Josie’s Cozy Corner: 1 Month Update
Hey friends!
Welcome to my new series: Josie’s Cozy Corner! Similar to my Life With Lyla series, this will be the spot for all the updates on our Josie Rae! I’m not going to lie, I can’t believe it’s already been one month! It feels like just yesterday we were in the hospital. This little one joined our family on October 2nd, 2025, at 10:05 AM. She weighed 7lbs, 5oz, and was 19 and 1/4 inches long. Much smaller than her big sis and definitely not what the doctors were predicting. They told me at her growth ultrasound that she was measuring 7lbs, and this was about 3 weeks before her due date!
So, as most of you already know, if you’ve been following along, Josie was born via Caesarean. My doctor highly recommended this route due to my prior shoulder dystocia with Lyla. However, if you read my last post, it wasn’t a pleasant experience by any means. Regardless, I’m just thankful we have a beautiful, healthy baby! She’s worth every second of pain I went through to get her here. During our hospital stay, Josie started off great with nursing. She seemed to latch okay, and I thought we were well on our way to a successful nursing journey. However, by the second day, I noticed she started to prefer one side over the other, either refusing to latch or she’d feed for only a short time. The lactation nurse told me this was very common and encouraged me to keep trying. By the third day, she wasn’t really latching on to either side, and I was told it could be because my milk was coming in, and Josie didn’t like the firmness of the breast.
So, it didn’t surprise me when they did her weight check and told us she was down almost 10% of her birth weight. I’m not going to lie, I was very sad about the news because if you all remember, we went through a similar experience with Lyla when she was born. We had countless doctor’s appointments and did the triple feeding, which was probably the most stressful thing I’ve ever done in my life. It was torture. So, when I heard we might be in the same boat with Josie, Kent, and I were very clear that we weren’t going to do that again. Josie’s pediatrician was not working that weekend, so we met with the on-call pediatrician, and he put us at ease. He told us he would like us to avoid triple feeding and instead encouraged me to pump once we got home. He said not to worry about a set schedule and to do it casually, because he understood the pressure we moms feel when it comes to breastfeeding.
We made an appointment to follow up with him the next day to check on Josie’s weight again. When we got home, I started pumping, and then we also supplemented with formula. Thankfully, when we went in for the appointment, Josie had not lost any weight. We were so relieved, but he wanted to make sure she continued to gain weight, so we met with her regular doctor a few days later to check on her progress. We received good news again and were told that she had gained weight! At her two-week checkup, she weighed 7lbs and 14oz and had grown 1 inch! She also lost her umbilical cord the next day and was able to get her first big girl bath!
Aside from losing weight, Josie has been doing great for the most part! She’s been a pretty good sleeper so far. She usually wakes up between 10 PM and 2 AM and then again between 3 AM and 4 AM. Feedings have been a little rocky lately because I found out I have kidney stones, so it’s been difficult to keep up with pumping due to the pain. My milk supply took a hit as a result, so I’ve been slowly weaning myself from pumping and we’ve been supplementing with formula. She seems to do well with the formula we are giving her, but she spits up small amounts after feedings. I’ve noticed she also takes a long time to finish a bottle. Kent and I believe it’s due to gas because she gulps a lot of air in when she is trying to feed. So, that’s been something we’ve been trying to work through with her. She also gets hiccups frequently, so she’s definitely related to Lyla! 😉 In fact, I keep joking with Kent that God knew we couldn’t handle twins, so he blessed us with two girls three years apart, but made them look identical. It’s crazy how much Josie looks like Lyla when she was a baby. We’ll see if she keeps the dark hair or if it lightens like Lyla’s did.
Our little “Jose Jose” (Lyla’s nickname for baby sis) has been busy for only being a month old. She celebrated her first Halloween and dressed up as a candy corn! Big sis made sure she got candy for her, too, while trick-or-treating. She got to visit daddy’s work friends, mommy’s work friends, and even visited Lyla at daycare at her Harvest Party! Some of the things I love and notice about Josie are that she loves to be scrunched up. I sure did miss the newborn scrunches and am soaking this up while I can, since I know how fast it all goes by. When she falls asleep in mine or Kent’s arms, she loves holding onto something. With me, it’s usually my shirt or my hair 🙃. She smiles a lot in her sleep, and the other day, while Lyla was playing with her, she looked up at her and gave Lyla the biggest smile. It melted my heart and made me so excited for what’s to come. As far as Josie’s interests go, she stays active doing tummy time, playing the purple monkey song on her playmat, and watching the ceiling fan go round and round… lol!
Well, friends, that is all I have for this month! Stay tuned for the 2-month update! ✨
Thanks for reading! ✨
Love, Brandi