Stats

Weight: 8 lbs 9 oz (holy moly!) She gained just shy of 2 pounds since birth!  37th percentile.

Height: 20 1/2″ (grew 1 1/2″ since birth). 34th percentile.

Head Circumference: I don’t bother asking because she is like < 7th percentile just like Hank was. Hah!

Eye Color: Still a very dark blue

Likes

Unlike Hank, Ellie Mae likes to be swaddled; that is, when she doesn’t have tummy discomfort.

When she is in discomfort, she likes to lay on her tummy atop my chest.  The skin-to-skin, my heart beat, and pressure against tummy puts her at ease. We sleep like this the majority of the night (I probably shouldn’t admit this since it’s “dangerous”… whatever).

That’s all I have for likes… hey, she’s only one month old!

Photos

So, we have survived a whole month!

Robert and I feel that Ellie Mae is just a tad harder than Hank was as a newborn.  With breastfeeding, you are generally feeding every 3 hours during the day and 2 hours every night for the first 4 to 6 weeks.  Hank was an eater so it was more like every two hours with him all the time.  And he never really seemed to sleep during the day, but that was cool because he was a pretty content baby. At night, with Hank, I was able to hear him stir/grunt when he was starting to get hungry. I would instantly roll over, pick him up from the co-sleeper, and feed him half asleep… when he popped off, I would roll back over and place him into the sleeper. It may have been interrupted sleep every 2 hours, but because I was always kinda half asleep nursing (even half asleep changing his diaper because he ALWAYS had blow outs while feeding), I never felt sleep deprived. It was nice that he never got to the point of crying because I was so quick to respond to his needs. He was a baby that never really cried.  Robert even mentioned to me how he seemed to never have issues sleeping in the same room with us (Hank and I) because he would easily sleep through all those feedings. It was never disruptive for Bob.

Ellie Mae is a different story… From the first day she was (and still is) a major MAJOR grunter and she always seemed to be uncomfortable (non medical term is Grunting Baby Syndrome, medical term Infant Dyschezia). She constantly grunted and had issues that she would feed every 1 to 2 hours at night (I believe she constantly wanted to feed to comfort/soothe herself).  This became a problem for us as we couldn’t sleep through the grunting, plus it made it hard for me to know when she was grunting out of discomfort, or out of being hungry, or out of a dirty diaper.  As a result, I was always wide awake, checking to see if she was rooting or looking into her diaper, or to just hold her. I couldn’t tend to her half asleep like I did with Hank.

Because Ellie came a wee earlier than expected and because we didn’t get Hank’s room done until the very last minute, we did not transition Hank to his own room before Ellie Mae came.  So, Hank had issues with sleeping in our room with Ellie; he would “shush” her. She was too noisy for him. She was too noisy for Bob. So when my mom left, I made Bob and Hank move to the upstairs bedrooms.  Bob deals with Hank waking up in the middle of the night. I deal with Ellie Mae. So, unfortunately, for Bob he doesn’t get the best of sleep either (better than I do though!).

I was trying to be really hopeful with Ellie Mae when it came to the cow’s milk allergy that Hank had from a month old to about 6 months old.  At around 3 weeks old, it became apparent to Bob and I that Ellie has the cow’s milk allergy.  She started to have green, mucous-like stools.  She was spitting up and having silent reflux a lot too.  And she started to squeal in pain randomly and just wanting to comfort feed on my boob all the time. I have cut out dairy and even had to cut beef out of my diet.  This past Wednesday was the first night that Ellie Mae actually slept peacefully (and I too!). Instead of feeding every 1 to 2 hours at night, she now feeds every 2 to 3 hours. Plus, the loud constant grunting isn’t so… constant! Most of all, she seems to be a much happier baby. She always had this frown on her face when she slept, but now that frown is showing up less and less.

I really wish I had gone with my gut and removed dairy from my diet much sooner.  Having a cow’s milk allergy is rare, so I just kept telling myself that the chances of Ellie having it like Hank are slim (although, the chances go up when there is a history of the allergy in the family). Plus, the pediatrician basically dismissed my theory of her having the allergy. He told me that babies grunt, spit up, have reflux, are colicy, etc. and they eventually grow out of it. I really do not like the attitude of “they will grow out of it” or “it will resolve on its own.” Doctors can get away with these answers because their patients (babies) can’t talk (that is, demand for a fix).

Now, if only she can figure out how to poop and pass gas without grunting, our (my) nights would be a whole lot better!