Darcy 2 Months

Oh, 2 months old! We made it! This was when having a baby again started to be a real joy for me. 

The main reason for this was because breastfeeding started to work! It was amazing! I just remember one day realizing that I breastfed her painfree for a day and I nearly wept with gratitude. I still can't believe I stuck with it. It was so hard, but I am so glad I did. And we got off the nipple shield too! It was a miracle. Breastfeeding her is almost always a pleasure now. I still occasionally look at her when she latches immediately and without any pain and just marvel at how far we have come. It was certainly a journey, and I am so glad we stuck the course. 

Since breastfeeding was well in hand, it was time to tackle the next issue: sleeping. I mentioned before that because breastfeeding was such an ordeal to get going, I couldn't tackle anything else at that time, so we just traveled the path of least resistance. So Darcy slept in the swing. 

She didn't sleep in the swing while it was moving all that often, but for some reason that inclined, more cuddled position was the way she would sleep easily and nothing else would do. She would wake up with five minutes of being laid flat, if not immediately. 

This was more of an issue because John was sleeping downstairs on the couch by her, and it turns out he prefers to sleep in his bed. The swing wouldn't work in our room because of where the air conditioner hit. She also wasn't sleeping as well for naps downstairs being in the middle of everything. So we ended up putting her in Holland's room and just hoping she wouldn't wake Holland up, which worked pretty well. 

We did want to work towards getting her to sleep in her own space without the swing, mostly because Holland needed a place to be able to go for timeout. Also, because she couldn't sleep in the swing forever. 

I had this master plan. We were going to get her to take the binky because breastfeeding was finally solid. Then she would transition easier to laying flat by sucking on the pacifier. We would start at naps and eventually move to night time sleep. 

Well, that plan didn't work. I researched how to get a baby to take a binky and it turns out she just wouldn't. I tried and tried and tried. I got her to suck on it a little once in a blue moon, but that was it. It certainly didn't help put her to sleep. 

I gave it a good run before I gave up on it though. That plan sounded so good in theory that I really wanted to give it a try. I think if I had tried the binky earlier there would have been a better chance of her taking it, but my priority was teaching her latching and there was no way I was going to introduce anything to make that harder. 

We didn't really resolve the sleep issue while she was two months old. It basically just got worse that month, but it was still a really fun month. There is no question that when your baby learns how to smile your whole insides melt into a puddle of joyful adoration. 

But then she also discovered her voice a little bit. So our main mission in life became getting the baby to smile and chatter at us. She did this the best in the late evening so that is when we ended up taking little videos of her. Maybe that is why she didn't go to sleep well in the evening? Her parents were too interested in playing with her that it wasn't very settling. 

Besides learning to latch, smile, and coo, her other main trick she learned that month was that she found her right hand. She also found that she could put that right hand in her mouth and suck on it. This was another reason (besides it just wasn't working) that I gave up on the binky. She figured out how to self-soothe with her own hand. 

This is a great skill for a baby to have, but it did have one negative consequence. She kept turning her face to the right to meet her right hand that she started to develop a bit of a flat spot on the back of that side of her head. We definitely didn't want to have to get her a helmet or have a weird shaped baby head so we did everything we could to get her to look to her left. We'd have the kids talk to her from that side, place her against the wall so she'd have to look towards her left to see out, swapped which way we would lay her down on the changing mat, and everything else we could think of. I think it worked! I think her head is a little rounder in the back than it used to be. Phew! 

I love all of these two month pictures. They melt my heart. 

This picture is funny in contrast to the ones above. 

I love this set of photos. We love the newly smiling baby! I normally try to narrow down a set of photos to just my few favorites, but I love all of these two much that I just have to post them all. 
 

I mean...honestly. So cute its painful. 

I am not the only one who thinks so. 

This was after one of her first baths. We still don't bathe her as much as we probably should, mainly just when she has a particularly bad blow out. 

We love our sweet smelly baby! (Maybe good or bad smells)

Holland wrote this note shortly after starting to share a room with Darcy. She didn't like being woken up in the middle of the night (just like the rest of us). "Dear baby, that was not nice." Then, addressed to us, "Read it to her."

It became a little easier to get a smile from her. And we just delighted in it!

But there's no doubt about it, Daddy gets the best smiles!

This is how I spent a lot of my time. Darcy was a very slow sleepy nurseer. But since it wasn't hurting anymore, I wasn't complaining!

There were times though that I wasn't able to get downstairs till afternoon. She just wanted to sleep nurse on me always.

It was still such a precious time! Even though it was a little frustrating that I didn't have time to do much else.

Fortunately other people could come visit me! I have especially liked how Ellie can come say hi between her classes in middle school.

But then she started to get in a bad habit of wanting to sleep nurse on me at night too! This was a problem because then she wouldn't go to bed for the night in her swing even.

It just got later and later, no matter what we seem to do. I remember the night that we took these pictures she didn't go to bed for the night until about 2:00 a.m.

Fortunately Daddy was working from home so that he could get the girls going in the morning, and I stayed up late with Darcy.

and she still slept for 8 hours or whatever, so I can't complain too much. It was just hard to have such a different schedule than the rest of the family. And limited what I could do with my time even more so.

We really like these little bonnets, can you tell?

It was during this time that she finally met her future BFF, Brielle. Since the Davis's had Sophie on in online school as well, and no other kids in school, and Nathan was working from home, we felt like it was okay to get together with them. It seems like they had similar social distancing practices that we did.

It was so nice to get together with them and have a normal social interaction.

Our kids were over the moon to have someone to play with.

These babies were due practically on the same day, but because of Erica's health complications, Brielle was born a few weeks early.

Starting to get a bit of a bald spot and a little duck tail.

Ah! I missed my friend!

Still sleeping in the swing, got to remember to take that bow off before putting her down for a nap.

Happy morning smiles!

There were a couple times when I was so tired when nursing her that I would lay down and do side nursing. She typically just fell asleep on me, but I didn't care because I was asleep. It was pretty sweet to wake up to this. We thought we were going to go to lake Powell too, so I did this to sort of practice what I thought would be the easiest position to sleep on the houseboat.

I remembered this photo I had taken of Holland, so I cannot resist trying to get a similar photo of Darcy.

I love this elephant jumper!

And Darcy gets love done by her sisters, and daddy of course!Even if she looks a little alarmed by it.

I love her big smiles and her somber face. I adore the sweet baby and it was such a relief to get to a point where we could fully enjoy her. I love having a baby!