The First Three Months -- and all the "firsts" that go with it

Olivia's first three months have been nothing short of completely wonderful. She helped hand out candy at her first Halloween, watched Mommy and Daddy eat turkey for her first Thanksgiving, and we are now in the middle of celebrating her first Christmas.

David and I are settling in to our new parenting roles pretty well; we have figured out Livvie's signals: we know when she's hungry, when she needs a change, and when she's done with the stimulation and needs some quiet and a nap. She sleeps an average of 8 to 10 hours a night every night, going down between 9 and 10:30 and sleeping until 7 a.m.; as we understand, she is WAY ahead of the curve on this milestone. There have been some bumps in the road since making the final decision to exclusively feed formula; while she was on Similac Advance, Livvie seemed to have a lot of trouble with spit up. It didn't matter how much or little she ate, whether she was famished or just getting hungry, or how often we burped her, she spent a lot of time spitting up. We asked the doctors about it at a couple of her check ups, but they didn't have any suggestions for us to try because we were already doing what they would suggest. They didn't think it was GERD because she was not uncomfortable during or after eating, there was no projectile vomiting. She was just going through bibs and burp cloths like nobody's business. David was sharing his woes with some of the guys on his gaming forum, and one of them said each of his kids had the same problem until they tried Similac Sensitive for spit up. We gave it a try and were amazed with the results. Livvie can wear the same bib for the whole day and can even go without a bib for a good portion of the day (bibs have been a staple of her wardrobe pretty much since we came home from the hospital).

In all, the first three months have gone as smoothly as we can expect as brand new parents and we can't wait to see what the next three months bring.