Week 3 updates

As of Sept 24, baby Allison is 3 weeks old! We can definitely see that she is growing bigger. Feeding time in general is noticeably easier now that she doesn't fall asleep while feeding like she used to.

Night time feeding has gotten a lot easier due to several possible reasons. 1) We started using this straitjacket, err, SwaddleMe outfit which has velcro tabs to secure the tightness in place. The logic I think is that if/when she wakes up slightly, her body won't move around too much as to fully wake her up. 2) I moved her from sleeping in our room to her own room, so that I get up to feed her only when I hear her cry for real, as opposed to the noise she makes before the real cry that I used to respond to. Waiting for her to cry works because a) I'll know she really is hungry whereas the other noise could have just been b/c of something else which she might have gone back to sleep on her own b) crying means she wakes herself up and wants to feed, as opposed to me "bothering her" while she was sleeping. The problem I had before was that while feeding in the middle of the night, she would not eat enough and would cry hysterically because she wants to go back to sleep.

Lately, she has been behaving really well. Less hysterical crying, more calmness. Perhaps it's because we are getting more familiar with her and know better how to take care of her (feed/clean/rock to sleep) before she gets to the hysterical state. Of course if we don't do what she wants fast enough, she gets hysterical. The harder times are when she still cries even though we have done all that we can think of (at which we then resort to a pacifier). During the day, she wants to be held, which makes sense for a newborn. Also, I'm pleased that I figured out a way to rock her to sleep that she responds to - hold her tightly on her side facing my body, one hand under her, supporting her neck, and one hand over her, supporting her bottom + walking around. The natural bounce in my step reminds her of when she was inside my womb while I was walking.

Sometimes, she'll sleep for a 4 hour stretch during the night, which is great. One time, I got a 6 hour stretch, which is unbelievable for a newborn! Right now I am doing everything on demand and wonder how I/she will transition to a schedule based routine.

I love how she looks like a little person in pants :)