Thirty One + Thirty Two Weeks!

 

With all the holiday hustle and bustle last week, I never found the time to sit down and blog... which means this week's post will be a combo post of weeks 31 and 32 :)

Weight: Somewhere around 14 and a half and 15 pounds maybe?
  
Sleep: Sleeping has been really good for Lizzie. She's going to bed between 7:15 and 7:45 usually, and will typically sleep until 3:00, when she wakes (like clockwork) wanting to eat usually. She'll usually sleep in until at least 8:00 :) Woooohooo for everyone during Christmas break :)

Medical Issues: Not a one :) We went in last week to get her second dose of the flu vaccine. I hadn't anticipated giving her the vaccine, as I didn't even think it was allowed for babies. But her doctor highly recommended it, and I trust his judgment for a variety of reasons, so she got her first installment at her six month check-up and, as I mentioned, had her second dose last week. It was pretty hilarious -- the moment the nurse walked into the room with us, Lizzie wailed. I said, "Oh  my gosh, it's like she knows what's coming and she remembers you're the one who gives her the shot!" and the nurse confirmed that she actually does recognize the signs of a shot coming -- she said that by seven months, they can usually tell. But on the up side (I guess?), Lizzie was already so upset about the fact that she was getting a shot that I don't think she even noticed that she actually got the shot. Babies are smart little ones, I tell you!

Clothes: Hanging out in three to six month clothes by day, zero to three month jammies by night. However, in light of the ridiculously frigid temps, we've been putting her in some of her three to six month jammies at night because she has a few fleece jams in that size. They are pretty ginormous, but they are so darn cozy!

Socialite!: Due to the holidays, Lizzie girl has been especially social with people she doesn't always get to see! She hasn't been going to daycare the last week and a half because I've been off (whooo Christmas break!), but we've seen lots of family. On the day before Christmas Eve, my dearest friend from high school came to visit, so Lizzie got to hang out with her. Then on Christmas Eve, we saw my extended family on my mom's side for the night. On Christmas day, we hung out with Andy's family, and then my family that night. I've said it before, but Lizzie really loves to watch the "big" kids. She's completely fascinated by everything they do! And they make her smile real easily :) On Friday, we drove down to the Twin Cities and did a little shopping with Andy's mom and sister, and then left from there on Saturday to make the trek to Iowa for Andy's extended family Christmas. Lizzie met buckets of new people that day! Aunts and uncles, cousins, and even a great great uncle and her great grandma! It was pretty neat. I think she was pretty overwhelmed by the new place and all the new faces, but she really did a great job -- wasn't as smiley as she normally would be, but that's okay! She was out of her normal element and routine, so that's to be expected. 

Diet: Oh boy, big changes here -- for me, anyway. After much deliberation, I decided to start weaning Lizzie the day Christmas break began. We whittled feedings down about one a day, sometimes waiting a day before tossing one out due to either A) my being a little too "full" to pull another or B) my not being ready emotionally for weaning to go so quickly. We've got enough of a back-stock in the freezer to last a little while, but it's amazing how fast it goes. At this point, I'm hoping it will last until she turns eight months, which would be January 12th, but I wouldn't be surprised if it doesn't last quite that long. After that, we'll obviously have to switch to formula. She's now exclusively taking bottles and does great with it. She's a smart cookie -- she picked up on the whole, bottle --> eat association super quickly. We're now hiding bottles until it's time to eat :)

Aside from breastmilk, Lizzie's food diet has been expanding. Last week and this week, she tried green beans, had more turkey, some lasagna, some spaghetti, chicken, avocado, broccoli, cauliflower (a new favorite!), pears, pineapple, blackberries, blueberries (another new favorite!), raspberries, red pepper strips, toast, organic baby yogurt, pita chips and spinach and artichoke hummus. I'm sure we had some other things in there too, but I can't think of them right now. Anyway, she has yet to meet a food she doesn't care for. She's a pretty awesome eater.

As far as the foods go, I've been putting a lot of thought into expanding her "meals" from just at suppertime, to also at lunch as well. This is tricky with daycare, and I'm not quite sure how to go about it at this point. Not that I don't trust daycare, but I feel like a person always watches their own child better than someone else would -- and not that I don't trust Lizzie to feed herself, either. We've never had even one incident of 'choking' for her with BLW. So I'm considering one of two options: either organic baby puree or really easy, "mushy" foods that I won't be concerned with. These would be things like very ripe pear, avocados, broccoli that I've steamed the night before, hummus and pita chips (they soften as she eats them), smashed blackberries and blueberries. And maybe if I do go the food route, I'd go over to daycare for the first few weeks and show them how I cut things for her and how I give blueberries and blackberries a little 'smoosh' before letting her pick them up -- not to make them feel incompetent, but I just want to make sure everything is as it should be before I put that kind of trust in someone.

Anyway, along those same lines, I introduced a lunch meal with her today since I'm home. We tried a few pita chips (a pita that I cut into wedges, put a little olive oil, garlic and pepper on and then roasted in the oven) with some hummus for the first time -- she wasn't so sure at first, but then she really chowed down. Ideally I'd like her to learn to dip her pita chips in the hummus, but that's a little advanced at this point -- so for now, I'm spreading the hummus on the pita chips with a baby spoon. She happened to get her little hands on the spoon and took a big bite of hummus on her own... and that's when the love affair started :) She had pears as her side, too.

Another thing to note is how much Lizzie is noticing what we're eating these days. She'll fuss quite a bit until we give her what we're eating for the main course some nights -- which is fine by me, because I wanted to start including her with that anyway, but sometimes it's hard to know how to give her some of what we eat, specifically if it's a little higher in sodium. Easy fix for that, though: cook with low-sodium/no salt ingredients, add salt later, or just leave it out of her food and put it in ours.

Baby Gear Love: Lizzie got so many great new toys and books for Christmas! Her favorites so far include the Fisher-Price Ocean Wonders Soothe and Glow Seahorse (a God-send when we were on our way home from Iowa... sweet girl spent half of the car ride home in the dark, which had to be ridiculously boring for her. This lit up her lap so she could see her activity bar and other toys we'd packed for her to play with in the car!), the Fisher Price Laugh and Learn: Learning Kitchen (she can't get enough of how the light turns off and on with the flip of a switch!) and the B. Snug Bugs (she loves to chew on them, plus they are so great for little hands to grab onto and they are so darn CUTE! We toss them a couple in the diaper bag so she has something little to play with if she gets restless). Another thing we're in love with is the JJ Cole Car Seat Cover, which I've mentioned before. But it's an amazing thing -- Andy read that thicker "warm suits" that you can put baby in during cold weather (like the ridiculous cold snap we seem to have been in for the last MONTH...) can negatively affect a car seat's safety for a baby because you can't get the straps as tight as they should be. Anyway, with this car seat cover from JJ Cole, a warm suit really isn't needed anyway -- it's incredible how warm this thing keeps Lizzie. We definitely tuck a blanket around her to keep her cozied in, but that plus the cover keeps her very toasty. There have been times where the outside temp is negative 10, and we pull Lizzie out of her car seat and she's sweating. It's pretty awesome.

Crying: Baby girl is awesome, as per usual. Only cries when she's tired or hungry... or if you take food away from her :)

Mommy News:  As mentioned previously, over the past two weeks, we started and ended the weaning process. This was definitely a really big step for me emotionally. I felt it was time, but I still had a really hard time actually giving up nursing -- just ask my husband. I'd considered giving it up for the past two months, but just couldn't do it. I'm a very sensitive girl, so things that go through my head that "taunt" me are things like, "this is the fifth to the last day you'll nurse Lizzie at night in the rocking chair" (ridiculous, right?). I've always been like that, setting these little milestones and making things extra dramatic. And while I know they're dramatic and that life will go on and that everything will be fine, I still worry over it and think about it too much and ask my husband eight times in one night, "am I a bad mom for not nursing her longer?" Again, ridiculous. Of course not. But for some reason I just felt selfish for making that decision. Anyway, now that I've done my last nursing session (a few nights ago), I'm fine. In fact, going into that nursing session, I 'prepped' myself, saying "enjoy this last one, and drink in the moment"... and I did. But I didn't feel any emptiness upon putting her down in her crib. And last night and tonight were no less special or snuggly when I fed her a bottle in her rocker and kissed her goodnight. I knew it would be fine. I'm just not one for change -- it makes me very anxious and can tend to make me sad. And I'm glad the process, for the most part, is over. The process itself made me anxious, too. Anyway, now what's left over is that uncomfortable 'full' feeling until my body realizes it can stop making milk. Which is also kind of sad... but I'm just looking forward and looking at the positives: now we can give her bottles when we're out and about, I won't have to find a dressing room to nurse in while shopping, skip prep times at school to nurse, wear clothes that aren't "nursing friendly" -- not that I minded any of these things, but again, I'm focusing on positives :)
 
Milestones: We have our first Christmas under our belts! Lizzie was certainly more interested in the bows and tissue paper than anything else, and was less interested in ripping open packages than I thought. I anticipated that she'd love ripping the paper off of her gifts, but she didn't care much for that.

Lizzie also met a whole bunch of new family over the weekend on Andy's side! This included her great grandma :)

We're working so, so, so hard on the "b" sound it seems. She's 'buzzing' her lips like she wants to say the "buh" sound, but she's not quite there yet.

Lizzie is holding her own bottle when we feed her most of the time :) We're encouraging a sippy at mealtimes with a 1:10 ratio of prune juice to water (for constipation purposes), but she's got a case of the T-Rex Syndrome (i.e., arms too short to actually hold her sippy up high enough to get anything out!) so we have to help her for now.

Her self-feeding skills are really amazing at this point. She's getting that pincer grasp down incredibly well and can pick up relatively small bits of food with her pointer and thumb and get them to her mouth. She also likes to grab my fork/utensil that I might be using to feed her with every so often and guide it to her mouth with amazing accuracy. I basically give up all control of the utensil and let her do the guiding... and she's perfect every time.

Lizzie is now starting to show quite a preference to people. No longer is it where she can go to anyone and be happy that she's being held -- instead, she's typically quite concerned with where Mommy is. The moment she gets passed off to someone, she's often looking to see where I am and it's not long after that her sweet little face wrinkles into a cry and she reaches for me. I won't lie... I do kind of love it :) But I also want her to be happy going to her daddy and other family members as well. Not to mention, daycare is going to be impossible for me if she cries every time I leave her!

Thirty Weeks!

Weight: I'm guessing around 14 and a half pounds.
  
Sleep: Lizzie's been sleeping like a champ. She's out around 7:30 or 8:00 each night pretty easily and she'll sleep usually until around 2:00 when she wakes up feeling hungry. I feed her and she falls asleep immediately after burping, and then proceeds to sleep until we wake her in the morning :)

Medical Issues: All is well for our sweet girl! We've been so lucky that the worst we've encountered has been a cold and a nasty bout of constipation. Praise God for her healthy little life!

Clothes: Hanging out in three to six month clothes by day, zero to three month jammies by night.

Socialite!: Going through the usual routine this last week -- hanging out with the other kids at daycare. She seems to especially love the older kids because she can watch them play and do all kids of neat things she can't do yet :) Apparently she's been watching another little girl who's just a few months older than her and has been getting inspired to spend more time on her tummy to get better at crawling (this is all according to daycare… is this possible for her to think this way?). She's always so happy and social and gives smiles at the drop of a hat!

Diet: Still nursing Lizzie exclusively with baby-led weaning-themed solids for supper each night. She's been eating steamed broccoli, roasted sweet potato, avocado, mango and pear this week quite a bit. I let her have some spaghetti (love at first bite!), which she did really well with. I think the noodles go down really easily without much work, but I do cut them pretty small and feed them to her (which is against the BLW mentality, but I do what works for us). She also had some (low-sodium) chicken broth and shredded chicken from our chicken and dumplings last night, which she really, really liked, too. Again -- I fed it to her. I've been encouraging her to use a spoon to feed herself yogurt lately, too. We've been showing her how to dip her spoon to "reload" it, but I think she's still working on that concept. If we load the spoon, however, she can feed herself (by default, because she sticks anything in her mouth :)). She also loves pizza -- I've only offered her homemade pizza crusts with some tomato sauce on it, but she really likes that. Last week at my parents' house she tried some of those Gerber puffs, which she liked but had a hard time getting to her mouth. I really want to start offering her more of what we're eating each night, but I've kind of been waiting for that pincer grasp to develop a little more. It's definitely improving, so I think I'll start giving her the "main course" on her tray. Another reason I've been waiting to do this is because I want to be really cautious about the sodium intake, as babies can't handle much extra sodium in their diet. While I don't add a whole lot of salt to our food myself, I do know that certain ingredients can contain a high amount (like chicken broth, for example) -- so I'll need to do a lot of label reading and the like.

Also… anyone ever roasted carrots? I'm still trying to perfect that so I can offer Lizzie some other veggie options. Anyone out there done baby led weaning and have other food suggestions? We would love to hear some! :)

Baby Gear Love: We love our jumperoo these days! Lizzie is now getting tall enough to make that thing bounce! Ours is the Luv U Zoo Fisher Price jumperoo, and Lizzie loves it! She's always looking at the hanging gorilla and carefully trying to grab it :)

Crying: Baby girl is awesome, as per usual. Only cries when she's tired or hungry... or if you take food away from her :)

Mommy News:  Mommy can't wait to spend almost two straight weeks with her baby girl over Christmas break! Weehooo!
 
Milestones: Lizzie seems to be waving lately, though I'm not sure she really knows what it means. I think it's more than she's copying us -- but really, it's ridiculously cute. She's got this beauty queen/princess wave down beautifully. It's adorable :)

Twenty Nine Weeks!

 

Weight: My best guess is between 14 and 14 and a half pounds.
  
Sleep: I thinks we've finally solved our sleep issues (at least this time, anyway… I'm sure there will be another bout of poor sleep habits in the future again :)). As mentioned last week, Lizzie was battling some constipation issues. When those were (finally) resolved last week, Lizzie girl started sleeping beautifully again. She's now waking once each night around two or three to eat, and that's it! It feels good to be sleeping longer than two-hour stretches at a time again!

Medical Issues: Last week, I mentioned that Lizzie was having constipation issues and that we were headed in to see her doctor. Though I thought our issues would be solved in that visit, I was dead wrong. Long story short: after a doctor visit, a call to the ER, gross things we had to do at home that I never thought I'd do in my life (ever), another doctor visit, and more of that gross stuff, Lizzie's system was running as it should again! But it was sad and pretty scary for a few days. That poor baby! We were on the schedule for a baby-friendly enema at the hospital, but we were able to resolve the problem before it came to that... hooray!

Clothes: Hanging out in three to six month clothes by day, zero to three month jammies by night.

Socialite!: Over the weekend, sweet girl had her six month (er, almost seven, really) and family pictures! We should be getting them back tomorrow :) Yay! After that, we went to Grandma Kathy's and made Christmas cookies with Auntie Jenny and Grandma K. Lizzie also helped decorate the Christmas tree. Actually, she watched. But she was great for moral support! She also continues to be extremely friendly with those who sit behind us at mass on Sunday mornings :) Our sweet girl was practically playing peek-a-boo with the people behind us this last week! Too cute. She also made friends at her second doctor visit last week. Even when she was all stopped up, she was still ridiculously happy (aside from when she was trying to make things happen, that is...).

Diet: Still nursing Lizzie exclusively while doing baby-led weaning, though we backed off from solids completely for a few days when we were trying to work out her 'digestive' issues. During that time, she only had breastmilk and a tiny bit of organic baby purees -- but to be honest, she's not really a huge fan of them. Her new favorite food seems to be pears -- she can't get enough of them! 

Baby Gear Love: Nothing new to talk about... but just wait until Christmas comes! I have a feeling she might have some new favorites to rave about ;)

Crying: Baby girl is awesome, as per usual. Only cries when she's tired or hungry... or if you take food away from her :)

Mommy News:  As mentioned in a previous week, there is a couple from our area who had a sweet baby girl with a rare genetic diagnosis determined shortly after being born. Sadly, their sweet girl passed away just a couple of weeks after they welcomed her. I honestly cannot even begin to fathom what they must be going through -- it is so heart wrenching to think of that scenario. We've been squeezing our little one extra tight every day and thanking God for every second we have with her. Our journey to have Lizzie may have been agonizing and painful, but we are so lucky to have such a healthy little lady.

Milestones:Lizzie is babbling like crazy lately! She's got different tones to her voice now, almost sounding like she's asking a question or very excited about something. It's too cute! Still no repeated sounds at this point...

She's LOVING peek-a-boo now! Which she has for awhile, but we can get some really good belly laughs out of her with it! She's also a HUGE fan of the Itsy-Bitsy Spider :) It is too, too sweet.

Lizzie also drops things now and looks to see where they fell :) It is so adorable. She does the same thing whenever someone hides during peek-a-boo, too. 

Oh, and... first Christmas jammies! Silly milestone, I know, but seriously. They are too cute and even have little reindeer heads on the feet :)

Twenty Eight Weeks!

Weight: I'm guessing our baby girl is around 14 pounds at this point.
  
Sleep: Sleep remains an issue for us right now. I'm not sure if it's just that I need to change my mindset and accept the fact that, though she slept through the night beautifully for a decent period of time in her life, she's since given that up and is now waking up again like she did when she was younger. I didn't mind it then, so why worry about it now? Anyway, we're averaging three to four wake-ups a night I would say. Last night, she woke at 11:30 p.m., 2:00 a.m., 3:00 a.m., and 5:00 a.m. So maybe the reason why her night wakings are concerning to me is because she's waking up so much more than she ever has before. However, I have to cut the girl some slack: she's dealing with a rather uncomfortable issue at the moment…

Medical Issues: As I just mentioned, poor girl is dealing with an uncomfortable issue right now. Last week, I said that Lizzie started some multi-vitamin drops to ensure she has enough iron in her system. Unfortunately, a side effect of the vitamin is the potential for constipation. Because of this, I opted to only give her one dose before going full-speed ahead and giving them everyday. Alas, that one dose was more than enough to wreak havoc on her poor little digestive system. Since Thanksgiving day, she's been terribly stopped up. We've done so many things: pureed prunes, pureed pears, pureed peaches, increasing water intake, glycerin suppositories (poor baby!), helping her push her knees to her chest… and nothing has helped. I'm completely certain that at this point, we have some issues with impacting :( So sad. Poor girl. But she's still so happy, you'd never know it! Well, until she tries to go to the bathroom, anyway. So I have a hunch that her nighttime wakings are a direct correlation to this issue. My main concern is that her waste is going to get backed up so far that it overflows into the rest of her little body! Which I'm certain is irrational, but you know me. So I put my second call in to her doctor so far this week (mind you, it's only Tuesday) and just heard back. We're headed to see Lizzie's doctor right after school and they'll do an x-ray to see what's happenin', and we'll talk logistics after that. Poor babe.

Clothes: Hanging out in three to six month clothes by day, but zero to three month jammies by night.

Socialite!: Lizzie girl was a bit of a shut-in last week because I was home most days! Hooray for Thanksgiving break! When we weren't home, we were with family. Lizzie loves watching her big cousins play :) Lizzie's Godfather, Norm, also stopped to see her over the holiday weekend. It was so great to see him, not just for Lizzie, but for us too! We love when Uncle Norm visits. I'm convinced he holds bitty babies in his free time -- he seems like an expert at it.

Diet: Still nursing Lizzie exclusively while doing baby-led weaning. I've started letting her try some meats other than ground beef now. She had a little bit of rotisserie chicken the other day, as well as some turkey on Thanksgiving (what else?). She also tried some regular potatoes, and she also had a baked sweet potato (though I fed it to her, which, I know, is against BLW rules, but oh well). I also picked up some very soft pears at the grocery store the other night, and she's been eating those like a boss -- she can't get enough! I learned a valuable lesson in avocado buying, too: firmer avocados are better for baby -- not hard, just firm. Lizzie can so much more easily grip them, and I can cut them more easily.

Baby Gear Love: Nothing new to really express love for this week, just the usual suspects that I mentioned last week. 

Crying: Even though she's had some tummy troubles, baby girl has still been so good -- we're not even sure she's all that uncomfortable with those issues because she really doesn't cry or fuss about it. 
Mommy News: I'm learning quickly now just how easy it is to worry sick over your little one when they're not feeling well. Even though Lizzie girl isn't exhibiting any outward signs of discomfort via crying and fussiness, it breaks my heart to know she's not feeling as well as she could be.

I also continue to be reminded what a miracle of life she truly is. A couple close in age to us recently gave birth to a sweet baby girl, too -- but their sweet girl has a rare genetic syndrome called Zellweger's Syndrome, so she likely won't live beyond six months old. My heart aches for their little family. I truly cannot imagine how devastating that news would be. When I learned of the baby's diagnosis, I called Andy crying -- I just felt so, so, so sad for them. Please pray for this family. They have incredible faith and are such a beautiful little family.

Milestones: Lots more little milestones this week! Lizzie girl celebrated her first-ever Thanksgiving Day! Which means she was also a part of the annual DeCock family gingerbread house building tournament. She wasn't exactly on a team this year, but next year I have no doubt her team will dominate!

Lizzie also had her first Christmas tree decorating experience! Sweet girl got to "help" us put ornaments on the tree, although I have yet to pick out a Baby's First Christmas ornament. I think I'm too picky maybe :) Anyone have any suggestions? I've been perusing Etsy for quite some time and have quite a few contenders, but I have yet to make a decision.

Anyway, along the same lines of Christmas decorating, it's hard for me to believe that just a year ago, I was holding my breath, hoping that this would be our life right now. I know, as I think we all do, just how fragile new little lives can be, both before and after birth. I can't express how big my heart smiled and eyes glistened as I so carefully wrote "Lizzie" at the top of her stocking in glitter puffy paint, just like my mom did and does for each one of us and each grandkid, and hung it next to Andy and mine on our railing. Oh, sweet girl. You don't have any idea just how special you are to us. Such simple gestures, done with such great love just for you.