Siena August Rose | 1 Month Old

One month old already! The time that little miss Siena has been apart of our family has flown by. I feel like she should only be a week old not a month. She has been the perfect addition and I can't imagine life without her. She is just the s w e e t e s t baby. For the most part, she only cries when she is hungry. When she awake she is content and loves to look at her crazy brother who is always in her face saying, "HI baby!!" haha.

She is perfectly healthy which is such a relief after her heart murmur scare. When we were being released from the hospital the paediatrician heard a murmur but wasn't sure if it was just her heart continuing to change after birth and it would be gone by her 2 day check up. I brushed it off and didn't worry since she didn't seemed worried. At her 2 day appt. her murmur was louder and sounded different. At that point they urgently wanted an appointed for an echo and seemed very concerned. I of course lost it...I was so upset and worried that something could be wrong with my brand new, perfect baby. They warned me about all the things to watch for at home if something was really wrong and when to rush to the ER. Talk about scary! I then reached out to all of you for prayers for our girl. We had our echo off base at a hospital that specializes in infants and children. The women were all so awesome even with the language barrier. The doctor that saw us spoke great English tho and was able to tell me everything after the echo and ultrasound was done.

Scariest day ever. Poor girl was not happy getting the stickers pulled off after this was done :(

She explained to me that what she has is normal and should close on it's own by the time she is 1. PRAISE GOD! we will of course have to check on it then to be sure. This made her first week of life fly by because we were so busy with doctors appointments. Thank you all so much for praying for our baby girl.

EAT.

Right now Siena eats every 2-2.5 hours during the day. She wakes on her own like clock work to eat. She is a great nurser! She latched on well from the very beginning and although she was eating well I was SO sore the first week and half to 2 weeks. My nipples were killing me! I saw the LC several times to make sure it wasn't anything I was doing wrong and other than when I was engorged and my nipples were too "tight" making it so she was on the tip too much nothing was wrong. It was just waiting for the pain to end and for them to heal. I am very jealous of people who don't have any pain at all from breastfeeding. Thankfully now we are pain free and nursing great! She is chunking up nicely too. She took her first bottle a few days ago from daddy while I was having a few hours to myself at the bazaar on base. I got some amazing treasures too! She did great sucked the bottle down. Now I just need to try to start pumping so I have more milk on hand for bottles.

SLEEP.

Little miss has been fairly predictable with her sleeping. She wakes up typically every 2.5-3 hours each night and then goes right back to bed. There has only been one day that she wanted to party at 4 am but she is usually awake for our day to start between 7 & 8 am (I am up with big brother by 7:30am). She's usually in bed at night between 10pm and 11. Right now I know this is just right and eventually I will move bed time back slowly like I did with Noah. She stays awake for a while first thing in the morning and the usually when it's time for her next feed she is also tired and naps after that. The remainder of the day she typically wakes to eat and is back to sleep until her next feed and so on. Around 6-7 pm she wakes up and spends time awake and cluster feeds until she is down for the night. A very mild witching hour. Noah's witching hour was intense so I'll take the long cluster feeds over that any day! I get Noah ready for bed by putting jammies on and brushing teeth before tucking him in and some nights she is not happy waiting for me to finish with big bro, but that's when the balance of both kids by myself can be hard. As soon as I am done with him I scoop her up and feed until bed time. This last week we all got colds which was not fun. She has had a stuffy nose all week. Thankfully it only affected her sleep one night where I could tell she really wasn't feeling well. We have been using lots of saline and the nose frieda (best invention ever). I am praying for us all to get back to our healthy selves.

FAVORITES.

Siena loves her Wubbanub pacifier. We got her the cutest elephant and I recently washed Noah's giraffe that he didn't use (he didn't take a paci) so we have a back up. She seems to only like the soothie pacis so far. Thankfully she doesn't need the paci to sleep but it sure does help when she's awake or we're out and she is fussy.
Loves to be swaddled which is also a first for us since her brother didn't care for it. I love the muslin swaddles the most so far!
Loves her 4moms Mamaroo swing. She usually takes her naps in it during the day and Noah loves it because he helps us turn it on. Such a big helper! She also really likes her baby nest that she sleeps in at night. She specifically enjoys sleeping on her side. She must get that from me!
Loves to be held and loved on and already loves her brother so much. I have a feeling he'll be the one to get those future and giggles and smiles out of her.
Loves to be worn in the baby wraps we have. I am loving our solly wraps.
Loves to smile in her sleep which is my f a v o r i t e :)

NOT A FAN.

The only thing Siena has shown any dislike to is taking a bath which I think will grow on her as she gets older!

Noah on the left and Siena on the right looking equally thrilled with their baths!

MISS SIENA AUGUST ROSE

Oh Siena girl, you have made the perfect addition to our family. You get more beautiful everyday and I want to bottle your amazing baby smell! I am so happy God chose me to be your mama and I can't wait to watch you grow as the months go by...not too quickly I hope ;)
We sure do love you!

1 month photo dump