5 weeks old already!

My daughter turned 5 weeks old yesterday! She's practically all grown up! I am told over and over again about how time will go by so fast, but holy crap! Maybe it just seems to be going so fast because I'm sleep deprived and things will start to slow down here soon. A girl can dream!

Here's what happened during the first 5 weeks of my daughter's life:

Mom stayed with me the first night in the hospital and Nate stayed the second night. The first night was so hard! Elizabeth had a lot of trouble breastfeeding. She wouldn't latch on very well at all. It was one of the most frustrating things! The lactation consultant spent a lot of time with us, trying to get Liz to latch on. I was getting scared that she wasn't getting enough to eat. On Thursday, she thought that we should supplement her with formula. So she did. She gave her an ounce or so. I sobbed. I thought that I had completely failed as a mother. I kept saying sorry to Elizabeth for giving her formula. That was a tough day. I don't think the hormones were raging at all. ;)

We went home Friday night around 9:00 pm. Grandpa Merle met us there and got to see Lizzie for the first time (he was out of town for work stuff). I think she got Grandpa wrapped around her teeny tiny finger right then and there!

The first week was pretty tough. We had so little sleep and my hormones were going nuts. I cried a lot. I was so overwhelmed. Just reading a little magazine that the hospital gave me on how to care for a newborn made me cry!

Plus, Elizabeth would not sleep on her back. At all. She'd fall asleep and we'd put her downin the crib and she would be awake within minutes. So she spend the first week or so only sleeping on someone's chest. Usually mine. So I slept on the couch with Lizzie sleeping on me. Very cute and cuddly, but exhausting! And we just couldn't go on like that.

So now she sleeps on her stomach. *gasp* We tried putting her on her tummy one day and she slept for a couple hours. It scared the crap out of me, and still does, because of the whole Back to Sleep thing to prevent sids. The only reason I am able to let her sleep on her tummy is because we have the AngelCare motion monitor. An alarm goes off if it doesn't detect movement for 20 seconds. I have been slowly trying to put her on her back during the day, so maybe she'll get used to it. She does a lot better, but still definitely prefers her tummy.

I also want to mention my saint of a mother. She stayed with us for 2 weeks after coming home from the hospital. She slept on an air mattress in the living room - one that had a hole in it somewhere because it needed reinflated every night. Poor mom! She did all of the laundry and dishes and general cleaning of the house, not to mention all of her help with Lizzie. She totally saved me from having a complete melt down. I don't know what I would have done without her!