Hooray! We have officially survived the “4th trimester”. Not gonna lie, it’s been utterly exhausting and I’m still sleep deprived, but we made it. I’m trying to document these updates more so for myself to look back on, because you honestly forget so much. Although it’s only been about two-and-a-half years since I was in the baby phase with Adam, there’s so much I don’t remember and now I’m wishing I had done these updates for him as well.
So where are we now with our little miss? She’s still exclusively breastfed and I feed her about every 3 hours. This isn’t a hard and fast rule. Sometimes I feed her every two hours if she seems fussy, sometimes I’ll stretch it to four (in the rare instances where she takes a long nap, for example). She HATES the bottle. She absolutely refuses to take it from me, but will tolerate it from George. It’s the weirdest thing, as if she knows she’s supposed to get a boob from me. We really need to work on this.
Speaking of naps, she’s quite the cat napper. She usually takes short, 20-30 minute naps throughout the day, which is frustrating for me because that doesn’t give me much time to do anything. But every so often, she’ll sleep for a couple hours and it. is. glorious! To put her down, I swaddle her in a Swaddle UP, turn on her sleep sheep for some white noise, and give her her paci. Sometimes I’m able to just put her down and leave, but more often than not I have to rock her to sleep a bit. I’m hoping to start sleep training in the next couple months, so that will soon change (it’s pretty hard to rock her to sleep when I also have Adam around to wake her up, or having to tend to his needs as well). I also still have her in the bassinet in our bedroom. I’m pretty sure I moved Adam to his crib at the 2-month mark, but for some reason I don’t feel like Hannah is quite ready. She still spits-up occasionally and feeds in the middle of the night, so I feel more comfortable just having her next to me. But I’ll definitely transition her to the crib once we start sleep training, or when we (finally) move, whichever comes first.
I do feel like she spits-up a lot and can’t remember if Adam was the same way. I can’t help but wonder if there’s something in my diet that’s causing her some discomfort, and the only thing I can think of that may be the culprit is my coffee, since it’s pretty much the only constant in my diet. I keep telling myself I need to cut it out in order to see if it helps, but that’s really hard to do when you’re sleep deprived. I’m really hoping she outgrows this soon because if it is in fact coffee that’s upsetting her stomach, then… ugh. Pretty cruel joke to have to give up caffeine when you’re trying to survive off of fragmented hours of sleep.
In terms of her demeanor, let’s just say that she’s certainly not an easy baby. I know you can’t compare because every baby is different, but she’s nothing like Adam lol. Adam was a really happy, laid back baby. I could leave him in the Rock ‘n Play all day and he would be happy. He hardly ever cried and was super smiley. With Hannah, well…. it’s the opposite haha. Don’t get me wrong, she has her sweet moments and does smile a lot when we talk to her, but she definitely doesn’t like to be left alone; she likes to be held. If I put her down, she can go from being calm one second to screaming bloody murder the next. There’s no build-up with her, it’s 0-60, as if you’ve left her to cry for a solid hour. BUT, while she’s not really a fan of the Rock ‘n Play the way Adam was, she’s actually quite happy in the Baby Einstein bouncer and will tolerate it for a while. She’s obsessed with staring at the yellow caterpillar at smiles at it, which is really cute. And for some reason, that chair is almost guaranteed to make her poop; must be something about the position lol. Adam didn’t really care for that bouncer, so like I said, every baby is different. But I do feel like she’s slowly getting better. She’s not a miserable baby by any means; just moodier than Adam was (must be a girl thing…)
We’re still not quite on a schedule/routine because frankly, I’m too exhausted to get on one. I let her wake in the morning when she wants (there’s no way I’m going to get up before her or wake a sleeping baby), I feed her, then I put her back down an hour or so after that. Rinse, repeat, throughout the day. Bedtime for her is usually around 8pm, and she’ll typically sleep until 2am, will wake to eat, and then goes back down until about 5-6am and feeds again. I’ll put her back to sleep after that because I’m too tired to start my day and I just let her wake up whenever.
I’m starting to become more confident when it comes to going out with both kids, but it’s certainly not an easy feat. I took for granted the ease of going out with just one kid; now the amount of crap I have to travel with has doubled. I stuff my diaper bag to the max and don’t even bother with a purse anymore (the days of leaving the house with a small crossbody are long gone). Speaking of going out, she tolerates car rides … so long as the car is moving. But we live in LA and, yeah, we’re usually in traffic, which makes for a pretty angry baby. Once I had to pull over 3 or 4 times to calm her down. I’m kind of in a lose/lose situation right now: if we stay home days on end, we get cabin fever. But if I take them both out by myself, I immediately regret it. I know it will get easier with time, this is just the phase we’re in right now.
In terms of big events, we baptized her this past Sunday, so I’ll try to get around to posting some photos from that day soon.
Since we won’t have another doctor appointment until she’s 4 months, I’ll have to weigh and measure her myself. However, she’s wearing size 1 diapers and 3 month clothing (0-3 is becoming a tight fit when it comes to anything that snaps at the bottom since she’s pretty long).
I also want to talk about my postpartum recovery because I really don’t remember much after Adam, and I wish I did so that I could compare. I’m definitely not in any type of pain, thank God. Like the first time around, my c-section scar has healed really nicely, thanks to my OB (he’s a fantastic surgeon). However, I am feeling some tenderness on my lower left abs on the area above the incision. I’m not sure if this is because I’m now working out, but apparently this can be normal up to a year post c-section (but should get better with time). I also still have 20 pounds to lose, which is really bugging me. I’m trying to give myself some grace and I remind myself that it took 9 months for my body to grow her (so I should at least give myself 9 months for it to change), but I’m just feeling discouraged. I’ve been working out for about 5 weeks now and I haven’t lost a single pound. I do admit that my eating habits can be a lot better, so I’m going to try and focus on that. As a side note, I did start a second round of Whole 30 and got through about 3 1/2 weeks but eventually stopped because I felt like it was impacting my supply. I just feel like my body has plateaued and it may just hold onto these last 20lbs until I’m done breastfeeding (which I hope isn’t the case). Oh well, I guess it just comes with the territory. At the end of the day, my body created two beautiful babies for whom I am so grateful. <3
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