Peyton turns 2 months old!

Our baby girl is already 2 months old!! We are absolutely loving being parents (more and more each day). Peyton is turning out to be so much fun to be around (most of the time...), and such a joy in our lives. We absolutely love her to pieces. Here is what she has been up to in the last month.

Eating:

Peyton is still taking breast milk through a bottle and it is still working wonderfully. She eats 4oz every 2 hours during the day and eats 4.5oz for night feedings. She is a fantastic eater and rarely does she not want her bottle. During the day, she is like clock-work wanting to eat on the dot at 2 hours (and sometimes even a bit before). She gets a dropper full of Vitamin D in one of her bottles each day (instructed by Dr. Stevens) since adults in Seattle lack Vitamin D (because of the lack of sun here).

Sleeping:

We feel pretty blessed to have a good sleeper. Peyton goes down in the evening between 9-10pm and sleeps anywhere between 4-7 hours her first stretch of sleep. She then wakes up (usually around 3-4am), eats 4.5oz, and goes right back to bed for another 3 hours. She then wakes up once again (usually around 6-7am), eats another bottle, and goes back down for 1-2 hours, waking up for the final time around 8:30am. She is now napping in her cosleeper, which is a great milestone for us. Every so often, she will still nap in her car seat, lascal, or the moby wrap depending on what our day holds. She sleeps in a swaddle blanket with white noise on the Ipod. She doesn't have a set nap schedule during the day yet, but she does usually take 2 naps sometime throughout the day (and even sneaks one in sometimes in the early evening).

Doctor:

Peyton had her 2 month check up with Dr. Steven's on July 16th. She weighs 12lbs14oz, is 23 inches long, and is in the 93rd percentile for height and weight. Dr. Stevens again has commented that Peyton is a beautiful, thriving, healthy baby. She commented today also that Peyton has beautiful skin and seems like a happy baby. My mom went with me to the check-up since John had to work. We asked Dr. Steven's about Peyton's fussiness since Peyton goes from 0-10 in a snap of a finger. By this I mean she can be completely happy and smiling one second and the next second be screaming and crying. There was a little worry about colic, however Dr. Steven's set our minds to ease about that. She stated that going from 0-10 simply is Peyton's temperament, and that its actually a good thing because it means that Peyton knows what she wants. She stated that colic is the rule of 3's meaning that a colicy baby is between 1-3 months old, crying for 3 straight hours a day for 3 days straight. Peyton has never even come close to doing this. She also stated that it could not be reflux because if it was Peyton would be unhappy after each feeding, which is definitely not the case with her. Peyton received 3 shots and 1 oral vaccine today. She received Diptheria, Tetanus, Pertussis, Haemophilus Influenzae Type B (Hib), Polio, Pneumococcal Conjugate, Hepatitus B, and Rotovirus vaccine's. After receiving the shots she definitely has a blood curdling cry, but as soon as I held her close to me for a few moments, she settled right down and fell right asleep. She actually liked the taste of the oral vaccine, so that one wasn't bad at all.

Babysitting:

Peyton has now spent time being babysat with my mom, John's mom, auntie Katie and auntie Jill. She has had great experiences with all of them. She spent a full day with my mom last weekend when both John and I had weddings. I brought over her bed and bouncy seat to my moms house and she did great (even napping in her bed a couple of times). We are so lucky to have so many great people close by to watch her when we need a babysitter.

Miscellaneous:

• Peyton is really starting to look at her toys, especially enjoying her bouncy seat, playmat, and bumbo chair.
  



• She is a master now at the social smile, and we receive many of these from her throughout the day




• She coo's, and even has a high pitched laugh sound that we adore




• Peyton enjoyed not only her very first 4th of July, but she got to do so at the cabin at Vashon where John and I got married. It was also her 1st time spending the night away from home (John and I were with her of course), but she did great. We just brought her cosleeper and set that up in our room upstairs, and she slept well.
  



• The roots of Peyton's hair are now starting to grow in blond.
  



• Peyton enjoyed her 1st swim in Nana and Papa's pool and loved it. She was a little unsure about it at 1st, but then she really enjoyed it.




• Just as she always has, Peyton still loves her bath's. We do bath time as a family and its always a fun event. She kicks her little legs and arms around, and really enjoys it.

Peyton turns 1 month old!

Happy birthday to my beautiful daughter Peyton! We have had quite the adventure over the past month. It has been challenging, trying on the patience, and exhausting, but also such a wonderful learning experience and so much fun all at the same time.


The first couple of weeks home were really tough. As new parents, John and I were clueless when it came to dealing with a sleep schedule (or lack there of) for a newborn. In fact, there was one night really early on where we all 3 were crying trying to figure out what to do at 3:00am (the same night we figured out Peyton loves to be bounced on the exercise ball). Peyton was crying non-stop and we could not figure out why. Turns out she was very hungry as my milk had not yet come in. We finally decided to call John's mom at 5:00am when Peyton had made herself hoarse from crying so hard. Molly advised us to feed her some water out of a bottle just to help her dry mouth and throat. She drank that right down and was fast asleep. Since that night, we have learned a TON and are still of course learning new things every day. Here is our take on events that have occurred in Peyton's 1st month of life:



Sleep:
Peyton has turned out to be a great sleeper for a 4 week old baby (at least for now. We don't want to jinx ourselves too soon). Currently, she sleeps anywhere between 5 and 7 hours for her first stretch of sleep at night. She wakes up and eats, then returns to sleep for another 2-3 hours, eats again, and usually goes down for a 3rd stretch of sleep lasting another 2-3 hours. It took us about 3 weeks to get her to this point. The first 3 weeks were pretty much a blur as far as sleep goes. We now have established a bedtime routine for her, which we are hoping sticks and helps her to continue to sleep well. Her routine consists of a diaper change, pajama's on, swaddle blanket on, and a bottle. This happens around 10:00pm. Most of the time after her bottle, she goes down into her cosleeper, which is now in her own room right away. Sometimes it takes some bouncing on the exercise ball to help her go down. We initially thought we would start her off right away in her big crib...yeah right!! She was NOT having that. We quickly went out and bought a bassinet-type bed for her called an Arms Reach Cosleeper. For about the first week or 2, we had the cosleeper in our bedroom right next to our bed. It has since been moved into her nursery where she has been sleeping in ever since. Thanks to and idea from Molly's friend Donna, we elevated her mattress just a bit so its on a little of an incline and she has slept in it ever since we did that. Thanks Donna! Before we were able to figure that out, Peyton would only sleep on our chest's or stomach's. As you can imagine, we weren't exactly getting that great of sleep this way, so we were desperate for a solution. As far as napping during the day goes, she does NOT nap usually in her cosleeper. Instead she naps either in her front carrier (Lascal), or in her car seat in the car. From my understanding, this is typical of newborns.



Clothes:

Peyton was certainly no small baby as you already know. Thankfully, however she still fits into all of her 0-3 month clothes and is still wearing those. Most of her newborn-sized clothes even fit her, although they are getting too small now that she is 4 weeks old.



Eating:

Peyton started off nursing, however after a week she lost interest in latching on. We decided that is worked best for us for me to pump breast milk and feed it to her in a bottle. That proved to be a wonderful decision, and she has been eating great since. She is up to eating 4oz at each feeding.

Doctor:
Peyton has been in the 90th percentile for height and weight since she was born and remains there today. At her 7 day check-up (which is the last check-up she will have had until her 2 month), she weighed just over her birth weight and her height was 21 inches. Dr. Steven's (her pediatrician) says that she is a beautiful, thriving, healthy baby.