Christy & Steve : Eleanor

How is my beautiful baby one month old!? Time is passing way too fast of this mama! Miss Ellie turned one month on October 11th!

Weight:

5lbs, 7oz (approx, she was 5lbs 4oz at our appt on Thursday), ^1lb 3oz from birth. She's steadily gaining about an ounce a day which is perfect. It's what we would have wanted to see on the inside had she made it to term.

Length:

20.5", ^2.5" from birth.

Clothes:

We are kind of in-between sizes. The preemie clothes are getting tight (seriously tight) so we've been putting her in newborn even though it's hilariously large.

Diapers - She still fits preemie diapers but we have decided not to buy anymore as the newborn ones we have fit as well. So once we run out of preemie it will be newborn! I can't wait til she fits the cloth diapers we have! I am sad we won't be using the pumpkin one for Halloween this year.

Feedings:

She eats every 3 hours during the day and every 4 at night. She is on 100% breastmilk but still primarily bottled. She is improving at breastfeeding, we discovered she had a tongue tie on Oct 5th and had it clipped on the 6th. Unfortunately cos she was already almost a month old she really has to re-learn how to use her tongue and that was definitely contributing to some of our breastfeeding issues. We feed on her cues so her schedule usually changes at night when she sleeps for longer stretches but during the day you could set a clock by her.

I'm pumping roughly 8x a day, usually right after she eats so I can keep my supply on her schedule. I am staying ahead of her by about 3 ounces a day. It's not a ton but it's good, hopefully we will get her breastfeeding before she catches up to me. In the meantime, I'm freezing the excess. I'm scared to return the hospital grade pump because I worry about my supply suffering.

Sleep:

Sleeps like a champ. After she eats we cuddle and read a story til she falls asleep. I usually pass her to Steve so I can pump. She will sleep for 2 hours between feeds during the day and 3-3.5 at night. It's not a crazy amount of sleep in a row for us but we are averaging 6-8 hours a night on and off, I can't complain about that! I don't anticipate her sleeping through the night any time soon, she's still pretty small and needs to eat frequently but at least she is giving us solid stretches! We've started putting her in her bassinet after her late evening feed (usually 7-9 depending on the day) just to help her keep track of day vs night and get some semblance of bedtime in existence.

Personality:

Ellie is a pretty serious baby! She loves to observe and watch us when we talk or interact with her. She will get the most confused look on her face as she tries to understand what is going on. She furrows her brow and it's absolutely adorable. She smiles a lot, loves to cuddle and is just generally content with observing and learning. We are working on her tongue extension after her tongue tie got clipped and one of the things we do for it is to stick our tongues out at her. She will try to mimic it and if I mimic her expression she gets really excited!