Pyper Ciera is 3 weeks old

We have really started to get into a routine around here.  We are really starting to figure out what she needs and when she needs it.  We have also figured out that she usually gets the crabbiest right after eating, when her diaper is wet, and right before she falls fast asleep. 

We have resolved most of these issues with figuring out how she likes to be held (her favorite is laying on your shoulder while you burp her). This lead me to the conclusion that she might be gassy which is why she is so fussy after she eats.  I started to look up causes of gas in breast feed babies, and I found this website Breastfeeding-Problems.  I specifically looked at this part of the site Baby Gas Pain, and I realized that I may not be burping her enough and I need to make sure she is getting more of the hind milk and less of the fore-milk.  I thought that when I started regulating my breast flow I could stop pre-pumping, guess I was wrong.  So I started to pre-pump again and burping her more often, and she has been so much less fussy after feedings.  She has actually started to take long naps after feedings which has given me more time to play with Bo, and not just hold Pyper all day (not that I don't love that too, but it is nice to get down and play with Bo too.) 

Pyper has also started to like just laying on her blanket in the middle of the room and just watch what is going on around her.   She loves her sister as much as her sister loves her, she usually calms down when Bo talks to her or even tries to hold her.  It is going to be a fun adventure watching them grow up together.

Morning Sister time

3 weeks old

Somebody is having a half birthday.

On July 25th Bo Allison turned 2 1/2.

We really didn't celebrate it, but I can now officially say she is 2 1/2.

Bo has really come out of her shell in the last month, and is really starting to  show us who she is.

She has started to say full sentences, which still amaze us.  She also loves to entertain us with her singing and dancing.  She also has such a happy and sympathetic kid.

I can do it on my own

One of my favorite things she says is right after she gets up either from a nap or in the morning "I wake up in the morning, k mom". She is just so happy.  Love her.

Out cold in mom and dad's bed

Favorite Songs to sing:
Happy Birthday
Twinkle Twinkle Little Star
Old McDonald had a farm
Farmer and the Dell
BINGO

Playing the piano at Southdale mall

Favorite Cartoons:
Dora
Go Diego Go
Bo on the Go
Team Umizoomi

Favorite Foods:
Pizza
Hot Dogs
Mac-N-Cheese
Peanut Butter and Jelly (Bo calls it Toast and butter with jelly)
String Cheese
Crackers
Milk
Chicken Nuggets
French Fries

Such an entertainer even when she's eating

Favorite Books:
Anything with Dora or Diego in it
Any book that she can find things in

Favorite things:
Her little sister (she is a very proud and protective big sister)
Tags (Taggies)
Her blankets
Her stuffed wolf (wolvy)
Her stuffed Monkey
Josh or My I-phone

Taggie and her thumb this girl is happy

Favorite things to do:
Play fetch with Pistol
Interact with her sister
Cuddle with Mommy & Daddy

Cook with mom and dad
Dance
Sing

Using her kitchen helper to help mommy cook

Bo has been such a great big sister, and she is so proud of her.  We are so luck to have two such amazing little girls.

Always asking to hold her sister

I can't wait to see what the next chapter in our life looks like.

Visitors

Pyper has had quite a few visitors, and we have loved all of them.

Cousin Emma

Godmother Holly

Grandma Theis

Our friend Jon

Our friends Josh, Ellie, & Katie

Aunt Jody

Cousin Sophia

Cousin Calvin

Uncle Charlie with Cousin Sophia

My co-worker Sally

Insert Picture of Grandma and Grandpa Cleveland
(I some how do not have a single picture of Chris and Mark, Hopefully I will get one from their camera to put on here soon)

Our Friends Laurie and Andrew

Cousins Max, Ash, & Sawyer

Uncle Curtis & Aunt Angela

Aunt Emily, Cousins Levi & Avery & Uncle Jamie

Bo,Cousin Becky & Gavin

Great Uncle Ken and Gavin

Claire & Cousin Zack

Cody, Cousin Lisa, & Ethan

Our Friends Leah, Jon & Layna

Sherryl's daughter Ava

My co-worker Sherryl

My co-worker Julia

My co-worker Karen

Grandpa Theis

Josh's co-worker Ryan

Uncle Mitch, Ada, Grady, Bo, Maddox, & Aunt Jess

Pyper can't wait to meet the rest of the family as well as more of our friends.
Thanks everyone for the wonderful love and support you have given us.

Weekend with Family

This last weekend Mitch and Jess and the kids came up to meet Pyper.  We love having them and watching the kids play together.  

Saturday morning Jess and I spent a lot of the morning hanging out with Pyper while the boys played with the kids.  We took that opportunity to get Pyper's new born pictures.  Which I am so excited to see because Jess always does such a great job.

Aunt Jess comparing Pyper to Bo

Cousin Grady is so Proud

Eating breakfast

Then Saturday Evening Jamie and Emily and the kids came over, and it all of the kids had a great time playing together as well as the adults.

Adult time

Kids time

Eating Uncle Mitch's ice cream cake

Levi and Ada

Movie time with cousins, while the adults sat by the fire

Can't wait until August when we get together with the rest of the Cleveland's and spend the week at the cabin together.  I love how close these cousins will be because they are all so close in age.  All 9 of them are under the age of 5 should make for a very eventful week.

Pyper Ciera is two weeks old

Pyper continues to be a fairly easy baby.  I have also started to regulate her breast feeding which has made me a far less stressed out. 

The only other big change in Pyper is that she really likes to be held.  The only time she is ok with not being held is at night, but even then sometimes I enjoy snuggling with her just a little longer then she needs to be.  Really the only time I have a hard time with holding her is when Bo wants me to do things with her and I can't because I have to hold Pyper.  Luckily Bo is fairly independent, so it makes holding Pyper all day so much easier.

I still need to lose 15lbs to get back to pre-baby weight, but breast feeding has been my friend in helping with my weight loss

Pyper's 1 & 2 week appointments

Our pediatrician is the only one at our clinic right now, so he didn't have  any appointments until the beginning of August.  Therefore, we had to go to a family doctor, but we made an appointment with our pediatrician for the first week of August.

Pyper's 1 week appointment
Weighed: 6lbs 13.5oz. 27.71%

(she was 6lbs. 6oz. when she left the hospital)

so she is a very healthy baby.

Height: 21inches long 92.81%

BMI:10.93kg

She also started her on Vitamin D.

Bo's 1 week appointment

Bo weighed 6lbs 12.5oz. 

(she was 6lbs. 7 oz. when she left the hospital)

so she is a very healthy baby.

Pyper's 2 week Appointment

Length

Birth: 21in

Today: 21 in

Putting her in the 77%

Weight

Birth: 6lbs. 14oz. 

 Today: 6lbs 15.5oz.

Putting her in the 20.48%

Head Circumference
Today: 33.6cm

Putting her in the 9.67%

BMI
Today: 11.25 kg

Bo's 2 week appointment

Length

Birth: 19 1/2in

Today: 20 1/2 in

Putting her in the 54.46%

Weight

Birth: 6lbs. 13oz. 

 Today: 7lbs 13.5oz.

Putting her in the 30.7%

Head Circumference
Today: 35.3cm

Putting her in the 29.45%

BMI
Today: 13.12 kg

Pyper is a healthy baby, and perfect in every way.

Pyper Ciera is one week old

Pyper has been such easy baby, and Bo has been such a great big sister.  Josh as able to stay home with us for a week, and it was great having him home so we could start to adjust to Pyper's schedule.  

Pyper's Average  Schedule:

Wake around 5:00am

Eat

Go back to sleep

Wake around 8:00am

Eat

Pee and poop

Go back to sleep

Wake around 10:00am

Eat

Pee and poop 

Go back to sleep

 Wake around 1:00

Eat

Pee and poop 

Stare at her sister

Go back to sleep

Wake around 3:00

Eat

Pee and poop

snuggle with mom

Stare at her sister

Go back to sleep

Wake around 5:30

Eat

Pee and poop

snuggle with mom

Stare at her sister

Go back to sleep

Wake around 9:30

Eat

Pee and poop

Go back to sleep

Wake around 12:30

Eat Pee Poop

Go back to sleep until around 5:00am

Luckily she has been a great sleeper, and I really don't want to complain about that.  However, it does make it difficult for breast feeding and by body trying to figure out how much to produce and when to produce it.

The only real problems I have had with her is getting use to breast feeding again.  I have been way over producing and by boobs have been really engorged.  I did a lot of research on the internet and called my sister-in-law Jess to ask her if she had any suggestions.  So between her advice and my Internet research I have started to regulate it a little better. 

TIPS I have learned:  

-Don't pump

-Feed laying on my back to reduce flow

-Feed on only one breast per feeding

-If she eats for less the 15 min on one side feed on that same side the next feeding too.

-Wake her up to feed

-When I wake up collect excess milk to use for later

-Cut up a cloth diaper and use it as  nipple cover instead of the breast pads 

(This is suppose to help with keeping the nipples dry and prevent infections as well as help heal the sores from feedings.  I continue to use the breast pads because the cloth diapers soak through.  I have seen a big improvement in soreness since switching to the cloth diaper pads.)

 -As soon as the milk starts to let down, pull away and let it release on a towel

(I have been using a bottle to collect it so I can use it for cereal later.  This is good to do because then Pyper will get fill up on the fatty milk and not just the watery milk that comes out first.  This has also helped with draining my milk better as well.)

Overall, though I really think she has been a lot easier then Bo, it might be that I have more confidence as a parent and it might be that she is just a better sleeper.  Bo needed music on at all times, and Pyper can sleep through Pistol barking 3ft away from her.  Either way, I'm going to go knock on wood right now so I don't jinks this.

Now for Pyper's one week picture (the bunny was a build a bear make by her sister Bo)

Week 1

 It just seems so weird that a week ago I had a baby in me, and now I have her in my arms, and my stomach is quickly disappearing. 

Staff at the hospital

There were a few things I left out of Pyper's birth story, and that is the staff that took care of us while we were there.  

-Karen was the midwife that delivered Pyper, but the fun fact about that is that she also delivered Bo.  Just like when you have a doctor, you get who is ever on call for the night, and she just happened to be the midwife on call.  It was very comforting to have her there.  As Josh likes to say Karen is his midwife, while Michelle is mine.  He is so funny.

-Our Labor nurse Megan was so sweet and helpful.  I think she spent her whole shift with us.  She even came with us to our recovery room and stayed with us until she left in the morning.  She normally doesn't come to the recovery room with patients, so it was really nice that she came with us.

-Mary was our recovery nurse in the morning, and she was also pregnant with their first child (due in 3 weeks), she was a delight to have in the room and we had lots of conversations about whats to come for her.  

-Sandy was our afternoon recovery nurse and she was also our nurse when Bo was born.  She remembered us, and asked to see pictures of Bo, it was fun to share the pictures with her.  She also did a great job of reminding me of breast feeding techniques I had forgotten.  

-The midwife that checked me out was also the same one that checked me out when we had Bo.  She also wanted to see pictures of Bo, and I happily showed our beautiful first daughter off. 

All of the familiar faces made our stay so much more enjoyable.   The new facilities were amazing too, I felt like we were in a hotel and not a hospital room.

I would highly recommend this place to any mom.

Time with Emma...

This last week my uncle Rick called me and asked me if I could pick up my little cousin at the airport and bring her to a soccer camp for the week.  Of course I said yes.  So Saturday afternoon I picked up Emma at the airport and brought her back to our house for the night.  It was so fun watching her interact with Bo and it was nice too that our cousin Zack decided to come by this weekend too, it was great bonding time for all of us. 

We made fajitas for dinner, yummy

Bo loves when anyone is willing to push her on her swing

Story time with Emma

Then Sunday morning we all just hung out until I had to go drop Emma off at Hamline for the soccer camp.

Teaching Emma how to do Bo on the Go

 

Bo on the Go 

Super Man

Bo wanted Emma to do everything with her

Then we spent a little bit more time with Emma when we dropped her off, we wanted to wait until her roommates got there before we left.  Bo didn't mind

Helping Emma with her bags

Testing out Emma's bed

We headed back to pick-up Emma on Wednesday and took her to lunch at the 5-8 Club

Playing with Emma

Emma taught Bo how to poise

Trying to wink

Meeting baby Pyper

Love this moment

Saying Good-Bye to Emma

We loved having Emma here, and I am so glad that she got to be here to meet baby Pyper before she headed back to Texas.  Now she just needs to come to college in Minnesota, so we can see her all of the time.  (hint hint Emma)