*Outfit is from Smocked Auctions*

*If I’m going to share the pretty photos, I also have to share these too! Here’s a text I sent my husband on Monday. #MomLife*

Everyone says the days are long and the years are short, but I beg to differ. The days are SO short as well as the years. We are officially out of the “fourth trimester” if you will, and I don’t have a newborn anymore! How did that happen?!

Maxi is still such a cuddle bug and loves to be close to you! She’s laid back but plays so hard! The past month has been so much fun as I’ve started to see her personality and she laughs/coos back when you talk to her. She’s starting to like tummy time since she can lift her head up more but she HATES her car seat. I mean I honestly dread running errands, unless she is already asleep. Any tips on that?! She loves music, we dance to Leon Bridges all day long in her nursery. Maxi also loves being at restaurants and sitting in my lap while I eat. She smiles at everyone and stares at people around us. Her favorite thing is bath time and some nights we take baths together and I’ll nurse her and she just smiles the entire time. We babywear during church and she has done really well during service. She also enjoys walks and I’m sad that as the weather gets warmer we won’t be able to take her outside as much. However, I’m hoping she loves the water and we can cool off in the baby pool together. I still can’t imagine how I ever lived life without her. I have done nothing to deserve the opportunity to carry a child and care for her each and every day and I’m just so in awe of how much God loves me that he would let me raise Maxi. Yes, I’m exhausted. Yes, this is the hardest thing I’ve ever done. Yes, the mom guilt is intense. Like I feel guilty leaving her with Paul to get groceries?! But I had no idea I was capable of loving like this and I will never get over the fact she is ours.

Here is a little Q&A readers have sent me this past month!

How is she sleeping?

Maxi has always been a great little sleeper and started sleeping through the night at around 7 or 8 weeks. I need to check my journal that I document it all in! However about a week and a half ago she hit the 4-month sleep regression. I follow The Wonder Weeks and she wasn’t going through a leap at the time so I was curious why she wasn’t sleeping. And this wasn’t “leap” sleep. Her leap sleep is just really short naps but she still sleeps at night. I asked around and apparently the 4-month sleep regression happens between 3 and 5 months and it’s very common to start at 3-months. My little sleeper started to wake up quite a few times at night and rarely naps. However, I will say the positive is she goes down for bed at 8 now as opposed to later. She sleeps best between 8 and midnight so I’m trying to be better about having work done so I can go to bed at 9. But then between 1 and 5 a.m. she just is up all the time wanting to cuddle. She isn’t even really hungry. She wants to be picked up, held, nursed for 5 minutes and she will fall back asleep. I can’t complain about that because the process is only 15 minutes but she will do this song and dance over and over! I don’t want to jinx myself but the past 2 days have been much better with her naps so maybe she is adjusting?! Who knows! Once a baby does one thing for a few weeks they change!

How is feeding?

I feel like this month was honestly centered around feeding. Let me preface this by saying, next baby I’m pumping right off the bat! In the hospital, my lactation consultants told me not to pump in the beginning because it could stress me out and there was no need if I would be home with her. They had extremely valid points that I respected and followed. I didn’t start pumping until a few weeks later when I actually had to use up the milk I was pumping for things like random work meetings. I wish I had pumped when we were just at home all day not using bottles because I could have built up a good stash! But let me explain the whole dilemma! This month started off with a nasty stomach virus. My pediatrician told me to keep feeding Maxi as usual because she’d get the antibodies from me to not get it. Well, milk is produced by your body staying hydrated and because I was throwing up so much and SO dehydrated my supply tanked. Maxi drank all the bm I had stored up in the freezer. I was chugging Gatorade, pumping and just letting her nurse all day. My mom was helping me take care of Maxi and she would cry watching me throw up while pumping, then I would cry because I was frustrated I wasn’t getting milk and then Maxi was crying because she was hungry. I mean I can laugh at it now looking back [3 girls all crying in one room!] but those were a rough few days! By day 3 I couldn’t even express any milk, so my pediatrician told us to supplement one bottle a day while I was sick. I’d nurse her, then give her the bottle and she was great. The one bottle a day made a huge difference because I was less stressed about her feeding and could rest. My pediatrician also told me to just stop pumping for a day so my body could reset and that helped a lot. After about 5 days of supplementing one bottle daily, my supply was back to normal and Maxi and I were back on track with feeding!

Favorite Products?

She loves this musical bug, so much so that I’ve ordered 3 more because I’m terrified to be without it. She prefers this bouncer to anything else. She plays on this piano daily. Baby Gap is what fits her best right now and I’ve also started using the Gentle Baby essential oil on my chest with coconut oil before we nurse in the morning. It smells so good!

Has she started teething?

I feel silly, but I can’t really say! Her hands are ALWAYS in her mouth and I call her my little drool bug! My pediatrician told me they can start doing this at 3 months and cut teeth in a few months, or they can start doing this at 3 months since it’s just a normal development process and not cut teeth for months! So who honestly knows?! But my blouses are constantly covered in drool and she’s always got on a little drool bib.

How is postpartum/weight?

Now everyone is different so when I talk breastfeeding/supply/weight this is just me speaking for myself! I have some friends that can drop weight and it not affect supply and some friends that have to eat burgers every day to keep up milk production! My weight definitely affects my supply. I’m about to my pre-pregnancy weight and anytime I get to my pre-pregnancy weight, my supply dips. I try to just eat as much healthy fats as  I can to keep up! But I also tell myself to not stress about it because I know eventually I’ll feel back to my normal self. Each day I feel more and more like myself, except of course for my stomach area. Those muscles are long gone! lol My OB told me not to do any form of ab exercises during pregnancy which I gladly obliged to. 😉 Now I’m slowly incorporating them back in my routine as I feel comfortable doing. But the best workout I get is babywearing and walking around. That girl gets heavy! I’ve also been wearing this watch to help me with reminders of walking. It sets alerts each hour if I need to move more. It also is like the apple watch in the sense you get text/call notifications so that’s great because I don’t like having my phone in my hand all the time with Maxi. But honestly, it takes 9 months to grow a baby and at minimum, the same amount of time to get back to normal. This time last year the greatest thing I thought my body could do was 2 spin classes back to back in a day. Now I know the greatest thing my body can do is give birth, which I’m far more proud of!

Monitor Update/Is she sleeping in her crib/what is her crib mattress? 

We still haven’t used our monitor religiously, I’ve used it for a few naps here or there [she will sometimes nap in her crib] but not daily. She sleeps in her bassinet by me still but this is her crib mattress!

What are your favorite books you read her? 

I love Pout Pout Fish, Gigi, God’s Little Princess, I’d Know You Anywhere My Love and On The Night You Were Born

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend! Thank you so much for all your support through motherhood, it means more than you will ever know!