4 Weeks Old

She’ll be a month old on Saturday when we’ll get to start the first of her monthly photos. Can you believe it!?

Coraline is turning out to be a very mellow baby pretty consistently (it doesn’t seem like it’s just a fluke of newborn-ness right now).

The only exception is when she gets tired. If you let her get over tired, it becomes pretty difficult to get her to go to sleep, and she usually needs to suck.

At the first sign of fussiness now, I will try her in another position in case she is bored, and if she doesn’t settle, I’ll begin swaying her to sleep. She really only gets fussy when she is tired or very hungry, and sometimes just bored. And even hunger she will grunt for a while as a warning before the all-out-yelling begins.

This week I really felt like I am understanding her wants and needs better and our days have run very smoothly recently. More smoothly, I think, than they did with Jameson.

Some differences, which make it really clear how different babies really can be:

  • Jameson always seemed bored, like he needed a lot of stimulation and activity. I was thankful for daycare for this reason; so far, Coraline doesn’t seem to need this same kind of stimulation. She likes to look at faces a lot, and observing the world around her seems enough, for now. I’m guessing she may smile sooner than he did, but we’ll see!
  • Coraline doesn’t take a pacifier (we’ve tried four), and has a big preference for breastfeeding. She had her first bottle which went well, but the two we gave her since then she hasn’t taken, which makes me nervous. The key seems to be that she is confusing us between when she is hungry and when she is overtired and just wants to suckle herself to sleep. Jameson was always a bit of a struggle with breastfeeding (especially at her age now), and took pacifiers and bottles easily.
  • She doesn’t seem to spit up as much as Jameson did.

  • Coraline is a very loud sleeper, grunting and whining a lot. She is fine though without vibration or a pacifier once asleep.
  • She likes the swing! Hurray for a baby who likes the swing!
  • Jameson pooped once every 5 days or so (this is a normal, though not very common, occurrence with breastfed babies). Coraline is of the much more common several-times-a-day pooper (though thankfully not often at night). Consequently, while he seemed frequently gassy, Coraline doesn’t often.
  • She likes to be on her belly. Jameson used to hate to be on his belly, unless he was completely and totally already asleep. She seems to find it comforting.

And similarities: Coraline and Jameson both seem to be pretty good sleepers at this age, getting up between one and two times a night, most often just once. They like to be swaddled too! And obviously, they look very similar, especially when I put her in some of the gender neutral sleepers (heck, even some of the boy outfits too!). She is more filled out than he was, but many features are similar.

She has good head control already, which I credit to being at a higher birth weight and overall more mass to support that head! It probably helps that she likes to be on her belly, so we put her in that position more, too.

This week she also started to coo every once in a while (maybe a couple times a day). I tried to get it on video, but once I brought the camera out, she sneezed and started crying. A sign of things to come?

Jameson continues to be an excellent big brother. Last night, she was crying on her playmat while Brian and I finished eating quickly. Jameson, already finished, got a book and went over to her, trying to read to her. It was very sweet; when it didn’t work, he yelled to us that she was crying.

Whenever she cries, he tells us that she needs a diaper change. He likes to say “ewww stinky” when we do change her diaper; meanwhile laughing with pride at his own accomplishments on the potty. Kids are funny!

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