2 months old ⇒
Elise is 2 months old. At her 6 week appointment (our last one with our midwife - boohoo) she weighed in at 11 pounds and is 23.5 inches long. She is growing so fast. She is getting better at holding her head up and last night she actually picked up a toy all by herself. Granted that may have been an accident but she did wave it around for a while. She smiles quite a lot now too and has discovered all kinds of new noises she can make so she doesn't have to cry all the time to communicate.
She is on quite a regular schedule and has been for a few weeks now. She eats then has a cuddle with Dad sometime between 6 and 7:00 before he goes to work (he is away right now and still waking me up for the cuddle so I consider that part of her routine that we will not likely change for a while!). The Erin puts her in bed with me and we sleep til 9:30 or 10:00. She stays awake for about an hour - 1.5 hours and we get her dressed, play, check our email and have a cuddle on the couch then she sleeps til 12:30 or 1:00 or so. Then she eats again, plays for a bit, has another cuddle and sleeps til 4. Eats again and takes little naps but is generally awake for the rest of the evening. Our evening routine is taking a while to get established because she is a bit niggly between 7 and 9. Dad usually has to walk around with her for most of that time. Sometimes she has a bath. Around 7:30 she eats and we put on her pjs (also known around here as her super suit). we've just started a new thing - at 9:30 I lay her on our bed and lay down beside her while I do a crossword puzzle and talk to her (she hasn't been able to give me any answers yet but I'm hoping this will continue to be part of her routine when she gets older and hopefully she will get a great vocabulary.) At 10 she eats and I put her down and she sleeps til around 3:30 or 4:00 - a good 6 hour stretch which is nice for me. Plus she is sleeping in her crib now. I usually put her down when she's awake (as per Baby Wise) and she goes to sleep without any fussing as long as she's tired when I put her down. If she's not ready to go down, she would cry. We did let her cry herself to sleep a couple of nights (only took 15 minutes and she was only mildly protesting not full on crying - I wouldn't have let her cry too hard for that long!) now she usually just talks a bit before drifting off. I wish I could say that it was Baby Wise but she's been a good, easy baby from the start and we haven't been following Baby Wise to the letter anyway but some of the tips I've gotten from that book seem to really work for us.
Most days this schedule is pretty predictable so I am able to plan activities.
I've been pumping breast milk and she is taking a bottle about once a week (so much for my job security!). I'm doing this so I would be able to leave her with grandparents if need be and I will know that she won't starve if I'm a little later than our scheduled feeding time. I've started working out. Erin's mum comes up from Blaine Tuesday mornings so I can go to a weight lifting class. Erin looks after her for my pilates class Saturday morning and I just started a strollersize class on Wednesday mornings that Elise seems to enjoy. I am pleased to report I am back into most of my pre pregnancy pants but my tops are a little tight across the bust!
All in all, things are going great. We will post more photos soon - I don't remember how to do it!