Our first time around, I made intricate and adorable number signs for each month Eloise got older... Finley is our second child and will not be receiving the same treatment, haha. I'm hoping to get a picture of her sitting on our king sized bed each month though, to show how she is growing! And of course include lots of other pictures too <3
LIKES:
- Head rubs
- Baths
- Loooots of milk
- Sleeping while being held
- Sleeping in the Solly wrap
DISLIKES:
- Not being fed immediately when hungry
- Getting clothes changed
- Getting out of the bath
- The carseat when not in a moving car
- Sleeping on flat surfaces
FIRSTS/SKILLS:
- Thanksgiving and Christmas
- Rolled from front to back (at two weeks?!)
- Bottle
- Meeting most grandparents
- Actual smiling (four weeks)
RANDOM NOTES:
- Clothes size: Newborn
- Diaper Size: Newborn
- Wonderfully chill and relaxed as long as she is well fed :) She is so content to lay on the ground or in her bouncer and just look around for a bit and sleep.
- Very consistently eats every three hours, even over night. Was giving us some four hour stretches at night towards the end of the month though.
- Nicknames: Finn, Finny, Finny-babe, Finny Jen
- Not nearly as much hair on her head as Eloise, but more on her forehead hahah.
Here is a link to the blog post I wrote about Finley's birth, and here are a few of our favorite pictures from the hospital in case you don't want to look there :)
Finley is such a content, relaxed, and easily pleased little darling. So far, she has been a wonderful second child to compliment Eloise's more demanding nature haha. She is so sleepy and will even occasionally sleep in her bassinet without being held. Here are a few newborn pictures we took when Finn was about one week old :)
I suppose the easier labor and calm and happy baby did need to be balanced out with some hardships. After trying to get breastfeeding down for a couple days, it was starting to get painful, as it does with most women. But after another couple days, the pain just got worse and worse. So much worse than it ever was with Eloise which made me wonder if something might be wrong. It got bad enough that I decided to only nurse Finn once or twice a day, and pump and bottle feed the rest of the time. I had a lactation consultant come visit to try and help out, but Finley's latch didn't improve and there wasn't any difference in pain. The LC did recommend getting Finn checked for a lip or tongue tie though. We were finally able to get Finn in to see an ENT, who clipped a tongue tie on the spot.
 |
| First time in her carseat |
I was extremely hopeful that this would improve the breastfeeding. But I gave it another week and attempted to nurse Finley more during the day... Unfortunately, it didn't improve. I made an appointment to meet with another lactation consultant (with a company that came more recommended) another couple weeks later. So I'll update about that when it comes! In the meantime, I continued to breastfeed a couple times a day, and pumped and bottle fed the remainder of the time.
With all the bottle feeding, we have come to realize that Finn is a big eater! According to Google, at her age, Finn should be drinking about 1.5 to 3 ounces of breastmilk every three-ish hours. Finley consistently drinks 4 or 5 ounces every three hours, and in the evening or night has even put down 7 ounces! She is so tiny, I don't know where it all goes! And she rarely spits up. We're impressed. I can barely keep up with the pumping!
We used Babywise methods to navigate Lou's schedule once she was a couple months old and she has always been an amazing sleeper. We didn't follow any strict schedule with Finn here at the beginning, but just tried to start instilling some good habits with her. We try to follow a schedule of eat, wake time (which is so short right now haha), then sleeping. I try to make sure she eats at least every three hours during the day, which often means waking her up to eat. Doing this ensures she is getting a lot of milk during the day to encourage longer stretches of sleep at night because she shouldn't need to eat as often then. I keep her in a lot of bright, natural light during the day and keep things dark and quiet in white noise at night to start getting her days right. We also make sure to swaddle for all sleep time. Next month I'll start getting more concrete bedtimes and wake times and getting more of a schedule figured out.
Through nearly all of Finley's first month of life, we had family visiting and helping out. It was so wonderful to have Dustan's mom or my mom take Lou out and entertain her so I could focus more solely on taking care of Finley and bonding with her.
 |
| Christmas Day |
