Ella's One Month Update

1. How old today:  Nearly 5 weeks old

2. Current weight & length:  Don’t know, will find out next week when we go for vaccinations!  I’m guessing around the 4kg mark.

3. Recent milestone reached:  Smiling! Not very generous with her smiles yet, still looks at us very seriously mostly.  Holding her head up nicely for a minute or so at a time.  Follows objects with her eyes, and turns her head towards sounds.

4. Next milestone:  Getting more control over her movements.  Not really a milestone as such, but next week we’ll have reached the six-week mark already!

5. How is baby sleeping at night?  It’s a bit of a fight sometimes to get her to sleep after her first evening feed, which is usually around 9pm – 10pm’ish, but once she’s asleep, she gives us a good solid 5 hours, which is wonderful.  The next feed takes around an hour, usually around 2am.  Mostly she goes back to sleep quickly after that one, but then gets very restless and noisy around 4am – then I pop her in bed with us – sometimes we get some more shut-eye that way, but sometimes not.

6. Day naps?  She sleeps after every feed, for around 2 hours, sometimes more.  Sometimes she goes to sleep easily, sometimes she fights it.  We’re not in a set routine yet, just taking it as it comes.

7. How is feeding going? Combination of breast and bottle feeding.  It’s going well!  Every feed is about ten minutes per breast, and then a 60ml formula top-up, of which she sometimes finishes it, and sometimes only has about half.

8. Feeding times?  Every four hours, on average.  Sometimes a bit sooner, sometimes a bit later.

9. What has been the recent baby highs? Lots! Holding the tiny body, and smelling her. Her smiles, her face, holding her lil hands.  How much Mia loves her and just wants to kiss her.  Having her sleep in my arms.

10. And baby lows? When she cries from tummy cramps, poor lil body.  When she fights sleep!

11. How is the rest of the family doing?  I had a little bit of a sleep deprived mommy meltdown moment on Saturday.  Mia was putting up a fight for her day nap that she really had to take, as we were going to have friends over for a braai that evening and I knew it would be a late night for her.  Luckily after some threats and bribes she went to sleep, but then Ella was putting up a huge fight to sleep too, and I was just feeling very tired and overwhelmed.  Felt better after a cry, and Wyn took Ella downstairs with him and I had an hour’s nap.  Wyn is great with Ella, feeds her, burps her, changes her nappy, baths her, puts her to sleep.  Mia is very loving, but still busy adjusting to not having my full attention always.

12. What has been working best recently, baby-related?  I’m loving the app I downloaded on my phone, to keep track of Ella’s schedule!  It’s called Baby ESP.  On it, I track sleeping times, feeding times, nappy changes, and then a whole lot of extras like baths, medicine, spit-up, etc.  It gives statistics too, so that I can see her average sleeping time per day, how many feeds, how long, etc.  Really helpful!

xx