Why sleep when you can stand?!

We're having a bit of an issue getting Taylor to go to sleep since she is pulling up and standing on everything.  We'll lay her down and then watch the monitor and she's immediately standing again.  After doing some research we went with the method of checking on her at 3, then 6, then 9, then 12 minute increments.  We'll go into her room, not say anything and lay her back down.  It's only taken a few times here and there and she's already doing better. 

She just completed the 4-week infant swim-float-swim series and now we're doing the group classes with two other little ones.  She has 4 teeth, can crawl everywhere, pulls herself up on everything and is really fun to feed.  She's eating bread with avocado/cream cheese spread, turkey, chicken, yogurt...I went through the salad bar at Whole Foods and grabbed kidney beans, beets, corn, chicken, tofu and put stuff in the grinder to make fun meals.

Her sleep schedule is going to bed between 6-7 and getting up 6-7.  It seems the earlier she goes to bed the later she sleeps ;)  She has been waking up a few times around 1am and Chris has been up with her for a while at that time. 

More Milestones

Taylor finally got her first tooth - guess she decided to wait until we were flying internationally.  She got her tooth on Sept 1 and now, 3 weeks later, has 3 more teeth giving us 4 teeth in - two up and two down.  She also has nailed crawling (learned in Finland) and is now into EVERYTHING!

Last week (sept 17) she started her swim lessons.  Wow - kinda hard to watch but pretty awesome.  Here are some videos.

The latest from Miss T

Taylor will be 8 months next week....it does go fast.  However, I can't imagine life without her.  She's moving around a lot - not really crawling yet, mostly rolling and moving backwards.  We're definitely in child-proofing mode as she can move quickly over to the wall where there's outlets or come face-to-face with Jack within seconds.  While Jack has shown absolutely no issues with her, we are careful that she doesn't grab his paw, poke him in the eye, etc.  So far so good.

She's also eating real food - here's our basic schedule.  She's been going to bed around 7:30 and getting up around 7.  I have tried a few nights to not give her any formula but last night she was crying so I did give her 4 ounces.  I've made a bunch of food and she loves peaches and pears but she also likes cauliflower, butternut squash, sweet potato.  She has liked everything and so I am still nursing 5 times a day and trying to do 3 meals but she's usually not hungry in the morning, probably because that's when I have the most milk.  At lunch and at dinner I will do 2 cubes of veggies and then 2 cubes of fruit.

In conjunction with this is her poop.  I never thought I'd be so excited about this but she has real poops now and you can tell when she's "working something out" because she gets a little strained.  She will go several days without popping but I just try to make sure she gets less formula and more foods with fiber...so far so good.

She still does not have any teeth - probably an okay thing because of nursing but it does seem like it will be soon.  She hasn't been too fussy but when she is, it does seem to relate to her teeth so we give her something to use for teething - ice cube, frozen butternut squash in the mesh baggie. She's great but I'm a bit bored.  She's fun to hang out with but I wish I had a bit more work...trying to stay busy and get together with friends.  My weight has been as low as 145 but it came back up to 147.  It's hard to get to step aerobics because of her sleep/eat schedule.  We got to Iceland/Finland in 2 weeks and then start her swim classes right after...should be fun!

More fun every day

So everyone says this is the case, but I gotta admit that I finally believe it.  We're trying to enjoy this time, ya know, not having to remove everything from table tops, being able to put taylor somewhere and she stays there.  That's about to change.  She's rolling all over these days.  Working a bit on doing the butt pop for crawling (dad tries to help her work on that) and moving backwards. 

She's been eating real food for a bit over a month and it seems her favorite is pears, followed by mangos but has really liked everything - carrots, apples, avacados, sweet potato, prunes, bananas...

I also hit my lowest weight...146, which is 6 pounds heavier than when I got pregnant.  While I'm very happy about this progress, I was at my heaviest when I got pregnant so I'd like to drop those 6 and another 15 lbs.  Didn't hit my goal for my 33rd birthday so it's been reset for Dec 29...just before we go to Hawaii.  Here's a video of Taylor eating a lime when we were at a mexican restaurant in Crested Butte with Brooks and Tiff. 

6 month video

Blessings

We went to the First Friday Art Crawl in Denver last night with Andre and April and we ran into a couple who has a 5 1/2 month boy.  He's a bit small...weighing in a bit less than Taylor even though he's a month older.  It still surprises me to hear that they celebrating him sleeping for 6 hours straight.  Taylor has been such an amazing sleeper and that was my biggest concern when approaching parenting and I have to remind myself that not every baby sleeps this good and I am truly blessed.  Our current schedule is bed around 9 with 5-6 feedings per day.  She had her 4 month appointment and weighs 14 pounds 11 ounces and is 24" long.  Her weight is approaching 75th percentile, length is right in the middle and head circumference is approaching 25th.  Between her father and me, we are not concerned that her head is too small.  Generally she wakes up between 6 and 7 am.  We have gone to friends for dinner twice now (last week to ShanDan's) and put her to bed in her  car seat and she made the transition into her crib perfectly.

After our fun night out last night (mama had a few cocktails ;), she didn't get to sleep until about 10 and we didn't get ourselves to bed until about 12:30...which is super late for us.  She still managed to wake up about 6 this morning which was pretty rough on me.  I nursed and then laid her next to me in bed...she was awake (examining her hands) for a little bit and then she went back to sleep in our bed until about 8:30...so great.

Also, she has been rolling a lot - she rolled over when neither of us were in the room...all of 2 minutes!  We are also fully out of the swaddle now at night.  I occasionally wrap her for afternoon naps (she has been known to sleep for 3 hours) but at night we started with one arm out, then both arms out and now she sleeps in the "bags" so her legs are together but not tight and her arms are free.  Seems to be working.

As for me, I am hovering at 150 pounds.  Kinda bummed about my weight but I am feeling better and considering shopping for a one-piece of at least a suit that covers my belly.  Stretch marks looking pretty good too.  I am surprised how much I am loving being a mom - guess I thought it was going to be tougher - I really am loving every moment and feel so blessed she is so easy.

We're rollin'

Taylor is now a belly sleeper.  She starts on her back but instantly rolls to her belly and, most often, plants her face straight into the mattress.  It freaks us out but try to roll her onto her back again...wham...she's back on her belly in seconds.  We also figured out that she doesn't like the sleep sacks anymore - sleeps better in a true "pajama".  She were able to ween her off the swaddle a few weeks ago.  When she would wake up in the middle of the night we'd retreat to reswaddling but finally didn't use that crutch and she did great. 

In addition, she's not using the nipple shield anymore!  A few weeks ago it fell off and we just kept going!  It's great, so much easier to nurse, especially in public, without the shield. 

We also have been giving her some real food - she had rice cereal, avocados, peas, carrots and sweet potatoes.  Not sure how much she's actually getting but she does seem to be getting the hang of it!

Monthly Photos

Pamela Anderson

So engorgement is real and is one of the strangest things in this whole process.  Yesterday was St. Patty's day...unfortunately, I was sick so Chris and Taylor headed out to the Babb's and then a BBQ with the neighbors.  We are keeping her up after her 2nd to last feeding (6-7) and so last night she was starving at 9:20.  I fed her for 28 minutes (long time) and she didn't even stay awake for her book and I put her down at 10am so now it's 8am and I've been awake since 6:30am with super engorged boobs but the girl, snores on.

Sleeping through the night

So 3 weeks ago, I switched to just give Taylor a bottle instead of nursing at night.  We also started to put a disposable on her.  A few nights of that and I wasn't sure she even needed that feeding so...we let her sleep through the night without waking her up to feed.  I even forgot to put her in a disposable diaper a few times and that didn't seem to bother her either.  She's now sleeping from about 10:30pm to 7am.  She's amazing...we're blessed.

Her 2-month weigh is was at 11 pound 7 ounces which is about 60 percentile and her head and length were both at 50 percentile.  The entire Boyd clan came out on February 24 and we had a great  time.  We went skiing at Eldora and, while I was really sore, I had an awesome time.  Kiki stayed at our house with the twins and Taylor - what a blessing.

Schedule

We're just 5 weeks in but already have fallen into a comfortable schedule with Taylor.  We are so blessed she is a great eater and sleeper -

Here is the schedule we're working on:
2am - Feeding
7am - wake up and Feeding
9:30 - Feeding
10 - pump
12noon - Feeding
1-3pm - Nap
3pm - Feeding
6pm - Feeding
9pm - Feeding
10pm - nighttime routine

For the 2am feeding, I generally have to wake her up.  We ran out of cloth diapers so we've been using disposable at night and last night she went 10 hours without a change...and without complaining so the wicking disposables are probably the way to go but guess we haven't let her go that long with cloth so we won't know.  The worst part of her schedule is that I need her to get up and have a good feeding in the morning because I'm so engorged.  I pumped the last few mornings right at 7:30 (after the first feeding) because we had workings building a new fence in the back and therefore I had to pump early to not freak those guys out.  However, I think my body is producing a lot in the early morning to accommodate that so I hope it will to not produce so much in the early morning.

When I pump, I generally go for 20-30 minutes and will get around 140-160 ML.  Or about 5 ounces.  I'm definitely over producing right now but like to have a bit of a stock pile in the fridge/freezer.  I also might donate some milk to friends that weren't able to nurse.  Apparently one pumping would sell for about $27 - kinda crazy so if I'm able to give away some my friends might appreciate it.

Taylor is a bit fussy at night/evening.  We are following Baby Wise (mostly) and are working on keeping her away after feedings.  Apparently feedings become a crutch for falling asleep so we're trying to get on the Eat - Play - Sleep schedule which seems to be working.  She is still falling asleep or not fully waking up for the middle of the night feeding and, if I changed her diaper I know she would wake up but so would I.  She's not hard to get to sleep but I have a hard time going back to sleep after that feeding. 

Taylor media

Here's a link to the professional photos we got taken of Taylor at 2 weeks

Here is the slideshow we put together of the first month.

Milestone: umbilical cord

Today, Taylor lost her umbilical cord stump.  It's day 17 and I think that's pretty average - especially since it's winter and I believe air is supposed to help dry it out...she rarely has her belly exposed since it's so cold out.  It's been the first few days on our own.  Jarad, Camille, Archer and Avalon arrived on Dec 26 and left on January 4.  It was great having them here and am so happy our house was able to accommodate the whole fam.  Avalon is super chatty and Archer is still working on his words so he "grunts" a lot to try to get attention but no one knows what he wants so I think it's a frustrating time for both him and those around him. 

They're great but it was a lot of energy in the house so we're equally enjoying the quiet times.  We actually have had friends over every day/night since Thursday so tomorrow will be our first day without any visitors. 

I think we're on a good schedule - for example, Taylor went to sleep last night around 9:30 and then  I got up with her around 2 for a feeding - her diaper was clean but at the end of the feeding I had to change it.  She went back to bed around 2:30am and then I got up with her again at 5 for another feeding and again, put her back to bed until 8am.  Each of these times, I had a mental timer to get up and she was kinda stirring but not crying at all.  I change her diaper to wake her up enough to eat.  The night before, Chris got up with her at 4am for the feeding and gave her a bottle of pumped milk.  The first problem with this plan is that she decided she didn't want to go back to bed and he was then up with her until 5:30.  The other problem is that I had gone from 11am to 7am without nursing so I was desperate for her to nurse since my milk is now totally in.

During the day, she's on a good routine of feeding every 2.5-3 hours.  She stays awake for about 30-60 minutes after and then naps anywhere from 30 minutes to 2 hours between feedings.  We're following Baby Wise so she'll nurse immediately after waking up and then we want to keep her awake after feeding.  I laid her on her back under the pad with mobile and she was totally interested and not crying.  Not sure if it's usual for a 2-week old to be wide awake and not fussing but it's so fun when she is.

For recording purposes, I started weighing in at 140 - my personal heaviest and just breached 180 when I went into labor.  The day we came home from the hospital I weighed in at 160 and in the last week I've lost 3 more pounds.  My goal is to get down to 120 - I healthy and comfortable weight for me so I want to lose the remaining 17 pregnancy pounds as well as the 20 pounds that...well...is extra and unnecessary ;)

Big Weigh-in

Taylor lost more than 10% of her birth weight before leaving the hospital - She weighed 7 pounds 12 ounces when she was born on the morning of the 22nd.  On the 25th when we were preparing to leave the hospital she weighed 6 pounds 15 ounces.  Our family doctor made a special trip the next day to weigh her again and was happy that she then weighed 7 pounds 4 ounces - due largely to the fact we were giving her formula because my milk still hadn't come in.  Apparently with a c-section it often takes longer to get one's milk and, in my case, I lost an abnormally large amount of blood so it took even longer.

On December 29, we went back to the doctor, now exclusively nursing and she weighed in at 7 pounds 4.5 ounces.  This wasn't abnormal since the birth but since the last weigh in, she wasn't gaining enough so we had yet another weigh in on January 3 and now she weighed 7 pounds 14 ounces.  Woohoo!  We were introduced (forced to use) a nipple shield in the hospital and we tried not to use it because it supposedly can affect milk supply.  After consulting with several people, it sounds like it does not affect milk supply because the material is much thinner than it had in the past.  My supply seems to be great but it is annoying to always need this "device" so the task is now to get her off the shield.  Always something to work on ;)