Eloise at One Month

We sure have loved this first month with our sweet baby girl Eloise <3 Hopefully I'll get her second month post out more on time (which is in one week, haha). I told myself I would just pick a handful of my favorite pictures of her each month, but I couldn't help myself! So cuteness overload is ahead #sorrynotsorry

(Eloise didn't have a one month appointment with her pediatrician, only a two week and two month appointment, so no exact update on her stats at one month old.)

CLOTHES SIZE: Newborn
DIAPER SIZE: Newborn

LIKES:
 - Hair dryer
 - Being held always
 - Getting her hair and neck stroked
 - Milk and pooping
 - Getting vigorously bounced on an exercise ball
 - Warm baths
 - Car rides (car has to be moving, and she can't be hungry)

DISLIKES:
 - Hiccups and sneezes
 - Getting her diaper changed
 - Cold wipes and hands
 - Getting her clothes changed
 - Drying off after a bath
 - Sleeping on flat surfaces

FIRSTS/MILESTONES:
 - Thanksgiving (3 days)
 - Visit to Temple Square in SLC (5 days)
 - Bottle--she took it like a champ! (3 weeks)
 - Road trip and visiting a different state--Colorado (4 weeks)
 - Meeting all her current grandparents, aunts, uncles, and one cousin

RANDOM NOTES:
 - Eloise has the absolute CUTEST pouty face when she is about to cry, though it hasn't yet been captured on camera adequately
 - Hair just keeps getting longer and more wonderful!
 - Eloise rarely ever slept more than two or three tops hours at a time, even at night
 - She smiles and chirps often in her sleep

I recently wrote a very long post about Eloise's Birth Story, and it has a a plethora of photos we took in her first couple days of life while at the hospital. But just below are a few of our favorites. It is crazy to us to see how much she changed in just a week!

While in the hospital, Eloise's jaundice levels were of course checked. When we left the hospital two days after she was born, they were borderline high, so we were told to meet with her pediatrician a couple days later to get checked again. So we did! Because her coloring was really yellow, the pediatrician had us go to the hospital and get a heel prick for Eloise. Her bilirubin levels were pretty high, borderline needing to have treatment with bili lights. But after going back for another heel prick (poor baby), they had started going down. Eloise was in the clear! It took a couple weeks for her skin to lose the yellow tint though.

Taken in the hospital

Though Dustan and I only call our girl by her full name Eloise (along with little pet names such as sweetie, darling, baby burrito, etc.), our siblings/Eloise's awesome new aunts and uncles decided that this name was too long and they often call her Loulou or Lou. Though we don't ever use this nickname, we think it is pretty cute and have approved of it.

First time in the car seat and taking a car ride!

Eloise experienced her first Thanksgiving at just three days old and was a total champ. She slept during the entire meal and got passed from person to person so everyone had the chance to eat. Dustan and I loved having both of our families stuffed into our tiny apartment to have Thanksgiving dinner all together.

Chilling in the sun on Thanksgiving

Walking around Temple Square at five days old

Here are some of our favorite newborn pictures we took when Eloise was eight days old. We had some fun trying out these cute baby pictures on our own--we've never done them before! We bought a fuzzy white blanket and used our boppy pillow and giant tupperware bins for posing. We're pretty happy with how they turned out :) And Eloise only pooped and peed on the blanket once! Haha

Though we don't have any experience with other infants, we feel like our Eloise is very alert and very strong for her age. Even at just one week old, she could be awake for hours at a time without getting fussy, and that time only increased as she got older. Eloise can hold her head up for longer periods of time than I would expect her to be able to, and sometimes her legs will bear most of her weight. Within just a week, Eloise could bob her head, and by the end of the month could hold it up fairly well--with only a little wobble--almost constantly.

First real bath!

Post bath fluffy hair

When Eloise is sleeping, she wants to be held. She was like that from the minute she was born. We tried putting her in the hospital bassinets to sleep for a little bit, but she never lasted more than 30 minutes. When we got home from the hospital, it was the same. Thankfully, my mom stayed at our apartment the first week and would take shifts holding her in the middle of the night. Once she left, Dustan and I would basically just have to take turns holding her all day and night in between feedings, because she wouldn't really sleep anywhere else. Eloise slowly got better and by the end of the month would often give us a single three hour stretch of sleep in her bassinet, though the rest of the night was still about the same, haha. And sometimes it would take an hour just to get her to sleep in the bassinet. An improvement!

Smiling in her sleep :)

Sleeps just like her daddy!

Below are pictures of Eloise's bassinet. She does not like her bassinet. She does not like sleeping on flat, still surfaces. She started to sleep a little bit better once we got this "Infant Lounger" from Grandma Kraus (basically a big pillow that's more shallow in the middle, kinda like a filled in Boppy). It helps her feel more like she is being held. I also read "Happiest Baby on the Block" and consequently committed to swaddling and using white noise every night, which also has helped.

I was all concerned about giving Eloise a bottle, because I didn't want her to refuse to breastfeed if she ended up liking the bottle better. I wanted to wait until she was about a month old to try out a bottle, but at four weeks old we would be driving eight hours to Colorado, and wanted Eloise to be able to take a bottle to make the drive easier. So at three and a half weeks we gave the bottle a try. She loved it (after some hesitation), but still continued to breastfeed. Yay!

Like I just mentioned, we drove to Denver area when Eloise was just four weeks old. She did so much better than we expected, to be honest. All she did was sleep and eat! We would feed her a bottle while driving then stop soon after so that we could burp her, change her diaper, and let her stretch a little. Eloise would fuss for a while when we got back in the car, but would fall asleep again within about 15 minutes.

Little cousins meeting for the first time! Just 12 days apart

We sure love our sweet little Eloise!! We love her curious eyes when she is awake, her feisty cries when she is hungry, her sleepy little smiles, and everything in between!