More on Gracie

Gracie Staring!, originally uploaded by thekingsleysmiths.

Well, Gracie is now over 2 1/2 weeks old and is settling in nicely to life in the Kingsley-Smith family. I thought I'd give you an update on how she's doing, what she's been up to and anything else I can think of.

In her first 3 days, Gracie lost just over 1lb which wasn't good at all - she was having some trouble feeding, and was subsequently losing weight fast; Laura has since nailed the feeding, and since she came home from Birthcare, Gracie has now returned to well over her birth weight of 7lb 10oz.

She seems to be really thriving - we're using Gena Ford's Contented Little Baby routines to help her get settled in to life, and so far it is working a treat. She eats and sleeps brilliantly. She is certainly a very contented baby so far.

She has plenty of feeds in the day, which enables her to go a decent stint at night without a feed; we generally put her back to bed at around 11pm after her final feed, and then she wakes for her next feed at about 4am and starts the day at 7am. We do feel very grateful that she doesn't scream the house down.

Laura has been pretty exhausted over the past few weeks, so I am helping out wherever I can - I love changing the nappies, and spending as much time with Gracie as I can; she really is the most beautiful thing, and I love just being with her.

Her hair appears to be growing, although we're kind of expecting it to fall out at some point - that seems to be a common thing, but for now it is thickening and getting longer.

Christmas was good fun although exhausting - we went to church in the morning after having some beautiful croisants courtesy of Dizz & James. For lunch, we went to a family from church (well - it was their extended family of 38!!!) we had the most amazing food, and I played tennis and volleyball for most of the afternoon - a perfect christmas.

Laura slept for most of boxing day, and I did many jobs around the house, trying to get things back to normal. In many ways it felt like christmas didn't really happen this year because our main focus was on Gracie - I know next year will probably be pretty different though.

Well, that's as much as I can think to tell you all right now - hope that helps you to imagine Gracie a little more.

Merry Christmas