Olivia - 6 weeks

The past 2 nights Olivia has slept from 12am - 6 or 6:30am. Love it! The only bad thing is that she is usually really tired around 10pm but fights sleep. Then she becomes over-tired and has to cry for a little bit before settling down for the night. Last night was rough in that area but Brent seems to have the magic touch to get her to settle. He just has to go in there a few times before it works. Since she is doing 6 hours at night at 6 weeks old, maybe she will do 7 hours at 7 weeks, 8hours at 8 weeks, etc. I can dream, right?
She has started to smile at us a little bit - at least we think so. Sometimes it is hard to tell if it is a smile or a gas pain making her grimace. Either way it is cute. She is such a big girl, she looks older than 6 weeks.
Ava is doing great, being a big help. I could be in the bathroom putting on my make up and Ava will entertain Olivia. If Olivia is crying and my hands are full Ava will put her binky in or give her a stuffed animal. I can take a shower and Ava will tell me if Olivia wakes up. I am glad that there is an age difference between them where Ava is old enough to do stuff like that.
On a side note, Thursday 2/11/10 was Brent's graduation from the fire academy. We went with his parents, and we are all so proud of him. It was a challenge for him and for me, as it took up so much of his time. He'd be gone 4 nights a week until 11pm and ALL day Saturday. The day we brought Olivia home from the hospital, he literally had to drop me off, change his clothes, and go to school. Luckily my sister came down to give me a hand that night. It isn't over yet; in March he starts EMT class, which will be 2 or 3 nights a week until June. Hopefully no Saturdays. I had to learn to juggle handling Ava and the baby, doing bathtime and bedtime. It was almost like being a single parent. I give them TONS of credit, because it is not easy.

Olivia Part 2

So I kind of ended that last post abruptly, but I knew I wouldn't get it finished all in one sitting. So here are my other ramblings.
Olivia loves bath time. We gave her her first one after almost 3 weeks, because it took that long for her belly button to fall off. She never cries. She loves the water being poured on her and she sits there very content.
Last night was our best night sleeping. I think I mentioned that I started off by having her sleep in bed with us. I knew that couldn't go on for long, because I am not a fan of the "family bed" and I don't think it provides good sleep for anyone, baby included. I wanted her sleeping in her crib. We've been working on it for over a week and she is doing very well. Last night she went to bed around 10pm and fussed for a while. Brent went in and rocked her a couple of times. She fell asleep around 11pm, and didn't wake up for food until 4am. I fed her, rocked her for a couple of minutes and then put her back in the crib. I only had to go in once to put her binky back in, and she went back to sleep. I actually had to go in and wake her up at 7:30am. Not too bad for 5 weeks old. The other night I out her to bed around 9:30pm, she woke up at 1:30am and was wide awake. It took me almost 2 hrs to get her back to sleep, and then she went until 7am. I keep the lights off, and don't talk to her. After eating I put her back in the crib and put her mobile on. I go back to my room, and if she fusses I let her go for a few minutes before going back in. When I do go back in, I just put her binky back and rub her head or pat her belly. Then I walk back out. If it goes on too long I might pick her up and rock her a bit again. During the day, Olivia spends most of the morning napping, and spends a lot of awake time in the afternoon. That just seems to be her normal pattern. Car rides make her fall asleep.
Ava is an amazing big sister. She adores Olivia, and kisses her almost too much. She is very helpful, I call her my "Diaper fairy" because whenever I need to change Olivia Ava runs in and puts a diaper on the changing table. I pretend I don't see her do it, and it's like the Diaper fairy put it there for me. She has not shown any signs of jealousy. She understands that babies cry a lot of have a lot of needs, and it doesn't phase her. I knew she would be great.

Olivia - 1 month

I don't have much time to write with a 4 year old and a newborn, and I won't be paying attention to grammer and spelling, but I wanted to write about baby Olivia. This blog has been invaluable in the past few weeks, as I went back to the beginning to refresh my memory about what you do with a baby. For some reason, I glossed over the not so fun parts of having Ava, and only remembered the good stuff.
In these first few weeks of getting to know Olivia, I would have described her as very tempermental, a bit ornery, and "fussy." I hate calling a baby fussy, because what does that mean exactly? She cried a lot, and only wanted to sleep at night with me, in our bed. That describes most newborns, right? I attempted to breast-feed, and even though I had tried and failed with Ava, I was determined that this time it would work. It lasted all of 3 weeks. I gave it everything I had, talked to lactation nurses, my obgyn, pediatrician, other moms, etc. I pumped and got nothing. Once again, I beat myself up over it, but we ended up going to formula. I think that is the hardest part about having a baby. She spits up a ton, which bothers me and makes me feel guilty for bottle feeding. The pediatrician didn't seem to concerned, didn't think she has reflux, just thinks the bottle makes her eat too fast. hopefully she will outgrow it.
Olivia is a big baby. She was 8 lbs 15oz and 22 inches long when she was born. That lead to me having to have an unplanned & unwanted C section. I went in to natural labor early Saturday morning. Contractions started around 5:30am, and by 7am we were in the car on the way to the hospital, 45 mins away. When I got there I was a good 6 cms. They figured I would have the baby within and hour or 2. I tried to go all natural, figuring if I didn't have an epidural with Ava I could do it again. After 2 hours, the pain was so intense I couldn't take it anymore. Sweet sweet epidural. I never experienced pain like that and don't want to ever again. Also, the Olivia was face up, giving me back labor, and also halting labor. At 8 cms I stopped dialating, and instead my cervix started swelling. They gave me pitocin, had me change positions, but nothing was happening. THe doctor said C section and I started crying. I didn't want it at all, but the chance that I could rupture my cervix, or have to use forceps to get her out made it necessary. All in all, it wasn't horrible. My recovery wasn't too bad. I do wish I had stayed in the hospital that extra day though. Instead I had her on Saturday and went home on Monday.
As is to be expected, the first few weeks were rough. Brent and I were thinking that Olivia seemed extremely fussy and cried more than usual. However, I went back in this blog to the very beginning and saw that everything we were saying about Olivia, we had said about Ava too. Ava seemed fussy in the beginning. That made me feel much better and let me know that it is just normal newborn behavior and it would get better with time! Now that Olivia is a month old, she is starting to spend more time alert and calm. I read the book "On Becoming Baby Wise" and that helped me get her on somewhat of a schedule. She is eating about 4 oz every 3 hours, and naps 3 or 4 times a day. We don't really have a schedule for nightime. If I put her to bed at 9 or 10 pm, she will wake up twice. Last night I put her to bed around midnight and she woke up once at 3:30, ate, and then woke up at 7am. Ava started sleeping through the night around 8 or 9 weeks, so we are hoping that Olivia follows that too. If we could be so lucky! My biggest thing was getting Olivia to sleep in the crib. Ava took to the crib pretty easily, but Olivia did not like it at first. There have been a couple of nights I have had to let her cry for a while and it kills me. She liked to sleep in our bed right up next to me. It is a bad nthing that I started when I was trying to nurse. It was just easier and we both got sleep. Now I am determined to not let it get worse, and that she only sleep in the crib. If I let it go on any longer it will only be harder to break her of it. Might as well start early.

Wake Up Call

Aaaallrighty. So,I've established that we've been busy in my earlier post. We have also been really tired. Ava started sleeping through the night at around 8 or 9 weeks, which has been awesome. We've had no problems at all - until this past week. The first night she woke up at 5:30am. The next night she woke up at 5am. And the night after that it was 4:00 in the morning. See the pattern? This morning it was 5:30am. Who knows what it will be tomorrow morning. We do get her to go back to sleep eventually, but that is after one of us has gotten up 3 or 4 times, and by then we are wide awake.
It seems that once we think we have her figured out and have a nice routine down, she goes and changes things up. Lately she is just so much hungrier than usual, so I figured that was a sign that she was ready to begin eating cereal. I started it on the 27th. She takes it okay sometimes, I was actually suprised that she eats off a spoon so well. I just don't think she likes it very much. I have to give her some bottle first, then hurry up and feed her the cereal, and then give her the rest of the bottle. But now I am just so confused. I'm afraid that I'm over-feeding her, even though I have a sheet that gives guidelines on feeding, it still seems like so much food. And I don't know how or when to start baby food. So I have been asking a couple of people at work who have young kids how they did it. It was just so nice before, just a bottle, 6 oz, every 3 hours. I hoped that the cereal would fill her up more so that she would not wake up so early, but it isn't working. She is on the rice cereal now, I'm going to try out the oatmeal later this week, and then maybe around 6 months I'll start the baby food. She will have another doctor's appointment this month so I will probably ask them about what to do.
I'm kind of bummed that we aren't doing much for the 4th of July. We might go up to my parent's house for a cook out, since we haven't been there in a long time. We won't be going to the fireworks since I think it would scare the bejesus out of Ava. I am just now starting to get over the cold I've had all week. It was not fun feeling so sick and waking up at 4 or 5am and having to function even though all I wanted to do was stay in bed. I guess that's what parenthood is like though, right? And then when Ava smiles at me or laughs, I forget that I don't feel so good for awhile.

Ava and Lula have a staring contest

Everything goes in the mouth - including the changing table.

Look at how excited she is to be eating off a spoon

Her big teddy

Just chillin out, reading "Where's Elmo?"
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Again, everything goes in the mouth.
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