The Hintons: One Month Old

Blake is already a month old (as of last week). It's crazy to me how incredibly slow the last month of pregnancy goes, but how quickly the first month after goes. She is still very much a newborn, yet she has grown a lot. Here are a few notable things from Blake's first month:

-At her two week appointment, she weighed 7 lbs 9 oz. Only 6 days before, she had weighed 6 lbs 14 oz, so that was quite a bit in less than a week. Her next appointment isn't until 2 months, so it'll be interesting to see what she weighs then.

-Blake still fits into all of her newborn clothes. They started out a bit big for her, but now newborn size fits just about perfect. I'm sure it's only a matter of time before they become too small.

-She started off a great sleeper. She would sleep about 4-5 hour stretches during the night. Then we went through about a week of her waking up every 1.5-2 hours. After switching a few things, she is back to sleeping about 4 hours at night. She mostly needed to be kept on tighter schedule during the day and kept awake a lot more. She was taking super long naps during the day, but now I wake her up after a certain amount of time and keep her awake for a while. It has helped tremendously.

-She eats between 3-4 oz at a time. Though sometimes she'll only drink two, and sometimes she'll still want more. I typically just make a 3 oz bottle.

-When Blake was about 2 weeks old, I started to notice that she ALWAYS turned her head to one side. It was especially noticeable when she was in her car seat. Even when I tried to physically turn her head the other way, she would resist and turn it right back. I mentioned it to the doctor and he recommended that I take her to a physical therapist for torticollis. Torticollis is tightening of the neck muscles on one side. I took her to the physical therapist and the muscles on her right side are very tight. Because of this, she is starting to develop a very mild flat spot on her right side. I was given a few stretches to preform throughout the day to try to loosen up those muscles. Plus we are supposed to lay her down on her opposite side more often. She has a follow up appointment next week where we will see if any progress has been made. It is a very mild case and probably would have been fine without intervention. However, I wanted to catch it and get it fixed before it became a bigger problem.

-We also took Blake to a chiropractor to get adjusted. It seems to have helped a little bit, though it's hard to tell.

-Blake spits up most of the time after eating. It is more likely that she will spit up than not. And she is more likely to spit up on breast milk than formula. Probably because I was eating ridiculous amounts of chocolate and other junk during that time. Luckily, most of the time is isn't a ton of spit. Though I have had to change my clothes more than I'd care to admit. Laundry, laundry, laundry.

-She is a very good baby. When she is awake, she is pretty happy most of the time. And she still sleeps for a good portion of the day.

She likes to make some pretty goofy faces, but has yet to give us a smile.

-She loves, loves to be wrapped up. She doesn't usually like when her hands are free. It is amazing how quickly she will calm down when I simply wrap her in a blanket.