing a rough weigh-in on our home scale, she seems to be about 13.5 pounds-ish. Her newborn diapers were also quickly outgrown and I’ve been working on growing our cloth diaper stash for the next stage.

Love watching Brooke and Leah play together!

Eating: Breastfeeding is still going well. I’m going back to work in a few weeks so we’ll need to start introducing bottles because, as I found out in an unfortunate fashion at church this past weekend, Leah doesn’t like bottles! It didn’t surprise me a whole lot because she doesn’t like pacifiers either!

Sleeping: Leah is an inconsistent day sleeper but pretty consistent night sleeper. She’ll have days when she shows little to no interest in napping and then have days when she’ll take 5 hour naps. However, she’s practically sleeping through the night already so I try not to complain about the non-napping days too much.

Personality: Leah is much more unpredictable than I remember Brooke to be. Brooke pretty much was on a 3 hour routine of sleep, eat, play. I knew exactly what would put her to sleep and a good idea how long I’d have until she’d wake up again. With Leah, its a crapshoot most of the time. This has been a hard adjustment for me but I’m doing my best to go with the flow. Leah still has a bit of a temper and once she’s mad, she’s MAD and not going to be calmed easily. I’ve learned that the hard way after many a head butt!

Milestones:
Smiles and Giggles!! When we go to get her from her crib when she wakes up, we’re greeted with a big ‘ol toothless grin. We’ve also gotten a few giggles if we make just the right goofy noise.

Hand Sucking! She has figured out how to get her hands in her mouth and once its there, she’s a happy camper!

Fun Trips! This month Leah has been to the Tennessee Aquarium in Chattanooga, Great Smoky Mountain National Park and her first UT football event! She’s staring out as quite the active kiddo!!

Next month will bring about some changes for Leah, like daycare and many more milestones. We’re looking forward to seeing what’s next for her!!

Leah’s First Month

Posted on by Sarah Marshall

One month ago, Miss Leah came into our lives, fast and furious in little over two hours. I had a wonderful, un-medicated birth, the story of which I hope to share soon.

We were expecting a good size baby since Brooke was almost 9 pounds and Leah was estimated to be 9.5 pounds via ultrasound at 38 weeks. Even so, we were taken by surprise to see the numbers on the scale when she was weighed.

Almost 11 pounds!!

It’s hard to believe that a month has passed since then!! We’ve had so much fun getting to know Leah and discovering the similarities and differences between her and Brooke as time goes on.

So a little about Leah at one month:

Size: We’ll get an “official” number at a well-check on Wednesday but from our home scale Leah is weighing in at around 12-13 pounds. Newborn sized clothes were never a reality for her but she has some 3 months clothes that are a little snug and 6 month outfits don’t look terribly big on her. (She’s in a 6 month outfit in the above picture.) We’ve had to take the infant insert out of her carseat because she outgrew it already.

Eating: Breastfeeding is going well. We had two days in our first week that we struggled but we stuck it out and she’s doing great! I’m working with some oversupply issues but I’m confident my supply will eventually regulate and even though it can be painful, I’d rather deal with that than low supply which was my experience with Brooke.

Sleeping: So far Leah’s been a good sleeper. *knocking on all the wood* She typically naps well during the day and will usually only wake up once in the middle of the night. We’ve even had one night where I’ve laid her down at 9:30 and we didn’t hear from her again until 6am!  She has times when she struggles to settle down but that’s fairly rare compared to the easy times when she’ll knock right out. If only I would remember that at 4am when I just want her to go back to sleep!! She also sleeps well when I’m wearing her in the Moby or Ergo and that’s a big help when we’re out and about or I need to get stuff done around the house.

Personality: Leah will definitely let you know if she’s not happy. She is either content or wailing at the top of her lungs – there is no middle ground. She is strong and holds her head up eally well and likes to look around at what’s around her. She’ll also headbutt you if she’s mad enough!! When we give her some time to “play” on the floor, she is already starting to tilt to one side and we wouldn’t be surprised if she starts rolling over early.

We’ve enjoyed the first month as a family of four and look forward to what’s next in the coming months as Leah continues to grow!