Happy 4 Months Bella!

Every month that passes I can't believe Bella is another month older. Sounds stupid to say but time is going even faster this time around.  Bella is still the same laid back and calm little girl. The only time she gets fussy is when she wants to eat, be picked up or her stomach is bothering her. So much of her personality is coming out! She is definitively going to be my talker. She will "talk" at length from time to time and will even sing along with you. She has the most infectious smile and laugh and loves to be tickles and play games. She smiles with her eyes and it absolutely melts my heart. I still think she looks just like Brayden when he was little. The resemblance is uncanny.

Bella is getting so big! She is gaining at a crazy pace despite all of her stomach issues. I had her to the pedes a week an a half ago and she was already 15 lbs! She has offically doubled her birth weight. We have her 4 month appointment on December 4 so I will have her exact height and weight stats.  Her stomach problems are an ongoing issue. Ugh I wish there were clear cut answers. I'm still trying to get her gastro appt scheduled, the office is driving me nuts by not calling me back. But she is currently on Prilosec (1.25mL), 2x a day and and Zantac (1.8mL) 2x a day for breakthrough pain. Even on both she is still refluxing and in pain but it's less than it was.  I'm still on the soy and dairy free diet and based on the mucous and color of her diapers I have a good feeling we will be doing more elimination. Thankfully the color and mucous in the diapers doesn't bother her so that's a good thing. At this point I'm willing to take it as far as we need to keep breastfeeding. She is doing so well and really relies on it as her comfort zone so I really don't want to take that away from her. Aside from the stomach issues, shes an amazing nurser and has made it so easy on me, so I'm extra determined to do it for her. 

Big smiles!!

She usually eats every three hours during the day, unless she's not feeling well. Based on what I can pump from one side she's drinking at least 4-6 ounces per feeding. She still hates the bottle. Ugh, she will sometimes take pumped milk from the bottle from Jason but has been refusing to take it from anyone else. That should be interesting since we have a wedding on the 8th. I'm hoping she drinks for my mom and katie!  

Silly faces :) 

She is still a good sleeper. She generally wakes up 1x a night. For a breast fed baby I will take it!! Although the times change she usually goes down to bed at 9 and will sleep till about 5 nurse and go back down. We tend to take her upstairs with us when we go to bed b/c we are co-sleeping so sometimes moving her wakes her up and that adds another feeding. But that's on me not her.  She tends to have a 30-40 minute cat nap in the morning , a long 3 hour nap in the afternoon and a cat nap after dinner.  It's nice at least for now her afternoon nap co-insides with Brayden's. I'll take it for as long as it lasts. 

Bella is doing really well developmentally. She's not nearly as advanced as Brayden was but she's right on track.  She's been trying to roll both ways, but is always getting stuck on her arms. I'm sure being the little chunker she is makes it tougher :)  She loves to sit! Her back is getting stronger but she still sits forward in her "monkey" pose to hold herself up. She does like playing on  her play may but will only lay on her back for short periods of time. I swear she thinks she is missing out on something so she needs to sit up. Plus laying flat doesn't do any favors for her reflux so I don't blame her.  She does like to stand and her legs are pretty strong.  She just tried her play jumper and really seemed to have mixed feeling about it.  I think she just didn't know what to make of it but had fun.  

Teething, boy did I NOT miss teething. So far she is a decent teether but only the future will tell. She has been teething for the last month despite not having any break through. We are using a baltic amber teething necklace and it helps with the pain, but the drool is a flowing! lol Here's hoping she is not a dramatic teether like her brother and they don't take forever to come in!!

Trouble!

Bella tried her first food on Thanksgiving! I don't think she is completely ready for food full time. We plan on doing things like with Brayden by skipping cereal and doing food led weaning with some puree. For her first meal we tried sweet potatoes with apple. Yes I know they're suppose to start with one food type but i was having a hard time finding an organic food that was one flavor. I plan on making all of her food like I did for Bray. Even making organic baby food, it is SO cheap! I really think making the food really helped Brayden find his love for a variety of foods so here is hoping!  In the mean time I will probably give her food sporadically until we get her stomach issues under control. Then I will start  more consistently. 

I think we seriously took 50+ pictures. Half of them she was trying to sit forward and falling or just wasn't looking. Gotta love bloopers lol 

Happy 1 Month Bella Rose!

I know I'm backtracking but I really wanted to get on and post Bella's monthly updates. Hopefully I can get caught up to this month and be on track by the time she turns 4 months lol.

Happy ONE month beautiful! It has really been an amazing month. Of course the fist few weeks and months with a newborn are tough but I think we have done really well transitioning from one kid to two.  I give Bella all the credit. She is SUCH a good baby. Coming home from the hospital she was giving us 4-6 hour stretches of sleep. Unheard of for most newborns. In the first few weeks she would give us stretches ranging from 3-8 hours. Most of the time she averages 6 or so hours so it's WONDERFUL! Heck, Brayden was waking up every 2 maybe 3 hours forever.  I'm really fortunate, especially considering Brayden still doesn't sleep through the night.  She is an amazing nurser!! This girl LOVES to breast feed. Again i have to credit her with all of our success, she literally came out rooting for the boob and latched on right away. Bells is a marathon nurser. lol She normally eats every 2-3 hours but nurses for a minimum of 45+ minutes sometimes up to an hour and a half.  I'm not going to lie, I think my nipples were going to fall off a a few times, especially after she tore me the one time. But we haven't slowed down and she  is doing wonderful.  I can honestly say that I have not hit that "i don't think i can do this anymore" point with her, she has really made this an enjoyable experience for me overall. Considering Brayden was the opposite and i had NO supply, I'm truly grateful to get to have this time with her.

Since she's eating so well she has been gaining weight at an amazing rate.  We've had some ups and downs. She started presenting with reflux symptoms almost right away. Unfortunately we are all too familiar because of Brayden so I got her to the pedes and we started her on Prevacid.  The pedes usually likes to start with zantac but it never worked for Brayden so we skipped it.  Her pain and projectile vomiting got slightly better with the meds but she was def not feeling better. She was still having unexplained congestion, pain, mucousy stools ext. I knew exactly where this was headed. The pedes ordered an ultrasound to rule outPyloric Stenosis b/c of the excessive projectile vomiting. Fortunately that was ruled out.  In the end I knew it was time to start elimination diet if I wanted to continue to breastfeed b/c it has to be a milk allergy. The doctor recommended eliminating all dairy and soy at the same time because a lot of children have allergies to both.  Let me tell you how much dairy and soy is in EVERYTHING! It's amazing till you have to start reading labels how much is hidden in every day foods. This was and still is a hard transition for me. I LOVE dairy, milk and cheese are my BFF. lol But its definitely more important to keep breastfeeding and she is thriving. About a week in to the diet we were already seeing positive changes and two + weeks in she was doing great. So our suspicions were confirmed she definitely has milk and soy protein issues also known as MSPI.

For her one month birthday she gave us the gift of her first real big smile! She ABSOLUTELY melts my heart. I love all these milestones!  At one month she is still wearing NB clothes and diapers. At her pedes appointment she weighted in at 10lbs 1 oz (75%) and 22 1/2 inches(95%) long! She is one tall girl, and has the cutest little rolls on her thighs :)

Her demeanor is calm and relaxed. Bella always looks so serious but that face means she is happy and content. At one month you can already see her personality coming out! She is going to be my laid back and smiley one. Sounds perfect to me, since Brayden is out hyperactive high maintenance one lol

I am seriously so in love with this little girl. It's been a tough transition for Brayden but he is SO good with Bella and really loves her! I can't wait to watch them grow up together!

Speaking of Brayden and Bella it is UNCANNY how much these two look like twins. I guess you could technically say they are twins but implanted at different times since they were fertilized at the same time, but they seriously look so much alike! Here's some comparisons!