Lily Update: Month 1

At present, our sweet Lily is 7 1/2 months old but I want to go back and document the past 7 months and eventually get caught up. So here goes...

If I had to describe our baby girl with one word for her first month I would choose, Champion. She was our little Champ. If I had to describe myself with one word however, I'd choose Freak-O-Nature. Does that count as one word? But Lily Grace was just perfect. We chose to follow a schedule in which I woke her to nurse every 3 hours, tried to have a little wake time with her (except during the night when I put her right back to bed) and then down for a nap. The goal being that if I did this she would be sleeping through the night (7-8 hrs) by 6-8 weeks old. And it worked, like a charm. I like schedules and doing this made so much sense to me. I noticed pretty quickly that our parent's generation was quite unfamiliar with this way of doing things. For the most part they were used to feeding the baby when they cried or seemed to be hungry and letting them sleep at will. It was a little hard for me to be confident in doing things my way, being a new mommy and all. I certainly let being afraid of what others might be thinking bother me way too much. In reality they weren't even thinking the things I thought they were anyways. Sounds silly. It was. But I truly believed in this schedule thing. I believe it created a peaceful environment with a comfortable consistency for Lily and for us. At her two week check-up she had regained her birth weight and then some and had grown an inch and a half. Champion. Our doctor is pro schedule and since Lily was gaining weight well he suggested we let her go 4 hours at night for a week, then try 5 hours the next week. She did it with ease and by her 3rd/4th week she was consistently sleeping for 5 hour stretches at night.

Our schedule looked something like this:

7:00am wake, nurse

7:30am wake time

8:00am nap

10:00am wake, nurse

10:30am wake time

11:00am nap

1:00pm wake, nurse

1:30pm wake time

2:00pm nap

4:00pm wake, nurse

4:30pm wake time

5:00pm nap

7:00pm wake, nurse

7:30pm wake time

8:00pm bath & bedtime

10:00pm wake, nurse, back to bed

3:00am she woke for this, nurse, back to bed

And on and on and on and on.... to infinity and beyond.

Here are some pictures of sweet Lily Grace from her 1st month of life:

5 Days Old

Meeting Molly

1 Week Old

2 Weeks Old

4 Weeks Old