Sleep update

We tried changing Baby B's bedtime to be earlier. I don't know why I thought we needed to do this... the result was an extra bit of napping (at night, leading up to falling asleep at her normal bedtime), and her waking up for the day between 4:30-5:30 in the morning. This is definitely not what I was hoping would happen.

We decided to go back to letting Baby fall asleep for the night on her own schedule, but kept the bedtime routine (bath, lotion, pajamas, books) and just started it a little later. She has been falling asleep around 9, 9:30 at the latest, but a couple of times closer to 8 (!) and once at 10, and sleeping much better. She usually stays asleep -- besides waking up to eat around 3:15 -- until a reasonable morning hour (6:30-7, I'd prefer later but oh well).

Now I am working on creating a regular morning nap so that I have some time in the morning to get some house work and work-work done, and so that Baby can catch up on sleep if needed. This has been successful so far, and has really helped me to plan out the rest of the day! Depending on how early she gets up, sometimes there is a short nap around 9, but the big nap comes at about 11:30, and usually lasts at least two hours! She usually gets another decent nap in the afternoon, around 4:30, and then sometimes a short one around 7 but we try to keep her from that one so she'll go to bed earlier.

I think it's a bit hard for her to adjust to a schedule because she is at daycare Tues/Thurs, so it's a little inconsistent. She still takes a nap at 11:30 at daycare, but only stays asleep for about half an hour, and then takes another nap not long after, and another in the afternoon. They still comment every day about how short her naps are, but I think she just has a tough time sleeping when there is so much going on that she does not want to miss!

I don't have a cute sleep picture to post, so I'll leave you with an unrelated but still cute picture!

20 Weeks!

Age: 20 weeks tomorrow...only 2 weeks shy of 5 months!

Stats/Size: same as last week, as far as I know

Sleep: I need to write an update on our bedtime routine, but things are getting a little bit better (not with the routine I described). A big success to me is that we have started regular morning naps, usually around 11am, and I have figured out how to help Baby catch up on some sleep here- they have been consistently long, between 1-2.5 hours! It is great to know that I have a stretch of time each morning to do some work, and I feel better knowing that baby is getting this additional sleep.

Eat: eating well, still on-demand and no real schedule. She's healthy and gaining weight- that's all I care about.

Getting Around: Still trying to crawl but I think her arms are just too weak! She seems to have gotten bored of trying so often, which is nice because we don't have to deal with all of her frustration :)

New People: Baby B visited her CMU friends and had a couple of playdates, but nobody new this week.

Best moment this week: laughs at herself in the mirror. It seems easier and easier to get her to laugh!

Worst moment this week: Mr. Beaver trying to help with a night wake-up and waking her up completely... which means an hour of soothing and shushing to get her back to sleep instead of the normal 5-10 min it takes me :(. Oh and having to dump milk I forgot about and left out.

What I miss: Golfing on weekends when the weather is perfect!

What I am looking forward to: Baby gets to watch her first college football game!! And she will meet her uncle and lots of other family at a wedding in less than three weeks.

Weekly Wisdom: All babies are different... just because others go to bed at the same time every night doesn't mean that mine can or will do that. She is such a happy baby- I have to remind myself that that is what is important and as long as she is not cranky or fussy, we are probably doing things the right way for her!

Milestones: Going down for her morning nap without nursing or much work, and staying asleep for a decent amount of time!

Here's the pictures I forgot last week:

Bedtime routine

I think I mentioned in my last post that sleep has been a concern of mine lately. More like lack of sleep- for both me and my baby, but she is the one I am concerned about. However, over the past couple of days she has been starting to take longer naps on her own, and even fall asleep earlier than normal at night, so I think she also may have realized she needs more sleep! I decided to take advantage of the new bedtime tonight and try to start a bedtime routine.

Our current routine: 9:30ish see signs of hunger, change baby into pajamas, turn off lights, nurse to sleep. When I think bedtime routine, though, I think of bath, massage, book, etc. We've tried this before, and both times it was very, very unsuccessful. The couple of times we started trying a bedtime routine at 8pm, and, no matter what we tried, Baby ended up going to sleep after 10 pm and after a stressful couple of hours for us. Since she has fallen asleep on her own relatively early the past couple of nights, however, we tried the whole bedtime routine again.

If you don't want the many details, here's the basic routine (and skip the next paragraph): 7pm-bath; 7:30 changing table time; 7:35 massage with lotion, pajamas, books; 7:40ish nurse to sleep.

At 7 pm tonight, we started our routine with a bath using some bedtime stuff in the water. We don't usually do baths- we typically grab baby at the end of our shower and bring her in for a quick shower of her own. This takes about 2 minutes and she doesn't mind it at all, so it's worked well for us. The past bedtime bath attempts were done in the kitchen sink and she screamed... this time we used the tub, and she LOVED it! I think she would've stayed in there for an hour or more if we'd let her. She played in the bath for about 30 minutes, splashing, kicking, and smiling a ton. After that we went in her room and cleaned her earrings, put on a fresh diaper, and played for a few minutes on the changing table- her favorite place in the world. Next was massage time in our bed, which was quick because she is really wiggly and refuses to stay on her back. After putting on pajamas, we read half of The Giving Tree before she got bored, her my colors/mis colores book (one of her favorites), and then Mr. B read Goodnight Moon while I nursed her lying down. She was done eating and fast asleep by 8!

I was very happy thinking we were successful, however when Mr. B moved baby to the pnp in our room where she sleeps, she woke up. After about 10 min trying to get her back to sleep, I nursed her again and put her in the pnp myself. 10 minutes after that she woke up again. This time it took about 15 minutes to get her back to sleep using patting and shushing, and she seems to be sleeping deeply now!

I think our routine was successful... we'll see how it works tomorrow. Today was a good nap day too, so I think that helped. Baby woke up for the day at around 7:30, napped from 11:30-1:30(!!!), and then napped again from 4:45-5:15. Two and a half hours of naps is a lot for her, so I am happy about that! I'm anxious to see how tonight goes, and how naps go tomorrow and whether or not she will do so well with the new routine tomorrow night!

4 Month 1 Week appointment!

Baby Beaver is getting so big! We had her 4 month appointment a little late due to our FL trip, so maybe she gained a little extra in that time ;) Her weight is now 15 lb 4 oz, and her length is 25.5 inches! Both put her between 75-90th percentile, with her length somewhere in the mid 80s and weight in the upper 70s- don't remember the exact values. She is getting so heavy, but I think my muscles are growing along with her, since I hold her so much every day. Nursing one-handed is difficult now though, so I'm not as able to multi-task. The shots went a little better this time- she calmed down pretty quickly after getting picked up and was fine once she started nursing, whereas last time she was still crying while she ate (so sad!). The doctor warned that there is usually more of a reaction to this set of vaccines, but she did not have any reaction at all!

I know I promised beach pictures, but I remembered that they are all on my mom's camera and I haven't gotten them from her yet, so all two readers who check here will have to wait! I am so mad at myself-I forgot my camera for our trip!! We left the house at 5 am and I am not a morning person, so I'm not really surprised, but I should've packed it the night before... luckily family members all took pictures for us, now we've just got to wait to get them. For now, here's a series of crawling-attempt pictures for you to enjoy!





Oh, and a picture of the pierced ears- still haven't gotten a great one.

And, to help me in my attempt at more frequent posts, I found a baby blog poll! I know it is not creative at all, but my main purpose here is documenting our baby's milestones and such, not trying to be entertaining :) So here's the first post!

Age: almost 19 weeks!

Stats: 15.25 lb, 25.5 in

Size: fitting pretty well in 3-6 mo clothing. Size 2 diapers fit her well, but she is actually still squeezing into the size 1-2 from Costco without too many leaks!

Sleep: I'm actually a little concerned about this... she usually only gets 10-11 hours TOTAL sleep, with a day or two a week to make up for it with about 13 hours of sleep. Our daycare mentioned that she doesn't sleep much at all compared to other babies... not sure if they were expressing concern or complaining? ;) Nighttime isn't too bad- some nights she only wakes once to eat and other nights twice, but she always goes back to sleep. We've had about 6 nights total of sleeping through the night, but that is out of the ordinary, and I never expect it!

Eat: Still has only eats breastmilk, eating about 8 times a day. We still only use bottles at daycare, although I did let her try out the sippy cup today for the first time for fun. I don't think she actually drank anything... (see below for pics)

Getting Around: See crawling attempt above! She is trying so hard... when she is determined, she moves pretty well! It's more of an army crawl than real crawling though, except that she pushes her head/upper body along with her legs rather than pulling on her forearms.

New People: Baby B finally met her Grandfather (my dad), and met her Aunt and Uncle on Mr. Beaver's side while we were in FL. She also got to meet great Aunts and Uncles, cousins/second cousins, a lot of friends who are like family, and her future best friend :)

Best moment this week: hmmm... in the past few weeks, I'd say meeting her grandpa, and she definitely enjoyed the beach.

Worst moment this week: The dirty diaper on the plane, her fussing on the plane, and her shots...

What I miss: Having a nice cold beer at a bbq or a frozen margarita or rum runner on the beach... it's not so bad, but I do enjoy those drinks so much! I know I could pump, but I'm lazy, and it seems like whenever I do try to be prepared with a bottle she doesn't want it, or won't calm down until I nurse her, so it's just not worth trying.

What I am looking forward to: When she does crawl, I can't wait to see how happy she is! I am already so proud of how determined and persistent she seems to be. I am also excited for her to meet her uncle and lots of other family at a wedding in a few weeks.

Weekly Wisdom: Sit in the aisle seat when you fly with a baby!

Milestones: Baby B laughs much easier now- I think everyone we have visited has gotten to hear/see it! It is crazy how much I love her laugh. And as a bonus, watching a video of it while I pump on daycare days hastens the (milk) let-down!

Busy busy busy :)

We've had a very busy few weeks, and I kinda forgot all about writing here... oops!

A lot of firsts have happened in the past few weeks- first day at daycare, first plane ride and trip to FL, first time at the beach, and first time meeting a lot of family and friends!

Daycare is going really well. I think that only going Tues. and Thurs. is the reason I feel this way- I miss my baby sooo much during the day, but I get to spend the morning with her and then pick her up at 4:30 (or earlier if I choose), and the days actually fly by! I think it would be a lot harder if I went more than one day in a row, but our current schedule is great for me. I love to look at her little report card each day too and see all of the fun things she does. It seems like she is very busy there, which makes me happy. Also, she has had no trouble at all taking a bottle! I'm still trying to figure out how much milk to send, because she eats it all when I increase a half-ounce each day, and then will have a day where she hardly eats at all. They say they don't even know when to feed her, because she doesn't cry or anything, so I think they just give her a bottle every three hours. She still hasn't cried there, which elicits have mixed feelings. Happy that she is having a fun time and isn't stressed or anything, and sad that she doesn't miss me!

Visiting Florida was exhausting, but very fun. Our flight down had a 1 hour scheduled layover that turned into almost three hours, and then we were on the plane an extra hour waiting to get off the first flight and waiting to take off on the second one, so toward the end baby was getting a little fussy, but overall it was not all that stressful! I was sad we got in several hours late and had less time with Nana, but it wasn't terrible. Even though it was hard waking up at 4:30am to get out of the house by 5:15, traveling in the morning was definitely the way to go. Our flight home was direct, but was much harder because baby was so tired and got bored quickly. In the morning, she doesn't mind hanging out on our laps and standing on us while talking and playing. At night, she wants to be on the floor practicing crawling, or she wants to be held while we walk around bouncing her. There is not much room for either of these on a plane! What also made the trip a little more stressful was a poop-splosion (very messy, leaky diaper) on the plane. Luckily they do have an adequate changing table in that tiny bathroom, but it was still a lot of work cleaning up the mess. Plus, there are just the two or three bathrooms on a plane, only one in front that has the changing table. I felt guilty taking so much time in there while other people were probably waiting! On a related note- those little "barf-bags," as we've always called them, are great for containing wet, dirty clothes.

Traveling with a baby was not so bad and it was really great to visit with friends and family and be back "home" for a while, even though it made me pretty homesick for the beach and water (rivers and lakes just aren't the same). I don't know that I would ever get to spend time with my baby if we did live there, though, so that makes me a little happy to be far away ;). Everyone down there LOVED meeting her or seeing her again, and she was passed around quite a bit, despite my protests when I could tell she was getting sick of it. She did amazingly well handling all of the activity and attention, and everyone is convinced she is the perfect baby- which, of course, won't get any arguments from me.

I'm feeling guilty using my limited work time to blog, so I'll save pictures for the next update. Probably will be soon because we've got our 4-month appointment tomorrow (a little late-oops!). I'm anxious to see the official weight and length measurements and see how much our baby has grown in the past 2 months! Hopefully the shots are as quick and painless as possible and baby doesn't have sore legs like last time. Then we're back to normal life for a month before our next trip (family wedding) and first football game (go 'Canes!)!
Stay tuned for cute beach pictures!