Photos x Ella Florence Photo
Our sweet girl turned 2 months old last week and that has been such a crazy realization for me the past few days. Part of me feels like she’s been a part of our life forever, but two months means we are only 10 away from her first birthday – no 😭 I of course know our baby girl is going to grow up so my personal goal every day is to soak up this newborn time as much as I can. If that means I don’t get as much work done or have to say ‘no’ to doing things I’d usually wanna do – that’s okay. I know it’s a season and I want to be present for it as much as I can ❤️
Our Routine –
So I’m not going to lie, I’ve never been super great at having a set routine for myself so we don’t really have a strict schedule that we follow. But, having a baby has kind of forced me to get into more of a routine so this is what most days look like!
5:00am – 6:30am she typically wakes up for the first time since being put down (we put her down late). I’ll feed her and put her back to sleep. I’ll usually try to sleep in as much as possible so I’ll keep trying to make her sleep until she’s like ‘nice try mom’. That usually happens around 8-8:30am. Occasionally a little later which makes me happy haha.
8:00am-9:00am we get up for the day. I’ll feed her and usually try to see if she will sit in her swing so I can make myself coffee and sometimes breakfast at that time. A lot of the time that doesn’t last two long so I’ll hold her while drinking my coffee and wait for her to get tired.
10:00am she usually goes down for her first nap pretty early, (in her crib). I can tell she’s tired and it always feels like we just started our day and I can’t believe she wants a nap already. Her nap times really vary – sometimes 1.5 hours and sometimes only 30-45 minutes. I take what I can get.
11:00am from here on our days always look really different. I try to follow the ‘eat, awake time, nap, eat, awake time, nap’ routine and have gotten tips from the Taking Cara Babies course. I feel like the first couple of weeks were a mess and I couldn’t tell when she needed nap or was hungry – her cues all looked the same to me. But now I do feel like I’ve learned her and know when she’s fussy because she just needs to take a nap and I’ll put her down or let her sleep in my arms. She takes random naps all day long. If I have places to go, I’ll always try to get ready when she’s down for her first nap so I get ‘getting ready’ out of the way. She does really good napping in the car and out and about in her car seat so she usually will sleep the entire time I’m out of the house. I honestly try not to stress about her schedule right now and to just go with the flow.
8:30pm-9:30pm around this time is when we try to make sure she has some good awake time because we are going to bed soon. We will try to have tummy time, put her on her play mat, sing her songs, and do things that stimulate her brain so that she’s nice and tired when we put her down. This awake time is so important to me every night because I love my sleep so much and want her to be tired haha. This is also when we will give her a bath if we are bathing her that night.
10:30pm – 11:30pm is when she goes down for the night. She’s usually had a nap in these later hours around 8 or so, so we technically could probably put her down then and then feed her again and such around 11 when she wakes up. We personally are night owls so we would rather be up later and get a chance to sleep in. This is just what’s working for us timing wise right now with the stretches of sleep she gives us. When she’s sleeping through the night better and longer, we will probably move her bedtime earlier so we can have time at night just the two of us. This will also happen when she starts sleeping in her room. Right now she sleeps beside us in her halo bassinest.
Blair’s ‘bedtime’ routine is awake time (bath during this time if we are), then we change her, swaddle her, feed her in bed, and then by the time she’s done feeding she’s usually super sleepy or basically sleeping so I’ll put her right into her bassinet. Occasionally she’ll be done feeding and still be awake so we will have to rock her and let her suck on her binkie until she gets tired but MOST nights she goes right down.
Feeding –
Right now she seems to be hungry every 2-4 hours. If we are home, the feedings are more frequent than when we are out with her since she sleeps so long when we are out. I never let her go too long because a baby needs calories in a 24 hour period and I’d rather her get them during the day than at night. She is a pretty slow eater so sometimes a feeding will take 45 minutes to an hour. I feel like she’s starting to get faster so I hope that’s the case. I had no idea how time consuming breastfeeding would be – it really is a labor a love and a huge time commitment. My tips would be to have no expectations and to try to go with the flow. You really have to release control. You can see my ‘nursing essentials’ blog to see all the things I’ve purchased that have helped. I personally just ‘on-demand’ feed and feed her whenever she’s asking. It used to be VERY frequently but now is spacing out a few hours. The first few weeks were really rough but it does get better!
I try to pump randomly after a feeding – especially in the morning when I have more milk from the night. If I leave her for a date night or something I will typically pump too. All the milk I pump I freeze to have for the times I do leave her. Sometimes I’m able to pump 4 ounces and sometimes only 1-2. It’s really different every time and I’m no expert on this I’m just trying my best.
We started to supplement with formula a few weeks ago – we would make a bottle that’s half breastmilk and half formula but she was pretty fussy and gassy. I wanted to make sure she was eating enough and getting nice and full. We are also leaving her for the first time next week so having a formula option for my mom makes me more comfortable since you need SO much milk stored up to leave your baby for only a few days. So the latest formula we are trying is HIPP and we bought from here.
Another thing that’s helped with leaving the house and having dad help out at times is pumping then bottle feeding her. If I need to feed her on the go then this is what I do 9 times out of 10.
Her Milestones –
Blair is getting to such a fun stage! For the first few weeks she didn’t make eye contact and just slept all the time. Now she has started smiling, has more awake time, enjoys her activity mat, and focuses on us and other objects around the house. It’s been really fun to start to see her personality poke through ❤️ She’s randomly rolls onto her back during tummy time and I’ll get excited and clap for her so she knows she did something haha. Her tummy time doesn’t last very long yet but I’ll try. She also is discovering her voice and making so many more sounds now than just crying. I’ll try to pretend like I understand her and talk back to her and have a little conversation to try to make her keep talking haha. I’m really not stressing about her ‘milestones’ or timing. I know every baby is different and she’ll get there when she gets there! Only sharing because a few of you asked to include this in my post and it’s just been fun to have her more active ☺️
Q&A –
Here are some questions you guys asked over Instagram that I thought I’d include!
Things you wish you would have known ahead of time? I actually have a lot of ‘mom friends’ and blunt ones at that haha. So I do feel like I was told a lot more things than most moms and knew some hard truths about pregnancy, birth, and the newborn stage before having her. But some big things I experienced and that were hard for me personally were isolation, breast engorgement, frequent feedings, the ‘full-time’ aspect, and how big of a role ‘mom’ is. So I’ll briefly go into those. Isolation – being a new mom can be really isolating. Luckily, I had Blair in the middle of some beautiful, warm weather so people were out and about more and visiting us. We also got to get out and go on walks which helped me keep my sanity. But in the beginning, leaving the house made me really anxious and at times I felt like I had to kiss my old life goodbye which made me feel a little isolated and gave me a little baby blues. What helped me was to do things that made me feel like Karlie. I did some work on my blog and try on hauls and random things that made me feel normal. I also reached out to moms in my life and expressed what I was feeling that day. Most of the time they have been there and felt the same feelings and that was really helpful for me. Don’t be embarrassed about your emotions or tough times. Breast engorgement – at about day 3 your milk comes in and for me this was a really hard day. I was feeling REALLY frustrated with breast feeding. I had realized we needed a nipple shield which was inconvenient and Blair seemed to be hungry every 30 minutes or so. I truly didn’t have time to do ANYTHING else. It was really hitting me and then all of a sudden my boobs became absolute CONCRETE. It looked like I had gotten the biggest boob job of all time, felt like there were rocks everywhere, and they were sore and leaking all over the place. I truly can’t even explain it but one of my best friends was over that day and saw them and she even said it was the most intense she’s ever seen…and she’s a mom herself and has lots of moms in her life. I remember calling my mom sobbing on FaceTime because she was on a business trip and she was crying with me on the phone because she felt so bad she couldn’t be there. The good news is this lasted for 48 hours or so then they regulated. What helped me was hot showers and warm rags. Frequent feedings – I kind of talked about this already but in the beginning I was feeling Blair like every 30 minutes. It was really hard on me emotionally to feel like I couldn’t do ANYTHING ELSE besides feed. If you are in the thick of this it does get better! We can go a lot more time now in between and it just took us a little to figure it all out and for Blair to get a little bigger. The full-time aspect and mom role – something I personally had a little hormonal breakdown about was how my life 24/7 changed. I’m a stay home mom as most of you know so really every single second looks different. I had to express to my husband one night that it was hard on me and that he still goes into work and has a normal day – but for me, I get a little break if he takes her so I can grocery shop. But I’m rushing and coming straight home. Truly everything about my life changed and I know a lot for our husbands do too – but you can’t deny that it is different for us moms. Especially in the newborn phase and with breastfeeding, we do most of it and they just have to try to help when they can and be our support.
What have you learned from being a mom? I think the biggest thing is this new love that I never knew existed. Of course I love Al, he’s my soulmate!! But the love you have for your baby is just different. You see half yourself and half your husband and it’s wild. It’s also made me appreciate and love my own mom even deeper. You see what they went through when you were a baby yourself and it puts everything into a new perspective. It’s also made so many things in life seem so much smaller! Little things that I thought mattered, don’t. Life has a new meaning and purpose now.
Postpartum update? It’s really amazing what your body can do! The first two weeks was challenging with recovery and I’m now currently at a point where I’m still 15lbs above my pre-pregnancy weight and no longer seeing the scale drop every few days so I’ll just have to be patient for the last bit as I try to re-tone up! But I know there’s a chance I’ll never have my pre-pregnancy body or weight back and I’m not stressing about it. My body is what gives me my babies and I want to love it through all it’s stages ❤️ I got cleared to workout at my 6 week appointment so I have been walking more regularly and trying to ride my at home cycle bike 3x a week!
Things you don’t use but thought you needed? I honestly sat and thought about this forever and can’t think of anything! When / if I do I’ll come update this!
Favorite place for baby clothes and accessories? A few of my favorites are bloom headwraps, cozys, topknots co., hart and pearls, Nordstrom, H&M, Zara, Jamie Kay, Quincy Mae, Little Bipsy.
Favorite baby products? We don’t use tons of products on Blair yet. I love all our Honest Company products though!
How has your marriage changed now being parents? I feel like it’s changed in tons of ways already. I will say that watching Al become a dad is one of the absolute highlights of my life. The way he looks at her seriously melts my heart and he’s been such a rock for me since the day we found out I was pregnant. You really become a team and it strengthens your relationship and your appreciation for each other. On the flip side, there’s definitely been hard moments the first few weeks and a lot less ‘us’ time. We had one night actually where we both just vented about our emotions lately and kind of told each other what we need from the other. This was really healthy for us and I wish we had done it sooner. I felt like we both felt guilty about our feelings with such a big change that we kept some things bottled up so it was a longer conversation than it would have been if we had talked sooner. I’d say communication is always key in a relationship but becomes 100x more important when you become parents. It’s also hard to be as intimate with each other the first few months. You are so tired all the time. Even when Blair has a good night of sleep the exhaustion doesn’t go away – it’s a daily thing. And a newborn requires so much time and attention that all your time together is devoted to them. We try to make each other a priority and do date nights and that’s been so great for us.
How do you get ready every day? I truly don’t haha. Sometimes I’ll pre-record my instagram stories or try on hauls on a day I get ready so that I can post them on the following days when I’m not ready. But I do like to try to get a little ready most days because it makes me feel more productive! I’m not sure why but I tend to get more done haha. So I’ve made a simplified makeup routine – just powder, mascara, and brows essentially, and that’s what I do most days. Dry shampoo is also my bff since washing and drying my hair is hard to fit in. When I do fit it in it’s either when Al’s home or during her first nap.
What bottles do you use? Our favorites have been the comotomo ones!
Tips for grocery shopping? I do not have this down 😂 Most times I leave Blair home with Al or I do the grocery pick up and order on the app! Advice I’ve gotten is to wear your baby so they are more content!
Overall as nervous as I was to be a mom and for newborn life, mother’s intuition does kick in, your get to know your baby, and you just learn as you go. We all have what it takes and just taking care of & loving them is enough ❤️
If there’s anything I forgot feel free to comment below!! All my love to all you!
