This smiley girl is 15 weeks old! Hard to believe she is almost 4 months. Wow. In some ways it feels like the longest and hardest months of my life, but in others time is really flying by with my sweet daughter.
She is still loving that left thumb, and sucks it every chance she gets. Such a relief to not have to deal with a paci anymore!
She is getting chunkier everyday, but is still on the petite side as far as weight goes. 14 lbs 1 oz. Length, however, she is in the 98%. 26" long already! Oh my gosh. If you would have told me I could create a tall girl I'd have laughed! Due to her length, she wears mostly 6-9 mos now.
On Monday, I had a CLE to attend so Daddy had a day with his girl. This was her waking up to greet him that morning. Of course she slept in the day daddy was on duty!
He was up to no good dressing her in Clemson gear. Boo. She's still cute though.
I made up for the orange with some Gamecock gear later in the week.
And then we had an accident. While E was napping on Wednesday, I decided to clip her nails. Well, she startled and jerked her hand as I clipped- and I totally clipped her thumb. She woke right up screaming. So much blood, I just knew I had chopped her finger clean off. I was picturing finding her thumb and putting it on ice for the ER to sew back on. I made a mad dash in hysteria to the ped's office. Just a bandaid and a complete meltdown (me not her). I won't be clipping her nails ever again, you can be sure of that!
Here she is with a sock over her bandaid so she won't chew on it. She's puzzled like what the heck is this? Oh, that's where mommy sliced you good, kiddo. Oops.
She seems to have forgiven me though.
On sleeping- she had been waking up consistently at 10:30, 2 and 4 and barely eating a thing for weeks and weeks. Sometimes more often than that. It was more of a comfort for her, wanting to be held etc. I finally realized it was out of habit she was waking rather than out of hunger. Something had to give.
My sister-in-law sent me the book Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child. It has helped me so much to understand E's sleep patterns and just how important napping is for a baby and her nighttime sleep and overall development.
So, I decided it was time to follow advice in the book and try cry-it-out. I didn't come to this quickly. I tried every other no cry sleep solution before using this one. We have a solid bedtime routine and I always get her down by 7:30. I tried schedules, Ferber method, pick up/ put down, Harvey Karp, all of it. I know cry-it-out is not for everyone and not for every baby, but I got to a point where I felt like it was the right choice for us. With lots of support from my sister-in-law (whose babies were sleeping by 9 weeks!), we cried it out.
I was expecting lots and lots of tears. The first night, I gave her a "dreamfeed" at 11. She woke up at 2 like usual, cried 10 minutes, found her thumb and fell asleep. She woke at 4, cried 10 minutes, fell back asleep. Are you kidding? 10 minutes? I all but had a prescription for Xanax ready to be filled, and she gives me 10 minutes?
Night 2, she got a dreamfeed at 11. She woke at 3:30, cried 7 minutes. Woke again at 4:30, cried out twice ( literally "ahhh ahhh") and back to sleep. She woke up at 9 the next morning, very well rested. As is mommy!!!! No Xanax needed so far.
I'm not sure if it's going to stick or not. It seems like every time I blog about her sleep something changes. But hopefully this is a change in the right direction!
In crib news- she is still not digging it. She took a few short and crappy naps in it, so back to the swing she went.
However, we did move the swing to her room. How ridiculous does this look? Whatever, she's at least sleeping! Evans is a motion junkie. I need to accept that for now. Hopefully she won't run off to college sleeping this way.
As for me, I'm starting to feel more like myself. There are weeks when I'm really run down and tired, but overall it's getting better. I'm not back to work yet, thankfully. I'm not sure how I would have done that with the way E has slept over the past 3 months. But now that she is getting better at the night time gig, hopefully life will look a little more normal soon?
Love you, Baby E! You are my whole life and the new normal. But please, don't grow up to like that orange your daddy puts you in. It's the least you can do since I've given up sleep for you :)
