The Knowles Clan Visits
Grandma and Grandpa Knowles and Great Grandma Glady from frigid Canada have been out to visit for the past week. It’s been a flurry of activity and many new people for Izzy to get to know. Our visitors are leaving tomorrow morning, but we’re hoping it won’t be long before we’re able to see them again!
Today Izzy is one month old. It’s been one crazy month figuring out how this parenting thing works! Just when you think you’ve got things figured out, things change again and you have to adjust with it.
Here are some pictures from Izzy’s first month in the world. She got her first bath, put on her first dress and spent her first full 6 hours asleep at night in her new swing from Grandma and Grandpa Knowles. (We were so happy to finally get a good sleep in!)
Dunstan Baby Language
I’ve had a few people tell me about this Dunstan Baby Language system that was featured on Oprah’s show awhile ago. This system was created by Aussie, Priscilla Dunstan who says that she’s figured out what babies’ cries mean. Seeing that Izzy has been crying quite a bit recently I purchased the DVD to see what this system had to say.
Honestly, I’m not sure if the DVD is worth the retail price, especially because there were only 5 words and reading about them would have been just as helpful. So for those of you interested, here’s the information in a nutshell:
Always listen to the beginning of the baby’s cry, before she starts to freak out. If your baby says more than one of the words in her cry, identify the word that’s said most often and use that to help calm your baby.
- “Neh” means “I’m hungry or need to suck”. Listen for the “N” sound at the beginning of the baby’s cry.
- “Eh” means “I need to be burped because I have upper gas pain”. I’ve found a good way to burp is to support your baby’s head while bouncing her gently on your knee. This helps the little gas bubbles to rise to the top and come out.
- “Eairh” means “I have lower gas pain” in which case you can use infant massage or colic holds to help to rid the gas.
- “Owh” means “I’m tired”. With this cry you’re looking for an oval shaped mouth when your baby says this word.
- “Heh” means “I’m uncomfortable”, so check for a dirty diaper, change the position of your baby or she may be overstimulated so move your baby to a calmer environment.
After watching the DVD Luke and I tried to identify some of these words with Izzy’s cries. Right away we started to hear “Eh” and “Eairh”, which are actually the words she says most often. However, we think that those words may also mean “Hold me” to her. The other word I hear quite often is “Neh”. Occasionally I’ll hear “Owh” and “Heh”. Sometimes acting on the words we hear helps to calm her, sometimes it doesn’t help at all, but that’s when we just take a deep breath and say “She’ll grow out of this phase…”
2 Weeks
Isabelle went for her two week check-up yesterday. She’s regained her birth weight so she’s back up to 7 lbs, 1 oz. She’s now 21 inches long. Weight wise she’s in the 10th percentile and length wise she’s in the 75th percentile. So Luke and I think that she’s going to be a tall skinny girl when she grows up.
Izzy is still crying quite a bit whenever we put her down. She’s definitely happiest when someone’s holding her. Sometimes I’ll try to put her down when I think she’s asleep and 10 minutes later she’ll be crying. We’ve noticed that she’s now more aware and awake more during the day. She usually gets up for the day around 8am and stays awake for a couple hours. At noon or 1pm she’ll usually take a nap, then in the evening she’s up until about 8pm. When she’s up she loves staring at our faces and has started to do a little baby talk.
As promised, here are some pictures…including one of Izzy in a pink outfit, which still doesn’t really fit her. In fact none of her clothes really fit cause she’s still pretty tiny.
The Human Pacifier
I’ve decided that my new job title should be “Mommy-The Human Pacifier”. I’ve figured that I spend probably 4 hours a day being the “Human Pacifier/Bottle” since Isabelle will nurse at least 8 times a day for at least 30 minutes a time. So being a “Human Pacifier” is actually equivalent to a part time job. On the upside, it sure beats pumping milk where you’re developing an intimate relationship with plastic bottles rather than your baby.
Luke and I have learned that when Izzy is awake she likes to be held and cuddled with. If we put her down to try to get her to nap she’ll scream bloody murder. Seriously, her face will turn bright red/purple because she’ll do a silent scream for like 5-10 seconds at a time without breathing! So my new best friend is the baby sling. If she’s awake and wants to be held, in she goes to the baby sling and I can walk around and do household chores. If it’s bedtime though, she’ll fall asleep best on either Luke or my chest which we then will carefully move her over to her cradle hopefully without waking her. When she does start to fall asleep she makes some pretty funny faces. She’ll pout her lips, make fishy faces, smile a little or scrunch up her face.
I haven’t been able to take very many pictures the last few days. I’ll make an effort to post some pictures the next time I write.
The Nursery
This weekend Luke put together the crib and we finally finished the nursery! Isabelle hasn’t spent a full night in her crib yet. We’ve found that she likes sleeping in her little rocker or the car seat the best. Whatever works to get her to sleep! Here are pictures of the finished nursery.
Side note: My sister pointed out that this nursery looks like a boy’s room. Okay, I’ll admit, it does somewhat because of the blue walls. I was going to repaint the walls to be more of a bright yellow or orange-ish color, but realized that it was going to be so much work to prime and repaint that room. So I left it blue since it matched the bedding. Perhaps in the next nursery I’ll make it look a little less “boy-ish”.
Getting to Know Izzy
It’s now the end of our first week with little Izzy. Our first night home with her was not easy. She cried all night long and there was no comforting her. Luke and I were so worried that every night was going to be like that, however things have gotten better. We’ve learned that she really only cries if she’s hungry, and once she gets some food she’ll just go straight back to sleep.
Nursing has been a challenge which I never expected. I was worried earlier this week that she would have to be formula fed, but now with a week under our belt things seem to be working out a little better. There’s still some learning to do on both Izzy and my part, but at least it’s progress.
Michelle flew back home yesterday so now it’s really Luke and I on our own. It was so nice to hang out with my sister, and she was a great help! Now that our guest/nursery room has been vacated we can set up the crib and really give Izzy a place of her own. It’s getting a little tight in our bedroom with all the baby stuff. It’s amazing how much stuff is needed for such a tiny little thing.
Luke learned an important lesson the other day while changing a poopy diaper. Always put a diaper underneath the baby after removing the dirty one. Oh yes, Izzy made a mess everywhere… There was poop on the floor, poop on the changing table, poop and pee in the car seat, and poop on Luke. Poor Luke!