Betsy: 1 Month

Happy 1 month birthday, Betsy!

She has been an exciting baby already, full of surprises, blessing us with a few weeks of peaceful sleeping, eating and minimal crying that has now turned into a rather difficult past week and a half.  It started out as what I thought was cluster feeding, wanting to eat for hours on end.  And it might have been exactly that, but I am more convinced now that she just needed to be soothed and I was what she wanted.  I am also pretty sure that some of it has been tummy troubles and some of it has been pure exhaustion after not sleeping enough during the day.  But I think now I’m too tired and worn out to think too hard about anything and the only think I am sure of is that she is a rather difficult baby, at least for now.

She has a daily fussy period (or periods) that is unpredictable except for the evenings, right about the time Ben gets home.  For the past few days she has been fussy from around 6-8 or 9.  So Ben and I get little to no time together without one of us holding a crying baby.  We’ve been eating dinner in shifts.  After she is fed and changed we just try whatever we can think of the get her to calm down and maybe sleep.  Ben has been the best at this.  Many thanks to him for helping to keep me sane.  One night I was at the end of my patience and told him I’d had enough.  He took her and worked his magic…then she slept for 5 hours.  The last two night she has been up every 2-3 hours to eat.  Uh.

At the beginning Betsy preferred to be wrapped up with arms free.  She slept much better this way.  Now we’ve got to swaddle her pretty tight if we want her to fall asleep, but that’s more true at night.  During the day she doesn’t seem to need it as much.  Betsy is good at keeping us on our toes!

At Betsy’s 2 week appointment she’d already gained 14 ounces, so she doesn’t seem to have any problems eating!  She is filling out nicely and is wearing mostly 0-3 month clothes, but some of her newborn things still fit.

Getting some nice arm rolls.

She is in size 1 diapers.

She isn’t on any kind of a schedule yet.  I’m wondering if I’m going to have to take a different approach with her and scheduling.  Carson just fell into one that worked for him.  Time to go find my baby wise book…

She is still sleeping in the little bed in our room.  I’m thinking about moving her in the next couple weeks, especially for naps.  I think sleeping the in the swing in the living room during the day might be hard when Carson is awake and playing right there next to her.

She sleeps well in the car.  Yesterday we were getting ready to go have lunch with Carrie and she was a sad little crying mess before we left.  I got her in the car and she slept the entire way there, through lunch, and all the way home.  It was a blessing.

We went to church for the first time last weekend.  She did great and looked pretty cute.

 All dressed up for church. 

Love those lips.

Sweet cheeks.

Probably one of the only times she’ll wear this sweater.  It’s still warm here and at the rate she’s growing she’s going to grow out of it before it is consistently cool enough for it.