Thursday, December 2, 2010

11 Weeks Old!

Alexa celebrated her first Thanksgiving. I loved that she was able to be in Chicago. This is a tradition I have had my entire life (minus last year) and I am glad I was able to share it with her. We had a great day. Alexa sat in her kick & play while the rest of us ate. She was able to at least be apart of this important day. I feel very thankful for my husband, daughter & the rest of our families.

On Friday, Alexa was able to meet the rest of the McKinney family. This included her 4 month old cousin Ethan. She slept through the first part of the visit, but woke up for some cousin play time in the evening. Overall I believe she enjoyed the evening. By 7pm, Alexa was worn out & everyone could tell. Matthew & Alexa both had major meltdowns. Luckily we were able to calm then & have a peaceful night.

Saturday night was the first night Alexa woke up with a big smile on her face. This was during her 4am feeding. I loved every second of it. Unfortunately I made the mistake of smiling back & kept her awake a little longer than normal. Oh well.. it was worth it!

Sunday we had a long 8 hour drive home. We left right when Alexa went down for her morning nap. She slept 3 hours straight, took a bottle & went back down for another few hours. She did awesome until the last 30 minutes. I know her back had to be bothering her & she was going to make sure we knew it. Fortunately after all her napping, she still managed to sleep from 9pm to 4am.

Alexa has been very successful with full feedings. She is now eating 3-4oz every 3-4 hour. I would LOVE her to get to 4 hours, but we are not there yet. She eats about half of her feedings right at the 3 hour marker and the rest around 4 hours. Right before bed we try to get her to take at least 5oz & will stop her at 6oz. At night she goes about 4 hours. This has made a huge difference is my day. I am more aware of what her needs are & can predict her behavior a little better. With all of our traveling over the last 3 weeks I have almost completely stopped breast feeding. This really make me sad, but it is my reality. Nursing takes a lot longer than bottle feeding & that is why I have transitioned to bottles. My goal is to continue nursing during the night feedings & maybe the morning feeding. Alexa will take bottles for the 3-4 day time feedings.

Alexa did amazing at her Christmas photos. She did really well wearing her dress & let us put her in anything adorable. She did not cry at all & even stayed awake. I was not able to get her to smile once we started, but I am 100% OK with that. I believe the flashes were a little overwhelming to her. We were able to get at least 10 awesome shots. Getting Alexa's photos done is my favorite activity with her. I love having the photos to look back on. I am going to try to not get her photos done next month, LOL!

Alexa has made huge changes this week. She smiles all the time. She will smile at her toys & people. She smiles when she wakes up & while she is feeding. She has started talking to her toys. It started with her mobile & now it is all over her noise making toys. I wonder if she thinks she is singing with them or if she is just making noise. Alexa is also sleeping in her crib at night. OK, well Justin moved the crib into our room.... I feel like this is still making a step in the transition of her sleeping in her own room. She cannot see me in her crib & we keep the room very quiet & dark when she is in there. When Justin leaves in January I plan on keeping her in our room anyways, so this just makes it a lot easier.

Goal for the week: Get Alexa on a 3 hour cycle, Eat-Play-Sleep!

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