5 Weeks

Eleanor is 5 weeks old as of yesterday. It’s been a difficult week, so I’m a little behind with my posting. She decided to stop sleeping for a few days. At first she was only sleeping in one hour increments, then only in 30-40 minute increments. Luckily last night she went back to being a decent sleeper and since Andrew was home from work I was able to sleep in this morning.

Eleanor is awake for large portions of the day now. She is a very particular little baby. She’ll be happy as long as you don’t break any of her rules, like holding her horizontally or putting her down in her stroller or making her wait more than three seconds for a meal.

She is full of smiles these days. Real smiles! The ones I observed last week were indeed the start of actual smiling. She is starting to enjoy some of her toys. Her favorite is a plush pink bird that makes a lovely chiming noise when rattled. She’ll stare and stare at it. She can follow objects for a long time with her eyes. She’s starting to drool a blow bubbles. She’s beginning to find her voice and make adorable coos and goos. She likes to “talk” with me and play patty cake.

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4th Week

Eleanor is 4 weeks old today! She has almost grown out of her newborn sized onesies, but the 0-3 month sized clothes are still a bit big. I’m going to be a wreck when we have to finally put away her newborn clothes. It will be any day now.

Looking around is still her favorite activity, and I’ve started dangling toys in front of her to get her to track their motion with her eyes. It’s fun to see her more and more engaged with her surroundings. She has one really wakeful period each day around noon and I try to get in as much quality play time as possible.

Social smiling doesn’t begin until around 2 months, but this baby sure is doing a lot of practice smiling. Sometimes she looks right at me and grins, and I could swear she was doing it on purpose. Her eyes even seem to be smiling.

She is a pretty happy baby as long as she is either eating, sleeping, or being "worn" in a carrier.

I recorded a video of her hanging out in her bouncy chair yesterday. I'm still learning how to make the video from my camera actually look good, but I'll try to record her more often because it is so much more dynamic. (This posted to the blog in a small format, but you can video it in full screen by clicking on the four arrows next to the "vimeo" logo at the bottom right.)

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3rd Week

Eleanor is three weeks old today! She is awake and alert much more these days. Yesterday she was up for a solid three hours. She loves looking around and sitting up where she can see more than just the ceiling. Lately when I put her in the Moby she likes to spend a few minutes with her head held up high and her neck craned out looking around at everything. It takes a while before she is ready to lay her head down against my chest. She’ll love it when her neck is strong enough for a front carry position.

We had a doctor appointment on Monday. Eleanor was up to 8 lbs 10 oz and measuring 21 inches long. She screamed her lungs out the entire time the doctor was examining her, which caused him to call her a very “high spirited” girl. That made me feel oddly proud. As soon as all of the strangers were done poking and prodding her, she settled right down.

We started cloth diapering on Friday. We're only one day in, but so far so good!

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2nd Week

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