Props to Dad

This is Charlotte here. While I'm proud to say that Susannah's growth is fueled with 100% breastmilk, lately, Alex has been taking responsibility for some of her feedings. Some of you may be wondering how this works. Thanks to the wonders of modern breastpump technology, anyone can feed a baby breastmilk, even if they don't actually have breasts!
Here's how we've been doing it. On say, a Monday, I wake up in the morning, pump milk, and store it in the fridge. On Tuesday morning, Alex wakes up with Susannah (which happens to be very early), puts Monday's milk in a bottle, heats it up, and feeds her. I may wake briefly, but I can go right back to sleep knowing that Dad's got everything under control. When I wake up after a bit of extra shut-eye, I pump for the next morning's feeding.
Although I'm on maternity leave and could nurse for every feeding, these once-daily bottle feedings are important so that she learns and remembers how to drink from a bottle. If you wait until a baby is 3-4 months old when mom goes back to work before you introduce a bottle, they might not want anything except the boob, which would obviously make it impossible for them to eat while they're in daycare. However, you can't give a baby a bottle when they're too young because it may undermine breastfeeding due to "nipple confusion". Babies will generally accept the bottle without too much fuss when they're about 3-4 weeks old. By that time breastfeeding is well-established and the introduction of a bottle is not likely to mess things up. What we have found is that Susannah seems to like breastfeeding better, but if you give her breastmilk in a bottle instead, she drinks it without too much fuss.
I do enjoy nursing our daughter, but I must admit it has been really helpful having Alex doing the morning feedings so I can sleep a bit more. At this point some of you may be thinking that Alex is getting the short end of the stick on sleep. Well, before you write me off as a negligent mother, I will point out that I do the middle-of-the-night feeding (at about 2 or 3 AM) while Alex sleeps. This arrangement seems to be working out pretty well, plus it gives Alex and Susannah some father-daughter bonding time without me getting in the way.

First Smiles

Susannah has been smiling at random since she was only a couple weeks old, but recently she has started actually smiling in response to us and the outside world. When she's in a decent mood (which generally means recently fed and changed), we can elicit a very charming smile from her fairly reliably by smiling at her and making goofy faces. We're having lots of fun getting her to perform for the camera, as you can see in the pictures and video. Finally, a sign of appreciation for all those 3AM feeding sessions!

Visit with Charlotte's Family

Over the weekend, we traveled to Arizona to visit Charlotte's parents and introduce Susannah to some of her relatives. Charlotte's aunt Pat and cousins Patty and Pam threw a wonderful baby shower at aunt Pat's house just outside of Phoenix and to the left is a picture that Charlotte's dad shot of the "hens" (as Charlotte's dad likes to say) and little kids at the shower. The rest of the weekend was spent relaxing with Grandma and Grandpa Berkes in Green Valley (see photos of the proud grandparents), ending with a nice visit from Charlotte's cousin Kathy and her family.

We must admit we were a bit scared at the prospect of traveling with a one month-old. Our main fear was that she would cry for the entire flight and that we would be the recipients of dirty looks from every other passenger on the plane. Thank goodness, our fears did not come to pass. The noise and vibration of the plane's jet engine lulled Susannah into a deep sleep. Susannah can sometimes be a high maintenance kid with frequent bouts of fussing, and we've found that a variety of noisy appliances (hair dryers, dishwashers, washing machines, fans) can work wonders to calm her when she's in a cranky mood. So, we've added airplanes to that list.

Susannah's First Bath

This weekend, Susannah had her first real bath (by "real" we mean submerged in water...previously, we had been giving her sponge baths until her belly button was completely healed) She loved it! Here is a picture of her luxuriating in the suds.

Tummy Time/Nap Time

Check out our first videos of Susannah (yes, she is just napping or flailing her head about, but as new parents, just about anything she does is tape-worthy to us at this point). In the first video, taken at about 2.5 weeks old, we put her on the sofa for her daily RDA of "tummy time", but rather than attempt to hold her head up (which is the whole point of tummy time), she fell asleep. In the second video, she is successfully doing head-lifts, and getting mad in the process. Our camera only shoots 20-second video clips, but hopefully we will upgrade to a more advanced camcorder by the time we are recording her piano recitals, or whatever she ends up doing that we might want to tape.

Welcome

Hello Visitors,

If you are reading this, we have invited you to check out our new blog, which we set up for the purpose sharing the details of our life with our new baby daughter, Susannah. We probably won't be composing wordy posts (how much can one say about poopy diapers, really?) but rather we'll be using this as a place to post pictures and videos of Susannah, and notes about how she is doing. Enjoy!