Our baby is one month old!

Today is our sweet baby girl's one month birthday!  We had a doctor's appointment today where they said she seems to be doing great developmentally (she's lifting her head like a champ during tummy time) and health wise, but is just not a happy baby due to tummy troubles.  We've got her on Zantac for reflux, which helps with her not eating so frantically and wanting to breast feed every 15 minutes, but still hasn't solved the problem completely.  But I have to say, today, on her one month birthday, she did finally smile quite a bit and had a much less fussy day.  She's also starting to coo, now that she has more wakeful hours where she doesn't seem to be in pain.  Here's to hoping by two months old this too shall pass.  Right now she lives in the Baby Bjorn, which is the only place she seems content...oh, and the bouncy chair that is where she's started sleeping at night.  She still makes tons of noise and wakes herself up frequently, but the vibration lulls her quickly back to sleep.

So are you ready for this?  Sierra weighed in at a whopping 9 lbs 3 oz and 22 inches long today!  I knew she was a good eater and chunking up, but that's amazing.  That's not quite as heavy as her brother was, but it was a huge jump over a couple of weeks ago.  It really is crazy to look back at Peyton and see how much they are alike.  Now that the spitting up is decreasing, I expect her to continue to chunk up.  She also is taking a bottle now of my pumped milk.  Her brother got to feed her today (he was SO excited) for the first time and it also gave Zack and I a chance to go out for a nice long dinner for our anniversary without feeling like we needed to rush home to feed her.  She has shown no problems switching back and forth, but I should feed her soon too just to make sure she'll take both the bottle and breast from me.  I've heard horror stories about babies who won't take a bottle from mom.  With the bottle being an option, we've started her on a probiotic, just to try and help with the gas pains.  I'm also trying to cut dairy out of my diet and see if that helps.  It's easier said than done.  I had no idea how many things I ate that have cheese in them.  So far today is the only day I didn't slip up.  Other things that are new are baby acne and a little cradle cap.  Our children go through the gamut of skin issues as babies.  Oh well, at least they are healthy and beautiful and we love them to death.

2 weeks old-Growth Spurt Time

Ravenous!  That's the best way to describe Sierra's current state of being.  I believe this is the first major growth spurt an infant has and all she wants to do is eat, eat, eat.  If she's awake, she pretty much wants to be eating and gets very upset if Mommy is not right there to feed her.  We went to her two week old well baby visit today and she weighs 7 lbs, 7 oz.  I forgot to ask how long she is.  She continues to be a very noisy baby (not crying, just weird noises all the time) as well as a very gassy and spity baby.  We're going to try and avoid meds for reflux, but if it doesn't get better in the next week with homeopathic colic meds, we'll go for the Zantac and hope this resolves quickly as her stomach sphincters get stronger.  It's terrible to see a baby so miserable, know what's wrong, and not be able to fix it.  Otherwise, she's a healthy, bouncing baby girl.

We attempted to have a family photo shoot with Amanda Court Photography yesterday, but neither of the kiddos were cooperating after spending the weekend in Steamboat and the morning on the 3 hour car ride back.  If Amanda got any good pics, it's definitely a testament to her talent.  Sierra was wide awake and only wanted to eat and pee (she doused me twice and Zack once).  Today she has not wanted to nap, but has finally gone to sleep for now, since her noisy brother has gone down for a nap too.  She's getting to that "not wanting to miss anything" stage and a nap would interfere.  She's cuter everyday!

One week (9 days) well baby visit

This morning we went to Sierra's last appointment with the midwives.  Next week she starts at our doctor's office.  Everything went fabulously.  She is up to 7 lbs 2 1/2 oz already.  I thought that was a lot until I looked back at my blog for Peyton at 8 days he was 7 lbs 3 oz, but he started smaller and had lost more of his birth weight.  I can't imagine that he was more of an eater than her.  She eats constantly.  She's a pretty good sleeper too, already sleeping at 3 hour stretches at night.  We'll see how things progress from here to 2  1/2 weeks, the next time I blogged for Peyton.  He had chunked up over 8 lbs, grown an inch and was becoming a nightmare to deal with because of reflux.  He was up at night all the time, inconsolably crying and that's when I became very sleep deprived.   It sounds like I was also "nesting" much like I am now, wanting to clean everything in the house from top to bottom, so I wasn't resting like I should have been.

Her skin and eyes seem to be clearing up some.  The hemorrhage in her left eye is definitely breaking up and the one in her right is nearly gone.  The "toxic erythema" (not bad like it sounds and apparently perfectly normal in 50% of newborns) that has caused her to have red blotches all over, making her look like she has a case of the chicken pox, is finally starting to lessen.  Supposedly it usually clears up completely by about 2 weeks.  Her hair looks to be already thinning a bit, so maybe it'll fall out and come back in blond like Peyton's did.  Our biggest problem, though, is that she's very gassy, causing her to spit up, and at times strain for hours (unfortunately mostly in the middle of the night) to go to the bathroom.  She yelps when she's straining and it's very hard to console her because nothing seems to help.  I'm hoping it's not something I'm eating coming out in my breast milk.  I think she's just swallowing a lot of air because it's getting a little better as her latch gets better.

That's pretty much it.  I've been home with the two little ones by myself the last 2 days and even took Peyton with us to the appointment today and he was super well behaved-he sat on the floor and played with trucks the whole time, you wouldn't even know he was there.  They've been really easy so far and again, looking back at Peyton's blog, it's so much easier with experience.  At both appointments we've been to everyone in the midwife office has said I look like a mom coming in at 6 weeks postpartum, not 2 days and 1 week.  That makes me feel good that I at least appear to be well put together (it helps I'm already 1/2 way to my prepregnancy weight, gotta love breastfeeding!).  We love our little girl more and more each day.  Zack has said that it already feels different to have a daughter over a son.  I think he's going to love it when she's a little older.  I think I am too. We're so lucky to get to experience the love for a son and a daughter.

One week old-time flies

I can't believe our little Sierra was one week old yesterday.  At her 48 hour post birth appointment she had only lost 3 oz. because she was already such a ravenous little eater.  Everything seems to be going well.  All her vitals and reflexes were good.  She is a spitter upper though due to extreme gassiness.   Every time she eats it's not a matter of will she spit up, but what volume and out of where (nose or mouth are acceptable answers).  It's been more a nuisance than anything except the one day it didn't come out and just went up her nose and she couldn't breathe.  She wailed (she's not much of a crier so far so not being able to console her was hard to handle) until we were finally able to suction all the milk out of her poor little nose.

She had hemorrhages in her eyes from birth trauma that are starting to clear up and she's plumping up nicely so she becomes cuter by the day.  She sleeps a lot more than her brother did (which I'm enjoying because I don't really feel sleep deprived) and she's wide eyed when she's awake.  Just like her brother she lifts her head already and wants to know what's going on in the world around her.  She smiles when you talk to her and look her in the eyes.  She still has some skin issues that will hopefully clear up soon.  The mild jaundice that she had started to develop quickly cleared once my milk came in and she got some sun.  Speaking of sun, she loves being outside.  She gets really bad, seemingly painful, hiccups that make her fuss and she calms right down outside.  I've been nursing her a lot outside to get her used to it so we don't have the repeat of our first camping trip with Peyton when he wouldn't nurse because he was so distracted by all the things in the great outdoors.  We hope to go camping by August.  If all goes well at her 1 week appointment on Wednesday we'll be taking a 3 hour car ride to Steamboat Springs for the hot air balloon rodeo next weekend too.

Peyton adores his little sister, holding and kissing her every chance he gets.  So far there really hasn't been any jealousy.  He's a big helper with diaper changes and fetching things I need while breastfeeding.  He's got a bag of toys reserved for only times when Mommy is breastfeeding Sierra and he understood the concept really quickly and looks forward to those times when he can play with "my toys!"  So far there hasn't been any regressing as far as potty training or any worse behaviors than he already had being in the throws of the terrible twos.

Tomorrow my mom goes to a workshop for five days, Zack goes back to work and Aunt Cathy goes back to Orlando, so I will have my first taste of taking care of the two of them alone.  I was extremely anxious about it initially, but feel ready to take on whatever they can throw at me come tomorrow.  I may even attempt the midwife appointment on Wednesday by myself with Peyton in tow.  I was considering a sitter, but we'll have to see how tomorrow goes.

I'm in love with my family.  We have two amazing, beautiful children that we love more than anything.  There really is room in your heart for two.  I didn't know how I could love someone as much as I love Peyton, but I do.  Life sure is getting interesting.