First Year Months

Hadley girl,

I am in total shock that you are already six months old. It seems like just yesterday that we were finding out that you were on your way and now here you are, growing up before our very eyes! We love you so much and thank God every day for the blessing that you are to our family. You are so happy and fun these days and we love watching your little personality develop. Here’s a brief glance at what you’re doing now that you’re six months old.

You are mastering sitting even if you do tip over to the side some when you reach for something. I’m not confident enough in your abilities to just leave you sitting but the times that you have toppled over haven’t seemed to phase you and you just wriggle around to whatever you need. We call you Roly Poly sometimes because you are quick to roll over to get where you want to go. But I’m not sure that crawling is far away before you also get up on your hands and knees and rock back and forth some and sometimes seem to push yourself forward with your legs while your elbows are on the ground. I’m not ready for you to be that mobile though so let’s hold off on the crawling for at least another month or two, ok? Your favorite toys right now are your Sophie giraffe and your Fishy Tales book. They are consistently the items that we give you if you happen to be fussy or we need you to entertain yourself because you love them so much.

You are very happy and are a great sleeper these days. You are eating at 7am, 11 am, 2:30 pm, 5:30 pm, and 8pm-ish and sleeping from 9-11, 1-2:30, 4:15-5:30, and 8:30-7am. I am trying to start consistently feeding you rice cereal and you eat it really well when I give it to you but I’m having trouble finding a time when I’m not running around like crazy and it’s also a time when you should be eating to feed it to you. Hopefully we’ll solidify that schedule this next week. I think you could go to two long naps but I can’t figure out how to work the schedule and also manage Sissy’s art and dance schedule so until you just absolutely can’t handle it we’ll probably stay at this schedule. You are wearing 6 month clothes with some 6-12 month and 6-9 month outfits. You are still in a size 2 diaper also.

You love talking these days and are rarely quiet. It’s like you just want to join in with your sister and brother and vocalize all the time. Sometimes it sounds like you’re saying Dada or Hi but in no specific instances yet that we think you know what you’re saying. But if you keep talking like this it won’t be long. The only times that you aren’t talking are when your hands are in your mouth. You love sucking on your fingers and we can tell that you’re getting tired if you’ve put them in your mouth. Of course sometimes you just do it when you’re bored so it’s not a perfect indicator. You also sometimes grab your toes which is funny to watch.

I love you so much Hadley and am so thankful that I get to be your Momma. I pray daily that I can be the Mom that you need me to be and that you will always know how much we treasure you and your life. God created you for a purpose little one and we can’t wait to see what that purpose is.

Happy Half-Birthday!

love, Mommy

Sweet Hadley,

You are coming in to your own more and more each day! Even though this post is really late, this picture was taken on your four month birthday. Taken between rushing around trying to take care of your sick brother and get your big sister to and front school. I definitely couldn’t say that your life is calm or that you are the center of our attention, but your life is definitely full of people who love you and lots of different experiences so that has to count for something!

This month you learned how to roll from your back to your tummy. You did it first on James’ birthday during your nap and screamed and screamed. I went and flipped you back over and you just proceeded to flip over again and scream. So I turned you over again and a few minutes later when you started screaming again, I looked on the monitor and you were back on your tummy! I ended up feeding your early because I couldn’t get you to calm down. Thankfully you mastered the art of sleeping on your tummy within a day or so and now flip over almost as soon as you get in bed.

At your four month appointment you weighed 11 pounds and 12 ounces (10%), were 24.5″ tall (50%), and your head was 16″ (45%). These stats are pretty consistent with your siblings. Even though you now seem huge to us compared to where you started, people are still surprised that you are so old given your smaller size when we’re out and about. We think you’re just perfect the exact way that you are!

You are wearing 3-6 month clothes and sometimes even 6 month outfits or sleepers. Some of the 3 month onesies that we’ve been using from near the start still fit but we’ve phased out some that were too small. You are wearing size two diapers (I’ve totally given up on cloth right now) and are eating (were eating at 4 months) six meals a day.  Your schedule is wake up around 4 am, eat and go back to sleep, are woken up at 7:30, eat, nap from 8:30-11, eat, nap from 12:30-2:30, eat, nap from 4-5:30, eat, nap from 7-8, eat, go to bed.

You are getting better at sitting supported in your Bumbo and we introduced the activity bouncer/saucer this month which you really like. You prefer to just chew on the hard plastic pieces that you can reach but sometimes play with the beads and roll the rattles around also. You are about as big as your bouncer right now but still enjoy it when you’re strapped in and can’t go anywhere.

You drool all the time and constantly have your hands in your mouth. We thought you might be getting a tooth but your doctor says that there’s no sign of that. You go some days without spitting up and then will spit up constantly for a few. Your reflux dose got upped due to your weight gain and we really think that it’s making a big difference and making you feel so much better. You still don’t really like it though which is a bummer and makes morning’s when we’re trying to get out the door to school a little crazy.

You love to smile and squeal at us when we’re silly and, believe me, you’ve got plenty of silly situations to work with. Your sister and brother are still smitten with you and always have to give you a kiss and tell you good night when you go to sleep. It sometimes sounds like you say “Hi” back to us but I know that’s just you vocalizing. You have blown raspberries a few times but, like me, seem to have a hard time doing it every time you try.

We love that you’re getting more active and more interactive sweet little girl. Our whole family loves you so much and are so thankful that God placed you in our lives. Don’t ever doubt that you are surrounding by people who wholeheartedly love you!

I love you, every second, of every minute, of every day.

Mommy

Hadley Grace,

I’m not really sure how it’s already been three months since you joined our family.  It seems like just yesterday but then I look at you and you’re growing up so much!  You are so sweet and we love seeing what you’re going to discover each and every day.

I think you look like this a lot these days.  A little unsure as to what you got yourself in to by being born.  Your brother and sister are wild things during the day and are so ready to get back to school and have a place to get their energy out.  Until Tuesday though it’s just all of us at home and you often look around a little wide eyed at all the activity.  I bet by this time next year you’re joining in the madness!

You are the sweetest little girl.  When you are awake you are all smiles all the time.  You literally never cry when you’re awake and hardly ever when you’re going to sleep anymore.  You grin all the time and have started cooing and blowing bubbles.  We love trying to make smile and make fools of ourselves to get really big grins.

You got to meet your future best friend Catherine this month.  Y’all didn’t really interact but did look at each other a couple times I think a little surprised to find someone else your size.  Y’all are five days apart and it’s been so much fun watching vicariously you grow together.  I look forward to that for years and years to come also.

Hey Hadley! Mommy loves you!

 You are gorgeous baby girl, simply gorgeous.  Your eyes are blue like Charlotte’s and James’s and you have dark long lashes like they do.  Your hair is still a force to be reckoned with and sticks straight up immediately after it dries from your bath.  I think it might be close to three inches long now and is already on your neck and over your ears.  It appears to be really straight right now but who knows what it will be like as it gets longer.

You are getting better with your torso strength. You have great head control and can sit for a little while without tipping over.  We tried your Bumbo out this week and you did ok with it.  I think you’ll enjoy sitting up more than just laying down all the time.  You are still a super mover in your bed which I guess shows us how strong you are.  You will never be in the same spot that we put you when we get you up from a nap and sometimes have moved feet away from your starting position!

You went to church for the first time this month but slept in the criers room in  my arms rather than going to the nursery.  Maybe we’ll try the nursery out this month.

You had your two month checkup at the beginning of this month and had grown a lot.  You weighed 10 lb, 12 oz (10%), were 22″ tall (25%), and your head was 15.3″ (50%).  You also got new reflux meds which have helped tremendously.

You have come a long way on sleep this month.  For about a week you were even sleeping all the way through the night (9 and 10 hours) but for the last week you started waking up again around 2.  But last night you did 9 hours again!  So I think you’re really close to sleeping through the night consistently.  You have transitioned full time to your crib and have become a really good sleeper which is so nice and something I wasn’t sure was ever going to happen a month ago.  Typically your schedule is that you eat at 8:30 am, 11:30 am, 2:30 pm, 5:30 pm, and around 7:45 or 8 pm.  Then you’ll either sleep until around 2 or around 4:30 or 5.

We did have quite the conundrum this month regarding your sleep.  We still had your bumpers on and we found that you were moving to them and snuggling up with them when you slept.  You started doing this around the time that you started sleeping better so we thought that you really wanted something to snuggle with but we couldn’t safely let you continue to snuggle against your bumpers.  So we took them out and ordered two more minty dot sheets to go with the one that we already had hoping that the softness under your face would be enough to satisfy you.  We also gave you the thin Aden + Anais blankets so that you could snuggle with those.  That seemed to work and you continued to sleep well so we think the snuggling with something does help.  But then you moved so much that you would get your arms and legs stuck in the crib slats.  So we then purchased one of the breathable mesh crib liners to keep you from getting stuck.  I think your crib is finally at an acceptable layout for all of us and you’re sleeping good in it all the time now.

We are having some problems with the cloth diapers and so are using disposables more than I would like to.  You’re wearing the BumGenius Freetime’s (snapped down to the small size) but they’re gaping around your legs which lead to the leaking fairly often.   This is super frustrating but I’m hoping to try out a few other kinds this week and see if any of those fit better.  At night and when I’m fed up with the cloth you’re still in size 1 disposables.

You have outgrown all of your newborn clothes and are wearing 3 month and 3-6 month clothes these days.  There are even some 6 month outfits that you can wear.  3 month nightgowns are still too long in the arms but your feet don’t stick out of them so that’s good.  You’ve got lots of cute 3 month game clothes so hopefully you won’t outgrow them too quickly!

We love you so much Hadley!  You are a joy and such a blessing to us.  I am so thankful that I get to be your Mommy.  You are beautiful and lovely precious girl and I love you every second, of every minute, or every day.

Happy 3 month birthday!

Love, Mommy

It’s incredibly hard to believe that today is Hadley’s one month birthday!  Our little girl is growing so much and I can hardly remember a time without her in our family.  This month has had its growing pains as our family adjusted to being a family of five, but it’s also been an incredibly sweet time as we all have gotten the chance to love on our new little girl.

Sweet Hadley girl,

You are a joy to our family and we are loving watching you grow!

Sleep has not been your forte this month, but I guess it’s not any newborn’s strong suit.  Right now you’re alternating between really good nights when you got 3.5 to 4 hours between feedings with you going straight back to sleep between them and nights when you barely go 3 hours and take almost an hour after feeding you to get you calmed down and back to sleep.  One glorious night you did go 5 hours and then 4 hours though so we know you can do it.

We think that the biggest problem with your sleep is that you’re having is a little bit of reflux.  You’re spitting up a good bit after every feeding and I think immediately  laying down again after night feedings is a good portion of why you sometimes have trouble falling immediately back to sleep.  You seem to do better when you’re in the swing, whether it’s the inclined position or the rocking I’m not sure, so right now you’re napping during the day in your pack and play and sleeping at night in the swing.  We are swaddling you just like we did your siblings but have found the pre made swaddles work better for you than wrapping you in blankets so we’re going that route.  You sleep really well during the day and most nights so we’re hoping we can build on that in the next few weeks.

You are a great eater!  From the start we haven’t had problems with nursing and you’ve even taken a couple bottles with no problems at all.  You’re nursing 8 times a day with your first feeding being at 6 or 6:30 and your last scheduled feeding around 8:30.  You are spitting up but it doesn’t seem to be hurting you (other than occasionally at night).  We have had issues with thrush over the past month which we also think might have also caused you to not sleep great at night.  But we are hopeful that we’ve finally gotten than taken care of.

For the most part you can sleep through your siblings rambunctiousness.  Which is good, because keeping them quiet is a losing battle.  We try to keep the loud crashes and screaming to a minimum while you’re asleep but that’s not always possible.  Thankfully I think you’re used to the noise from all the time in my tummy and so it doesn’t bother you that much.

It’s hard for me to judge how small you are these days because compared to the current sizes of your sister and brother you’re tiny.  You have outgrown two little Zutano newborn outfits that we have (one’s in the picture above) and are getting a little long for some of your newborn gowns but are still fitting into other newborn items that we have.  You’re also wearing 0-3 month clothes that don’t swallow you (like the outfit in your monthly picture).  You’re wearing size 1 disposable diapers but still newborn cloth.

You like your activity gym and seem to have noticed yourself in the mirror.  You especially like music, something that we discovered in the first few weeks when we would sit up with you.  You aren’t picky about the type of music but any music or singing soothes you.  When you start crying James will usually come up next to you and start singing either “Soft Kitty” or “Jesus Loves Hadley” which sometimes makes you stop crying.  We’re getting some peeks at smiles but nothing on demand yet.  And, amazingly enough, you’ve managed to roll yourself over from your tummy to your back a handful of times.  I know it’s just gravity and must be the way you like to keep your arms, but impressive nonetheless!

We had newborn pictures with Mrs. Erin this month.  You slept peacefully through the first portion with the whole family but once it was time for your close up’s you were wide awake.  Mrs. Erin had to work hard to get you back to sleep too!  But one of my favorites from the session was this one when you were awake.  Silly little girl!

You went to the pool for Sissy’s birthday although you slept through it in your stroller.  And then we took a walk there for lunch one day where you catnapped in your stroller.  Other than that we haven’t been out that much although we did go to Family Night last week and you did really well in your car seat during dinner.

You stayed with your first non-family baby sitter this month and were so good for Miss Meredith.  She even fed you two bottles while we were at Sissy’s showcase and you did great with them!

You have grown so much in the past month and it is such a blessing to have you in our family.  I was extremely uncertain about how I was going to balance life with three children, but you’ve done your best to make it as easy as you could.  I have loved the times getting to snuggle with you and having you curl into a ball on my chest.  We love you so much and are so thankful that God blessed us with you!

I love you every second of every minute of every day!

Mommy

Charlotte at one month

James at one month