Juliette: One Month (well, really 6 weeks)

Juliette

6 weeks

11lbs 9oz (95%)

23 inches (90%)

Our delicious, squishy baby girl turned six weeks old on Tuesday! Thanksgiving set her 1 month doctor appointment back a little so we didn't get in for her checkup until that morning. Which just means that I get to talk about a few extra things she's picked up in these extra two weeks.

So far Juliette seems to be a pretty mellow baby. Unless she is hungry, gassy, or sleepy she is mostly very content. Even when she had her little bout of whatever-it-was yesterday (the pediatrician said it wasn't a virus/stomach flu, but she threw up after every feeding all day long!) she was happy or asleep, but never really crabby about losing her lunch (and breakfast, and dinner, and snacks).

She's got the schedule thing down pretty well, though I've been much more laid back about it with her than I was with Charlie. We'll get her on-the-clock a little more when she starts sleeping through the night, but so far I'm content with our only slightly varied routine.

At 6 weeks Juliette...

• Wears 3 month sized clothes (she outgrew her newborn clothes at around 2 weeks old), and fills them out nicely.
• Eats every 2.5 to 3 hours during the day, starting at around 6 or 7 depending on the morning. Her last feeding is usually around 9:30 or 10 at night, and then she typically sleeps until around 3am, takes a feeding, and then sleeps until her morning wakeup. Not bad! On occasion, however, she wakes up to eat every 3 hours during the night, too. We can tell when she is growing because she gets extra hungry! She is doing great with her eat, play, sleep routine and usually has waketime after every feeding now, except the 6:30 one before bedtime and the nighttime feed(s).
• Cries for about 5 minutes while she falls asleep and can nap in her crib, in the carseat, or in the pack-n-play.
• Nurses and can take a bottle (we started day one, and she practices with a bottle at least one feeding every day). She prefers to nurse, but she's cool with the bottle.
• Likes to look at windows, but loves to look at anything black (maybe for the high contrast?), especially ceiling fans. She also likes the slats on our headboard and the black Ikea bookcase.

Can you see what she is looking at so adoringly during her bottle?

• Does not like to have her arms handled. Few things make her angrier than having her arms put into sleeves. Really.
• Likes to spend her wakey time being held (she likes snuggles and also being held sitting up so she can practice holding her head up--which she also likes) or kicking around on a blanket.
• Is starting to smile much more easily! She gave her first smile to Daddy at a little over 4 weeks but she was a little withholding (except for a few she gave to the ceiling fan). After a few weeks of practice she smiles at us multiple times a day and is starting to coo and chat at us, too. It totally melts us.
• Is holding on to her most prominent nickname of "Squish," and also gets called "pretty baby" and "Jules" in addition to her real name. Gracie likes to call her "J" and "Sissy," but Charlie almost always calls her Juliette--he probably uses her real name the most out of all of us, which I find really cute.

We love playing with her and holding her, snuggling her while she sleeps and trying to coax coos and smiles out of her when she is awake. She is one of the most frequent topics of conversation around here. :)

The sibs are adjusting pretty well, though they both are struggling a little with having Mom & Dad's attention more divided than before. But they love baby sister. Charlie likes to talk to her and tells me things like, "Juliette likes me!" He's not as interested as Grace was at his age, but he definitely likes her and finds her interesting. Gracie likes to be very involved in taking care of her sister and asks to carry her (we let her carry her small distances, like from my arms to the changing mat or from one parent to the other), unsnap her for diaper changes, feed her, and anything else she thinks might be good to do. She even made us this "baby chrt" (based on the behavior chart she has at kindergarten, with purple being the highest "excellent" rating) to track how well each of us do at taking care of the baby:

As you can see, we got a LOT of check-pluses, but Gracie was ranked highest for good baby care, followed by Daddy, with me coming in third. Charlie gets a green, which is still very good. And Juliette got the lowest score for caring for herself, which seems appropriate at this point. (I agree with the yellow, though, since she sleeps pretty well at night and is generally cute/happy/fun.) I love the things big sister comes up with. :)