Marley is officially one month old as of yesterday, and I realized I haven't really written anything about life after her birth. Although she is not yet to the awake-for-more-than-two-hours stage, it has been so much fun. When we first brought her home, she would sleep for 3 hours, wake up crying to be fed and then fall asleep while I was feeding her. She slowly started to stay awake a little bit longer after being fed. Now, she is not on a schedule, but she is probably awake for 7 or 8 hours out of 24. Her favorite time to be awake is from 12 am - 3 am. While I have been trying to discourage this by keeping her up in the evenings, sometimes you just can't help it. If she wants to be up, she is going to be up. And even though it makes me completely tired the next day, I love every minute of it.
Being a mom is by far the best thing I have ever done. Even in the middle of the night, I love being the one she needs and the one to comfort her. She knows my smell and my voice and when someone strange is holding her and she starts crying, all it takes is me holding her to calm her down. I love that feeling! Breastfeeding has been really easy for me so far. My milk came in the Monday after she was born. And there has been no shortage since... I plan to do it for a year at least. It is amazing to be able to do that for Marley and I feel lucky that I can.
A week after her birth, she had her first doctor's appointment. She weighed 6 pounds, 7 ounces! He was a little worried that she had not gained all of her weight back from birth and said that if she had not by her two week appointment, then we would have to start supplementing with formula. That really got me worried, so I pretty much started making her eat all the time! By the next week, she had gotten back to 7 pounds, so he was not worried. We took Marley to the doctor today for her one month check-up and she already weighs 9 pounds, 6 ounces! I can't tell she has changed that much since I am around her everyday, but she really has! She has moved into size 1 diapers instead of the newborn size. She is also in perfect health, so we are very proud.
Marley gets the hiccups about four or five times a day. She has been sleeping in our room in the cradle most of the time. She sleeps with me in the bed if I'm taking a nap with her and Asa's not there. She sleeps much better on her stomach than on her back, so we have been letting her. We haven't had any problems with it and she sleeps much better and longer. Kima has been doing great with her. She follows me around the house when I have Marley and she lays on the ground next to us while I'm feeding her. She also puts her nose on the activity mat when Marley is on it. She is already protective of her because when people come over and hold Marley, she moves and sits by whoever is holding her.
We saw her first real smile on Saturday. I was holding her in the kitchen while the lights were off. As soon as Asa turned on the light and she saw me, she smiled this huge, open-mouth smile. It was beautiful. I think I smiled for 10 minutes straight after it.
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