Week Two Summary

I promise these posts will start to get a better order to them eventually, blogger has been funky lately with picture uploads for me so I have to post them in the order that they were taken!

Here’s what Brittlynn was up to during her second week of life:

Nursing: Babywise says if you focus on full feedings from birth that your baby will fall into a natural routine by about day 10. This happened sooner for us with Brittlynn, she was in a natural schedule of eating 2 1/2-3 hours during the day and going 4 hours at night. Regardless on the length of the feeding, she tended to eat four times on the breast. Two from one side, then two times from the other side. Usually feedings were lasting an hour or more. Since she took SO long to eat, her awake times were only 5-10 min long each. She is a very sleepy nurser…so frustrating! I try everything to keep her awake but typically the only thing that works is to change her diaper mid-feeding (which she usually needs it anyway!). Sometimes I’d just let her snooze for 5-10 min in between breasts and she’d wake up on her own wanting more.

Gas: Whew this child is gassy! I read on the babywise blog that Valerie gave her kids Mylicon drops after each feeding so we started doing that this week. Brittlynn also started being a “happy spitter” meaning she started puking quite often. Kye did this too. I think it’s from my abundant milk supply???

Angel Care Monitor: I mentioned that I was too scared to sleep with Brittlynn in our hospital room, when we got the Angel Care Monitor at a baby shower from Mrs. Charlotte we didn’t open it. I didn’t know if I’d really need it and always kinda thought of it as a rip off for panicky mothers. Well…welcome to the panic mommy club 😉  The minute we got home from the hospital I had Zach set it up. It’s a mat that goes under the baby’s mattress and it detects movement. If it doesn’t detect movement for a certain number of seconds, it will beep. A few more seconds and an alarm will sound. I slept GREAT knowing that she had that monitor and knowing it would wake me if something was wrong with her. During her second week of life I was in the living room and heard it beep. I freaked. Then the alarm sounded before I even reached her room. Double freak. I instantly thought of Tripp then of Titus when I found him unconscious. I snatched her out of her bed and blew in her face. Thank GOD she was fine but I bawled my head off and was a basket case about it. Was something wrong with her? Or something wrong with the alarm? It wasn’t a one time thing. It would beep decently often (4 times within the first 24 hours after the first time it went off). I was MUCH more calm about it though and would just go in and make sure she was breathing. She always was. I started researching it as I worried she might have sleep apnea. This article relieved my fears! Especially this part: “Keep in mind that it’s normal for babies who are less than 6 months
old to experience what doctors call periodic breathing. You may notice
that your baby breathes faster for a period, then more slowly, then
pauses for up to 15 seconds before resuming normal breathing. his
isn’t anything to worry about. In fact, your baby may breathe this way
up to 5 percent of the time he’s asleep” The Angel Care Monitor goes off prior to 15 seconds so it makes sense that Britt was just having this type of breathing and the monitor would go off. I’m thankful we have the monitor as I’m GLAD I know that she may stop breathing from time to time and I’m GLAD I can run in there and check on her. It’s a peace of mind for sure. I found that it most often went off when she would initially fall into her deeper sleep so it definitely makes sense that maybe she held her breath during that transition. 

Other Stuff About Britt This Week:

• Her poop turned into the yellow, seedy breastfed baby poop which is a great sign that she’s getting plenty to eat!
• Her skin was still shedding and it started to shed on her feet and face
• She sleeps with her head on either side, never straight up like Kye always did (hopeful this will mean she won’t lose as much hair as he did either!)
• She sleeps well in the car seat which is how we handled all the holiday events and such…it’s kinda rude but we didn’t let people hold her! We just kept her in the car seat, with the sleep sheep (she likes the rain sound best it seems like, Kye liked the ocean) and we’d rock it back and forth while she slept. If we got her out while at events then she’d just want to eat anyway so people still wouldn’t get to hold her!
• I bought the same amount of newborn sized diapers for her as we used for Kye and we RAN OUT of diapers by week two!!! She goes through them like crazy
• Her umbilical stump thing was kinda bloody on her clothes and such and one day I noticed part of it was missing. What was strange is that I didn’t see it in her clothes or diaper. I kinda forgot about it then went to change my clothes and the stump was IN MY BRA. Makes me wanna puke just thinking about it…so gross.
• Since the dr didn’t tell us her stats at her first appointment I looked them up online (thanks for the idea!) and she is in the 90-95th percentile for length, 75-90th percentile for weight, and only 10th percentile for head size!!!! She may look like me in a lot of ways, but she def has her daddy’s small head!

Here’s some pictures from this week:

Sleeping Swaddled Baby!

First Outing: On Tuesday Dec 13th Brittlynn had her first official outing! As I mentioned before, both of my kids were born ONE day prior to my hair appointment! I’m hardcore about having my hair done (I hate roots!) so it bugged me that both times my hair was in desperate need of some touching up. Renika, who is THE BEST, squeezed me in so I could get some fresh hair so Britt and I headed up there!

Sleeping in the car 🙂

At Jordan’s Salon!

She did great the whole time. Never once woke up! It was GREAT to relax and have my hair done, yet it really wore me out. Sitting that long not on my ring thing from the house was painful and my back was killing me. I guess you don’t realize how much you’re hurting when you’re at home dealing with a crying newborn but as soon as you get a chance to relax it ALL hits you!!! The little outing wore me OUT and I was exhausted afterward…but my hair looked good and that was the goal 😉

Swing: I didn’t do Babywise with Kye until he was 3 weeks old, didn’t get hardcore until he was 6 weeks old. So a lot of the stuff with Brittlynn is all new to me. Something I learned is the sleep hierarchy which means that the most important thing right now is that she SLEEPS. Then you try to get her to sleep without a prop, then in her bed without help. I was not doing anything but keeping her in the bed and it wasn’t working. She was crying allll the time and not sleeping so I tried different methods to achieve sleep. The swing is something a lot of babywise moms love. Kye wasn’t crazy about his (he did use it at this age though). We have three swings (1 was Kye’s, 1 is a travel swing, and 1 is the Mamaroo). It seems like Britt only likes the travel swing and I started using it for times when she just would not sleep! (sidenote: it no longer works…it quit helping at about 3-4 weeks old)

Tripp, the Aflac state coordinator, sent us these pretty flowers!!!

We enjoyed them while Britt got her bath 😉

She’s holding her daddy’s finger!

Since Zach gave me my push present before Brittlynn was born he promised me a Dairy Queen Ice Cream cake after her birth. During this week he delivered!!! It was AMAZING and I ate the entire thing myself (not in one sitting…but it didn’t take long, trust me!)

The night after her first dr visit we went ahead and put her in her own room to sleep. With Kye, we waited until he was 5 weeks old. With Brittlynn, we waited 8 days. I was nervous about it but Zach needs his sleep too and I need my husband in OUR room. It’s not good for Kye to wake up in the mornings to find Daddy on the couch. Sure, it’s not due to arguing but I don’t want him to think that Mommy and Daddy don’t share our bed, ya know? She did FINE in her room and I def didn’t regret the decision!

First time in her bouncer!

Levi kisses

With breastfeeding, it is important to make sure (at this age) to get in 8 feedings a day. While I didn’t have a schedule at this point, I did wake to feed her during the day if she had slept to that 3 hour point. I love how sweet she is when she first wakes up and took a couple videos of it. Here’s the first one and here is the second one!

This swaddle was Kye’s and it’s WAY too big and drove me nuts, glad our new ones came!

SO sleepy!

Paci: Many of you know of my love hate paci relationship. I seriously went through spurts with Kye where I HATED the thing and swore I’d never do it again. Now, though, I kinda miss it. When I see pictures of Kye with it I think “oh my baby.” It’s a very, very “baby” thing to me and it brings back memories of Kye being that sweet little baby of mine. With Brittlynn we didn’t buy a single paci before she was born. We wanted to see what she’d be like and decide from there. Since she was taking so long to nurse I thought maybe she just had a need to suck and would benefit from one so we bought some. Here’s a video of my first time giving it to her. I introduced it on 12/16…and she did NOT take to it the way Kye did. We really didn’t use it much after that…we would try to use it when she wasn’t sleeping but she’d typically suck it MEGA hard then spit it out. It’d only work sometimes and often it would fall out pretty quickly and she’d be fine without it.

attempting both the paci and the swing

Kye and Britt – both fresh awake from naps 🙂

Milkies: I’m pretty sure it was my friend Danielle who introduced me to Milkies. OMG. Seriously THE best parenting invention ever. I waited until week two to pull it out and try it and it’s AMAZING. You put the cup thing on your breast that you aren’t having the baby nurse on. There is a little hole in it that covers your nipple then the thing catches all the milk you leak from that breast during the feeding. I NEVER realized how much “free” milk I was wasting in my breast pads!!! It holds up to two ounces and that’s how much I’d get from one breast. That’s a LOT of milk!!!! I dump it into a bottle then put it on the other breast when she switches sides (obviously I don’t get nearly as much, sometimes just a few drops, since that breast has already been emptied). It takes practically ZERO effort and results in stored milk. I only do it during the daytime feedings, not the late night ones (so I do it 6 out of the 8 feedings) and I get around 6 ounces total a day. With Kye I would do a pump session each day. Once he got on a good schedule I started pumping an hour after his first feeding of the day. I’d use that milk to store up for when we traveled and such. With this product, I don’t have to do a daily pump session! 6 ounces is a LOT. It’s much more than she would need right now for one feeding so I’m storing up plenty for the future 🙂 Then when I use that milk I will be replacing it with whatever I pump while away from her. With Kye I always pumped more than he ate so if that’s the same this time around I should have extra milk left when I’m ready to wean her from the breast. The Milkie allows me to store that milk without the hassle of pumping!!!! SCORE!!!! If you’re pregnant or nursing BUY THIS RIGHT NOW!!!! Seriously!!!!!

As of this week, she still has all that hair!!!

She does have very light eye brows and the roots of her hair are blonde so I’m interested to see when it’ll start getting lighter!

She still gets the hiccups a TON…here’s a video of her with them, but you can tell she’s happy as can be!

First time doing skin to skin with Daddy (something he always loved to do with Kye…GREAT for bonding!)

When Kye is playing with Brittlynn, he enjoys covering her in stuffed animals

And whatever else he can find (here’s a video! I LOVE the way he says her name don’t you?)

Mom gave me this baby blanket of mine so I used one of her short awake times to get some pics of her on it 🙂

Gotta use that head band as often as possible right?

Love how the sun hits that baby hair fuzz 🙂

How she is most of the time haha

Kye: During this week we started to notice that Kye was struggling some with the adjustment. He got really upset one night at like 4 am and told Zach he wanted him to sleep with him. We’ve NEVER (not even ONCE) slept with Kye. Not for naps or night not in his bed or ours. Never. So this was an odd request. We evaluated things and realized that ALL my time was spent with Brittlynn or sleeping. I rarely saw Kye or had any interactions with him. And if I did those interactions also included his sister. Zach was very sweet to suggest that Kye and I go have a special date just the two of us while Britt slept for one of her naps. We ran up to McDonald’s and got some ice cream together. I thought we could have a little picnic in the backyard to eat it but Kye just wanted to eat it at the table. Some date huh? But he was happy and I enjoyed the one on one time in the car and when we got home. It was nice to just soak him in!!!

I hooked him up with some sprinkles in his sundae and here he is mixing it up like Mommy does!

Postpartum Update: I weighed myself and only have 7 lb left to lose until I’m back to pre-baby weight!!!! And I was still hardcore pigging out!!! Not dieting one bit! I guess this time around breastfeeding is helping me out 🙂 Yay! While I’m thankful for Brittlynn, I don’t really like having a newborn so close to the holidays. It was stressful and hard to manage everything we had to do (and making it all fun and special for Kye) while dealing with a newborn and constant feedings. I was exhausted. I felt like I just couldn’t keep up and I wasn’t able to enjoy things as much as I would have liked!!! 

I was able to sleep on my stomach some again right after she’d empty me (but then I got a clogged milk duct the next week and read you shouldn’t sleep on your stomach while nursing so I quit). I had MEGA bad night sweats and would have to change clothes in the middle of the night sometimes b/c I was so gross. It was nasty to feel that dirty all the time but it was impossible to shower as often as I needed. Since she was still taking an hour or more per feeding, I was sitting…a LOT and the pressure from sitting made my privates hurt badly. I ended up pulling out the ring from when I had Kye to sit on all the time. Even when eating dinner I’d need the thing or else my private area would ache in pain. My bleeding was still heavy and I actually ran out of the heavy flow pads I’d bought! Zach had to run and get me more b/c I bled through the light ones!!! Having to wear pads ALL the time for such an extended time caused me to get little sores on the inside of my legs from the constant rubbing against the wings of the pads. I recommend not getting wings and I started to cut the ones out of mine before wearing them. I was still using the dermoplast spray and spraying warm water down there after each time going to the bathroom.

Once I get through alllllll the holiday posts I should be back on track so these will get posted on the actual weeks…right now she’s actually 5 weeks old and I’m still back at week 2!!! At least I’m recording it all for her though, even if it is behind 🙂

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Emily Parker

Hey Y'all, I'm Emily! I'm a stay at home mom and consider parenting to be my passion. Disney is my happiest place and I love making memories as a family together. I'm a big believer in transparency and share all of my real-life moments as a mother of four.

My work has been featured on Love What Matters, Today Parenting and Babywise.Life. I'm also honored to be a member of the Babywise Friendly Blog Network.

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