I'm amazed that at just under a month and a half Rachel is developing so rapidly. She's now just over the 6 lb mark which is wonderful! She was so tiny and felt so breakable when she came home from the hospital that it made me and everyone nervous to hold her for fear of breaking her. Now she's about the size of a normal newborn and has finally grown into some of her clothes! I see every day where she's grown and although I'm so thankful for a healthy baby, I did love how tiny and cute she was.....even though as she gets bigger she's still cute...but you know what I mean.
Her increased weight also meant we could finally go get the test done for her to ride in the car seat. We brought her home in a car bed, which we rented from the hospital, because she was under the 5 lb minimum for her carseat. Here's a picture of a car bed since most people are like me and didn't know such a product existed:
It works like a car seat, but instead of sitting up, the baby's lying down. She's still strapped in pretty tightly. i'll be honest, the contraption made me feel better than a car seat, but still pretty nervous.
In order to return the car bed to the hospital and take her home in a carseat, we had to go through the hospital and take a car seat test. It's where the infant sits in their carseat for 90 minutes while hooked up to a monitor to make sure they won't experience any issues. This may sound rather silly, but there are babies who don't pass that test. Ours did fine. I made sure she was changed and fed before we left the house and she slept through the whole ordeal. Now we can FINALLY leave the house if we want to and take the baby....although we still are limiting how much we go out. More due to the cold and because it's such an ordeal to get out of the house that we just don't yet. On top of that, the cold weather makes us nervous for her sake, so we just stay close to home.
Here's a picture of her in the car seat during the car seat test:
According to the book I'm reading through, What to Expect the First Years, she's right on target with her development. At this point she should be able to do the following:
- Focus on a Face - which she does!
- Lift her head and shoulders for a short time while on her tummy - which she does!
- Rotate her head 45° while on her tummy - which she does!
I also read where the noises she makes that sound just like grunting or breathing are actually her way of finding her voice and testing out the sounds she can make. So far, she's finally starting to coo a little bit. I've also noticed that when we have her out for "play time" (which simply means she's awake so we take her out of her blankets and lay her on the floor in one of our floor gyms) she likes to move her arms and legs a lot and is doing a lot more of it without fussing. I think she likes the freedom to flail about. In addition, this flailing completely wears her out, so when I first wake her up in the morning for my shift, I simply feed her, change her, then set her on the floor and let her "play". I take the opportunity to pump and read her stories or just talk with her (or I take the opportunity to update my blog while she's on the floor beside me!)
I made a video of her playing that I wanted to post, but it keeps erroring out. If I can manage it, I'll get it posted!
The other day I was holding her while sitting in my big chair and she somehow managed to pop her pacifier out of her mouth and bop herself in the eye. It startled her at first then made her begin to cry. Sadly, it was so cute. Poor thing doesn't have control over her movements quite yet so they're very jerky. This was bound to happen at some point!
The shift change between Jason and I is starting to work out nicely. I head to bed around 10PM and he stays up with her as late as he can, usually between 3 and 4 AM. We've moved into the guest bedroom next to her, so he comes to bed and wakes me up to take out my earplugs so I can listen for her in case she wakes up. We're into such a nice rhythm that he doesn't come to bed until she's just fallen asleep and makes sure she's asleep, which means I get to lay there and listen for her as I sleep just a little bit longer. I typically get up again with her around 6:30 to 7:30 AM then our day begins! We're both getting more sleep and she's falling into the schedule along with us. We're not so rigid that we have to feed her at a certain time every day. Instead, Jason created this awesome spreadsheet to keep track of when she was last fed so we can tell when she begins to get fussy when to feed her. This way if she falls asleep during the day, great. If not, fine. At least she doesn't go hungry!
We're both really enjoying her and the noises she makes. Sometimes she talks, sometimes she toots, but all the noises (even the crying sometimes) is cute.
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