Peyton's First Week

Peyton turned one week old this past Friday, June 20th. We've been having a blast getting to know our sweet girl and I absolutely loved having Jared at home with me all week. It's been a busy first week, getting Peyton acclimated to her new home as mommy and daddy figure out this whole parenting thing. We survived this first week and everyone is doing great, so we must be doing something right!

She wanted to sport her Seminole gear for her one week birthday!

 We did lots of sleeping and snuggling in the hospital.

 The hospital photographer came and took some cute photos of her at one day old!

We were discharged from the hospital and got to bring our baby girl home!

 We celebrated Daddy's first Father's Day!

Peyton took her first car ride home from the hospital!

She got to meet Grandma and Bubba, her great-grandparents (my maternal grandparents). 

Peyton had her very first bath...a sponge bath given by Daddy. She peed all over the towel while he was bathing her, so there was some re-bathing involved. 

We had our first well-visit with the pediatrician at 4 days old. She weighed 9 pounds even (babies lose some of their birth weight at the very beginning) and was 21.5 inches long. Everything checked out perfect and mommy got some good tips from the doctor for helping her develop good sleeping and eating patterns, and they are totally working! Our pediatrician's office is a group of doctors and I was really excited because at this visit we got to see the doctor who was actually my pediatrician growing up! 

Peyton's sleeping patterns were pretty darn good considering it was only the first week. Our first two nights at home were a little rough, but by four days old she was "sleeping through the night". During the day and the first half of the night, she would sleep for around 3.5 hours at a time. Then, she would have one long sleep during the late night/early morning of 5.5 hours. Once she got up in the morning, she would start the whole cycle over again. I am very lucky to have what seems to be an awesome sleeper on my hands. She doesn't even wake up when Sadie barks! 

Peyton's feeding patterns seem to be good as well. I attribute much of her early eating and sleeping success to her being a big baby. She's really good at filling up her belly, passing out and taking a nice long nap...then waking up a few hours later and doing it all over again. It's glorious. We are exclusively breastfeeding and it has been going well so far. The first 3-4 days I was having problems with her falling asleep during her feedings and not finishing them. Then, when I would lay her down, she would wake up and be hungry. However, the pediatrician gave me some good tips on how to get her alert and awake for her feedings so that she is able to fill up. It worked like a charm. 

She found her hands right away and was already holding her head up when we were still in the hospital. When I prop her up to my shoulder, she holds her head up and looks at me making these adorable little faces. She will often smile at you when you talk to her.

Peyton loves...having her hands up by her face (especially when she sleeps), grabbing on to your fingers, her soothie pacifier when she gets fussy, being held up to your shoulder so she can look around, stretching out and flailing her arms and legs, staring at faces, snuggling with Daddy, and being naked :) 

Peyton dislikes...having her diaper changed, being swaddled or wrapped up in anyway, having her arms and legs confined, blankets, socks, sponge baths and being woken up to eat before she is ready to get up. 

I left her for the first time on Friday with Jared and his mom for about an hour and a half while I went to have my nails done. I'm surprised that I wasn't more nervous about leaving her, but I was excited to get back as quickly as I could.

I lost 20 pounds of my pregnancy weight in the first week! Well, 10 pounds of that was baby and the rest was probably placenta, uterus and fluid. I have this feeling that the remaining 25 pounds might not come off as quickly or easily. Since I can't do too much moving around right now due to all the healing that my tear from delivery needs to do, I am hoping that breastfeeding will do some of the weight-loss work for me. 

We are enjoying every moment with our little girl and I can't believe that we are already in week two! The time is definitely going by too fast. Although I can't wait to watch her grow and learn new things, I am going to miss this tiny, adorable newborn. She literally changes every single day, but don't worry I have plenty of photos to document each moment :)