We had some professional pictures made of Melody when she turned 3 months old. Below are some of the proofs we got back! She had a meltdown during the session, but I don't think you can even tell!
All in Kids
DIY Infant Tutu
For the Alabama/Ole Miss football game, Brad and I agreed Melody should wear a "house divided" outfit. I designed a onesie, and she had some red pants. But I thought a tutu would be perfect. So I made my own so that it could also be "house divided". My best friend and I also have made tutus for all the holidays to wear with cute onesies we are making the babies! Check it out below!
Melody's Four Month Pictures
Melody turned four months only on September 25th! Check out her pictures below!
DIY Headband Holder
Melody has a TON of headbands. When we first find out we were having a girl, all I could think about was how I wanted cute headbands. I bought quite a few myself, but my cousin gave me a bunch of hand-me-downs too from her little girl. So I needed a way to store all these cute headbands. Check out what I did below!
Melody's Three Month (Transitional) Schedule
So for about 2 or 3 weeks, we decided to slowly get rid of one of Melody's bottles. She was taking six bottles on her two month schedule, but one of those bottles, she barely would take an ounce or two (11 a.m.). We took this as a sign that she needed to be reduced down to five bottles. We did this by increasing the amounts of those new five bottles. We call this a transitional schedule because when she was 3.5 months old, we went down to four bottles! I will write about that later though!
Traveling with a Baby
So I did not want to make this post a "tips" post because what works for Brad and me will not necessarily work for everyone else. However, we have found a few things that does work for us when we travel with Melody. We have only taken three 'big' trips: two to Memphis (approximately 3.5 hours away) and one to Gulf Shores (approximately 6 hours away). Each trip seems to go easier than the last. I am sure as she continues to get older, we will have to tweak things.
0-4 Month Toys
So I find 0-4 months to be a boring age for toys. I struggle to find fun things that Melody also enjoys. I also hate to buy a bunch of toys that we will never use. With that said, I decided to create a list of Melody's favorite toys right now. Granted she is only 3.5 months old, these are still toys she has enjoyed since she was a mere few weeks old.
Melody's First Beach Trip
We took Melody on her first beach trip back in August.
She handled the drive down to Gulf Shores just fine!
Melody's Three Month Pictures
Melody was three months old August 25th! Here are some informal pics we took. We are getting professional ones made this week. I will upload those when I get them too!
Baby Items I Didn't Realize I Needed
After we had Melody, there were a few items we didn't have that we really wished we did. Check out a few of them below!
Melody's Two Month Schedule
When Melody was around two month's old, we decided to let her attempt sleeping through the night. My best friend had just started attempting it with her two month old, and we were basically having to wake Melody up for her 2 a.m. feeding. Her schedule did not change at all from her one month schedule except we removed the 2 a.m. feeding. When we first started this transition, Melody would start stirring between 2 and 3 a.m. I would give her her pacifier and see if that would put her back to sleep. If it did, I would also go back to sleep. If it did not work, I would get up and give her a bottle. It took about a week or two, but eventually she started just sleeping through that time frame altogether. Now she will not start stirring until around 4:30 at earliest. Below is the schedule:
Formula Bottle Prep
When we transitioned Melody from breast milk to formula, I had to find a way to better prep bottles so that I was not making one bottle at a time. I tried a couple of methods, but in the end, I found a solution that works great for us right now. Currently Melody is taking 5 ounce bottles 6 times a day. As her bottles get bigger, my method may not be the most efficient, but it works great now.
Travel Baby Formula
Brad and I travel a lot. We decided while I was pregnant that we would not let a baby slow us down. We are really trying to stick to that goal after having Melody. Of course some trips are not realistic and traveling is definitely not as easy as before, but we are doing pretty good. We have a baby that loves the car, so that definitely makes traveling easier. One thing we faced on our first big travel (it was 3 1/2 hour trip to Brad's parents' house) was making Melody's bottles. We now usually make all of her bottles for the day in advance, but that has not and will not always be the case. I decided to make use of some of our breast pump supplies and create my own travel baby formula containers. Check it out below!
Burp Clothes
I hear with every baby there is one thing you get a lot of. For some people it is blankets and for others it could be bibs. One thing we did NOT get a lot of was burp clothes. I personally did not want to go pay a lot of money for something I knew Melody was going to just spit up all over. Instead, I decided to make my own (well sort of).
Melody's One Month Schedule
Our pediatrician gave us the green light to remove one of Melody's feedings when she turned one month old. She said we could now go 4 hours between our nighttime feedings. It is very similar to the newborn schedule except we eliminated one nighttime feeding. I also stopped pumping/breastfeeding after she was 5-6 weeks old, so I am not including the pumping in my schedule. If you look at her newborn schedule, you can kind of figure out where I would have pumped. See below:
Melody's Two Month Pictures
Miss Melody was two months old Monday, July 25th! Below are some of her pictures from a mini photo shoot I did!
Postpartum Expectation vs Reality
Prior to having Melody, I had a lot of expectations about how things would be postpartum. A lot of these ideas came from our childbirth/parenting classes, books, and movies. However, once I had Melody, reality was much different. Below are some of those expectations vs the reality that was.
Melody's One Month Pictures!
So Miss Melody was a month old on June 25th! I know, I know...I am almost a month late, but below are her pictures that I took of her in her cute Minnie Mouse gear to celebrate. I even included a picture of her now at 8 weeks old! Watch for her two month pictures soon-ish :)
Life as a New Mom
I would be lying if I said childbirth was easy. I have previously written about our birth story and our hospital experience. I think the difficult childbirth really impacted the relationship that both Brad and I have with Melody.
Melody's Newborn Schedule
After Melody was born, our pediatrician put us on a 3 hour feeding schedule. It took us a few days to find a schedule and rhythm that worked for us. We wanted a schedule that would provide us with some sleep, but also work with us once Brad went back to work. The first week at home, I pumped, and we supplemented with formula. After I built up a day's worth of breastmilk, we went exclusively breastmilk and no formula. This schedule was especially rough on me because I was pumping almost every feeding, but we eventually got into such a good routine that it really wasn't too bad. Check it out below: