Flora James’ 1 Month Update

The past month has equally crept by and flown by at the same time. I think being cooped up inside 24/7 has something to do with it :) I’m too paranoid of cold & flu season to venture out too much with Flora yet and am so looking forward to warmer weather, sometime in the near future I hope! Flora is such a good baby and is still sleeping much of the day, while I appreciate being able to get stuff done and give Piper lots of attention I’m also eager to see her personality develop more!

Weight & Length

At our last doctor’s appointment a week ago Flora was 8lbs and gaining weight so great, which I’m SUPER excited about since Piper was always in the 5th percentile! I don’t have her length but she’s slowly growing out of her newborn size sleepers. Her feet are so long we joke about them all the time!

Feeding

Nursing is going great and has been from the start which I feel very fortunate about. I think a lot of it has to do with me being a second time mom and having been through this before. For the most part Flora is still feeding every 2-3 hours. Unless she’s taking a really good nap its more like every 2 hours on the DOT. Girlfriend can eat. Unfortunately she’s developed reflux and has been spitting up, the first week was bliss with nursing and no spit ups. I had a glimpse of life with a non-reflux baby – as a reminder Piper had huge spit ups with each feed and pretty much ALL day (I was dairy & soy free for a year due to her GI allergy and she was also eventually put on medication for the reflux which helped immensely). And it felt so EASY but now we are back to working on keeping her upright for at least 20 minutes after a feed and I’ve been trying to nurse her in an upright position

Development

Flora is a true angel baby. She sleeps and eats and has been awake more and more in the past week for little pockets of time. She rarely cries unless something is wrong and we can usually figure it out quickly. We feel SO lucky! She does love to be held and I’m slowly trying to work on getting her to nap in her bassinet or at least the rock & play more than on us, but its hard to resist cuddling with her since I know how quickly this time flies by. She’s given us a few smiles :)  She doesn’t mind tummy time and lifts her neck so well already, she actually started doing it in the hospital! Overall I’d say she’s a much more relaxed baby than Piper and I think that’s because we are so much more relaxed this time and confident with our parenting.

Sleeping

During the day we don’t have any type of routine or schedule but for the most part Flora will eat, be up for about 3o minutes, sometimes longer and then nap for about 1.5 hours. I haven’t been tracking her sleep or trying to get into too much of a routine yet but I’m going to probably between 5-6 weeks to prepare for us to go back to work/reality. As I mentioned in my sleep update earlier this week – Flora’s pretty consistently sleeping every night from 11/12am – 4/5am every night and then sleeps again until 7 or 7:30am in the morning. I’ll probably slowly work on making her bedtime earlier but right now it’s working so well that I don’t want to mess with it!

What We Are Loving

Here are a few things we are loving in month one with Flora!

Rock & Play: Again this has proved to be something we can’t live without! Flora naps in it all the time, it’s a great spot to set her if we need to wash our hands, help Piper with something etc. Such a lifesaver.

Burt’s Bees Burp Cloths: I have a basket stocked with these at all times!

Dreft Stain Remover: This works so well to remove poop stains, which we have plenty of!

SwaddleMe Swaddles: Only swaddle we are using right now but I’m going to be testing several and sharing the results soon!

Cloud Island from Target + Old Navy Sleepers: Flora is in these 24/7 and they are great for night changes.

Blooming Bath Tub: We can’t find our beloved PUJ Tub (the best bathtub for infant until they are ready for the tub) so I picked this one up on a whim at Target and it’s proved to be great for a newborn, I love that its so soft for her right now.

Crane Humidifier: Our house is soooo dry that we bought yet another humidifier on Amazon last week and this one is by far my favorite, we keep it in our bedroom running all day.

Mustela No Rinse Cleanser: I used this with Piper because she spit up so much and it’s been great again to wipe down Flora with between baths.

Solly Wrap: I’ve been using this daily around the house and when we venture out! I couldn’t live without it.