Oh my goodness, is the first month at home with a newborn a blur or what?! Adjusting to life as a Party of Five is challenging enough; now let's throw sleep deprivation and raging hormones in to the mix! Seriously though, I am coming through the fog and can hear the song, "I can see clearly now" playing in my head. If Merritt were not such an incredibly wonderful baby, I might just lose my mind. But, you see, she is; and the good Lord knew that's what this ole' girl would have to have. Let me tell you just how wonderful she is.
From the first night we brought her home from the hospital the most this baby ever woke up in the night was one time. When we took Merritt for her two day check up, she was not quite back up to her birth weight; she weighed 8 lbs 6 oz. Because of this, our pediatrician wanted us to wake her up every 4 hours, even through the night. That was fine, until we started noticing her wanting to sleep longer at night. She was 3 weeks, 5 days old when she gave us our first 8 hours of sleep. I started taking her for weekly weight checks at my mother in law's doctor's office just to make sure she was gaining enough weight, since we were letting her sleep so much longer than the doctor advised. Turns out, she was gaining weight beautifully so I didn't need to worry about letting her sleep at night.
Merritt still ate five times per day at one month old, but as she slept longer and longer at night, it was getting more difficult to fit in that fifth bottle. She seems to stay awake more than our other two kids did, but I'm totally fine with that since she sleeps like a rock star at night. She is still sleeping in her bassinet for the time being, but we did move her into her bedroom. Now that Justin and the kids get up for work and school so early, we wanted to let Merritt sleep as long as she could. We purchased a sound machine for the first time and keep it on the ocean setting. Merritt absolutely loves it and it drowns out all the noise from the rest of our busy family. We will transfer her over to her crib when we come home from vacation. Her days consist of laying in her bouncy seat or on her fuzzy bear rug, when she's not snuggling with Mommy, of course. She rarely ever cries and is just a dream come true. I can't believe this sweet baby has already been with us for a month. You're probably going to hear this a lot over the course of the next year, but this third baby has been the biggest blessing to our family. I already cannot imagine our lives without her. We love you, sweet Merritt!
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