Three Months with Sadie Rose

This little girl is pure Heaven, and today she officially hit the three month mark! I’d love to share a little bit about our big girl and how things have been going, if you’re interested. 🙂

On eating

Come Hell or high water, I was determined to make breastfeeding work for us (lots of very personal reasons why, but you guys know that I’m a-okay with pumping or formula if that works best for you! It did for Hadley and me.) The first two weeks were excruciatingly painful, but I tearfully pushed through and I’m glad I did. I’m sure you’ve noticed that our tiny baby at birth has developed some fabulously adorable baby rolls thanks to her hearty appetite. For the first two months she was eating for 15 minutes nearly every hour during the day (and then every three hours at night.) Now she eats about every two hours for about 10 minutes at a time, waking up once or twice at night.

On sleeping

A couple weeks ago I shared about Sadie’s transition from co-sleeping to her crib, and that’s still going well. She sometimes fights naps in her crib occasionally during the day because she’d rather sleep in my arms, but she really loves her crib at night. She’s almost always asleep at night by 8:30 and awake between 6:30-7 a.m. She still wakes up once or twice (usually around 2 a.m. and 4:30 or just once around 3) to eat, and I strangely don’t mind it. This may sound totally bananas, but I’m actually treasuring the quiet middle of the night moments rocking and feeding her. She always lets out this sweet sigh of relief when I go in to pick her up to feed her, and I love rocking and snuggling her as she falls back asleep in my arms.

On routines

I think she’s starting to put herself on a schedule, but I know things are constantly changing. The last few days she’s taken about an hour-long nap starting sometime between 9-11 a.m. and then naps again around 1:30 p.m. for 2-3 hours. Bath time is between 6:30-7 p.m., then we move right into applying lotion, putting on jammies, and nursing on and off until she falls asleep. We’ve also started reading to her at night when Jamie or I is up to it.

On playing

Sadie really enjoys kicking and cooing while sitting in her  outside or in the kitchen while I’m cooking dinner. She also really enjoys playing on her on our bed. We’ve started giving her more soft toys to grab and play with, and she’s becoming much more interested. Also, she absolutely loves when Jamie or I prop our knees up and rest her against our legs to talk to her while swaying back and forth. Oh, she melts me.

What makes her happy

The power of a baby’s smile is nothing short of a miracle. It puts me in this euphoric place I can’t even explain. She flashes the biggest smile when she locks eyes with someone, if we laugh at her after she lets out a big #2, or if she catches her image in her mirror on her play mat.

What makes her unhappy

Sadie likes to be held or to sit on our laps a lot, so being put down when she wants to be with us is a big no-no in her book! She also dislikes red stop lights, especially if we’re heading home and it’s time to eat. Otherwise she’s a very happy girl!

How I’m really doing

Honestly, the first six weeks were really hard. Breastfeeding was so difficult, sending Jamie back overseas was much more painful on my heart than I anticipated, I was getting very little sleep, moving 800 miles back home to Kansas and resettling was a big production, and just plain adjusting to two small kids was hard emotionally and physically. Plus, hormonal postpartum changes are no joke. Whew, buddy. If any of my readers are in the newborn stage right now and struggling, you are not alone. As one of my girlfriends once told me: “Nobody has a baby so that they can relish in the newborn stage forever.” GOD BLESS my mom, dad, sister, and mother-in-law for helping me and “putting up with me” during this time. I’ll be thanking them forever for helping us out so much while Jamie was gone.

Around the eight week mark we started to hit a really smooth stride. I’d recently picked back up with jogging, Sadie became much more happy and less fussy, we welcomed Jamie home, breastfeeding became routine, co-sleeping was giving me more shut-eye, etc. One of my blog readers (Hi, Diane!) gave me a piece of advice before Sadie was born that’s helped tremendously while adjusting to two children. She said that when both Sadie and Hadley are fussing and need something, try to tend to Hadley first. She’s the bigger one and will recognize if I’m always tending to Sadie. On the other hand, the baby will never remember if I let her fuss for two extra minutes while I get my big girl situated with what she needs. This advice has been a game-changer.

I’ve also realized that our best days are the days when we have an hour-long morning activity and then stay home the rest of the day. The girls enjoy a slow morning, we get out of the house for a little while between Sadie’s feedings, come home for lunch, and then enjoy a slow-paced afternoon and evening.

Chaos ensues when we’ve planned too much, planned something that’s poorly timed, or planned too little (i.e. Hadley and I both go stir crazy… bad combo.)

Sadie Rose, you are a mama’s dream and I love you so much, it hurts!

Favorites

I have four of and have lived in them for three months. I wear one every day.

has worked out well and is inexpensive.

Sadie has done well drinking from

Honest Company wipes are incredible! A pack lasts so much longer than any other brand of wipes we’ve used. Worth the extra money (in my opinion) because we don’t go through them nearly as fast. Two thumbs up.

PS: Sadie’s Birth Story