Bonnie Anne - 1 Month Old

I have read baby milestone posts on blogs for quite a few years and decided it's time to have a go at doing one for my precious little girl, Bonnie Annie Grace.  She is now actually 5weeks and 5days but I will try to think back to her being a month old.  Fortunately Mum gave me some really cute Peter Rabbit milestone cards so I have the incentive to take photos every month so that should spur me on and remind me to record on here too.

  (I knitted this penguin when I was pregnant and it certainly turned out larger than I was expecting!  Hopefully useful though for size comparison photos over the months)

I am also recording in other ways too:

• I have a Peter Rabbit baby book for Bonnie for a keepsake. 
• I have written down my memories of birth and being in the hospital in a notebook. 
• I have been really enjoying jotting things down in the New Mum's Notebook I was gifted just before Bonnie was born. 
• Keeping a brief daily record of the things we do each day in a diary.

I described the first month like this to a friend yesterday:
Week 1 - living feed to feed on the three hour cycle, never really feeling we could look further ahead.
Week 2 - taking a deep breath and trying getting out and about a bit.  Each outing was a big deal.
Week 3 - feeling more confident that we can actually manage to get out.
Week 4 - yay - let's go on adventures and enjoy life as a family of three.
It has been so special that John has been around for the whole first month of Bonnie's life.  We have loved being all together and learning together.

Highlights of the month

• having baby girl on me for the first time. It was amazing after 35 hours of labour to have our baby lifted up to me and put on my chest.  Made all the labour and pregnancy worthwhile instantly.  It was a short while till we knew if she was a boy or a girl.
• every time I have looked at her and been amazed that she is ours and we get to keep her and feeling overwhelmed with love that I am brought to tears
• not having to cook for a month! Between gousto, very generous and super chef parents, and a two week meal rota from CCC life has been wonderfully cooking-free for me.
• choosing and sharing her name.  We narrowed it down from the short list of 27 girls names and on day 9 she was finally named.  And we are very happy with her name.
• having her sleep on me.  So lovely when she looks all snug and sleepy.
• watching the commonwealth games with her - perfect timing having 10 nights of entertainment just after she was born.  I became a big fan of the netball.
• feeling excitedly free when Bonnie slept in her pram for the first time.  As precious as it is to have her sleep on us and nice to know that's what makes her feel safe, it was great to have her asleep in the pram so John and I could do things at the same time, including sleep at the same time!
• being humbled by the number of cards and gifts sent to us.  Wow.
• watching our little girl lap up her milk from a cup - who knew that was a thing?!
• then feeling we were nailing this feeding malarkey! Woop woop goodbye pump and now feeding out and about.
• feeling confident enough to go on adventures as a family of three: Cotswolds walk, National Trust house, Crazy Bear farm shop.
• not having to take gaviscon any more - amazing realisation the first morning after she was born that I hadn't been up in the night and then clearing out all the bottles back home.  And enjoying chocolate again.
• midwives being amazed that Bonnie had put on 170g in 2 days
• learning things to do that sooth Bonnie and feeling we are beginning to know our baby girl.

Tough bits of the month
I think I'm a very positive person in life and that hasn't stopped since having Bonnie.  I feel we have been blessed with a wonderful baby.  We haven't got anything to compare her to, but hearing other people's stories, I'm pretty sure we have a good one and we are keeping her!  That said, I think it helps to realise how good you have it, if you also record the things that have maybe been struggles.  It also stops me being one of those really annoying mothers that everyone gives evils to at groups as they are sugar coating it all to appear a supermum! And also, hearing about things that have gone wrong or been hard for others has really helped me.  I think that might actually be part of the reason why I feel things are going so well: I have pretty low expectations and was really expecting it to be hard and had been told that tough is normal.  Anyway, here's a list:

• losing a litre and a half of blood
• being in pain and exhausted walking to Sainsbury's
• not knowing if we would ever be able to put Bonnie down
• struggling to feed our baby girl
• expressing into a syringe when really tired
• flinching as I turned on the breast pump
• trying to comfort our baby crying in pain and not being able to wind her

Eating
 First two weeks was mainly expressed breast milk whilst always offering her the breast.  I kept detailed notes of how long she breast fed, how much she drank from the cup, and how many ml I pumped.  By day 5 Bonnie had lost 11% of her birth weight so the midwives put us on a feeding plan and referred us to the infant feeding team at the JR.  We also went to a baby cafe and by two weeks she was back to birth weight and we were then able to reduce the amount of pumping until she was just breast feeding by the end of the month.

Sleeping
Interesting... by the end of the month she would sleep in her pram, but only after falling properly asleep on someone or if we were out for a walk.  She would wake every three hours for a feed in the night and I would usually be back asleep in an hour.  I did a lot of paces around the lounge.

Likes
Classic fm.
Being jiggled by daddy, including on the bouncy ball.
Bumpy terrain in the car or pram - the more pot holes the better.
Being snug in the sling - usually sends her straight to sleep.

Dislikes
Being on the changing mat.