Air Force Wife Life: 2 months

The second month of Lena's life has been a fun and challenging one. She's awake more often and she has started to smile more at us. We've even heard some pretty serious attempts at laughing! Apparently mom is funny with a bath towel wrapped around her head. Gets her going everytime! Dad gets a majority of those precious smiles and I just love watching them interact and play their little games together. Our daughters both seem to already have such a special bond with their father, and I honestly wouldn't have it any other way. I love watching him love them and vice versa.

Breastfeeding so far has gone about as well as I could want it to. With Elise I was pretty concerned with keeping track of how often and how long she nursed. This time, I just nurse Lena when she's hungry. I know she's gaining weight and wetting enough diapers, and it's much less stressful this way. Lena is already in 3 month clothes (and actually filling them out!), and has officially moved onto size 1 diapers. It took her tiny sister much longer to reach those milestones. We have a little chunk on our hands this time around and we love it! I did notice this month that Lena seems to have a lip tie. This can cause issues with nursing sometimes, but it doesn't seem to affect Lena's ability to feed. It is a little bit uncomfortable for me sometimes, just not enough for me to really feel the need to fix it. I wouldn't want our daughter to go through a potentially painful procedure if its not necessary. I also struggled a little with a milk imbalance. I was creating more foremilk (more watery, less filling and less nutrient dense) than hind milk (fatty, filling, nutrient dense). This was causing Lena to have more green diapers instead of the mustard yellow which is the typical color. This also caused her some pretty painful gas. Luckily, I have an amazing LC (who is still in Abilene) who is willing to help me over the phone. She recommended that I nurse Lena 2-3 times in a row on the same breast. Within one day, Lena's bowel movements changed back to normal and her gas significantly decreased. This made for much more tolerable nights. She still falls asleep nursing pretty often and I'm already dreading the day that stops. It's such a sweet and short time in their life and I know I'll miss those precious snuggles.

Lena still sleeps a good 3-4 hours at night (on a good night) and then wakes up every 2 hours after until Elise wakes up and I have to start the day. Unless her gas is bothering her. Then it could be an all night screaming event. I didn't realize how easy I had it with just one newborn and we could lay around/lay in bed for hours until I felt like I could take on the day! It's really hard dragging my ass out of bed in the morning but once I do, and I go get Elise out of bed, I just kind of snap out of it and go straight into mom mode. Until about 9:30 at night when my body just starts to shut down, so my husband and I try to get both girls (and ourselves) fed, cleaned, bathed, and into bed (or asleep in Lena's case) before then so I don't feel too much like a zombie by 10.

When Elise was this age, she was sleeping really well. She slept about 6-7 hours uninterrupted at a time. Obviously that wasn't the hard part. The hard part came when she was waking every two hours. Which is what Lena does half the night now. I wish I had an explanation as to why this time feels easier to handle but I don't. With Elise, I would get so unbelievably frustrated and sometimes even angry that she wouldn't sleep more or longer. This time I just kind of shrug, make Ellie some cheerios, make myself a protein shake, and start the day knowing I'll be tired. I think it was much harder the first time to see the light at the end of the tunnel and to know how short lived that phase would be and that I would even miss many parts of it.

Elise has just blown us away stepping into her new role of big sister. She is always asking to hold baby Lena, or lay down next to her, or hold her hand. She tells her that she loves her unprompted and when Lena cries, she sings her songs. It goes without saying that I shed happy tears multiple times a day. When Elise talks to Lena or sings to her, Lena seriously stops what she's doing and stares at Elise. She really listens to her and will even smile at her sometimes. She may not be able to tell Elise that she loves her yet, but she sure does show it every day. I can't wait to hear those words though!

Lena is really doing great with tummy time. Much better than last month. A lot of babies seem to hate it, but she didn't. She just would always fall asleep instead! Now she even does a little dancing during tummy time! My husband and I got a little concerned because Elise was the opposite. Elise was constantly awake and wanting to do tummy time. She had her head lifting game down on her 8th day of life! Lena can do it, we've seen her, for minutes at a time. I think she just doesn't care like Elise did. Typical first born to be the over achiever and be an ambitious people pleaser! That's Elise for sure! Lena is much more laidback. We are really looking forward to seeing her personality blossom and how it interacts with Elise's. They are both such sweethearts. I know Elise will teach her so many things and we have a lot of fun memories ahead getting to witness it.