Samantha's 7 Month Update

Height/Weight: At her appointment today, Samantha was 17lbs 9oz (63%), 27.5 long (86%) with a head circumference of 43.94cm (76%). So she's grown 2 inches in 2 months! 

Daily: Samantha wakes up between 8 and 9AM. Same as the last few updates, I nurse her in bed once she's awake, then dress and change her. Once we've gotten Vincent up, I take her into the living room for tummy time while Mike gets Vincent's breakfast started. Samantha spends the majority of her awake time on the big quilt in the living room rolling around and playing with toys! She's trying SO hard to crawl on her knees! Right now, she will roll around the room or kind of inch herself forward by leaning side to side and stretching, to get to where she'd like to go. She loves playing with her toys (especially the noisy ones!!), watching Vincent play and playing with Mommy and Daddy! Some days, when Mike wants to play video games, he will take her with him and put her on the bed next to him and she plays until she falls asleep! :D The sit me up seat, the bouncy seat and the swing have sort of become neglected. She prefers to be on the floor or in the horse bouncer, which we dug out of the garage for her to use! She has so much fun bouncing around in it and playing with the toys attached to the front! She sits on the floor a lot as well and needs no assistance! I often set her in front of the Zany Zoo and let her open and close the little doors and spin the letters, which she really enjoys!  

Sleep: Oh sleep. It has not been great lately. She has been going through another pretty gnarly sleep regression! Last week, she was waking every half hour crying, not even wanting to eat!! :/ It has been getting better though. She is taking a decent nap at around noon, usually around two hours long! She very rarely takes a second nap, but if she does, it's only about half an hour. If it's longer, I make sure she's awake before 6PM, so it doesn't mess with bedtime. I was putting her down at around 8, at the same time Vincent goes to bed, but she ended up just treating it like a nap and waking up between 15 minutes to an hour later, then would stay up half the night. So I started getting her ready for bed and feeding her around that time, but leaving the light on and letting her play for a little while afterward, until she was very obviously tired. That's been working a lot better!

Eating: Still breastfeeding and going strong! She eats every 2-3 hours during the day and every 2-4 hours at night. I honestly don't remember the last time she went more than four hours at night! Haha! I haven't pumped once since we moved to New Mexico and don't plan to any time soon, since we haven't needed to give any bottles. We did start solids last month, but she's acting like she might be cutting a tooth, so it's been very difficult to get her to eat lately. So we've taken a little bit of a break! We've been doing a mix of baby led weaning (giving her large pieces of vegetables, fruit or shredded cheese) and spoon feeding with homemade or store bought puree. She does LOADS better with being spoon fed than Vincent did! He flat out refused to let me spoon feed him, whereas Samantha actually opens her mouth, wanting what's on the spoon!

Feeding herself squash! She always makes faces at first, but so far, she's liked everything we've given her!

Eating some cucumber

Sizes: Samantha is in 9 month clothing now! I do still squeeze her into some 6 month clothing, but for the most part, she's grown out of it. Especially since we started cloth diapering this past month! (I'll be making a separate post on this soon!) The diapers make her butt super chunky and it's hard to get pants on her sometimes! xD We're still occasionally using disposable diapers at night, which are a size 4. The only issue we're having with 9 month clothing is the length of her footie pajamas, especially the fleece ones! Her legs are short, so her feet don't reach the footies. And when they are in them, you can fold the feet over, because her feet are tiny! :D

Milestones and Changes:

• First solids; Avocado! She made a few faces at first, but ended up loving it!

• First time in the horse bouncer! Comfy enough to nap in, apparently! xD

• First time in cloth! 

• First time meeting family members: Great Grandma and Papa, Great Aunt Loretta and Uncle Mike, Cousins Tiffany, Ben and Addison and Aunt Pam and Cousin Charlie! We had a great time visiting everyone this past month!

• Samantha learned to clap!! It is the SWEETEST thing - I can't even stand it!! <3

• First time "army crawling"

• First time at a wedding

• First time meeting Auntie Lia and Auntie Hanna! 

• First sip of wine! TOTALLY kidding - but this picture was too cute not to share :D 

Samantha's 4 Month Update!

Height/Weight: According to our home scale and measuring tape, Samantha is 15lbs 9oz (88%), 25 inches long (78%) with a head circumference of 42cm (78%)! She's gained some height in this past month, but still has her chunkiness! :D <3 Her next appointment isn't until next month, since her shots are off by a month. I'll be excited to see how much she weighs at that point! :D

Daily: Our days have been pretty hectic lately! We are going to be moving at the end of the month and I also started up a new business from home, so everything, including daily routines and schedules, are all over the place at the moment! 
Samantha is always the first one awake, anywhere between 7:30 and 8:30. I usually nurse her first, then she spends some time babbling and squealing on the bed, while I work on waking up haha! I then change her diaper and outfit (NEVER anything white, because she likes to have a blowout at around 11AM haha!) and put her in her swing for a little bit, while making coffee either tending to the dogs or getting Vince up and his breakfast ready. We admittedly have been slacking on tummy time a bit this past month, but Samantha has rolled from her back to her tummy several times unassisted in the past few weeks! Her favorite things to do are snuggle, sit up, watch Vincent play and interact with him, play with Mommy and Daddy and play with her toys. She still ADORES her little horse lovey and cuddles him constantly, as well as other stuffed animals that we've given her to hold. She's become very talkative and loves to giggle, coo, squeal and blow raspberries!
She still doesn't have a set schedule, it's more approximate. We just kind of go with the flow and it seems to work well for her. But I do try to get her down for a nap at the same time as Vincent every day, since that's the one time of day that all is quiet and she is able to sleep without her brother waking her up! We aim to have her down for the night around the same time as Vincent or before 9, otherwise she gets very cranky and overtired. Mike takes care of the majority of Vincent's bedtime routine while I get Samantha changed and dressed for bed and he takes her while I sing to Vincent.  

Sleep: Sleep has been okay. She is definitely going through the 4 month sleep regression period, but thankfully it's nowhere near as bad as Vincent's was! She has been waking up several times per night to nurse, but generally falls right back to sleep. It's been easiest to co-sleep lately, since she has grown out of her napper in the pack n play and we won't get a chance to set up the crib until after the move. She really seems to like the closeness and I definitely don't mind the snuggles, even if it means waking up with a crick in my neck haha! She's also sort of in a swaddle transition period. She hasn't been liking to be completely swaddled lately, so I use a velcro Swaddle Me right under her arms, so that her bottom half is covered and she doesn't get cold. She sleeps best on her side, with her little arms outstretched by her face. <3 I think a huge part of is that she is unable to suck her fingers when she's swaddled.
Naptime - oy. She is not the best napper, honestly! I try to have her down for at least one nap per day, but my goal is to get her to take three, even if they're short. One around 10 or 11, one around 2 or 3 and another at around 5. It seems like she sleeps a lot better at night when she has taken some good naps, which is exactly the way Vincent was. It works best to feed her in the side-lying position in the middle of our bed, then sneak away once she's fallen asleep. 

Eating: I've continued to nurse on demand this past month. I feel like it puts a lot less stress on both of us and doesn't cause me to worry about my supply. She's still gaining really well and producing plenty of full diapers, so I'm not concerned in the slightest! :) I've been trying to offer a little more frequently lately though, since it's become so hot and I don't want her getting dehydrated. She hasn't had a bottle this month and I haven't bothered with pumping. I may go back to it for a couple of days once the milk in the freezer is getting close to expiring, just to switch it out with fresh milk. I think it's pretty safe to say that her latch issue is completely non-existent at this point! I very rarely hear a clicking sound when she's eating and she doesn't get nearly as gassy as she used to. UNLESS she decides that she needs to be sucking her thumb while she's nursing, which she constantly does. It's pretty funny actually! xD Spitting up is still an issue, but I think part of it is due to fast letdown and her drinking so fast! 

Sizes: Samantha is pretty much exclusively in 6 month clothing. There are only a few 3 month outfits that still fit! She's getting close to needing size 3 diapers, too! I wish she'd slow down - she's getting way too big! Vincent is too! :(

Milestones and Changes:

• First 4th of July!

• First roll over from back to tummy
• Matching outfits with Daddy!

• Sat in the high chair for the first time, to snack on some pretend chips! xD She loves sitting in it so much. And it's super convenient for me when I'm working on orders, because she's able to be right there next to me and see what I'm doing!

• This girl LOVES to suck her fingers. She still refuses a binky and I gave up trying to offer one quite a while ago. Thank goodness we bought around 20, because Vince to this day still loves his haha! 

• Sitting up is Samantha's favorite thing. She likes seeing everything that's going on and likes to hold her head up! So she's been favoring sitting in the boppy, the sit me up seat and the high chair!

Samantha's 3 Month Update!

Height/Weight: At her late 2 month appointment on Tuesday, Samantha was 13lbs 6oz (98%), 22 inches long (37%) with a head circumference of 40cm (80%)! I never would've thought that our tiny 6lb 8oz baby, who had to stay in the hospital longer for being underweight, would be busting out of 3M clothing at 3 months old! I am so happy she is happy, healthy and thriving!

Daily: Our routine remains the same. Samantha and I are almost always up first, between 8 and 9 AM. I feed and dress her, then put her in the swing while I make coffee and Vincent's breakfast. She loves looking at the little bees on her mobile and cooing at them! Once Vincent is done with breakfast, Samantha spends the morning doing tummy time, hanging out in the bouncer, her new floor seat and nursing. She does fantastic laying on the mat and looking at her toys! She has really taken a liking to them and will lay there for anywhere from 10 to 20 minutes before she gets bored and we change her scenery. She still loves to interact with Vincent and watch him play. When he is throwing a tantrum, she kind of cocks her eyebrow like "Dude. What's your problem." xD 
I still haven't gotten her on a schedule, but it really doesn't seem to be necessary at this point, because she's fallen into one on her own. So I just go by what works best for her that day. We are always home between noon and about 4 PM anyway, because of lunch and Vincent's nap time, when she takes her longest nap. She takes a cat nap in the morning and usually takes a cat nap in the evening as well. Vincent goes to bed at 8 and I spend the next hour or two after that putting her in her pajamas, feeding her and snuggling on the couch until she falls asleep (generally around 9PM), then I transfer her into the pack n play. We will be taking the crib out of storage this month, since she has grown out of the napper in the pack n play, which was the main reason that we had it set up instead of the crib. She isn't getting nearly as fussy and gassy in the evenings and she seems to be growing out of the witching hour somewhat. Some nights she is a bit colicky and is very difficult to get to go to sleep and other nights, she goes down really easily.

Sleep: Oh my goodness. This girl can sleep at night!! She has slept through the night, from around 10 PM to 6 AM THREE times in the past couple of weeks!! The most recent time, she slept from 9 PM until almost 7 AM. She seems to sleep the best at night when she has had a couple of good naps during the day. It's definitely not consistent yet, but she sleeps so much better than her brother did during the night at this point! She does still have some bad nights and want to eat every two hours, but they're very seldom. Her norm seems to be waking up once or twice in the middle of the night to eat. If it's after 2 AM, I have started bringing her into the bed with me to nurse, then keep her there with me until we get up. She likes the closeness and it's much easier for me to not have to get up if she needs to eat again. And being able to sleep with my hand on her tummy gives me peace of mind as well! 

Eating: For the past several weeks, I've stopped tracking her feedings and just feeding on demand. She is doing so well with her weight, that I haven't really worried about it as much. She gives me hunger cues when she is ready to eat and I don't bother looking at the clock, but she still eats every 2-3 hours during the day. I've given her 5oz bottles of pumped milk here and there, because I like to replace older pumped milk with freshly pumped milk every so often, so that it won't expire before it's been used. I've got about 325 oz in the freezer, in case of an emergency. It makes me feel better to know that there's some there as a back-up just in case, especially after having to have an emergency D&C twice with each baby.
Samantha's latch gets better and better every month! She hardly makes the clicking sound at all anymore when she nurses and she seems much less gassy, or at least much less irritated by it. She spits up about the same as she did last month, but I'm not too concerned, as she is gaining proper weight and doesn't seem bothered by it.

Sizes: Samantha is in 3 month, 3-6 month and some 6 month clothing! She has completely grown out of all of her 3 month sleepers. :( She has gotten SO huge - it amazes me. She is wearing some onesies that Vincent didn't wear until around 5 months old! (To be fair though; they're older and have shrunk a little bit in the wash ;D)
She is in size 2 diapers, since we used all of her size 1s up and they were getting a bit tight around the waist!

Milestones and Changes:

• First giggle!
• First roll over from tummy to back:

• Slept through the night for the first time!! 

• Got a new chair! She loves sitting up, so this chair has been really awesome for her. She likes to play with the toys that are hooked onto the front as well.

• First favorite toy/lovie! This was Vincent's and Samantha claimed it for her own! She LOVES him and will snuggle him so tightly and rub him up against her face! She just will not take a binky, so this is her comfort object. She also loves snuggling with burp cloths (cloth diapers)!