Happy One Month Birthday Little Girl.

We are celebrating this milestone, by starting a series of posts entitled "Your First Month at Home" to catch you up on everything since you have been home. We know we won't be able to touch on all the little things that have happened, but we will talk about the more general topics and then, after this series, we can hopefully start updating more frequently, with daily thoughts, observances and other tidbits.

Let's get started!

The most important subject first....SLEEP!

YOUR SLEEP

Dad: A lot of people have babies and talk about how much they sleep.  The tell stories of babies waking up, crying, eating, pooping, looking around a little then going back to sleep.  The process seems to repeat itself over and over for the first few weeks of a baby's life.  At least that is what I was led to believe.  I was sorely mistaken!

From the beginning you have seemed to fight sleep.  Not just at night, but all day long.  We have tried everything to make you just relax, close your eyes and rest, but we have yet to find that "magic bullet."  We have tried to place you in your rock and play but you seem to only enjoy sleeping in that at night and normally only when you are wrapped in a swaddle.  We have tried the swing which has had some shining moments, but overall you seem to enjoy looking around as you swing more than you enjoy sleeping.  Your crib worked for about an hour one day and then you decided you did not like being alone in a big cage all by yourself...so that ended quickly.

We have noticed you seem to like to fall asleep in one location, one time and then you are done with that location.  Those locations have included your changing table, mine and mom's bed, sitting on the couch, laying on the couch and in your car seat.  Wrapping you in blankets, keeping you in head-to-toe clothes, changing you into onesies and laying you out in nothing but a diaper have all worked as well, but none of them are your preferred sleeping outfit.

The only place you seem to sleep soundly for extended periods of time is someone's arms.  It is extremely adorable and hard to turn down.  You will sleep for as long as we let you it seems if we are holding you.  However that can get tiring and like all other methods, if you don't want to fall asleep you will fidget and whine and never actually get any rest.  I have fallen asleep a few times on the couch while holding you (more on that later).  Most of the time, we let you fall asleep in our arms and then move you to some other sleeping location.  In some cases that works and you sleep soundly until you need to be changed or you get hungry.  In other cases, you wake up within minutes, realize you are not being held and begin to cry uncontrollably.

At this point I would say that you definitely do not have a "sleep schedule" and you do not seem to have developed any type of reliable pattern either.  It is extremely frustrating, but I am sure every other parent in the world has similar experiences with their newborn and I can not complain too much.  I know you want to see as much of the world as possible, but I promise you that you will get your chance.  Just sit lay back and close your eyes once in a while little one.

Mom: The past 4 weeks have been so completely different. For the first 2.5 weeks or so, pretty much all you did was eat, SLEEP and poop. The last 2 weeks however, have been very different! For example, yesterday, you woke up at 8am and didn't go to sleep until 6:30pm, wtf? The fun part is that you are more alert now, looking around and engaging with us. The not so fun part, is that when you are awake, you are crying at least 75% of the time. OMG!

Luckily, you have always been good about sleeping at night, so I am not necessarily losing sleep over it, but dealing with a crying baby all day long can be extremely draining, and I notice myself start to get overly sensitive to your crying. Thank god for you grandma and nanny, if it weren't for them coming over to relieve me of baby duty a few times a week, I would have probably had a break down by now.

When you do sleep, you are quite a wild one. You squirm and twitch and startle easily, you have since day one, which your dad and I LOVE it shows your personality and when you get startled you signal "touchdown". Hilarious!

While I will agree with your dad, you don't have a sleep schedule, I don't really think that you are supposed to for the the first part of your life. But now that you are one month old and I have to start seriously thinking about how things will be once I go back to work, I am going to work to get you on a more regular sleep schedule.

OUR SLEEP

Dad: You definitely take after your mom.  Neither of you know how to take a nap.  Mom has never been a "nap" person, although I always assumed she would learn to take naps after you arrived.  I was wrong.  They say that a new mother should sleep when the baby sleeps.  Well that philosophy has been completely obliterated in this household.

Since you don't like to sleep and mom doesn't like to nap, when you finally do settle down and close your eyes, mom attempts to get some stuff done.  The only sleep mom gets is when you finally calm down for the night and she is ready for bed.  You have both been sleeping downstairs since the third night you were home.  We have a permanent "bed" set up on the couch because mom finds it easier to calm you down at night with you in your rocker right next to her.  She has been in a lot of pain still from the surgery and it has just been easier for her call the couch her bed.

At this point you are both getting around 5-6 hours of interrupted sleep per night.  I'm not sure how mom has the energy to take care of you throughout the day, but she seems to fight through it and I have not really noticed her acting to tired.

I on the other hand have been blessed with your mother.  I have always been a person who likes to sleep a lot and she knows that.  Each night I sleep upstairs with Kodi and am getting a solid 7-8 hours a night.

Often times I head to bed between 2-3am after getting some work done and mom lets me sleep until 9 or 10 (11 on some days).  I am fully rested when I get up and it really is not fair to your mom.

Mom: When we got home I thought I would try to sleep upstairs in the master bedroom with you and your dad, but after surgery, feeding you in bed was not at all comfortable in the middle of the night, recovery from surgery has been alot more painful and lengthy than I thought.

After 2 nights, I decided to move you and I down to the living room, it was easier for me to get up from the couch to feed you and check on you. I would change you, feed you and then swaddle you and put you down, and for the most part you would sleep for about 3 hours and then we would repeat. Most time you fell asleep pretty easily, other times you would take a little while to fall asleep, I would have to rock you until you finally closed those lovely grey eyes. And like daddy said, while all this is happening down stairs, he is upstairs sleeping soundly, for a solid 7-9 hours.

Next up, "Caring for Baby"...