La Vida Loca: 1 Month!

Well, Danicka is already one month old, and I can't believe it! She was 7 pounds 3 ounces when she was born and got down as low as 6 pounds 7 ounces before she started gaining. I just weighed her at home, so it's probably not quite as accurate, but my scale goes to the tenth pound so I like to think it's pretty accurate! Drum roll please...8 pounds 10 ounces! I think that's pretty good! That's an overall gain of 1 pound 7 ounces from when she was born and 2 pounds 3 ounces from her low weight.

Some of my friends, who are fellow bloggers, have continued to make monthly posts on the progress of their little ones so I thought that would be a good idea to do for Danicka, also.

She already holds her head up and looks around for extended periods of time when she is on your shoulder. She picked her head up off of my chest when she was about 30 minutes old - although just for a couple of seconds. I was in the recovery room, and we were doing skin-to-skin and she just picked that head up...It threw all of us for a loop!

Also, she is incredibly alert and has quite a bit of very content awake time. She just seems to look around, almost in a trance, like she just wants to absorb everything. She also smiles, at times, when you're within about a foot of her talking and playing with her. I love her smile, it's almost like it starts out slow motion from one corner of her mouth to the other until it's full-blown cheese! Danicka is also incredibly 'wiggly.' When she's awake, she moves those arms and legs around like crazy. I've never had any problems changing a one month old's diaper because he or she is too squirmy - that usually doesn't happen until their older - but she is all over the place. I have a feeling she'll be up and around pretty early (which kind of makes me happy, but kind of makes me sad!)

I put her on Tummy Time the other day for just a few minutes, and she got her legs up under her and almost rotated onto her side - I couldn't believe it! She's definitely not a baby you want to leave unsupervised for any period of time - I feel like she'll just get up and walk off :)

She also follows objects with her eyes up to about a foot away - maybe a little more. If I hold her paci or a toy out in front of her, she'll follow it and wiggle those arms and legs like she's trying to get it from me.

As far as sleeping at night goes - I'd say it's going pretty good compared to a lot of newborns. She will sleep anywhere from three to six hours at a time at night (although, she only slept six hours once so far). I really don't mind it as much as I thought I was going to because I have always been a sleeper! If I don't get 9-12 hours of sleep a night, get out of my way :) But, it's amazing how well I have found that I can function on such little sleep when I've got such a sweet little one to take care of!

I am exclusively breastfeeding, but she will go to daycare at 8 weeks so we wanted to make sure she would take a bottle. We had quite a few latching issues at the beginning with breastfeeding, but the Medela nipple shields have saved us! She also loves her Soothie paci, but we wanted to make sure she wouldn't have any nipple confusion with breastfeeding and a bottle, so we got the First Year Breast Flow bottles. We have only given her a bottle a few times, but each time, Daniel gives it to her so she doesn't figure out she can get a bottle from me. Plus, he enjoys it! She hasn't had any problem taking the bottle or switching back to breastfeeding so that's a huge relief.

I know all newborns love to suck, but she especially likes it. She found her thumb to suck on when she was only about three days old, so I try to keep her hands uncovered as much as possible (as long as her nails aren't too sharp or jagged!) so she can suck on her thumbs/hands.

Because she's been such a wiggle worm from the beginning, she has NOT been fond of being swaddled, at all, ever! I found that very surprising because newborns usually love it! She doesn't mind being swaddled, as long as it's from her chest down so she can have her arms/hands free to move them and suck on them.

I love her coos! She started cooing at a couple of weeks and she does it more and more each day. Of course, I'm her mom, so I even think her cry and grunts are cute!

She really doesn't cry hardly at all, ever. Usually only when she's frustrated, and it's more of a frustrated grunt/yell than a cry. She doesn't even cry at night to wake me up to feed her. I wake up by her smacking her lips together, wiggling around, and kind of making coos and grunts.

She really likes her swing and her activity mat, but she's not fond of the Kick and Play bouncer (I think she may be too small for it still).

Once she hits 13 pounds, we get to start using the gDiapers we got for her, so we are really excited about that! Until then, we're using the disposables that people have given us; however, she was smaller than we thought she was going to be when she was born, so we actually had to go buy a few pack of Newborn diapers! I also just stocked up on 7th Generation wipes and BabyGanics laundry detergent. I just bought the baby food making kit I wanted to get, too, because we plan to make our own baby food (starting around 6 months!), which I am really excited about!

Overall, we just got really lucky, and we are really blessed with an amazing little girl! I'll finish off with some pictures we have captured in the last month!

Her first picture - 7 pounds 3 ounces! She was being camera shy.