Tess’s 4th week of life was from Thursday August 21st – Wednesday August 27th. She was three weeks old during this week!
Nursing: Tess is for sure my fastest nurser. I kept waiting for her to slow down and take a longer time to eat, but at this age she was still only taking around 30 min. I know many people have a babies who nurse faster, but for me 30 min is quick!
Tess is getting her own little personality, even while eating. When done eating she started to smile a lot and would have a lot of grunting sounds. I’m a moaner (as was my grandmother…I remember sitting beside her in church and hearing her groan and moan haha) so I think Tess gets it from me 🙂
Up until this week I never had any supply issues (my supply issues are not what you would think…I usually over produce!). On Sunday Aug 24th I had forceful letdown during her first feeding and sprayed milk for the first time. She started only waking once in the night during this week and I think that affected my milk balance and made me start to show over production signs.
On Wednesday Aug 27th I had a clogged duct issue in my left breast. It was VERY red and painful and I was freaking out about it turning into mastitis. We were leaving two days later for Zach’s big birthday trip and I could NOT be in the bed sick the whole time!!! Zach also woke up that morning with eye issues and ended up going to the doctor (he had some strange strand of the flu that shows up in your eye! RANDOM!) so while he was there he showed the dr a picture of my boob to show him the redness. He gave Zach some tips to tell me and I worked the entire day on getting it unclogged. Of course I got that side handled and then woke up the next morning with my right breast clogged! Thankfully I was able to get them both back to normal and avoided getting mastitis on our trip!
Schedule: We had the same schedule as the week prior and it was going well! Tess was waking once in the night to eat which was giving me a lot better sleep than when she woke twice! Schedule was the same as the week prior with feeding times at 7, 10, 1, 4, 6, 8 (bath prior to this feeding then straight to bed after), and dream feed at 11. She was waking between 3-4 am to eat in the middle of the night.
Sleep: Well it’s still not enough sleep for Mama’s liking that’s for sure 😉 As I mentioned earlier, Tess started to only wake once per night (around 3 – 4 am). I felt 1,000 times better because I was able to get more sleep!
Since she took about 30 min to nurse we would have roughly 10-15 min of awake time together and then I would begin the process of putting her down for nap. I start to sing our song while I swaddle her. Then I pick her up and turn off the lights, turn on her fan, and then just SIT with her. No stimulation. No rocking. No singing. I just hold her vertically on my shoulder and sit for a few minutes. She fights it some and fusses a little and then I will feel her body go limp and that’s when I lay her down for sleep. She is awake, but tired. She always fusses a bit as soon as I lay her down but then she’s OUT!
I learned this week that she just HAS to fuss a bit when she settles into sleep! It’s just a “Tess thing” and that’s ok 🙂
On 8/25 I accidentally slept through the dream feed. I woke up to her crying at 1 am. Oops. Fed her at 1 and then again at 4. It was an awful night because her SNUZA also went off for the first time ever! It hadn’t been clipped good enough on her diaper and had slid off. And THEN she also had a mega blow out diaper through her sleeper and everything. Lesson learned? DO NOT skip the dream feed!!!
More About Tess: The remaining bit of cord stump completely came off this week. She has THE cutest belly button! Kye’s was herniated and Britt’s still pokes out so it’s different to have a baby with a cute belly button right away 🙂
Since her belly button is good to go…that meant Zach moved her bath time into the legit bath tub. She LOVES it! Bath time is still prior to the 8:00 feeding so usually I’m tucking Kye into bed while Zach bathes her.
One night we let Kye stay up a little later so he could help 🙂
Tess isn’t a huge fan of tummy time. I usually have her do it on the boppy since she still doesn’t have a ton of head control. She doesn’t cry through it, but will start after just a few minutes.
Her hair is still ALL there and growing! It’s crazy to me how much hair this child has! I even put it in her first pony this week 🙂
Zach thinks she will have curly hair as she gets older. You can see when it’s wet how curled up it gets! Britt’s has always been so straight so it’ll be interesting to see!
Tess went to the chiropractor for her second visit this week. Her first visit was on Wed Aug 20th and it was such a huge, noticeable change in her! I could tell by Friday Aug 22nd that she needed to be adjusted again. She stopped sleeping as solid and seemed more gassy. Since we had the birthday palooza at Mrs. Charlotte’s all day Saturday I wanted to make sure she slept well! So we went to the chiro on the way to her house to get Tess adjusted. He massaged a spot under her ribs and said that the more we massage it the better it will help it develop and help her gas issues. She was, again, drastically better when we left. She slept solid that entire day and seemed great throughout the rest of the week as well (her 3rd visit wasn’t until Thur Aug 21).
When Kye was born my mom bought him his “friend” Monkey that he’s slept with since he was very young. When Britt was born my mom bought her a lamb that Britt named “Mimi” and who she also sleeps with. Both of them are by the same company…and are called Lovies by Komet Creations . They are breathable baby blankets with a stuffed animal attached to the top and have a place to embroider the baby’s name and birthdate, etc. Of course I wanted to continue on the tradition my mom started and also get Tess a Lovie. The kids and I picked out a pink bunny one for her! If you’re reading this Mom…I hope you approve! I think it’s very cute and wanted to get some pics of Tess with it just like I did of Kye with Monkey and Britt with Mimi when they were babies. No, she won’t be sleeping with it in her crib anytime soon but I did go ahead and order two of them so I’m ready for washing when the time comes!
Tess’s hair, as you can tell, is still going strong and long! I can’t get over how FAST it’s growing. Check out how much is covering her ears now!!! At this rate she’ll have longer hair than Britt soon!
We had a day during this week where the weather was mega pretty so I took Tess outside. Honestly, there isn’t much time that she’s awake and it’s just not long enough for us to go outside. So this was her first time outdoors haha! And it only lasted like 3-4 minutes before she started falling asleep and we had to go in. I do think she liked it though!
More About Tess:
- She had her first “pudding poop” this week
- When she’s waking up from sleep and I’m changing her diaper she does this adorable thing where one of her legs (left) quivers. It’s SO cute and the way it flutters makes me think about her little kicks in my belly and I wonder if that’s what she was doing in there!
- NB sizes are starting to get too short
- Her face started peeling some this week and lotion really helps
- She smiles when I gently tickle her behind the ears
- When she spits up it often comes out of her nose which TOTALLY freaked me out at first but then I googled it and found that it’s totally normal
- When she poops her face gets super red
- She started getting her first diaper rash towards the end of the week and I asked on the FB Blog Page what people recommended. The most common answer was Triple Paste so I tried that first…it didn’t help but more on that in the next weekly summary
- The whites of her eyes are for sure blue so I’m hoping that means her eye color won’t change
- Her acne is gone
- She is much more alert
- She’s holding her head up much better and will turn it with it raised
- She started doing better and better with tummy time.
- I read a lot about gas this week 😉 The chiropractor visits made a HUGE difference but my research helped too. I read the best way to burp a baby is to rub upwards on their left side in a circular motion. You want them laying over your shoulder with their arms raised when you do this. Also another good trick is to pat hard (and straight up) on the butt! I do a combo of both and it really, really works. And when you do the back rub thing and if it isn’t working…try laying the baby downward and picking them back up. That motion tends to do the trick! I also learned that if a baby is crying and they are raising their legs in the air that it means gas is the issue. If they are arching their back then it means the issue could be reflux related!
Siblings: Not many sibling pics this week! I was working hard to get us ALL packed for our trip so I didn’t take as many pics 🙂
When I was doing my daily pump session Britt started to say she wanted to “help me” pump. She’d come sit beside me and “massage” me while I was pumping. It was HILARIOUS. She mostly was just poking my chest because I guess she had watched how I massage it while pumping? Such a sweet girl to want to help haha!
Visitors: Casey and Jordan came by to visit this week with Carter and they brought dinner! It was WONDERFUL to get to hang out with them. We knew once both babies were born that the four of us getting to hang out would be a rare event and I do miss being able to hang out more often!
Baby Gear: I stopped using the humidifier this week as she really didn’t need it anymore but I want to say that if you own a cool mist humidifier READ THE INSTRUCTIONS. Did you know you aren’t supposed to put them on wood?!?! We use metal chairs for ours!
More of Tess: Here are some more sweet pics of my baby girl from this week!
She reminds me of a little bird at times and this pic is so cute to me b/c she looks like a bird and has a bird on her outfit 😉
Postpartum Update: With Tess only waking once in the night I felt like a new person this week. I was still having night sweats and still just SORE. I stopped taking the ibuprofen so I felt the soreness more than I had before. Zach was so sweet to give me lots of back rubs. Usually I’m not big on back rubs (I LOVE when people play with my hair though!) but with bending over so much it’s amazing to have a good rub!
I had my first outing this week! I missed the first kids sale (it was the same day we came home from the hospital) but was able to go to the second one! It started at 6 so I pumped at 5 and left a bottle for Zach to feed Tess and I was home before she ate again at 8. It worked out great and was SO NICE to go out for a bit with my friends!!!
My bleeding was pretty much non-exsistant so I just had to wear panty liners. I also researched how often I should be wearing the Bellefit and saw that you should wear it for 24 hours when you first get it! Oops! I started that Friday wearing it and wore it for 24 hours a day for an entire week!
I had a really good routine down for my sleep. My goal was to get a one hour nap in each day. Then I’d also go to sleep around 930 or 10 and sleep until her dream feed at 11. Then she’d eat until 12 and I’d be able to sleep until she woke again at 3 or 4. And then she’d eat for an hour roughly so I’d get to sleep again from either 4 or 5 until 7. Yes. MEGA broken sleep. But I was surviving!
I tried to make sure to take time out to play with the kids 🙂 I look a hot mess but we had fun building a train track together!
Britt has started to make crazy faces in pictures…
Sibling Comparisons: You can read about Britt’s 4th week here (SO crazy to me about the things in common…) and you can read about Kye’s 4th week here.
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