Maddie Louise is 1 month old!

It's hard to believe that a month ago (almost exactly) our little Maddie Louise was born. She is still sleeping most of the day, but is starting to stay awake more and more each week. I took her to the doctor yesterday and she weighed 9lbs 7oz. I'll update this post with her height when we go to her well check-up next Thursday.

She is still wearing some newborn clothes and some 0-3 month clothes; it really depends on what it is. She is finishing off her newborn diapers and then will be in size 1 all the time. She wears size 1 at night because she's a heavy wetter.

Her feeding has been a challenge, but we've figured it out. She was breastfed, but it eventually became a struggle for her. She would end up choking and turning blue, so I ultimately decided that pumping would be our best bet. She took the bottle just fine, but then she would scream after each feeding. I thought maybe she wasn't getting enough, so I tried feeding her more. Well, that didn't work. She wasn't eating too much because she wasn't spitting up. Then I tried gripe water and gas drops, which helped temporarily but you can only give them so much of each in 24 hours. I then tried giving her a bottle of Enfamil Gentlease formula, to which she hated the taste but she ended up eating it and did a whole lot better. I still wanted to give her breastmilk for the nutrition, so I decided to do half breastmilk and half formula. This has worked out so much better for us. She no longer screams after eating. I wanted to try to see if it was the combination working or if it was just a phase. I gave her just breastmilk for a day, and she screamed again, so we went back to the combo. Is this ideal? Not at all, but this is what is needed for her. She is doing 7 bottles of 2oz of breastmilk and 2oz of formula every 24 hours.

She is sleeping extremely well. She came home sleeping 6 hours. Then when her stomach issues began, she would only sleep about 4 hours at a time at night. Once I began giving her the formula/breastmilk combo, she has been sleeping about 7 hours at night. Her last bottle at night is around 9, then she will wake up around 4 to eat, and then she will wake up for good around 8. I am not complaining one bit :)

She hasn't really done a whole lot this month because she is in that sleepy newborn stage. She is really close to smiling and she is starting to coo and "purr." She loves to be held and does not like sitting in a dirty diaper. If she is ever upset about something, and she's not hungry, all I have to do is change her and she is good. Her favorite place to lounge is in the bouncy seat or in the boppy pillow on my bed. I can tell she knows when her brother is around. She always seems to perk up (if she's awake) when he comes over to love on her. I can't wait to see how they interact when she's awake more.

Here's a picture of her from this morning. I've also posted a picture of Connor when he was a month old. You can tell that they resemble each other. He was a bit bigger at one month (almost 11 pounds) but they look similar.

Update (9/5): Maddie had her 1 month well check-up yesterday. She now weighs 10 lbs on the dot (61st percentile) and is 22 inches long (84th percentile). We also talked to our pediatrician about her feeding issues. It turns out that it's not gas that's causing the problem, it's acid reflux. We have her on some medication to help heal her stomach and hopefully she will be back onto 100% breastmilk in the near future. This is why she turned blue while eating, screamed after eating, loves to sit in the boppy pillow (elevated) and never wants to be put down. I'll be glad when we have this all figured out because holding her all the time and chasing an 18 month old around is hard work! She is also smiling some now. She gave me her first smile on August 30th! I've uploaded a picture of one of her sweet smiles.

It's not a full smile because I was too slow with the camera... but it's still sweet :)

17 months!

Big brother, Connor, is now 17 months old! He is definitely one busy little boy and adjusting to being a big brother. I put him on the scale and it has been between 24.4 pounds and 25 pounds. I guess it depends on what time of day I weigh him and if he will stand still long enough. He's still in size 18 month shirts and 9 month shorts. I've just recently put away his size 6 month shorts. I think he is growing because he is looking pretty stocky these days.

He now has a new wake time. It was between 10 and 11, but now it's between 8:30 and 9. I thought I wouldn't really like this new wake time, but he is now back to taking two naps a day. His first nap is usually around 10:30-11 and lasts for about an hour and a half. His second nap is around 3:30 and lasts at least two hours. He is going to bed between 9 and 9:30 and has no problem falling asleep.

He is still eating about the same and drinking two cups full of whole milk. His new favorite snack is fruit snacks. As much as I don't like him eating "junk food," I don't mind giving these to him. I buy the 100% fruit juice ones and they are super easy. 

He now has 12 teeth! His bottom two molars finally popped through. He's had moments of irritability during the day and one extremely runny nose, so I was expecting them soon. My mom was brushing his teeth and noticed that they had finally popped through. He responds well to orajel and ibuprofen, and zyrtec cleared up his runny nose.

He now says a lot of words. The list continues to grow each and every day. My favorite word that Connor says is flower. He pronounces it like "wow-wah" and it is absolutely precious. Cameron really likes it when he says "uh-oh" and "please." We are still trying to string words together and "thank you." He does sometimes say "down, please," but other than that, he doesn't trying to put anything else together.

Connor's favorite toys are still his shape sorter and puzzles. He also has this leap frog thing that he can put letters in and it will say the letter and the sound it makes. He like to fit the letters into it. I know he doesn't necessarily know what the letters are or what sound they make, but it doesn't hurt that he plays with it now. He likes to fit things into places. Our shoes are still his favorite place to put toys.

Below are some pictures of Connor. He's one busy little boy, so a good picture is hard to come by.

Introducing Maddie Louise White

We've waited, what has felt like an eternity, for our little girl to arrive. Maddie Louise White finally made her arrival on July 29, 2014 at 4:00pm on the dot. She weighed 7 pounds, 11 ounces and was 20 1/2 inches long. She didn't make us wait quite as long as her older brother (thank goodness), but has taken after her brother's excellent sleeping ability.  She eats every 3-3 1/2 hours during the day and sleeps from 11:15pm-5:30am and then she will wake up shortly after 9. We've been having to take her to the pediatrician a couple of times to check her billirubin level for jaundice. On Friday, she weighed 7 lbs, 7 ounces, and today she weighed in at 7 lbs, 8 ounces (before we left the hospital her weight had dropped down to 7 lbs, 5 ounces). She is such a doll and we are so smitten by our little princess. Since the hospital no longer takes newborn pictures, my mom and I decided that we would attempt to take some on our own. We weren't very successful because we don't exactly have the eye for photography and the little princess decided that she was going to throw a fit. So, we have a grand total of three pictures (woohoo!). I've posted them below along with some pictures we took in the hospital and as a family of four. In those pictures, the big brother decided that he wasn't going to have anything to do with pictures. Eventually we will get a good picture of all of us!

Our princess has arrived!

Excited to finally meet and hold his little girl

Her first bath... which she slept through

The first time Connor saw his baby sister

He loves her

He is going to be a great big brother

I think we all know who is wrapped around that little finger of hers

Going home... this was the outfit I wore going home from the hospital