Two Months

 Our sweet baby girl turned 2 months last week! Month 2 was definitely an improvement from month 1. Acting on the recommendation from my lactation specialist and pediatrician, I cut out all dairy from my diet when Ella was about 3 weeks old. They told me it would take about 1-3 weeks before I noticed an improvement, well within a week she was already a hundred times better! The reason they recommended this was because Ella was having some difficulty with reflux and had begun throwing up (not just spitting up) at least once a day, sometimes twice, and of course was EXTREMELY fussy and would not sleep! Basically it was a nightmare.

Since I've cut out dairy (6 weeks ago now) she's only thrown up maybe 4 times, she still spits up all the time, but its just spit up and it doesn't seem to bother her. She is still often fussy but not nearly as often, and for not nearly as long. And she actually takes naps now! And sleeps some. Definitely not as good as most babies her age, she still wakes up about every 2 hours at night, most nights we'll get at least one 3 hour stretch and every once in a while maybe a little longer, but that's only happened once or twice. And she's a very restless sleeper and often in the early hours of the morning (3am-6am) she'll only be able to sleep if I rock her or put her binky in her mouth and then 20 minutes later, repeat, and 20 minutes later repeat, which means on a day Kyle has to go to school and isn't able to help too much I typically get about 4 hours of sleep at night, which is killer.

It's definitely been a challenge for me to go completely off dairy, it's almost impossible to eat anywhere but at home because so many things contain some dairy. I really have to read labels carefully, some crackers and breads and chips, dressings, sauce, and salads even have dairy ingredients and of course almost all desserts are off limit, since most cookies, brownies, cakes, chocolate, etc have butter or milk in them, same with pancakes and muffins...sigh. But the result is completely worth it!! And hopefully I'll be able to start adding some dairy back in once Ella turns 6 months.

We also discovered that when Ella was given a bottle of pumped milk, and able to sit up a little while eating she did much better, the milk also came out more slowly and didn't choke her so much versus actually breastfeeding (I have kind of an intense let-down), so at 4 and half weeks I switched to exclusively pumping, which has also helped Ella be a much happier baby:) There are certainly some disadvantages to exclusively pumping, but for right now its working for us.

At 2 months:

-Ella smiles! I LOVE seeing her smile at me, it is just the sweetest thing. She's always been a smiley baby since she was born, but she really started to smile at me around 5 weeks or so and now she smiles all the time and even laughs a tiny bit!

-And she talks! well baby "talk" she'll coo and gurgle and make all kinds of noise at me when i talk to her.

-Loves going for walks in the stroller, if she's fussy that's always a sure way to make her calm down and usually fall asleep:)

-Definitely recognizes me and Kyle, and even when i move away or hand her to someone else she'll keep looking at me, she'll even look at me from across the room now. And if she is just starting to fuss I can talk to her from across the room and a lot of times she'll stop fussing and just listen to my voice.

I am enjoying my sweet baby girl more and more each day as she becomes happier and more interactive. I'm so excited to watch her continue to grow and develop during month 3, and hopefully start sleeping a little better at night! Love you Sweet Ella!

And now lots of pictures:

pajama time

Sunday Best!

Ready for her walk

Naked Baby! But she tastefully posed:)

checking out her play mat for the first time!

Eating dinner with daddy

Play date with Clementine! Clementine is 2 months older than Ella, they had a great time taking naps, drinking milk, hanging with their respective mommys and laying next to each other on the floor.