1

Julia sleeps in bursts of about 40 min to 1 hour with breaks of about 1-1.5hours in between for feeding/burping/poos/change bum/feeding/drifting to sleep.
Tummy time in the morning - she's getting strong and can hold her head up for a little whlie and can turn it from side to side.
She does magnificent poos, and then wees during changing so I decided to bath ehr at lunchtime. She relaxes more in the bath now, and likes having her head washed with the flannel.
I then placed her naked in the sun near the heater and massaged her with cream, she found this weird, but soon relaxed.
Grandpa PG & Bill visit to give Bill driving practise and so dad can fix my tumble drier. Dad babysits Julia while Bill & I go fetch a new belt - I realise it's my first trip without Julia since mid-November. Bill's sarcastically touched to be a part of this momentous occasion.
Grandpa PG is positive she smiled at him - he was playing with her and she was definitely enjoying it.
We get back to a grandpa who's slightly frazzled at the fear of not having boobs on hand to calm crying, but who's done a good job and even changed a magnificent poo.
Sarah & Mel (and future baby) visit to meet Julia.

Tim rings while Grandpa PG is babysitting and as TJ & Julia are both crying, they get put on the phone to cry to each other..

2

Mark's sister Michelle & kids Bianca & Jeremy arrive & visit with Granny Colleen.
Michelle brings a massive suitcase full of lovely pink clothes (samples from her work) for Julia
Granny Darrell visits after work

3

Julia is attends her first wedding - Simone & Diarmuid - it was beautiful. She fed at very convenient times, and either slept while being happily passed around or stared wide eyed at everything.
Julia attends her first engagement party - Sean & Mina - a lovely evening - again passed around a heap.
We slept at Grandpa PG's again.

Tim takes TJ to the beach in his cool pram with fat tyres, suspension and which does 'real cool wheelies'.

4

Played with Grandpa PG & Granny Darrell in their bed at 6.30am after having been nicely fed & changed.
Did a lovely projectile puke all over their bed
Granny abysat while Mark, I & Grandpa PG went to mass, but woke soon after we'd left, and bawled no matter what granny did, so she rang us (luckily mass was just ending) and Grandpa flew us home in the bomb. I was very upset, missing her, hearing her crying horribly and thinking of poor mum at her wits end to have to have called us.
Lunch at Granny Colleen & Grandpa Paul's with Geoff, Emma, Michelle, Bianca & Jeremy.
Chips and poker at Uncle Geoff's in the evening - she slept 4hours straight.

Amanda & her mum are flying back to Swan Hill for a few weeks
Tims rings Grandpa PG for father's day about 1 hour later, and he is lonely

5

She slept another 4 hour stint, then we slept until 2pm (with the odd feeds and changes). She was then up till about 8ish I think, a bit confused and annoyed.

6

Went to Mass & shopping and to be weighed with mum. Very alert going around the shops.
Julia weighs 4550gms today and is 4 weeks.
Michelle came for dinner

7

Tried to do massage after her bath again, but she was rather grumpy

8

Reeze visited - we measured Julia to be about 57cm.

9

Granny Darrell visits, and Great Aunt Julie. Julia spends most the day wriggling and feeding.
We go to watch dad's basketball, but Julia is utterly bored & sleeps amid all the noise and sirens.
We stay the night at Granny Darrell's & Grandpa Paul's.

10

Michelle leaves to return to Melbourne, unfortunately her kids are both sick so we decide not to see her incase we pass the tummy bug on to Julia.
Julia visits family at Great Granny & Grandpas
She sleeps from about 11.30am all afternoon and through the night with quick wakes for feeds.
She's sleeping for 2 good patches in the night now, of 3.5 - 4hours, she's been doing this for at least a week.
We tried gripe water for her hiccups which look so sore. We gave her such a shock with it that they did stop, but she didn't swallow any (just spat or dribbled it all out), was just really mad as us tricking her into a mouth full of cold wet unknown junk.

11

Again lots of sleeping and eating. She drives Mark up the wall as she can't be happy with him as all she wants is food. She's awake and playful for about 1 hour in the afternoon and one hour in the evening.
Good sleep at night and feeding has been an absolute breeze now for at least 2 weeks. Lots of smiles during her bath, almost on tap now.

12

Bathed and massaged her - she's relaxing more.
Made a sling for her to go on my tummy
It's lovely to wake during the night hearing this little snuffling hedgehog trying to eat anythin in sight, still asleep with eyes tightly shut. She's more patient now and less pirana like (she used to lurch towards the boob from about 10cm away, turning her head and clamping on) - more lady like.
I feed her lying on my side now while she's still half asleep - it's so nice not to hve to make her wake up fully and cry for it. She then sleeps through burping and though she wakes to be changed she's very good and quite and just looks around babbling to herself.

13

We've been going to Mass on Tuesdays before shopping which is great as she always sleeps, but makes giant elephant noises (the same ones she makes at night) everytime she's bugged by me changing position. So everyone has a cue of when to sit, stand or kneel, from this bby elephant at te back of the church.
We did shopping in the sling and it kept putting her to sleep.
We both had a nice sleep in the afternoon -heavenly!!!!

Tim gets techno, with a new laptop that he hooks up to his resort's wireless network and installs his webcam to chat to dad & Bill.

14

We walked to the station as the weather was beautiful and I wanted to show her all the flowers and things, but she fell asleep in the first 200 metres of our walk. Caught the train into town to have lunch with Grandpa PG. Found a bus home from town that drops us 7 houses away from home (instead of training (5minutes)and walking back 2kms), which gave me time to feed her in comfort.
She falls asleep in the sling looking like a little frog with legs pulled up, and then when I transferred her to her pram at home, she stayed in frog mode for a minute or two, looking awfully cute.
Julia smiled a heap at the cafe and was so good and alert. She got excited when she saw my face.

15

Hard day, she slept for 3 1/2 hour blocks from 10am to about 8pm. (She tends to surface after about 35min and sometimes be able to put herself to sleep, especially if she's in our bad, but not so easily in her daytime sleeping pram.
I therefore kept trying to get her to sleep and realised late in the afternoon she needed a play to tire her out, I also wasn't paying attention to the time, so realised she may just have been needing to eat a heap and I'd just been giving her the same empty boob expecting her to just want a comfort nibble.
Definitely smiling now, purposely for the same things during play time. I've figured out lying down, propped on pillow with her sitting on my tummy and leaning back against my legs is the best way to play with her and cause all these smiles. She's excellent at hopping on and off the boob now, and consequently does so very often during a feed to gurgle, smile or pull faces. She also drowns a lot, but then snuffles her way back on to keep going while still recovering from drowning - sucker for punishment.

16

She slept nearly the entire day. Had a bath (which she's enjoying far more now) and a little play time.
Her poos have been extremely runny this week and you have about 2 minutes to change her after she does them before they start making their way up her back.
She scratched her face horribly, which started bleeding again when she cried as allt he blood rushes to her head.

17

Mark got his first definite smiles.
Visited Margy & Kevin and pooed doen Kevins leg (we missed the 2minute time limit you see)
Visited Granny Darrell & Grandpa PG and pooed on Grandpa. Had a nice bath with Granny and Grandpa. Gave lots of smiles and giggles. Played with TJ over the webcam. Teresa visited (she's house sitting almost permanently lately) with her shocking new hairdo - very nice actually - just dark brown, short and layers with blond streaks.
She has very fat cheeks now.
Went our to dinner with Granny Colleen & Grandpa Paul for Granny's birthday. Slept for 3 1/2 hours and then did all sorts of funny stretching, faces and noises upon waking silently for a feed. Then slept for 4 hours - woohoo!

Amanda & TJ return to Tweed Heads - awaiting update on TJ

18

Slept off & on until after lunchtime. First whole night she slep without being wrapped up, consequently she slept with arms outspread (her body forming a cross) and returned them to that position within seconds anytime we moved them. Therefore she had half the bed and we squished on the other half.
Went for a walk with daddy - Mark is attending to her this afternoon (I'm just the food) to give me some time off and to bond - she's getting more relaxed with him now.

19

Her first bath where she got excited and splashed around, I think she’s not had much time before as usually I hold her and she just pushes off the bottom end of the bath. Mum suggested having the water low enough to put her head down on a flannel or something, so I have 2 hands to play with her, and so she kicked and smiled away.
I woke up with a start in the night as a tiny little finger had been forced up my nose.
She slept for 1 1/2 hours in total from 9.15am to 8pm. Then we got our first 5 hour sleep overnight until about 2.15am.

6 weeks today

20

6 weeks today
Slept a little bit, but still not a typically sleeping/growing day.
She gave me a nice hicky by grabbing on to a wrong piece of boob and sucking with all her might to try to convince it to produce lunch. It took me a second to realise, but then took about another 3 seconds to pull her off because she thought she was on to such a good thing.

21

Checkup with health nurse - we hav a nice FAT baby.
Weight just under 5.2kg or 11.44pounds (4 pounds heavier than birth)
Height 55.5cm - meaning my measuring at 4 weeks stunk (5.5cm longer than birth)
Head 38.4cm (between 3 & 5cm bigger than birth - depending on which midwife measured)
The midwife said she was very alret for 6 weeks - so we're proud as can be!
While on her tummy on the table and trying to look at Mickey mouse on the wall, she lifted right up by straightening one arm and a leg, which gave the nurse and I a fright. The nurse said she was close to rolling over.

22

6 week checkup for mum and Julia with doctor
She was very stubborn and kept her eyes tightly shut for nearly the entire 1/2 hour, even though I was annoying the heck out of her, and he got me to turn her upside down which makes most babies open their eyes, but to no avail. This monkey knew he was tryingt o shine a light into her eyes (he'd already shoved cold things in her ears) and she was having NONE of it. At one point later she flicked her eyes open just for a split second to check what was going on, then went back to being stubborn, which is really funny as she's always so alert otherwise.
She also made her head extremely floppy when he tried to sit her up, when it's darn strong every other time, so he must think she's an idiot, even though he checked her off OK.
She has a hernia by her belly button which is apparantly fairly common and will go away on its own.
She pooed at dinner, so we rushed her onto the change table as we know how quickly it spreads , but discovered it had shot up her back under her singlet and was in her hair! What POWER!!!

23

I have discovered that she can wee from her armpit, as twice today her side was soaked, and nothing was in the nappy - new nappies though.

24

After being woken a number of times after going to sleep late afternoon/evening, she slept for 6 hours!!!!
We slept at Granny Darrell and Grandpa PG's for Granny's birthday tomorrow.

25

Grandpa bathed her after extreme poos. She is doing spectacularly explosive poos about 4 times a day now.
6 hour sleep was a once off.
She started crying at Mon's piano playing duet with Mark on Guitar.
She's often wiggling or waking with air in her tummy - family keeps saying it's the chocolate I eat (contrary to Bruce's opinion) so I decide to give up chocolate again this week (I did in week 3 and noticed no difference)

26

Lots of sleeping - still at Granny & Grandpas.
One of her rattles she really doesn't like, she closes her eye cloest to the ear I shake it near, every time. It makes a rather cheap and nasty clangy sound - interesting

27

She's still doing a 4 hour sleep as her first sleep for the evening - here's hoping for it to stretch to 5 hours and stick there.
First Mother's group meeting, very interesting to share birth stories. Of the 16 people there (with babies ranging from 2 - 9 weeks old living in the immediate area) only 2 had an unassisted (vacumm, forceps, induction or caesar) delivery, and 7 had a caesar. Interesting stats.
She was very good, woke up so groggy but was too interested to go back to sleep, so sat for a fair while trying her hardest to see, but very red faced and out of it. She was then very good, quiet and wide eyed (apart from when she decided se was hungry). What a good girl I have.
Her neck is getting so strong. She loved her bath, but it was probably her last as her head was stuck to the side, even with her legs quite bent - no chance of her straigtening them to kick. She screamed when I took her out though. We'll have to shower her with us until she can sit by herself and then I'll try the baby bath again to have her sitting and playing in it.

28

She is waking bright and alert for play time at about 6-6.30 every morning now, so Mark gets to see her a little before work.
Jodanne & Colleen visited. Colleen paraded her tellytubby outfit from Michelle for us.
Big puke tonight - I fear as we're not using a dummy, and I offer the boob for a nibble when she's sad or needing comfort, that she's getting to full and then puking it all.
She slept beautifully on my chest while I watched TV in the evening - I loved watching her face and seeing her snuffle and sleepily move around.

29

She got very upset when I handed her to Mark after he got home, so that I could make dinner. She cried harder and harder, and then before I got to her, started coughing and then puked again. Mark said she'd done the same last nigth ebfore he'd handed her to me, and so believes she works herself up until she pukes.
We were all grumpy by this evening.

30

Had lunch at Nat's consisting mainly of Garlic bread and chocolate.
Her tummy started giving her a little bit of hassle late evening.