Friday, September 30, 2005

Lots of Change

Amelia's sleep is improving; ergo, my sleep is improving. This is a good thing!

Most nights she sleeps for an 8-10 hour stretch, wakes to nurse and goes back to sleep for an hour or two. Most mornings I need to wake her at 7:30 am - a quality problem. Her naps have not regulated yet and she cries much longer (~15 minutes) when I put her down to sleep during the day. The crying is still really hard for me. I've been consuming quite a bit of ice cream in the last week or so.

She is eating three meals a day and sometimes has a snack in between. This is great because it helps her sleep and it is just so cool to watch her discover new foods and communicate her opinion about it. Case in point: Amelia will no longer eat anything off of a spoon. She will only eat things that I can give to her on my finger. So, we've moved into the finger food realm a little earlier than expected.

The downside to this eating is that she is nursing much less and this makes me a little sad. I've joked about her self-weaning and the way things are going, I wouldn't be at all surprised if she does.

She continues to be a communicative kid. She adores Erik and shrieks with delight when he comes home and with frustration if he doesn't immediately come and get her for a snuggle. When we have a family walk, Erik carries her facing out in the Bjorn (pictures in previous posts) and she laughs with joy. Amelia is pretty fabulous and I feel really lucky to be her mom.

Friday, September 23, 2005

Flabergasted!

The sleep training is successful so far! We tweaked Amelia's bedtime routine a little, moved the glider into her room and put her down at 8pm. She cried for 45 minutes and then went to sleep. She woke at 2am prompty (just like Ann said she would) for a feeding. I fed her in her room and put her back down in her crib. She protested a bit and quickly went back to sleep (thank god!). She slept until 6:30 am this morning! Woohoo!

She is now down for her morning nap. I put her down and she cried for less than a minute. Her mobile is going so I can't tell if she is actually asleep, but she isn't crying and that is HUGE.

Now that she seems to be getting off on the right foot for sleep, I need to work on my sleep! I was awake for almost 1.5 hours after her 2am feeding last night and then had nightmares the rest of the time. Ah well. It is a start.

I'm off to make a cheesecake while she is asleep.

Thursday, September 22, 2005

Sleep Training...

Has begun. We met with Ann Kepler this afternoon who helped create a sleep plan for the family. It is fairly straight forward. We tweaked our nighttime ritual a bit and then put her down in her crib. She's been crying for 15 minutes already. Lots of deep breathing on my part.

With some luck, this won't be overly traumatic for all involved. They say it doesn't harm the babies and, in the long run, is even beneficial in helping them to learn to self soothe. Man, I'm confident Amelia will be fine but I might be the one who needs therapy after this!

I'm going to bed shortly with my sleep aid, my earplugs and the air filter turned up as loud as it will go. Erik is downstairs with the monitor on; he will check on her after a certain period if she is still crying. Whew, this is hard.

Monday, September 19, 2005

Chow Hound


Are we really surprised? No, we are not. Ms. Amelia is a durn good eater.

Every couple of days she seems to bump up the quantity consumed. Today she ate sweet peas, butternut squash & pork (simmered in tomatillos & green chiles) for lunch and had a peach chaser. For dinner she ate yogurt, more peas, more squash and some rice. She had a little lamb, but just a little, as that doesn't seem to be at the top of her list these days.

Drum roll: I have a prescription for Ambien! Sleep is in my future. We are meeting with Ann on Thursday to create a sleep plan. I'm steeling myself and trying to finish the Healthy Sleep book.

The picture is from last week at the cabin. You might notice it is a companion shot to the Happy Smiling Kid picture a few posts back. I like to think of this shot as an early Cohen "look".

Sunday, September 18, 2005

More Pictures




Ok, these pictures are completely out of order:

The first picture was on the 11th of this month at a friend's family cabin up at Stevens Pass. Amelia is greatly offended if you eat without her, so I gave up eating the apple and just gave it to her. She was very pleased.

The second picture is of the Little One, probably from July, napping with her guardian cats. Have I mentioned that the cats are beside themselves when she cries? They yowl and try to comfort her, in their strange cat way. They are usually very close by and Blanquita is almost always in grabbing distance, much to Amelia's pleasure.

The third picture is of Ibra and Amelia from the beginning of August. Amelia and I went to Portland for a week to hang out with Ibra while Rachel was in classes. Ibra was the most amazing big brother to Amelia. He was sweet and kind and figured out how to make her laugh. It was pretty cool.

Sleep, ah, Lovely Sleep

Well, I thought I would be positive. Amelia is asleep but it took FOREVER and she wasn't happy about it. I emailed Ann, the amazing woman who co-hosts the First Weeks groups and co-authored a leading book on pregnancy and the postpartem period, about our sleep issues. I'm hoping we can meet with her this week and create a family sleep plan; i.e., baby sleep bootcamp.

We're anticipating a fair amount of crying with the baby sleep bootcamp. Yuck. Last night while she was crying I ate ice cream out of the container and drank whiskey. It was only a very small consolation.

Mom brought over quiche for dinner tonight. It was wonderful to not have to pull something together. The quiche was delicious and it was really nice to eat while Amelia was sleeping. A very rare occurance.

Friday, September 16, 2005

Recent Pictures





Ok, the first picture is from Amelia's first trip to meet her Great-Grandma in Missouri in May. The second picture is from two weeks ago at Nana's. The last two pictures are from this week while we had a brief trip to the cabin. Erik is wearing Amelia in the Bjorn - a favorite thing for her. More pictures to come!

Ladies & Gentlemen, We Have a Tooth!

Amelia finally has a tooth! It is the lower left front tooth. She has been working on it for the last three days. In true Amelia style, she has told us exactly how she feels about this teething business: she has been a very vocal monkey! Lots of furrowed brows and babel with exclamations and grunts. Very cute; very communicative.

Monday, September 05, 2005

Tired


Dad & Susan are back from a wonderful fishing trip. Had a nice dinner at Mom's with them tonight. Missed Melz (at college) and Erik (working).

Sleep issues are massive. Amelia isn't sleeping any longer than one hour at a time. Oops...crying awake baby.

Update: after waking twice in less than an hour, I moved Amelia to our bed. She ate, snuggled in with Blanquita (the love kitty) and fell deeply asleep. Blanquita is the champion animal in our household. She always wants to be nearby me and Amelia and is so desparate for love that she tolerates Amelia grabbing big clumps of fur and the spasms of both foot and fist.

Amelia's favorite foods thus far: beef, nectarine & now yam. She really went to town on the yam tonight. Rice cereal remains disgusting to all involved: I'm contemplating throwing the stuff out.

I took a nectarine from mom's fruit bowl and Amelia saw it. Before I had even washed it off she was practically throwing herself from my arms to try and get it. She sucked on it for about 10 minutes and was a very happy girl.

Mom and I got ice cream cones yesterday on a walk. BIG MISTAKE! As soon as Amelia saw my cone, she was lunging for it. When lunging didn't get her the cone, she started screaming very loudly and consistently. This is while she is in the carrier on my chest. And she's only six and half months old. And she wanted my ice cream cone. Wanted it big time. It was as if she knew exactly how delicious it would be.