Ava: 1 Month

Ava is one month old!

Sometimes I can't believe it's already been a month and sometimes I can't believe it's only been a month. I have a feeling this whole child-rearing thing is going to bring new meaning to the phrase "the days were long but the years were short."

One thing is for sure though: we're head over heels for this little one.

Here's a bit about our sweet girl at one month:

Clothing: 0-3 and some 3 months. Almost all of her newborn clothes are too small now.

Eating: like a champ. She's exclusively breastfed and has been steadily gaining 2 oz a day (the norm is half an ounce to an ounce a day). Enter: those adorable chunky cheeks.

Sleep - Nighttime: it takes a few tries to get her down at night but once she's down she does pretty well, waking every 3-4 hours to eat. She's usually finally out around 10:00, then up twice during the night to eat, then we sleep in a bit until 8 or 9 (sometimes 10). 

Sleep - Naps: she usually takes a short morning snooze or two and then a longer lunchtime/afternoon nap. In the evening we can usually get a catnap from her while we're fixing dinner. But really, every day is different and she likes to keep us on our toes.

Activity: in the morning, we usually play on her play mat for a bit, do some tummy time, read a story, or look at black and white pattern flash cards. In the afternoon we try to get out of the house -- either meeting Lee for lunch, going to our breastfeeding support group or just taking a stroll around the neighborhood.

Crying: I'm not going to lie, she cries a lot (or at least it seems that way to me). I think we got lucky with the eating and sleeping, so maybe the crying is where we pay for it? Sometimes she's just cranky and nothing seems to soothe her. Sometimes she's fussy in the morning and she's almost always fussy at night. For a while there, it seemed like she was either eating, sleeping or crying. But in the past few days she's been rewarding us with more non-crying alert time. Which brings me to...

Milestones: imitating, coo'ing and smiling! She tries to copy whatever facial expression we're making or if we're sticking our tongues out she'll stick hers out too. And last week she "coo'ed" at me for the first time. It was clearly a coo and not one of the many grunts/cries she usually makes.  And we're seeing more and more smiles, although she's still a bit stingy with them. And they're usually at totally random times or when she's nodding off, not in relation do anything we've done that she's reacting to.

She had her one month check up today and the pediatrician said everything looked good. She's now 75th percentile for weight and 50th for length.

Here's a snapshot of Ava by the week:



She's definitely growing and changing every day. We can't wait to see what the next month has in store for us!