Smiley bear
We put 2/22/09 as Mia's first smile but it was likely before this date by a bit. We wanted to be sure they were social smiles and not just those fleeting gas smiles. On 2/22 was the day we became convinced. We were in bed (in the morning) talking to her and she smiled with her whole face and held it for some time. She has since become quite the smiler. She does most of them in the morning for now. A weighty issue
Since we don't have another pediatrician appointment until she is 2 months old we took Mia's weight estimate at my 6 wks postpartum midwife appointment by holding her while I was on the scale. Without Mia I was 127 lbs (only 2 more than pre-pregnancy and this is likely all boob weight), with Mia I was 140, making Mia a whopping 13 lbs (with clothes on). For those of you who don't know babies. . . this is > 97th percentile for her age. We'll see what her pediatrician has to say about Ms. Chubby Chubster. As for me, I went back to my pilates class for the first time on Monday and I could tell my stomach muscles had been split--everything was much harder than before--but I'm glad to be back at it. Hopefully, I'll start swimming again too.
Party animal
On 2/26/09 Mia attended her first party. It was a reading group party and she was awake from 4:30pm to 12:15am except for very short naps. You'd think she would've been fussy, overstimulated etc etc but no. . . Mia was loving all the extra attention and everyone there was loving her. I was even brave enough to nurse her in front of many of my friends.
Sleep
Mia has had several five hour long stretches of sleep at night, which is way better than her previous 2-4 hour bouts. Although recently (I believe along with a 6 wk growth spurt) she has been going back to more often night feedings a bit. We have a routine where we bathe her at 10pm or so, followed by nursing and a book (Goodnight Moon and Little Gorilla typically). She usually falls asleep at the boob but making the transfer to the co-sleeper is never easy. She is usually asleep by midnight latest and then she'll (if we're lucky) wake up at 5:30am then back to bed we go for another 2-3 hrs of sleep before we start our day.
night time = fight time
At night, Mia has fussiness issues occassionally. These are characterized by fussiness, which isn't solved by anything but the boob and then once she is suckling for a bit she will get agitated and come off. Sometimes this is because she has to burp but many times she doesn't have to burp and then the cycle continues. It has gotten better and I believe it is because we understand her better now: there is a way we hold her that seems to help with her gassy issues.
We're both back on the bottle
So Mia is officially weaned onto the bottle for her afternoon feedings while I am at work. Dave is a proud stay at home dad although he isn't just watching judge Mathis (usually). He is, between feedings, working hard on his dissertation. As for me, I took full advantage of this bottle feeding and had my first beer (I actually had 2 . . . gasp!) since April 2008 on 2/28/09. I found a scientific article on breastfeeding and alcohol and waited for 5 hrs to feed her again to let the beer clear my system. Anywho, I'm lucky to have such a vast milk supply so it isn't hard to get a good supply ready for when I really want to let loose :)
