Two Months

Dear Penelope,
This has been another big month for you, for starters you've discovered sleep in a big way. In fact it's something of an embarrassment when I talk to other parents of small babies. They ask how you are sleeping and I have to say just fine and then I think that they are jealous of me for having such a wonderful baby. I don't mind though, I'm getting some sleep.
You slept more than five hours for the first time when you where five weeks old. I was shocked when you woke us up at 5.20 am and not 3 am. Your Nanny was staying with us and at first I thought that she had feed you in the middle of the night, but no, you'd done it all by yourself, sleeping right through.
Life still goes a bit wrong for you in the afternoon though. You never manage to sleep much more than about 45 minutes at a time during the day unless I'm holding you or you're in the sling (ergo). This has led to me shopping for long periods of time so you'll get a nap in.

You're big enough now that you find the mobile above your cot interesting, which is wonderful. We can leave you there for a little while we have to get something done and you won't scream.

Last week you were immunized. You took the needles themselves pretty well and were asleep five minutes later. That afternoon was a different story though. You just screamed and screamed. You would stop feeding to scream. It took a long cuddle on the couch and some panadol to get you to calm down.

You're growing so much and I can't remember it all. The best thing of all though is your smile. You give the biggest grin with a dimple in your cheek. It just makes mine and daddy's day. It's taken me more than a week to write this, so I'd better finish before you're three months old. We love you.

One month

Dear Penelope,
You were a month old this week. Has it really been only a month? On the other hand, has it been a whole month already?
Your daddy and I have had a lot of learning to do the past month. Lots of learning about how to care for you and to keep you happy, while not going insane ourselves. You've been really good about helping us with that. In the past week or so you've figured out that one feed in the middle of the night is perfectly acceptable. For this I would like to thank you.


Your days go like this. You wake up at about 6 or 7am and have one last feed in bed with me while Daddy gets up and gets your nappies washed and your formula ready for the day. After a thorough burping, I'll put you down in your rocker and get up. I usually make it through breakfast and if I'm lucky I'll make it to the shower before Daddy leaves for work. In the morning you're usually pretty quiet. Feed 100mL every three hours or so and I can work on the computer or rest. Some mornings we go out to mothers group or the health clinic. At some point in the afternoon, it all seems to go wrong for you. You get grumpy and have trouble settling. You usually end up in the ergo for a while in an effort to get you to have some sleep so you're not overtired later.
When Daddy comes home from work, he'll take you for a while, to hold you and try and calm you down. He swoops you through the air and lifts you right up to the ceiling. Sometimes you like this, sometimes you could care less.
Three evenings a week, you're nanna comes over to see you when she's finished teaching school. She is absolutely nuts about you, I'm pretty sure that seeing you is the high point of her day many days. Often you're unco-operative and are sound asleep when she comes over, but given your grumpy afternoons, this usually doesn't last long. If she's lucky, you'll be due a feed when she's over and then she can have a good cuddle.
Later in the evening you'll be given a bath. The first few baths you screamed through, but now you seem quite content with the warm water.
At some point in the evening you stop being a grump and get the idea of sleeping. Often you'll go 4 or 5 hours between feeds overnight. You'll usually wake for a night time feed at about 3am. I wake up and go get you, check your nappy and tell Daddy to go and get a bottle, then put you down on our bed while I go and wash my hands. When I get back, I put you on a pillow across my legs, put the towel over my shoulder and give you your formula. Daddy goes back to sleep beside us. The most tricky bit of night time feeding for me to figure out was getting you back to sleep. What currently seems to work is wrapping you back up when your sleepy and then lieing you down between us and lieing down beside you. I can then grab twenty minutes of sleep while you settle yourself down into a deep sleep with me near you. When I wake back up, you've conked out and I can carefully pick you up and tuck you into your cot. With any luck you'll stay asleep until morning when we start again.


You're absolutely beautiful and we love you so much,
Mummy.