BATH TIME & NANNY ROUTINEI gave Sienna Bean a bath today, so she's sporting her Zoolander hair-do! She's so good in the bath - not even a peep from her - and she actually seems to like it, if kept to a short period of time. I've also figured out a routine to make bathing and dressing afterward quick and easy and her little body as warm as possible at all times.
After a bath, she's relaxed and likes to chill out in her swing. It was perfect because today Reina whipped up some lunch, which I ate while Sienna was swinging, and then went into the bathroom to clean it all up. What a HUGE help she is!
We have a pretty good routine worked out. I sleep with Sienna and wake up with her in the night, typically every 2-4 hours. Around 6:30 am, Reina is up and ready to go and Sienna usually is, as well, so I hand her off and head back to sleep for two more hours of much needed zz's.
When I get up at 8:30 am, the coffee's on and I have a chance to eat some oatmeal, sip some coffee and sometimes check my email before holding the baby girl while Reina does her morning cleaning (sweeping, emptying the trash, making my bed and tidying up the bathroom and my bedroom).
It's amazing how fast the day goes by when you're just feeding, burping, changing diapers and bouncing Sienna around while she falls off to sleep again. I've watched my share of CSI shows and know far too much about what's going on in world news.
Reina loves Sienna and holds her all the time. If the smallest peep is heard from Sienna while she's sleeping, Reina is up and over the basket, picking her up to make her comfortable again. Sienna is very spoiled, but they say you can't spoil a newborn, right? ;) I'm happy she's in good hands whenever it is that my maternity leave runs out and I have to go back to school.
SOY FORMULA
When I left the hospital, they sent me home with Enfamil and I began to use that right away. My mom thought it seemed Sienna was having too much difficulty going "popo," as they say in Spanish, so we switched to another type of formula, Isomil, that I had bought a couple of weeks prior.
Sienna seemed to like this one better and I stuck with it until I went to her first pediatrician appointment and Dr. Blanco told me that type is soy formula. He said it's typically used when allergies run in the family or the baby is having a particular problem with cow's milk formula. I explained to him why we switched and said I'd try cow's milk again to see if she really was having more difficulty with it than with soy.
The test only took 24 hours and Reina and I determined she really likes soy milk better - she eats more of it, thus sleeping longer and more soundly and I did notice her "popo" was much thicker on cow's milk and more difficult to pass.
I did a little internet research and found that babies have been fed soy milk for over 60 years and a test by the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) found that "Exposure to soy formula does not appear to lead to different general health or reproductive outcomes than exposure to cow milk formula." We're sticking to soy. POST-PREGO BODY
Watching my body change throughout the 9 months of pregnancy was pretty fascinating. I had a super easy pregnancy, continuing to eat healthy and exercise, and managed to gain only 24 pounds. I lost 12 pounds in the hospital and the other 12 pounds fell right off the following week! I was back into my jeans and even wearing my old bras at week's end - how lucky is that?!
Before putting those old bras on, though, I had one day of engorgement when my already larger breasts blew up! I had tried breastfeeding for
the first several days and my mom walked into my bedroom and gasped, then laughed at the sight :) Thankfully, they only stayed that way for one day before the glands began to relax. You could actually feel the glands - they were rock hard and I mean ROCK hard. I was extremely glad there wasn't much pain, as long as I kept them strapped down in a bra, and they were back to pre-pregnancy size within a day or two. LOOKS LIKE GRAMMY
It's possible that many babies look like my mom, but I definitely think of her when I'm holding Sienna Bean and she makes certain faces - moving her cute little lips or wrinkling up her forehead. It makes me smile because right now she's resembling her cute little grammy and who wouldn't be happy about that!