Updates -- and Nine Weeks Old!

I realized that I haven't been keeping you, my loyal blog readers, as updated as I would like. I'm sure you've all just been dying to know how the breastfeeding and sleep situations have been going recently...

Breastfeeding
No news is good news! We seem to have turned the corner around six weeks. (Looking back, I can't believe it was "only" six weeks of feeding hell! It felt like forever!) The past three weeks have been pretty much pain-free, and I no longer dread the next feeding - in fact, now I have to be careful not to rely on breastfeeding as my main comforting tactic!! Good thing she still loves to "comfort suck" on her penguin pacifier. :)

I've also started pumping once per day to try to build up a back-up supply of milk for when I return to work. So far we have about 20 3-oz bags in the freezer, which is nice peace of mind in case my milk supply starts to dwindle once I get back to work.  In an ideal world I'd like to give her breastmilk for the first year, but we'll see how the transition to daycare/work goes. I'm definitely not opposed to supplementing with formula, or even switching to formula if we need to - I'm just proud that we've gotten this far with the breastfeeding!


Sleep
This is another area where we're continuing to make progress. Rose has had 3 nights in the past week or so  where she only got up once!! Each night she went to sleep around 7:30 or 8, then woke up around 1:30 or 2, then got up for the day around 6ish. Not bad! And even on the other nights when she wakes up twice (around midnight and 3am), I decided it's "doable" and I'm not going to stress about it any more.  Such an improvement over the 3+ times she was getting up, even just two weeks ago!

We're also working on getting her to sleep in her crib, since I'm pretty sure our daycare won't be able to hold her for the entirety of her naps each day and I don't think their regulations allow for naps in a bouncy seat. (We're still keeping her in the bouncy seat at night - I don't want to mess with a good thing! Once she's regularly waking only once or regularly sleeping through the night, then we'll work on nighttime sleep in the crib!)  Over the past week or two I've been trying to give her the "opportunity" to nap in her bassinet or in her crib. It seems to be going well, as long as she's swaddled. Fingers crossed that this all continues to go well!

 

Daycare
And speaking of daycare, Rose starts on July 23. (I go back to work on July 16 and my mom will be watching her that week. Thanks, Mom!!!) We got a huge packet of information to read and forms to fill out before she can start. As I was filling out the forms, it really hit me that we have a daughter and we are responsible for her!! All of the sudden everything became another level of "real."


Weekly Photos
Finally, Rose turned nine weeks old today!  Here are my favorite pictures from her weekly photo shoot this morning:

Have a great week, everyone!