2 months...
Can't even believe it. Only 1 more month (roughly) of my precious time home with her before I return to work. Let's not think about that!
Weight: 12 lbs 9 oz (90th percentile)
Length: 23.5 inches (80th percentile)
Clothes: She's still wearing 0-3 months outfits, but really she needs to transition to 3-6 months (6 months). The 3 months are a bit snug on our growing girl!
Diaper: Size 1
Food: Breastmilk
Sleep: Clara is sleeping through the night most nights!
Schedule: One of my goals over the next couple weeks is to get Clara on a consistent schedule. I think that will help out a ton with our morning routine when I go back to work and with daycare. We followed the Babywise methodology with Audrey and we were really pleased with how that worked for her, so I'm sticking to that with Clara as well. In short, the Babywise schedule goes like this: eat, play, sleep, and repeat. I like it because it gets them away from relying on feeding to comfort them to sleep. And with Audrey it worked so well that we never had to break her of a nighttime bottle/feeding and she slept consistently through the night starting at about 12 weeks old. This is an ideal schedule that I would like to get to work for Clara:
6am: Wakeup & Eat for the 1st feeding of the day (This will allow me to get myself up and ready for work before she and Audrey wake up for the day.)
7:30-9am: Nap
9am: Eat
10:30am-12noon: Nap
12noon: Eat
1:30-4pm: Nap (longer nap of the day)
4pm: Eat
5:30-7pm: Nap (Dinnertime for Carl, Audrey, and me is 6:30pm, so this allows me to cook dinner, entertain Audrey until Carl gets home right at 6:30, and eat myself)
7pm: Eat
7:30pm: Bathtime with Audrey
8pm: Bedtime
10pm: Wakeup for last feeding of the night (if necessary)
10:30pm-6am: Sleep!
Right now, she typically wakes up somewhere between 5-6am and then she'll go right back to sleep until she needs to eat again 3 hours later. She is not a morning person right now... loves to sleep in! She's a nightowl... still pretty fussy at night. She'll usually stay awake from her 6-7pm feeding until I feed her again 9-10pm. Then, we'll have to play with her or hold her and walk with her until she relaxes and falls asleep. She's been falling asleep around 11:30pm, give or take. Sometimes she'll take a pacifier just long enough to soothe her to sleep, but most nights she fights it. Once we get her to sleep, she will sleep through the night (Hallelujah!) until she wakes up between 5-6am. Can't complain about that!
I try and stick to 3 hours between each feeding so that determines what the rest of our day looks like now. But I will give in if she really is hungry and needs to be fed sooner than 3 hours or if she sleeps past the start time for her next feeding. Never wake a sleeping baby! I guess you would call it a "combination schedule", a mix between parent-led and baby-led. After she eats, she'll be awake for about 1 hour to 90 minutes, then she gets fussy and that's my cue that she's tired and needs to nap. She has napped in her crib some, but most of the time she will nap in her swing or bouncy chair or carseat. Then she wakes up and it's time to feed her again and start the cycle over. I find it's more difficult to enforce a daytime schedule with Audrey home with me and when I have doctor's/physical therapy appointments. The best days are when we can stay home all day. But that's certainly not feasible! Good thing she is so easy-going and adaptable. As an example, she'll allow me to push up a feeding so that she's fed before a physical therapy appointment. Love her and her easy-going nature!
Clara is such a happy, easy-going baby. The sweetest little girl. The best thing ever is when she smiles. She scrunches up her nose and her eyes become little half-moon slits. It's the cutest thing ever. And I swear, we will do whatever it takes to get her to smile! Her first "real" smiles were for Grammy Patton when she visited when Clara was 5 weeks old. She said, "Abby, I think she's really smiling at me." It was just the sweetest thing. And she's been smiling almost non-stop (well, that may be an exaggeration) since.
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| Baby Smiles 6 weeks old |
Audrey was a lucky girl last month. Grandma & Grandpa Larson took her on vacation to Disney World in Florida!!! She had a blast and was such a good girl, which means that Audrey and Clara both can go on the next vacation to Disney in 2 years after Grandma Larson retires. They flew out in the afternoon, as soon as school let out for Grandma on June 10th (so late this year!). It was raining all day, so we read a lot of books and played with blocks and such. I snapped a picture of Audrey reading to Clara in her room.
Clara got to experience being an only child while Audrey was on vacation.
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| 5 weeks old |
We had some special visitors this month.
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| Cynda and Clara |
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| Colby and Audrey |
And Crystal and Maci:
This past month, I bought a double-stroller ("gently used") to help me when I have both girls at home. This is the day we got it. The girls love it! Especially Audrey. She loves riding with Clara. On our first walk, Audrey insisted on sitting in the "backseat." It's been a good stroller so far!
We spent the long 4th of July weekend up in Michigan. The girls loved it! Audrey, Clara, and I went up with Grandma Larson mid-morning on Thursday the 3rd. Grandpa and Carl came up later that night after work.
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| Packing and getting ready to leave. Pic is blurry, but it accurately depicts Audrey's energy (always moving!) and the girls' love for each other! |
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| Stopped at McDonald's on the way up. Clara and I hung out in the car so I could feed her. |
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| What a beautiful day on Cable Lake |
It was a very fun month! Here are some more random pics:
