Dear Ariani: January 2014

Height: At your two-week check-up you had grown by one inch to 20 ½ inches in length.

Weight: At your two-week check-up you were back up to your birth weight and then some. You weighed 8 pounds, 11 ounces.

Sleeping Pattern: It took three or four days at home for you to figure out that night time is for sleeping (or at least staying quietly in bed.) But after that you have done a great job of letting me rest! I usually put you in bed while you are drowsy but still awake after you nurse. You wake up once every night to nurse, but not at a consistent time. Sometimes you sleep four hours before waking me up, sometimes as much as seven hours. You are usually wide awake after your middle-of-the-night feeding but you always let me put you right back in bed anyway without any fussing. You are such a good girl!

Eating Habits: I have been keeping you on a somewhat flexible schedule. For this first month you nurse every 3 hours or so. You got the hang of nursing so quickly - yay! I did have a rough time the first ten days. I got very sore and even started bleeding a few days in, so for two or three days I pumped and bottle-fed you until I was healed and ready to nurse again. But once I got past that, nursing has gone very well! For the first two weeks or so you were a little slow - taking almost an hour to eat each time. But by the end of the month you were consistently finishing in about thirty minutes.

Accomplishments: You rolled over the first week you were home (December 8th), but that must have been some kind of accident! (It’s way too early for that, and you haven’t done it since.) You have also already been smiling on purpose. You save most of your smiles for your daddy, which is so cute! You’re not smiling all the time, just once or twice a day, but those smiles melt my heart!

Personality: You seem to be a bit particular. We quickly figured out what kinds of things you like and what you don’t. For instance, you are a tummy sleeper. During this first month, if we tried to put you down on your back (even for just a couple of minutes) you would get very upset and scream! So you sleep on your tummy even though it’s recommended that little babies sleep on their backs. You haven’t liked being swaddled either because you like to try to get your hands in your mouth. When you are being held you prefer to be upright, not reclining. And until the end of the month you cried every single time that I changed your diaper or your clothes. I think you are finally getting used to those things now though. You do have a fussy time each evening. You get fussy and are hard to please for an hour or so - usually sometime between 7:00 and 9:00. Daddy usually holds you during that time because he is able to keep you calm better than I can. Whenever he holds you while you’re awake you usually just stare at him. It’s the cutest thing to watch you hold his gaze for the longest time.

Friends: There have been five other babies born this month at church, so you will have a lot of friends to choose from when you get older. They are your cousin Ralee, Wesley Lathum, Alivia Gasper, and Andrew & Abigail Justice.

Photos:

Snuggling on Daddy