baby

Four Months. Somehow, four months have gone by since the day that we finally got to meet you. Words cannot begin to describe my feelings for you. I am truly blessed that I was chosen to be your mother. I know that your daddy feels the same way. I have so much fun watching the two of you together. Your personality has always shown, but I think it comes out stronger more and more now. You are such a happy baby!!!

Nicknames: Little Z, Zoe Bear, Z, Cheeks, Kiddo

Loves: Smiling, chewing/sucking on hands and fingers, grabbing your feet, reading A Great Day For Up and The Going to Bed Book, playing with blocks, laying on your activity mat, and finally tummy time!! Now that you have mastered rolling over from back to belly, you have been doing tummy time all on your own. You are just the cutest laying there on your belly looking around. You have even been rolling onto your belly for some of your naps.

Hates: Naps. Sometimes you take one just fine, but more often than not you are fighting them! I am not sure if you have FOMO or what. I always ask you if mommy can have your naps instead!

Milestones: You have truly mastered grabbing things with your hands, it is much more controlled. You are rolling over multiple times per day from back to stomach, and every now and then you will do a full roll from stomach to back again. You have started trying to stand on our lap when we hold you on our shoulder. And you also have started sitting up when we are holding you in our laps. During your tummy time, you try so hard to crawl!!! You start getting frustrated because I can tell that you want to move, you just cant figure out how yet.

Clothing: Two weeks ago I moved you up to size 2 diapers, and we have started pulling out your 6 month clothes! I think you have really hit a growth spurt and I am anxious to see what you weight and your height at your wellness check up next week!

Feeding: You take 4-6 ounces every 2-3 awake hours. You have been an awesome night sleeper!!! You usually go down for bed between 7-8 pm and wake up between 5-6 am.

Looks: Your eyes have stayed the same light blue this past month, and your hair has gotten even lighter.

Things I want to remember from this month…

–How you whine yourself to sleep when you are fighting it.

–On March 19th you started to discover your toes while sitting in your chair and you kept grabbing them and looking at them.

–How you love to look around and people watch when we are out.

–Your pterodactyl noises.

–When you’re tired and taking a bottle, you rub one of your hands up and down the bottle and the other hand holds one of my fingers.

–One day you started screaming from your crib and I came and picked you up and all you wanted was to sleep on my chest. It was the sweetest thing ever and you laid there fast asleep on me for over two hours. I cherished every single second of it.

–The way you love to cross your legs at your ankles. I find you sitting like this all the time now! You even do it during diaper changes.

–I took you to lunch at Saw’s with my coworkers one Friday and you were seriously the best. You let several people hold you without making a fuss and you were the perfect angel the entire time we were out. Everyone couldn’t get over how good you were. You have such a chill/go with the flow personality. I like to think you get that from me 🙂

I cannot believe that Zoe turned three months old on March 4. It is so weird because I feel like she has always been a part of our family, yet it is crazy to think that three months has already come and gone. It has been such a whirlwind, but so wonderful and amazing and more than I ever could have imagined or dreamed.

Nicknames: Little Z, Zoe Bear, Z, Cheeks, Kiddo

Loves: Smiling, chewing/sucking on hands and fingers, grabbing every two that you can fit your hands around, pulling mommy’s hair, laying on your activity mat, hanging out in your bouncer (your still too small for it, I sit there with you and have a blanket propped up behind you), car rides, bouncing on your memom’s lap, playing airplane.

Hates: Tummy time and naps. You have been fighting naps like crazy!! And I am not sure why you hate tummy time so much, because you are so good at holding your head up.

Milestones: You giggled for the first time this month!!! You also squealed in delight and haven’t stopped. You hate tummy time so much, you rolled over from your belly to your back on Thursday, March 2nd on your activity mat. You rolled from your back to your belly on Monday, March 6th in your crib.

Clothing: You wear mostly 3-month clothing. You still have some things that are 0-3 months, but they are getting to be too short on you. You are still in a size 1 diaper.

Feeding: You take 4-6 ounces every 2-3 awake hours. You have been an awesome night sleeper!!! You usually go down for bed between 8-9 pm and wake up between 6-7 am.

Looks: Whenever people try to figure out who you look like, I tell them you look like Zoe!! Your eyes are a light blue and your hair has gotten a little lighter again this month.

Things I want to remember from this month…

How much you love watching me sing and dance to The Itsy Bitsy Spider.

Every time I look at you, you are either smiling…or your fingers/hands are in your mouth!

The way your face lights up when we play pat-a-cake with Curious George.

The way you pucker your lips when you sleep.

How you close your eyes and giggle when I pull your clothes off over your head.

The way you dramatically push your bottle away when you’re done with it or angry that it is empty.

How you shrug your shoulders when you talk and smile. I do that too!

The way you raise your eyebrows at me.

When you eat you sometimes reach up and hold my face or rub my cheek with your hand.

All of the faces you make. I always say the many faces of Zoe.

Three Month Outtakes – Nothing makes me laugh more than this little girl and her huge personality!!! I told her to smile and I got this….

I love seeing her over the last three months side by side!!!

I have a bag of empties I have been adding to for several months now. I thought maybe I was going to do a video with them, but I need to figure out how and where I want to film and all that so for now I am just going to break them up into several posts. When I say a bag, I mean it! I randomly grabbed six items out of it, so here we go!

Simple Sensitive Skin Facial Wipes – Of all the facial wipes I have tried, and trust me when I say I have tried them all, I think these are my favorite. They are on the cheaper side of all the wipes, easy to find and they are paraben free with no harsh chemicals. They work just as good as any of the others out there and I have repurchased them several times.

Lush Imperials Facial Moisturizer -I have enjoyed all the Lush products I have tried and I would recommend them if you are looking for more natural, cruelty free items. This moisturizer wasn’t enough for me in the winter (I have combination skin), but was a great spring/summer option. It was really awesome during my pregnancy when I had to be careful what ingredients I was using. It has a heavy lavender scent, so as long as you are ok with lavender you should be good to go. It is a very spa/natural lavender scent. I would repurchase this, but it isn’t my absolute favorite. Clinique Moisture Surge Intense is my holy grail moisturizer. Unfortunately it is not natural or cruelty free, but it is just what works best for me and my face is feeling amazing right now.

Mumsie Natural Skin Care Daily Facial Moisturizer – This item Laura gave me to try because she had received it after she had her baby and didn’t need mom friendly stuff. I enjoyed using this, but again it wasn’t moisturizing enough in the winter time. I didn’t have any adverse reactions to it, it wasn’t really scented so it was awesome when I was staying away from anything with scents that bothered me. I dont have any negative opinions about it and I used it up, but I probably wouldn’t repurchase it again. There was nothing “wow” about it, you feel me? I will say if you are pregnant and need something unscented, it is fairly inexpensive as far as moisturizers go.

Aveeno Ultra-Calming Foaming Cleanser – This stuff I have been buying for years and years. Chris and I both use this in the shower. It is always what I turn to if I use a product that upsets my skin, or I need a reset. It is inexpensive, easy to find, doesn’t have much of a scent and has never had a negative impact on my skin. I bet this was my 50th bottle of this stuff.

Pantene Pro-V Moisture Mist Detangler – You guys, my hair is fine. Baby fine. You know what happens to fine hair in the shower? It tangles like crazy and is a real bitch to brush out. Before I got a wet brush, this stuff was in my daily rotation. It was cheap, easy to find, smells amazing and worked like a charm. I still keep a bottle on hand for when I am at the beach or have real tangles, but the wetbrush is pretty effective these days. I have repurchased this stuff several times and it lasts a good while. I recommend it to anyone needing a detangler.

Acure Facial Cleansing Gel – When I was pregnant, I was looking for natural items that didn’t have ingredients that were dangerous to my baby. I cant tell you how many hours I spent researching ingredients and looking at labels in stores. This brand showed up several times in my search so I thought, why not? You can find it at Target and it is cheap compared to some other stuff out there. But you guys?? The smell was just awful!!! I dont know if it was because I started using this early on in my pregnancy when I was overly sensitive to smells, but I cant even open the bottle now to tell you what it smells like because I will throw up from previous experience. I think the brand is great, and it didn’t have any adverse reactions on my skin but dont try it if you are sensitive to smells. Just no. I had gotten some shampoo by this brand it it was alright. Nothing special but good for natural ingredients if that is what you need. This was a did not finish for me.

Have you tried any of these things? Is there anything you want me to change about my next empties post? Format or other information? I have several I will do over the next few months so let me know what you think. Happy Tuesday!

You guys know that if anything, I am honest. This is a hard post to write because breastfeeding became such an emotional thing for me. And breastfeeding is one of those things that people are so damn judgy about. Here’s the thing, I agree that breastfeeding is best. So please don’t leave me ugly comments chastising me for quitting. Because at the end of the day a fed baby is what is best.

The first thing I did after I was wheeled back to the recovery room after my c section was breastfeed Zoe. She latched right on and all of these feelings came rushing to me. It was the most amazing, incredible thing I have ever felt. We instantly bonded and I thought that I was going to look forward to many months of this feeling. The thing was, her latch wasn’t the greatest. She was getting her milk, but she was destroying me in the process. On the second day of breastfeeding, I was so damaged that the lactation consultants had me pumping. They worked with me on her latch and she would do it right at first but always revert back to not opening wide enough.

I wasn’t producing enough milk in the beginning to feed her, so the supplementing started in the hospital. The nurse would bring down 20 ounces a few times a day and I started worrying about what would happen when I got home and didn’t have their supply. When I got home, I would give Zoe supplemental formula and she would eat on it for nearly an hour. Then I would have to wait until she fell asleep or someone would take her, and then go pump for 30 minutes or more. It was fine when other people were around, but during the day when I was alone it was really hard. I would sit down to pump and then 10 minutes in to it, Zoe would start screaming and need something and I would have to stop and take care of her.

I still wasn’t producing enough and having to use formula for at least 60-70% of her feedings. Then I would miss a pumping session on day because we were out grocery shopping when I needed to do it. Or I was really really really tired and not sleeping and after giving Zoe a bottle and she fell asleep, I needed to take a nap to be a functioning human. It is really hard to feed your baby a bottle and then pump because that is literally all you have time to do.

I started getting stressed out making sure to pump when I needed to. My supply still wasn’t great. I cant tell you how many times I sat there crying while hooked up to the pump. Stressed because I was so damn tired and I knew Zoe would wake up before I could take a nap because I was attached to that pump for the next 30-45 minutes. Crying because I sat back there for 45 minutes and only ten ounces came out and Zoe needed twenty to thirty at one time. It just got to be too much.

My mom, sister, SIL, MIL and best friend were all telling me it was ok to quit. To not stress out about it. After all, my sister and I are formula fed babies. All my nephews were formula fed. My best friend’s kid was formula fed. I have told several of my friends that it is ok that they aren’t breastfeeding. So why was I being so hard on myself???

I lasted three weeks. And one Saturday after I had sat back in the chair and barely got five ounces, I cried one last time and said this is it. I am done. It was like this huge weight was lifted off my shoulders. I knew it was the right decision, because I had no side effects from stopping. My boobs had been sore on and off since having Zoe, so the mild discomfort only lasted another day or two. I had zero leaking ever. It just confirmed my suspicions that my supply would have never built no matter how hard I tried.

Do I feel bad that I can’t have that feeling back that I had that very first feeding with Zoe? Yes. But you know what? I feel grateful I got to at least experience that feeling and I will always remember it. And I know that Zoe is getting fed and the nutrients she needs from the formula because she is growing and was perfect at her last doctor appointment. We still bond when I am giving her bottles because most times, we sit there and stare at each other as she eats. I can see her randomly smile as she is eating and she holds on to my fingers and it is the sweetest thing.

The whole purpose of this post? To those moms out there or soon to be moms…it is ok if you can’t breastfeed. Don’t be hard on yourself if your supply isn’t building up or you just don’t enjoy it. We all have to do what is right for us and as long as your baby is getting fed somehow, what does it matter? Don’t ever feel guilty or like you are less of a mother or woman because of it. That is just simply not true. I know it is hard to just quit. I have been there. But it is ok. Your baby is going to be just perfect regardless. Here is evidence…