Three months, twelve weeks, the end of the fourth trimester and officially the end of being a new born.
I. Am. Not. Ready. For. This.
I know we say it over and over again but time goes so so quickly with the second baby, I spent weeks wishing for the really hard newborn to end and now they’re behind us and it’s time to face that my little squishy baby is not a newborn anymore, she’s a baby now.
I’m supposed to tell you how much she weighs or how long she is but I’ve haven’t a clue #secondbabyproblems it’s not because I don’t want to keep up with her checks but the Easter weekend has completely thrown me and I missed the weigh in clinic so now I have to wait another week to find out what she weighs. I’m going to guess she’s 12.4lbs, anyone else want to take a guess?
What I can tell you though is that she loves smiling, baths, and playing on her baby gym but she’s not keen on waiting the 40 seconds it takes to get her milk ready because you know, she’s starving to death if her milk isn’t ready the moment she wants it.
On the subject of milk, one big change for us this last month is that I’ve moved on from breast feeding and we’re now fully formula feeding. This might seem a bit strange to those who have followed me along Taya pregnancy because I was so so adamant about breast feeding this time around and we were really successful with it but the reality has been that it is so much harder with a toddler to look after at the same time.
I know breastfeeding is time consuming and relentless at times but I don’t think I was prepared for how challenging it would be with another child who also needs my attention, to not be able to pass Taya to someone else so I could get Amelia her dinner or take her to bed or play with her. Yes I could have pushed through, yes I’m sure it would have gotten easier but it was starting to affect my mental health and I didn’t want to look back on our newborn days and feel negatively about it. Moving to formula was the right choice for us and everyone is much happier.
That said, my god it’s a painful process. For about 2 weeks I was in so much pain I couldn’t lift my arms above my head, couldn’t cuddle Amelia or hold Taya for any length of time because it felt like my boobs were being stabbed with hot knives but as quickly as it started, it stopped. We’re fully on formula feeds now and I feel back to normal which makes me a happier healthier mum.
There have been a few other new developments this month too, Taya is trying to roll and she’s starting to be on the move. She’s able to roll onto her side but hasn’t worked out how to flip herself over yet but it’s not going to take long. She’s also started to butt shuffle, managing to turn herself almost 180degrees on her play mat. It’s not going to be long at all before she starts shuffling around and moving in her own way which will mean nothing is safe and I’m going to have to remind Amelia constantly to watch out for her so she doesn’t get stood on.
Her relationship with Amelia is growing too, she watches her so intently and Amelia’s favourite thing is to give her back her dummy. Even when she doesn’t really want it and keeps spitting it out Amelia will just keep putting it back on her mouth and laughing when it falls out again. She asks to give her cuddles and insists on a kiss before bed. She’s started to copy my phrases as well and a couple of times I heard her say “it’s ok Taya, we’re here now” which I’ve said to her many times when she’s been crying and we’ve gone to pick her up. It’s so adorable to hear her trying to make her sister feel better when she cries and so far there’s still been no jealousy or negativity towards Taya which I pray will continue because she’s done brilliantly over the last three months.
We’ve had a little breakthrough with her sleep as well this month, over the Easter weekend it just too warm to put her in her swaddle so we had to put her to bed for the first time ever with her arms free. I was convinced it was going to be a disaster but she slept just tine. The same the following night and now we’ve moved on from swaddles all together and she’s now using a sleeping bag at night and just a light blanket during the day for naps.
I’m so glad the warm weather forced me to try something new at bed time otherwise I would probably still be trying to swaddle her and she’d still be breaking out of them because all babies have super human strength when they don’t want to be swaddled.
One thing I’m trying really hard not to do is to compare Taya to how Amelia was a baby because that’s not fair on her. She’s a different baby and will do everything in her own time, one thing I remember so clearly though is that from the day she turned 12 weeks Amelia slept through the night. I’ve no idea why or how so I’m sorry I’ve no secret to share but in my mind I have been wondering if Taya would be the same…
She was 12 weeks last Monday and had her first full night with no wake ups on Wednesday. Since then she’s been been waking up regularly through the night but is settled with her dummy and isn’t crying for milk. I’m hoping that now it’s just a case of getting no her used to going back to sleep in the night without me having to get up and out her dummy back in.
Thanks for joining us for another update, I’ll let you all know her weight when we go to the clinic next week so if you want to have a guess leave a comment on my insta post and we’ll see who was closest…
Rachel xx
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