Big Smiles and Big Sleep

Olivia started giving us the occasional intentional smile a few weeks ago and now we can get her to smile a lot. She's happiest when she wakes up in the morning. She lies on her changing table and coos and smiles at us while we talk with her and change her diaper. I'm going to try to get this on video because it is just too cute for words.

She's also "talking" a lot more. She will respond to our words with babble and coos. The most common thing she says now is "agu". We still haven't figured out what that means but she usually says it when she is happy.

And the best news is...she's sleeping through the night (well, most nights anyway). I'd say she sleeps anywhere from 7 to 10 hours at night. The first 3-4 nights she did this, Chris and I didn't take advantage of it because we didn't believe it was happening. Now we can pretty much count on it and are able to go to bed earlier. Her "big sleep" is happening just in time for me to go back to work in about 1 1/2 weeks. Yay!!

Olivia is also starting to use her arms and hands a little bit. Several times when Chris and I were putting the bottle to her mouth, she put her hands and arms on the bottle and moved it towards her mouth. But she doesn't do this consistently yet.

Olivia has a voracious appetite now and if we don't catch her early hunger signals she will erupt in cries a few minutes later. She definitely keeps us on our toes.

Also, Olivia attended her first party this weekend. My office had a party and Chris and I took her because everyone was anxious to meet her. Well, of course she was a big hit. Several people held her and played with her and she didn't fuss a bit. My boss said that if he stopped moving up and down and didn't make eye contact with her every 30 seconds that she would squawk to get his attention. She definitely had him wrapped around her little finger!

On a mommy note: Unfortunately I've had to give up breast feeding. I didn't have a choice really. It was due in part to two things, repeated breast infections and low milk supply.

About 5% of breast feeding women will get a breast infection and it usually clears up pretty quickly with antibiotics. These women will usually get the infection in one breast only. Well, I got two breast infections each in both breasts. And I had to take two different antibiotics because the infections just lingered on and on.

If I had a good milk supply, I probably could have made it through the infections without much of a problem, but my milk dried up very quickly after the second infection because there just wasn't much to begin with. This was hard on me emotionally because I felt that I couldn't provide for my baby the way I had always planned to do. Of course Olivia's thriving on formula and she's received the benefits of breastmilk for 7 weeks so I am happy about that. But it just breaks my heart when she moves her head toward my breast and roots around and all I can do is wait for the bottle to warm up.