1st month with our beautiful little lady

We had a friend come round to take some photos of us and Sienna (we needed someone with a fancy camera rather than our rubbish iphone photos!).

Sienna was not camera shy at all, staying awake through out the whole thing. I think we got some adorable ones! Alex (the photographer) is going to come back and take some more when she is slightly older which will be fab. She will change so much in such a short space of time!

We have started giving Sienna a bath each evening when Dan gets home from work. She hated her first two baths, screaming the place down but now she absolutely loves it. It is a nice time for Sienna and Dan to have some Daddy time too. He always baths her and it's so cute!

Although it is probably wind at this stage but I swear she has started to smile a little (a very little). Especially when she is in the bath, her little eyes light up and lips create a tiny little smile. I am sure she will be smiling properly in no time!

My mum came down to stay for a week which was fab! She was so helpful with Sienna and loved every minute of it. It was so nice to spend time with mum properly and also fantastic to be able to wake up and have mum there to take Sienna for her morning feed after I was up in the night doing her night one.

That has been a little tough, with Dan being back at work and all I find I am doing is changing nappies and feeding. Sienna tends to take 1hr or so to feed, wind etc so by the time she has fed, you changed her nappy etc. She has a little nap and then it's all go again, crazy! I shouldn't complain mind because she is still feeding every 3 hours whereas many breast-feeding mums have to feed every 2 hrs!

This week Nana Hawkes has been on half term so Sienna has been spending some time with her which is fab. It gives me some time to myself, sort the house out (which I can't believe I don't get time to do, a baby takes up so much time even when they sleep so much) but also is lovely for Frances to spend some time with her too. It is so great to have grandparents around and especially so close for babysitting duties!

Little Sienna does have a tendency to fall asleep and stay asleep, sometimes going 5-6 hours without a feed. I wake her up sometimes but as I have always been told, 'NEVER WAKE A SLEEPING BABY!' and I kind of figure, she will wake up when she is hungry. The system works for us so I'm sticking with it! She only falls asleep after 1oz if I wake her anyway!

Her sleeping is still very good, although mainly having her long sleep from 8pm - 3am so I am trying to wake her for a small feed at 11ish so she takes that long sleep after and hopefully learns to sleep through the night at some point.

It is such a minefield of what to do with babies, how to get them into a routine, which book/guide to read. It's crazy but I guess it will be like this with the first baby, once we have another one we will be more experienced.

She is becoming more and more alert each day. Today she lay on her playmat for 10 mins without crying, then 10 mins in her bouncy chair without crying! It's nice that she is becoming more awake, it will be so adorable when she starts responding more, I guess that will happen after month 2!

So, little Sienna has been with us for a month now, it feels a lot longer than that, I guess because I am with her 24/7 but she is adorable and such a good little girl, except for some moments but as I said before, we can't complain because so far she has been as good as gold (I hope I haven't spoken too soon!).

Dummy time - yep, we gave in and the dummy came out after 3.5 weeks! We felt like naughty school kids but one evening when she wasn't settling and we had done everything, the dummy popped in and she was quiet and out like a light! I knew she would love a dummy as she is a very sucky baby. A lot of the time when I feed her she is sucking for ages and I look at the bottle and she hasn't take any!!!! I think she just likes the calming feeling. The following day after the dummy was introduced, I felt so ill and had to have a bath to warm up. Dan wasn't back from work and the previous day we had discussed that we would only use the dummy in extreme circumstances, well my bath was one of those.... the moment I slipped in the bath, Sienna starts screaming so what did I do.... I slipped the dummy right in her little mouth = a lovely relaxing bath for mummy! My aim is for us to say goodbye to the dummy before the end of the year, if not sooner, so watch this space....

First night with Sienna and bringing her home!

1 Day Old

The midwives did all the relevant measurements with her very long legs and her tiny little head (so cute). She cried through out but she was ok really.

After giving birth and having a shower (which was the most surreal shower I have ever taken, I remember just thinking - OMG, I have actually just given birth and Dan is in the other room with our little baby, how crazy!). We were left to just sit with our little baby for an hour or so, we spent the time cuddling and trying to decide on a name. We were so shocked that we actually had a baby girl we just didn't know which name to use. We had decided on Grace for a middle name but couldn't decide on Sienna or Eden for the first names, we actually even tossed a coin which landed on Eden but I really wanted Sienna so we went with that!

After all the checks were done (including the Rhesus Neg test, which showed that Sienna is also Rhesus Neg like mummy so she didn't need an injection which is good). I was then moved downstairs to the postnatal ward. I had booked a private room (which should have cost about £100 per night but they forgot to charge us, woo hoo!)

My room was so so hot and as Sienna had a low temperature I wasn't able to have the windows or fan on! To say I was sweating would be an understatement, it was like being in the Sahara, 32C to be precise!!! That night I actually got the midwife to let me move rooms to a cooler one. It was a very funny scene at 12.30am there I was helping the midwife wheel all my furniture and baby Sienna from one room to the other, down the hospital corridor!

We had lots of visitors, Nana Hawkes, Auntie Fran, Uncle Laul and Martin and Auntie Vic. She had lots of cuddles that night :0)

When everyone left, it was just me and my baby. Lying in my bed with Sienna in the crib next to me was very weird yet amazing. I was so tried from the labour and with all the lack of sleep and was so looking to the nights sleep before being reminded by Dan that I had a little baby to look after and feed in the night (yikes). The midwives were so good and would come into my room during the night when feeding was due, it was so helpful. It was so good to watch them feed and burp Sienna so I could learn.

Breast vs Bottle - I had made the decision during pregnancy to breast-feed but deep down I didn't know how I would feel about it. Although I know it is best for the baby I was worried that I wouldn't feel comfortable doing it. I spoke to Dan about it a lot and he was keen for me to do it too so I thought I would at least give it a go. As soon as Sienna was born they put her straight on me, skin to skin and tried to get her to latch on, at that point it wasn't successful.

When I was in the postnatal ward they tried again and even got me to express some too for her to get the taste. I just sat there thinking, 'this really isn't me and I feel so uncomfortable'. Sienna hadn't eaten for several hours now so I asked the midwife for a bottle of formula. I was expecting the midwife to try and persuade me to keep trying but she was understanding and bought me a formula. Sienna took it straight away and I felt so comfortable feeding her this way. Some people may object and think that I gave up too easily but I think if you choose to breastfeed you need to be 100% committed to it, it's not easy and it that commitment isn't there, you won't get anywhere.

Dan returned from home after his nap and shower and got to feed Sienna. At that point I knew I had made the right decision to bottle feed, seeing Dan feed our little baby for the first time will be a memory I hold forever, it was adorable!!

When Sienna was born she had her eyes wide open, gorgeous dark blue eyes! I am sure these will change colour at some point but they were so gorgeous! As my Dad would say - 'she came out looking for the shops, like her mum!'

I stayed in the hospital one night and then was discharged the next day by lunchtime. I could have stayed longer but I was keen to get home to spend time as a family and as Sienna had eaten, pooed and had all her checks we were good to be discharged (I also couldn't have spent one more night in the boiling hot hospital ward!)

Taking Sienna home was a shock to the system, trying to work out how to use the car seat (poor Sienna was freezing and it was the first time she had been outside!). My mum and dad (and the stork) were waiting at our house to meet their little granddaughter.

Dan and I had to nip out leaving Sienna at home with my folks and Frances to buy some baby clothes that actually fit her (as she was so small) and to pick up some formula. We had been home for about 1 hour and we left the grandparents to babysit.... hehe, you can't call us protective parents!!