Yeah for Baby K!

Well, a while back I posted about our little one not taking well to solids. After 2 successful weeks of her finishing her cereal with either bananas or apples mixed in, we have added the second feeding back in. For so long we were wasting the baby food because she would take one bite and be done that we took a break from it. Today she ate her cereal this morning and this afternoon had 2 stage 1 jars of food. She had squash and peas. Yum!

Yeah for Baby K!

Mommy is so proud of you, darling.

She sits!

Well, this morning as I was heating up her bottle, she sat! She was reclined on the couch and she just pulled herself into the sitting position. I was SO PROUD of her! She is getting so big.

We had a playdate with baby Andi today. They were so cute together. Here are some pics:

We couldn't get Little Bit to look at the camera, she was enamored by Andi.

I sit!

Little Bit was offering Andi a pedicure.

Found this baby mouse (alive) on our back patio... he can walk pretty fast. He was only an inch and a half long... if that! His tail was like 3 inches.

She rolls both ways!

I woke up this morning to see that our little one rolled from her back to her tummy and she was sleeping peacefully on her tummy until 7:45 this a.m. I cannot wait to see her do it... it will probably be a while before I get to see it as she always seems to do new things when I am not looking. :)

On another note, did your babies really like the cereal?? I fed her cereal for 3 days and she wanted nothing to do with it. (mind you, it is in EVERY bottle so she does get alot of it each day) She liked the food with taste though, so I have resorted to mixing a little cereal with her food and she seems to tolerate it. I read though that she should have cereal once a day and food once a day. Did anyone else have a similar experience?

Here are a couple pics from the weekend. She was giggling and loving on her bunny. It was so funny.

She eats!

Yeah! We had tried baby food for a week and she wasn't really into it, so we stopped for a week and tried again yesterday. She ate 2/3 of a jar of pears! It was so cute, she was so proud of herself for eating it.

She has also discovered her piggies (toes). All she does right now when she is awake is grab her feet and let go, grab her feet and let go, over and over and over again. It is so adorable watching her learn.

She has learned to sleep on her back again. Last night was the first night that she didn't wake up and cry 40 minutes after we laid her down. It was awesome. (She always goes down beautifully, but wakes up 40 minutes in and cries.) I looked at the clock and told my hubby it had been 1 hour and she didn't cry! She slept til 6 a.m. and has gotten in the habit of taking her paci and sleeping a little longer. Hoping this trend continues.

Here are pics of her new found toys:

I can see clearly now the rain is gone...

Hello everyone! Well, anyone who know us, knows that we have had a rough start with our little one. If it wasn't one thing, it was another. Well, this weekend, I looked at my husband and said, "it has been days since she has cried." Now, by that I mean while we are not trying to get her to sleep. She cries in her crib, but other than that, not really at all. This is a very bizarre thing to be able to say because in the beginning, months 1 -4 (so up until about 3 or so weeks ago) she cried all the time unless we were standing on our heads to entertain her. At first we thought it was gas, then a milk allergy (that is still in question and will be tackled when we rid her of the bottle), then it was/IS reflux all stirred up nicely with a good helping of colic. My hubby tells me we have a very high maintenance little one and he assures me they are not all this way. :)

How is the sleep going you ask? Well, we have made progress on that front as well. She is now in her crib by 7 p.m. (sometimes she is ready for bed as early as 5:30, so instead of letting her catnap, which DESTROYS her ability to go to sleep at 7, we put her in her crib). She is waking sometime between 6:15 and 6:45 a.m. I am good with this progress. She is still having night wakings, but is CIO as Dr. Weissbluth suggests. We tried 2 other sleep books before I dove into this one (Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child- I think is the name) because it is so indepth with details I would get overwhelmed, but when I got home from Texas, I had had enough fun for 4 mos. We, my husband and I decided that it was time to CIO and see what happened from there. We followed instructions that said if you had tried everything, including "gradual extinction" (which is a fancy name for leaving her for a little longer each time i.e. 5 min, then 10, then 15, etc.) then it was time for "extinction." Wow, that sounds so harsh, but it works! It has been two weeks and our crying to go to bed (actually, she goes down perfectly, but wakes after 40 min. - to the minute I have to add- and cries). This crying was lasting for 12 hours, yes, 12 hours on and off when we started 10 days ago and it was a mere 5 min. last night. She did wake a couple times in the night, but didn't stay up too long and went back to sleep on her own. The first few nights were brutal. I would lay in bed wanting to go "rescue" her, but I had been doing gradual extinction for 2 mos. and was still getting up after letting her cry for 15 min. up to 12 times a night, usually it was only 8 times though! Not bad, huh? J/K. I know that is pitiful, going to her 8 times a night to either roll her over or give her a pacifier. When does the madness end??? Well, we hope it is ending now. Dr. Weissbluth says to let them (babies this age) cry for 1 hour at naptime and leave them, with the door shut for 1 hour to help them learn to self-soothe and at night for the ENTIRE time. Don't rescue them! Let them learn. I usually have to come downstairs and sit with my hubby when she is crying to resist the urge, but earplugs do help. They mask the crying to a whimper.

Thankfully though, she is napping a good nap in the morning and then taking a couple of 40 min. naps in the afternoon, so she is finally resting. Until she was about 10 weeks old, she didn't nap at all until about 3 p.m. everyday and night sleep was absent as well, so I consider myself very fortunate right now. Let's hope this trend continues. They say if you can get their night sleep straightened out, their day sleep will begin. We shall see!

If only my body could get used to sleeping again. I am so used to being up 8+ times a night that I wake up at least 5 times a night and listen for her or roll over and try to go back to sleep. It is painful! I didn't know every muscle could ache from pure exhaustion like this. I do go to bed early- by 10ish, sometimes earlier and have even been taking Tylonel Pm. Not helping! I still wake up all night long and think I hear her crying- just to wake to complete silence most of the time. The last couple of weeks I have also been halucinating in the middle of the night. I usually have an occurrence when my hubby comes to bed where I think I am holding the baby and he wants her and I lay there (awake at this point) and wait for him to give her back to me. I lay there for a while before I proceed to rationalize with myself that if he wants to keep holding her it is okay for me to go back to sleep, that he will get up and put her in her crib when he is done with her. Okay, okay, okay.... she is NOT in our bed, why am I waking and thinking this??? LOL Too tired, yes, too tired I think. :)

On a fun front, she is needing little assistance sitting up and is trying really hard to crawl. Wow, we have no idea how easy we have it right now when we lay her down and she is pretty much going to be in the same spot when we return for her. Let the fun begin!