The Putt Rogers Page: April 2010

2 Months! Brianna is two months old today and yet again I'm astonished at how time flies. This month has been a much better month than the first, filled with a number of great accomplishments. The biggest accomplishment as far as mommy is concerned is that we're no longer using a nipple shield during breastfeeding. This has made life so much easier, especially at night as I no longer have to do dishes in the middle of the night.

Nights are also getting easier as Brianna is starting to sleep longer stretches. She generally falls asleep in my arms at around 7-8pm. She stays there until I'm ready for bed at around 10 and then we head up to bed. She goes for between 4 and 7 hours between feeds, although I've only gotten 7 once (last night). Here's hoping 7 becomes more frequent! Then somewhere between 12 and 3 she wakes up hungry and I get up and feed her. When I'm lucky she falls right back to sleep after eating, if not she'll be awake for an hour or so after her feed and then we'll go back to bed. Unfortunately the longer she sleeps between feeds, the more likely she is to want to play in the middle of the night. Hopefully she'll figure out she can have a long sleep and still go right back to bed, as the 2am playtime is hard on mommy who hasn't had nearly as much sleep as Brianna has at that point.

During the day things are definitely getting easier too. Although there is no set routine by any stretch, there are patterns in Brianna's behaviour. She likes to eat, sleep and play. When she's wide awake she wants to play, either tummy time, playing on her back or sitting up on someones lap looking around. She eats every 1.5 to 3 hours during the day and tends to sleep for at least 20 min between every feed. She also has some longer sleeps during the day as well, as much as an hour or two. Of course when these longer sleeps take place is still any one's guess, so there's no way to plan the day around them. Luckily she'll still sleep just about anywhere as long as she's in mommy or daddy's arms.

At about 6 weeks old, we went to visit my cousin Beth's house. Beth has two kids, ages 2 and 5 weeks older than Brianna. Her parents and my other cousin Laura and her three older kids were also there when we visited. The best part of this visit was Beth introducing me to her moby wrap. We ended up buying a knock off the very same day, and this wrap has made life soooooo much easier. Brianna LOVES to be held, walked and bounced, which can get hard on the back and arms. But she really enjoys this wrap which lets her assume her favorite position against a chest but then frees up the wearer's arms. Heaven! Especially in the evenings when Brianna tends to get grouchy and wants to be walked a LOT. Like for hours at a time. She tends to fall asleep in the wrap every night, and I've gotten very good at getting her out of it without waking her up!

The other major accomplishment of this month was Brianna figuring out how to roll over from her front to her back. She's now mastered rolling over in both directions (left and right, not from back to front yet). The funny thing is these days if you put her on her front and she doesn't manage to roll over, if you turn her onto her back she gets PISSED. She wants to turn herself, thank you very much!!

Brianna had her 2 month Dr's appointment this afternoon. She's measuring above the 97th percentile for height (big surprise!), at the 75th percentile for weight and the 50th percentile for head circumference. Overall the Dr was very impressed with everything, there was nothing that concerned him at all. The worst part was of course the shots, but I actually think they went very well. Yes, she cried when she was given her shots, but after the second shot I immediately put her to the breast to eat. She was hungry (as I hadn't fed her before the appointment on purpose) and immediately started to eat. By the time she finished eating she was all smiles. So far she's been a little sleepy this afternoon and a little grouchy, but nothing really out of the ordinary.

That's all I can think of to update at this point. All in all it's been a great month, even with Chris going back to work on night shifts. Brianna is a joy to be around and overall a very good tempered baby! But of course I couldn't update without adding some pictures!

Uncle Bill makes a good bed!