Six weeks later with Emma

This past Friday was Emma's six-week birthday!  Time is just marching on at record speed around here.  What is most significant about this milestone is that my short-term leave from work is now over.  However, I cannot imagine going back to work and leaving my little Emma with someone else to care for her just yet!  As I did with Evan, I will continue my maternity leave for the full 12 weeks allowed per the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA) and I'm lucky to have saved enough vacation time to keep being paid throughout that period.  In fact, I have saved enough vacation and got permission from my supervisor to continue my leave into early January since my FMLA-leave would end just before the holidays begin.  Who's going to come back to work after 3 months off during a period when most people take leave anyway!?  Not me!  Especially because we'll be vacationing down under then too! :)

As far as how Emma is doing now that she's six weeks old, well she seems to be right on track with several developmental milestones.  She is cooing and gurgling so much more these days, she tracks objects that I move in front of her (horizontally), and she's given me a few adorable smiles when she looks at me!

Almost caught her smile while she was looking at me (left; 4.5 wks) and Emma being chatty while out at the park (right; 5 wks)

I'm also happy to report that we still have had no major messy diaper changes and she rarely ever spits up and hasn't puked in awhile now too!  She eats one side at a time still though, and I'm thinking that maybe the puking was from overfeeding in the past from when I'd try to offer her both sides in one feeding.  As for the lack of spitting up, I'm not sure.  I remember always needing burp clothes with Evan (and even bibs too), but so far I can burp her and not need a burp cloth!  And we'll just save using the bibs we have for when she starts eating (if spitting up or drooling doesn't become a problem to need them otherwise).

We've also got her on a pretty good schedule, at least at night.  She goes to bed now around 8pm (about the same time as Evan, usually just after he goes down as Evan likes to snuggle with her in his crib as part of his bedtime ritual now).  She gets pretty fussy just before that time and even while we're swaddling her to get her ready for bed she'll still often fuss pretty bad, but I can put her in her bassinet and she'll fuss for one or two more minutes and then she's out!  It is really amazing!  I learned this one night in the last week or so where she was really screaming a good bit, and it was the first time I felt a little frustrated by it (because I'd just fed her and changed her so I didn't know what she needed, but holding her wasn't helping) so I just put her in her bassinet and left the room to go ask John for ideas of what to do next.  While I was out of the room, in like just a minute or two of being going, she was quiet.  After checking on her on the monitor, she was fast asleep!  I guess she is the kind of baby that gets really uncontrollably fussy when she's tired and maybe needs a little cry to get her to sleep.  Since then we've just rocked her for a minute after swaddling her and then put her down in her bassinet even if she still is fussing, and sure enough she falls asleep soon after we leave the room.  Don't get me wrong, it's still sometimes hard to leave her like that because her "fussing" is sometimes more like screaming, so it makes me worry I need to go to her, but as long as it is over in just a minute or two I'll let her be.

Just a few nights ago, when Emma (6 wks) was snuggling with Evan in his crib before he went to bed they were both smiling for the camera! Emma was smiling for a long time too so I got lots of cute shots of her baby grin and Evan was being a ham for the camera as well!

Then she sleeps until about 2am (sometimes on the dot!) and then again to around the 5-6am hour and then until somewhere between 8-9am.  This is pretty much how she's been sleeping for us for the past few weeks.  Even with daylight savings time ending just yesterday she has stuck to it.  Sure yesterday she was an hour earlier for her wake ups, but today she was almost back on track.   This sleep schedule is pretty nice, as we do get a good bit of sleep in between feedings and it's nice to have something that's so regular already, but it will be nice when that 2am wake up goes away. :)

During the day it's anyone's guess though.  She usually takes at least one long 3-4 hour nap (well, she may not sleep that whole time but she goes that long without a feeding), but it varies as to if it's in the late morning, afternoon, or into the evening.  She's even had a few days recently where she didn't take that long nap and just wanted to be fed every 2-3 hours and was awake most of that time too, only taking short 1 hour cat naps here and there.  She balanced those days out with subsequent days where I think she slept the entire day!

One of her favorite sleeping poses (4.5 wks)

Otherwise, aside from that longer 3-4 nap, she'll usually want to be fed every 2 hours or so during the day, and may stay awake for about half of that time and take a short cat nap for the rest of that time.   I've wondered if I should try to start getting her onto a 3 hour feeding schedule, but so far think I'll just still let her dictate the daytime schedule.  I'm thankful her nighttime schedule is regular already, so I'll probably just keep the "on demand" plan going during the day.  As it gets closer to January, and when she'll need to be in daycare, then I'll try to get more of a set daytime schedule going for her, if she hasn't started one on her own.  It's possible that she'll need to nurse on both sides to be able to do a 3-hour schedule, so as she is a bit bigger and has a larger tummy capacity, then hopefully that will go easier on her (to still avoid puking it up afterward).

Emma looking like a baby doll (left) and chilling on her new baby quilt from Aunt Linda (6 wks old)

With regard to feeding, we still haven't tried bottles with her yet.  Last Tuesday I went out for a massage and so John was going to bottle feed her while I was gone, but she slept the whole time!  We'll try bottles soon though.  I did successfully get her to take her pacifier today while I was out running errands with her though.  She had been sleeping for about 3 hours (the long nap of the day, thankfully while I was out running errands!), and so just as I was checking out at the grocery store she was waking up with a vengeance.   So I pulled out her paci in the hopes she might take it, and after a few spit outs, she did!  She kept it in the whole rest of the ride home too.  Perhaps she took to it because she was hungry?  Either way, it was really helpful to have something to soothe her while I was at the check out and loading the groceries into the car!

And I'll wrap this all up by saying that Evan's love for his baby sister has not worn off yet, even six weeks later.  He still wants to hold her all the time and help check on her if she's crying.  He's a really great and loving big brother!

Evan holding his baby sister (5 wks old)

A sweet sibling moment (Emma at 6 wks)