One Month Old!

My how the time flies!  Today you are about 5 and a half weeks old!  You are getting cuter by the minute! You, your Grammy, and I all went shopping today, and we bought a Flip!  Now I can take video snippets of your development every day, as the Flip fits so nicely in my purse!

BABY STATS:

Sleep: Your sleep is still pretty erratic.  Most nights you sleep for 2-3 hour stretches. You are breastfed, so you require food about every 2-3 hours.  Sometimes, if we are lucky, you will sleep for a 4 hour stretch!  A lot of times in the morning, after you are fed, you make whiney/grunting noises for the rest of the morning until we wake up for the day.  I hope this stops soon, because it sounds like you are uncomfortable and it keeps us both awake!  Last night (June 30th), we put you in your crib to sleep for the first time.  I was very nervous about you sleeping in a separate room, and watched you often on the video monitor.  But, your pediatrician was the one who suggested we start having you sleep in your crib, so we are trying it out!

Daily Routine:  We haven't established too much of a routine yet, but know that we need to work on this soon.  I imagine it will eventually be something like: bath, eat, book, sleep.  Right now you are usually going to bed around 10:30 or 11:30 after your final feeding for the day, then we change you, swaddle you, and lay you down to sleep.  When we wake up you eat, we look at books, dance to O Pato, have tummy time, and chat.

Feedings:  You are breastfed exclusively, so it is hard to say how much you eat in a sitting.  However, whenever I pump a bottle for you, you tend to eat about 3-4 ounces.  You eat about once every 2-3 hours.

 

Weight:  

At birth: 7 lbs 3 oz

1 Month: 10 lbs!

Length:

At birth: 19.75 inches

1 Month: 21 inches

Diaper Size:  You are a size 1, but we hope to have you off of disposable diapers and on to your cloth diapers as soon as possible.  Unfortunately, you have a horrible diaper rash, and we can't use your diaper rash cream with the cloth diapers.  :(

Clothes Size:  You mostly wear 0-3 month onesies, but today we found that you fit some of your 3-6 month onesies!

Hair Color:

At birth: dark brown/black with a small blond streak in the front

1 Month:  same, maybe slightly lighter

Eye color:

At birth: dark blue/gray 

1 Month:  dark blue outer ring, with a lighter blue on the inside

Funniest Moment:  Well, I'm sorry, my child, but I had to call you an idiot this week.  I was playing with you on the floor when out of nowhere you started screaming.  I inspected you and saw that your fist was balled up by your head.  I tried to pull your hand down, but realized the reason you were crying -- you had gotten a hold of your hair in your fist and were pulling your own hair!  Poor guy, no wonder your were in pain!  You will understand the humor of this situation when you learn that your family is all about the schadenfreude. 

Milestones:  You seem to have excellent motor skills!  You have been holding your head pretty steady for a very long time, since birth, and getting stronger!  

You are able to support some weight on your legs, and when you are on your tummy, if I put my hand behind your feet, you can kick off and move several inches forward!

You had your first social smile in the last week or so (around 4 weeks old)!  You are showing more and more social smiles as the days go by!  I love them!  You are so so so cute!  You smile most in the mornings.

You are following objects and faces with your eyes.

You are much more alert and interested in the world around you, although you were pretty alert from the start!

Your favorite toys:  You don't seem to have any favorite objects right now.  You do seem to enjoy looking at a couple of board books that have high contrast black and white pictures as well as a board book with a bunch of baby faces.

Firsts:  Everything this month was a first for you!

First bath

First outing to:

Botanical Gardens (every week since you have been born, sometimes more than once a week)

Target

Walgreens

Schnucks

Trader Joe's

Grammy and Grumps'

Grandpa and Grandma's

Jenn and Tim's

Costco

Chris' Aunt Susan's visitation

Steak n' Shake

Onesto

Chimichanga's

Tower Grove Park

Urban Chestnut Brewing Company

Doctor (mine and yours)

Al Waha

Tower Grove Creamery

And more (I'm sure!)

First smile

First night in your crib

Here you are grunting in your car seat at REI -- this is what you sound like every morning.

We love you, Elliott!  We love watching you grow and change -- but you are doing it so/too quickly!