Autumn – Month 1
So the first month as a family of four has passed. It actually went really quickly. We spent a lot of time as a family as my husband was on paternity leave for the whole month and we did lots of fun things with Austin too. The adjustment from one to two children was pretty quick and we seem to have settled into the new way of things quite well. I’ve recovered from Autumn’s birth quickly and luckily have felt pretty good from day one. She’s been a really lovely baby so far and although she obviously cries, she generally is quite easy to satisfy most of the time. Apart from her ‘witching hour’ which is anytime between 5 – 8pm when she’s tired and finding it hard to settle.
Sleeping
Autumn so far seems to be quite a good sleeper. For the first three weeks of her life, that’s all she did. I’d have to wake her at night to make sure she fed and then during the day she would sleep, wake after an hour or two, feed and then go back to sleep. After the first three weeks, she did become a bit more alert and she now stays awake for between one and one and a half hours before needing a nap.
I wouldn’t say she’s in a routine yet, but she likes to sleep in until about 8am and then generally goes back down for a nap at about 9:30ish. Then I just watch for her sleep cues, normally which come about an hour or an hour and a half after she’s woken up and then she goes back down for a nap.
In the evenings, we try and put her down for bed between 6:30 and 8:30pm, depending on when she is tried, but she has been a bit restless some nights, so we haven’t got her off to sleep until gone 9pm. Other nights, we’ve had both children in bed asleep by 7pm, and it’s been a quiet night just the two of us, which is amazing with a one-month-old baby.
Austin was much more unsettled at the one-month mark. He would wake up much earlier in the morning and he was much more clingy. The weather was a lot hotter a couple of weeks after he was born which I don’t think helped. She also loves to be swaddled up in a sleeping bag and she definitely sleeps better like that. I notice we have some hotter weather on the way in the next week so we’ll have to wait and see how that affects her.
Feeding
Autumn is getting on with breastfeeding quite well. At first, she seemed to mess around whilst latching, but I think some of it was head control and reflexes. Now she’s a pro and doesn’t expose me out in public too much. I’ve been able to express some milk and she’s happily taken it from a bottle. Plus we give her one bottle of formula at the 10/11pm feed to help keep her a little fuller and to give me a little break as I feed her on the boob overnight. She isn’t a big drinker, when it comes to the formula, drinking around 2 – 3 oz at that feed. Her breastfeeds are also much shorter than Austin’s were, so I’m guessing she is overall drinking less than him. She is a much smaller baby though.
Nappies
Changing nappies has been much better this time round. Unbeknown to us, Austin at this age had a urine infection, so he was fussy when he weed. She isn’t fussy at all, so we just change her nappies every couple of hours or whenever she does a poo. Austin used to poo all the time, she stores it up a little more, so we have had a lot more poonamis than we ever did with him. I’m getting quite good at stain removal.
She absolutely hates having her nappy changed – or getting undressed in general, and cries pretty much all the way through, so nappy changing is a speedy process to limit the distress.
Mental Development
Autumn was a very chilled and sleepy baby right until about she turned four weeks old, so she had no interest in people, toys, shapes or anything else. She just wanted to be cuddled, fed and be asleep. It’s only been in the last week of the month that we’ve actually started putting her down on the playmat and getting toys out. She is starting to show an interest in contrasting colours on the walls and there’s a monkey on her playmat which she seems quite interested in. She’s also got a Lamaze doll which my best friend bought her which she adores and stares at for quite a while if we get it in her eye line.
She also enjoys her cot mobile and watches it going around above her head. She’s quite good at tracking the moving animals on it.
She’s also started smiling in the last couple of weeks ago and it’s lovely when she does.
Physical Development
Autumn had a 9% drop in her birth weight, which is considered quite a lot, but she gained it back in just over three weeks. She was 7lb 4oz when she was born. She also seems quite long. Looking at photos of her and Austin, although she is a much smaller baby, she seems to be longer in the legs. She is slimmer in the body and she’s still in newborn clothes at the one-month mark.
She’s quite strong in the legs and can get up on her knees. She can also roll onto her side. Her arms aren’t very strong yet but she is starting to lift her head more during tummy time. Her eyes are still blue. Austin’s at this stage had already turned brown, so who knows whether they will stay blue or turn brown at a later date. Watch this space.
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