Tenley Louise || One Month Old

Beautiful Tenley Louise is 1 month old already!  It has been the fastest month on record.  Here's what Tenley is up to at 1 month old.

Sleep:  Tenley is still in newborn mode where she does a lot of sleeping with no schedule, rhyme or reason.  She falls asleep for the night usually between 9 and 10 and wakes up once or twice a night.  Sometimes it's as early at 1:15, sometimes she'll make it until closer to 4:00.  If she's up between 1 and 2 then she'll be up between 5 and 6 for her second nighttime feeding.  We have noticed that now when she is awake during the day she is more 'with it'.  Not so much open eyes staring into nothingness, now it's open eyes really seeing things and looking around and taking in her surroundings.  The first sign she's leaving the newborn stage.  I'm anxiously and not patiently waiting for our first smiles while she is awake!

Eating:  We are 100% breastfeeding.  Tenley nurses every 3-4 hours during the day.  She will cluster feed in the evenings sometimes but it doesn't usually equate to longer sleep at night for either of us.  This past weekend she was being a very fussy eater, wouldn't stay latched on, would do her tiny little cute scream at me and just wouldn't be satisfied.  I had plenty of milk so I'm not sure what that was all about.  Yesterday she was back to normal, latching on for the entire feeding and seeming much happier about it. Now we just need to get her back to nursing for 10 minutes per side so she fills her tummy and gets to that hind milk.

Play:  Tenley is still too little to really play, but she seems to like laying on her playmate looking around.  Her playtime consists of laying quietly looking around her, taking in all she can.  And then her big bruiser of a brother, Tate, comes along.  He absolutely LOVES snuzzling her.  He'll rub her head, point out all of her features, baby talk to her (which I can't get enough of), say "Hi-eee" to her over and over, and get his face as close to hers as possible.  She takes as much of it as she can until finally letting out a little yell, which is when I finally rescue her.  The whole interaction just makes me giggle, I wish I could catch it on video sometime so I never forget it.

Big Brothers:  Tenley has survived being stepped on by Aiden and picked up and carried (without my permission) by Tate.  Now the stories:  Aiden was walking over to me and somehow didn't notice Tenley was laying on her playmate and totally stepped on her little foot.  She was quite the drama queen and was quite inconsolable about it.  I saw the whole thing happen and Aiden barely grazed her foot so it really couldn't have hurt that much.  I laugh when I remember her little face all pouty, just begging for sympathy.  And Tate.  After lunch one day I was getting Tate down from his booster seat.  I sat him down and walked over to get a diaper to change him.  I had my back turned for literally 4 seconds, max!  As I turned back around there was Tate with Tenley, bear hugging her across his chest, carrying her towards me.  My heart stopped!!!  I just calmly walked up to him and grabbed her from him. She was wide awake but didn't make a peep - must not have been too scary for her.  But oh my, I think he shaved a few years off my life with that little trick!  Besides these 2 incidents she has adjusted to life with 3 big brothers. And they have adjusted to life with a little baby sister.  They all dote on her, it's a very sweet sight.

Other:  2 weeks ago we started Tenley on Zantac for acid reflux.  All 3 of her big brothers had it so we were ready when the symptoms showed up.  She has not gotten used to the medicine and gags every time we give it to her with the dropper. We tried putting it in a bottle nipple but she saw right through that because it tastes funny to her.  Yesterday morning I pumped a little and put her medicine in 1 oz of breast milk in a bottle and tried feeding it to her that way -- she took it!!!  She drank that bottle like she'd been taking a bottle ever since day 1! I was so excited!  So now, if I can get enough pumped, we'll be giving her the medicine with breast milk in a bottle.  Yay! And maybe, because of this, she will be able to take a bottle if ever I need to be away from her.

Stats
Weight: 2 weeks ago she weight 9lbs 12oz so I am guessing she is firmly in the 10 pound range

Height: again, 2 weeks ago she measured in at 21 1/2 " and I know she has stretched out even more because she is pushing out the footies in her sleepers

Diaper size: We used up the Newborn diapers just over a week ago and moved up to size 1's because we didn't figure she would last through another package.  Andy got out the size 1's, put it on and exclaimed "These are granny panties!"  Ha ha, they were much bigger than the newborn size but they are doing a good job of keeping everything 'in' so we went ahead with the 1's.  

Clothes size: Tenley is still in 0-3 month clothes!!!  This is exciting to me because Tate was out of this size by the end of week 1 and the bigger boys were out of this size around the 1 month mark.  One piece sleepers are getting small in the length but she still has a little more time in them.  2 piece outfits, though, have a lot of wear life left in them!

One month old, we can't believe it!  Having Tenley has completed our family and made life even better than it was before!  Sometimes I sit and hold Tenley and just cry over how happy I am to have her here.  Other times I sit and hold her and just giggle at the cuteness that is Tenley.  I find myself sitting and staring at her all the time, and am never quick to lay her down when she falls asleep - I just want to savor every second of her.  I am having so much fun dressing her and putting bows in her hair. Saturday at the boy's church Christmas program we dressed Tenley up in her Christmas dress (I figured we should get some use out of it) -- oh my goodness, was she precious!  I'll share pictures of her in the dress at Christmas.  But, a tiny baby in flouncy Christmas plaid - swoon!!!

I could go on and on and gush about little Tenley Louise all day but instead I'll end this here.