Sweet Baby

I'm leaning the ways in which Emma is a pretty cool baby. I didn't have much of a reference for what would make a good baby, except I hoped she would sleep. So let's start there. Emma seems to like sleeping, which is awesome. I've learned that "sleeping through the night" is considered a five hour stretch overnight, which she has been consistently sleeping for a while now. SO that's amazing. But here are some other ways that she's a good baby for us:

1. Latching for breastfeeding has been a difficult thing for us. This is due to multiple factors including her shoulder dystocia from her "traumatic birth," the fact that she was whisked away to the NICU and we didn't get to start latching right away, and the multiple IV ports she had to have, especially in her head. All that to say, we have a rough start and Dan and I made the decision to switch her to a bottle right before she turned four weeks old. She took to it like a champ. I knew it made feeding her more manageable for us because before that we had been feeding her with a syringe and it comfortably took two people to do so. What I didn't realize is that many babies don't take the first bottle offered to them. In fact, in one of the mom groups I've attended a couple of times, I heard many stories about moms having to by ten or more bottles and nipples before they found one their baby would take. What?! I had no idea! Go Emma for being so awesome with the first bottle we gave her.

2. We have managed to transition to using cloth diapers. After our weeklong stint in the hospital after she was born, when we got her home we decided not to change from disposable diapers right away. As time passed by, I became more and more overwhelmed with the idea of cloth diapering, even though I had felt mostly prepared beforehand. Over time, however, we made the shift to using both cloth diapers and wipes. And it's kind of awesome that when we're running low on either it's not, "Oh!! One of us has to go to the store!" Rather it's, "Oh! We need to do a load of laundry!" Something else I've learned since having Emma is that cloth diapers is another thing some babies are particular about. They prefer some styles to others and may not "do well" in certain types. Meaning that the money spent loading up on diapers prior to having a baby is sometimes wasted and the supply has to be sold secondhand as the parents find out what the baby will be comfortable in. Again, this has not been a problem with Emma at all. We chose one particular brand because we liked how they worked. In fact, we took a cloth diapering class because there were so many choices and we were clueless. We ended up agreeing right away on the one that we wanted to try and that's the only one we ever purchased. And, because our daughter is awesome, she has been fine with them from the get-go.

3. Sleep. I mentioned this above, but it's worth listing here once again. Emma has been sleeping 5+ hours a night consistently for a while now, and she's only just 10 weeks old. I've met moms whose babies/toddlers/children STILL aren't sleeping through the night. I met a mom who went two weeks not getting more than 20 minutes of sleep at a time! What?! I can't imagine that! So sleep has been a gift for us, one that I'm extremely grateful for. Also, a side effect of this one is that because she sleeps so deeply that when she's really soundly asleep, she can be handed to multiple people and she doesn't wake up. Which has been a great quality for her to have so far in a family that loves her so much and has so many people who want to snuggle with her

4. But! She does have her moments where she's pretty inconsolable for a while. When those moments come we have to do a combination of things to try and help. They include changing her, feeding her, doing her exercises from physical therapy to wear her out, and usually/ultimately putting her in the wearable baby carrier. So far, this last step has always won in the end. A friend of mine told e that one of her kids LOVED being put in this type of carrier while the other one HATED it. While I was pregnant, I begged the universe that Emma would be a part of the first type of kid. And so far, she has been. I hope she continues to like snuggles as she gets older.

So we're about two and a half months into parenthood and, so far, we're surviving. And I just wanted to take a moment and share the ways our daughter's amazingness is contributing to that.

Also, I really hope that some day I'll be able to tackle the task of writing about my birth experience. It's special and personal and I really want to document it. I think I'll need my hubby's help remembering all the details and the timeline. Something to look forward to!