One Month old

Pippa Monthly Review: Issue 1

• Welcome home Pippa! The transition from 3 to 4 is chaos and you are happy to add to that craziness.
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• Pippa currently weighs 9 lbs 6 oz which puts her in the 67th percentile. She is 21.6 inches long in the 79th percentile. But things weren't always looking so good. At her first doc check in at 3 days old, she had lost a full pound in 2 days. A 6.5 lbs baby! I've never known what that was like! They sorta freaked. All the babies have lost weight initially but then the doctor showed me signs of dehydration, so this was a bit more serious. Feedings every 2 hours around the clock plus immediate formula supplementing, 

• and things looked much better 2 days later. But these chicken legs...

• At the end of this first month, Pippa is still firmly in newborn diapers and clothes. Well, sleepers. We only own one newborn outfit because Maris wasn't really newborn sized so Pip spends most of her time in PJs. And as you can see from a lot of these pictures, they are hand me down PJs from Larkin who was the only baby close to her size. Hence this hideous bright orange sleeper which I remember buying right after Larkin was born because I was desperate to find some pajamas with zippers and not snaps. These were the only available and now all 4 babies have spent time in the blinding things.
• After those first 2 or 3 days of near constant sleeping Pippa definitely woke up. She sleeps mostly until about 1 or 2 am, then she's up again between 4 and 5am, and back down until I wake her up to take Watson to preschool at 9:00.

• She's sleeping mostly in the swaddle blanket (I don't even know where that one came from but it's warmer than our favorite Miracle Blanket so it's what we've used so far). We've tried all sorts of different positions and contraptions but it turns out number 4 is just the worst sleeper of the Taylor bunch.

• Napping varies. This first month she's done some decent 2 - 3 hour naps in the swing. 

• And of course she loves to nap anytime she's cuddled in someone's arms.

• In fact, that's where she spends a significant amount of time these days. Poor thing is not a happy girl unless she's being held and walked around.

• So we cuddle and cuddle. And your brothers and sister pitch in with some more cuddling too.

• First bath was a little traumatizing, but since then she has really gotten into them. She hangs out happy in the sling in the tub and sometimes Maris joins her for some fun.

• We keep trying with the pacifier, and it gets a little love if she is really upset. It works to calm her down, but we have to hold it in a bit.

• And then it pops out and she's done. It's not even something we mess with at night and THANK GOODNESS so far she goes back to sleep without any aids.

• Pippa's first outing was the Friday after she was born at 4 days old. She had been crying for 4 hours straight and it was getting close to "trip to the ER" freak out stage for this momma who hadn't slept in 4 days and was feeling the early pains of as (unknown)  UTI. Instead daddy took her to Kroger to get some gas drops.

Such a fun first outing. But it worked.

Well Pippa, you are a new experience for us. The house is a wreck, I haven't cooked dinner in a month, and the kids watch TV near constatnly becayse I'm too busy with you to give them any attention. And still our hearts are bursting with love for this new blessing. Believe it or not, I actually wouldn't want it any other way becuase it's making me soak up all this extra time with you and you will in no way get lost in the shuffle of being a fourth child. And I could just eat you up!!