Notes on Bridget at Seven Weeks

She's crazy strong. Especially in her neck and her legs. If I use a Boppy for tummy time, she gets up on her knees and topples herself over as if she's crawling. No more of that, thanks.

She started to get fussy at five weeks old, and she was congested from an ongoing cold, and she stopped sleeping for four or five hours in a row, and I was bummed. The next week I went in to ask about reflux or some other possible cause besides "She's six weeks old, deal with it" and she was diagnosed with an ear infection. AT SIX WEEKS OLD. My home-birthed, breast-fed baby was basically born with an ear infection, so if anyone needs any hippie-equals-healthy myths debunked, I'm the person to call!

 Congested baby in Diane von Furstenberg wrap-dress romper,

courtesy of Leah & Johnny

Thankfully, the antibiotics gave us our old-model newborn back, with a brand-new age-appropriate upgrade--smiling!

She's more like Will than Finn in the car, thank goodness. We've been swaddling her arms so she doesn't knock out her pacifier when she's sleeping there, although she mostly uses the pacifier to go to sleep and lets it drop out when she's unconscious. She does have her squawky and even screamy moments in her bucket seat, but she is often lulled by the car's movement and stays asleep pretty well.

Almost out of the newborn insert...sniff...

For posterity, and because I'm coming to find that I romanticize how "good" my newborns are in the rearview mirror, here are Bridget's sleep patterns (a very rough average of her days and nights), starting with the witching hour:

-fusses, nurses and catnaps from about 7:30-10:30pm

-sleeps 10:30pm-3:30am, eats for 30 min.

-sleeps 4-6:30am, eats and then watches our getting-ready chaos unfold

-sleeps 8-9:30ish, then 10ish to 12pm (yesterday and today she took one of these morning naps in her crib! Woo-hoo!)

-sleeps 1:30-3:30/4 in the Bjorn on me

-sleeps 5:30-7:30, usually also in the Bjorn as I serve and clean up dinner and help with the bedtime routine

Bridget likes the bouncy seat fine--again, that's more of a Will thing than a Finn trait, if we're comparing (which "we" always are, even when we're trying not to!). Of course, she's constantly surrounded by four people of varying sizes who only want to love on her--that certainly helps to keep her happy.

And speaking of those who love her, here are a few recent photos to demonstrate just how much snuggling this girl gets:

And is it EVER fun to snuggle her: