Abigail turned 1 month old on September 16th—4 days after she came home from the NICU. We are excited to finally have her home with us and start getting used to life with 3 kids.
Abigail obviously had a different start to life than her big sisters did. Brooklyn and Savannah came home from the hospital after a few days exclusively nursing, whereas Abigail spent 27 days in the NICU before coming home. She started out taking pumped milk via OG and NG tubes and eventually transitioned to bottles before she was discharged. Toward the end of her NICU stay, I was able to start attempting to nurse her. It was a slow process because she was a preemie and still so little! The lactation consultants all told me not to expect her to really get good at nursing until she was at least 6 pounds and close to her due date (October 4th). When I nursed her in the NICU, she would take anywhere from just a few milliliters to as much as 25 milliliters at a time. Sometimes she was just too sleepy to latch or get very much.
At one month old, we are still primarily doing bottles, and I am trying to nurse her once or twice a day. It is an exhausting process of heating bottles, feeding her bottles, AND pumping every 3 hours. Makes me tired just thinking about all of that. She is taking anywhere from 30-40 milliliters of pumped milk in her bottles at a time. She does great with the bottles, and it usually isn’t too hard to get her to drink from them even when she is sleepy.
Abigail weighs 4 pounds 9.5 oz at one month old. I’m not sure how long she is, but I know she’s grown from the 16 inches she was at birth. She is wearing preemie clothes and preemie-sized diapers, which are the tiniest diapers I’ve ever seen! I didn’t have her monthly stickers ordered by the time of these pictures, which is why she’s not wearing a white onesie and sticker like the other girls did. Mommy fail!
Abigail is still sleeping most of the time day and night. We are waking her up to feed her every 3 hours. Sometimes she has a hard time settling down at night to sleep, and I wonder if she has her days and nights mixed up. She also makes lots of noises in her sleep (grunts and squeaks), so we try as much as possible to have her sleep in her own room rather than with us. I’m a light sleeper, and all her noises would keep me up!
Abigail has brown hair…mainly around the back and sides of her head. Not much on top! Her eyes seem to be a dark gray color, although depending on the light, it’s hard to tell. Sometimes they look dark blue or dark brown. I’m sure they will change over time! Maybe it’s because she’s a preemie, but we haven’t had to trim her fingernails or toenails yet. I wonder if they don’t really start growing until closer to a baby’s due date.
As far as personality goes, I think a lot of it remains to be seen. Abigail is still so sleepy! She’s not even to her due date yet. So far though, she really doesn’t cry much at all. The main things that make her upset are changing her diaper and changing her clothes. She doesn’t like to be disturbed, I guess :) Other than that, she’s pretty content! She likes being held and snuggled, but does pretty good sleeping in her crib for naps.
We love you, Abigail Laine! You fit right into our family, and we’re so glad you’re here!
