Four month sleep sucks

Four month old sleeping is lame. Wait, no, it's not; it's nonexistent  We've been dealing with a sudden change in Hannah's sleeping habits as well as the transition from her chair to her crib. Had I realized that the four month sleep regression/issue was going to be such an issue, we would have transitioned her awhile ago. If I could I would wait on it, but she's starting to roll over and has managed to get herself into some very scary positions when we checked on her. When we went to the movies last Saturday with my brother and his girlfriend, we came home to find my mom standing in the basement livingroom just watching Hannah sleep on my bed because she kept trying to roll over in the chair and freaked out my mom.

We have had some successes. Hannah spent all night in her crib on Saturday night. Then we had to travel Sunday/Monday and messed everything up. Overall, our travels over break were not all that great. Sleep was a major issue for her when we were at my mom's house for both Christmas and New Year's. It was just too much travelling, especially with the four month issue and the crib transition thrown in there.

She has rolled from back to front a few times on our bed, but tonight was the first night where she did it in her crib. I think that’s part of the reason she’s having such a hard time sleeping, that whole wanting to practice the new skill business. She fusses and thrashes about until she gets herself on her tummy then doesn’t want to be on her tummy which causes a new round of crying. Matt is waaay frustrated. He’s put her down at least four times already tonight, and she is still wide awake. Then she spit up all over both of them.

It is amazing to me how much purpose her movements have now. She will deliberately reach out and play with buttons or my necklace or the straps on my tank or the ties on Matt’s robe. It’s just amazing…… It also appears (at least to me) that she is starting to recognize facial expressions. After an unsuccessful attempt to put her down, Matt brought her back out to the livingroom. I made some type of sad face at her and shook my head. She suddenly looked very concerned, then smiled really big- like she’s trying to make me smile. It works every time. So I smiled back and she started talking up a storm. I know it’s not helping her sleep, but it’s so sweet. Tonight she sounded like she was practicing her vowels over and over: ‘ahhhh…… ehhhh…… ooooo’ over and over and over like a vocal warm-up or something.

This post was very random.

Now a picture.

Merry Christmas

Just a quick post from early Christmas morning. It's almost three and we're up, feeding Hannah and pumping. I'm not sure we'd change a thing.

Merry Christmas everyone.

Four months later......

Hannah is now four months old. We had her four month well-baby check-up today. She is doing just fine. Her weight is up to 15 pounds 12 or so ounces. According to the nurse, she's 24 inches long, but I don't believe that number. She was 24 inches long in October, so I will probably measure her at some point in time this week and go with that number. We talked her napping schedule (short naps are okay), solids (we could start now, but that tongue thrust reflex is still hanging around so we're gonna wait), bottle size and nipple flow (follow her cues), and walking/crawling (start thinking about baby-proofing, but we should have some more time). She got two shots and handled them like a trooper.

Hannah rolled from back to front yesterday morning on the bed. She loves to sit up and is getting better and better at doing it without support. She also loves to stand and can do so just holding onto your hands. Over the last few weeks, she has done more smiling and has become quite the conversationalist. She almost always has a smile for whoever gets her out of bed in the morning, so I often try to do it if I can before I go to work. Matt still sends me pictures of her smiling face during the day, but it's awesome to see it myself.

Hannah went to her first birthday party at the beginning of December. Violet turned one so we celebrated with Sara's family as well as Carolyn's. She wore the cutest party dress and I love this picture!!

Hannah normally takes short naps throughout the day, but every once in awhile, she gets in a good long nap... usually while napping on someone. Daddy likes long naps too.

Hannah is also starting to play with her toys by herself. She's doing more reaching and is better able to sit in her chair by herself so that we can get stuff done. I managed to make an entire meal while she played the other day. It was awesome.

Christmas is coming! We've picked up the gifts, and even though Matt thinks it's silly, I will be wrapping them. Yes, it's less about her and more about us this year, but I don't care. I want the pictures of her first Christmas. The tree is up and decorated.

We're working on wrapping gifts, but some have already arrived from various family members, most of them wrapped so there are also wrapped gifts under the tree now. We spent a chunk of time taking pictures last night to use for our Christmas card and in the end, we are doing a kind of complication card with pictures that go all the way back to our maternity photo shoot with the most recent being the picture from the doctor's office today. I did get some very cute pictures in her first Christmas outfit.

In related baby news, pumping is going well. So well, in fact, that we ran out of room in the chest freezer. So I made the decision to donate my milk. I found a family in Madison who adopted a little guy about a month before Hannah was born. We met up with the mom on Sunday and gave her around 1,000 ounces of milk. It's a bizarre feeling to know that someone else's baby is going to be getting nourishment from my milk, but at the same time, it's just amazing to know I am helping someone so intimately. It's just awesome. What's really scary is that even though I gave her that much milk, there is still half a chest freezer full downstairs. So it's only a matter of time before I will run out of space again. The doctor was pretty impressed when I told her about it.

As mentioned above Christmas is coming, so I'm planning to post pics of Hannah with her presents.

Along a sadder vein, I feel the need to acknowledge the shootings in Newtown, CT that occurred last week. I was deeply saddened by the events both as a teacher and as a parent. It's devastating to think something like that could happen in my school to my students, and worse yet to worry that it could happen to my little girl. It's enough to make you want to homeschool!

3 Months

I think we hit our three month growth spurt and I think we won. By won, we all eventually returned to a normal food and sleep schedule.
In other news:
-If you let her hold onto your hands, she'll pull herself up. She's been putting her hands in her mouth more (OMG.... the drool) and refusing the pacifier on occasion as well.
-She has a lot to say, especially when you are on her level and really looking in the face. She chatted with grandma and great-grandma today when they visited.
-She's consistently sleeping from around 9ish until sometime between 5am and 7am. If she wakes up earlier than 5, she's really good about going back to sleep right away for a few more hours, and the earlier it is during her normal window, the faster she goes back to sleep. Although a lot of times, if she wakes up after six or so, it's more like a nap than an extension of the night. She's sleeping well though.
-She is also starting to express her displeasure in ways other than immediate screaming/crying. She will do some angry-sounding talking, then it kinda sounds like yelling, then finally escalates into screaming/crying.
-We're also getting waaay better at reading her cues as to what hungry-crying is vs. sleepy-crying.
-And she's developing a eat-play-sleep-(sometimes)play-eat pattern. It's amazing how she's kinda set a schedule for herself. Which is good because I'm lousy with schedules.

We still don't like bathtime but it's gotten slightly better.

Three months old! This was a rare smiling moment during the last few days of three month growth spurt fussiness.

Sitting up while playing. She's doing a good job of pulling herself up from a reclined position as long as she has your hands to hold on to.

Super cute. This picture makes her look a whole lot like Matt when he was a little kid.

A real post

I mentioned in my last post that I needed to update with a real post, so here goes....

It's amazing how quickly the time is flying by! I mean, we started November last week and on Thursday, I will have been back at work for a month. Tomorrow is also our anniversary.... seven years. Wow.

Hannah is over two and a half months old. At our last doctor's appointment, about a month ago, she weighed 11 pounds 12 and a half ounces and was 23 inches long. She is in the 83% for both of those numbers. She has quickly progressed through her 0-3 month clothes and is wearing mostly 3-6 month stuff now. She doesn't really fill them out, but she needs the length. 

Pumping is going well. I'm freezing almost as much milk each day as I put into her bottles. Eventually I know that she'll start drinking more, but for now, I'm able to freeze a ton. So much in fact that we now own a chest freezer. There just wasn't enough room in our fridge freezer so my parents bought us a small chest freezer for our anniversary. We are still happy with the decision and I am thrilled to be able to provide so well for her.

Hannah is beautiful. She gets complimented daily, and as she grows, she is getting more and more adorable and beautiful. Her smile just lights up her whole face and it's impossible to be angry or annoyed with her when she grins. Her eyes seem to be staying blue. They are just gorgeous.

She still does well when we take her out in public, but occasionally she gets unhappy in the car. If she's unhappy in the car, she will cry whenever the car stops like at a stoplight, but as soon as the car starts going again, she's fine. It's really funny.

We have been dealing with colic, and it's been rough, especially since I've gone back to work. She starts fussing around 6ish and it goes until at least 11. There are brief respites, but it's a pretty constant whining and crying and fussing, even with the pacifier. Things are getting better though. We've had several evenings recently without more than a few moments of fussiness, and some slightly earlier bedtimes, so there is hope. Up until recently, Hannah has been operating on a college schedule: bedtime around midnight, wake for food around 6, sleep more until 10 or 11. Some naps in the afternoon, then a fussy party from 6 until she goes to sleep. But things are slowly progressing. Tonight, in fact, she was asleep before 10. Granted, we turned back the clocks last night, but it would still be before 11 without it. Friday night she also was asleep before 10. Last night it was around 11.

We have been dealing with quite a bit of spit-up. Hannah is what they call a 'happy spitter'. She spits up a lot, but it doesn't seems to make her uncomfortable until afterward when she's messy and wet. It got so bad that we called the on-call pediatrician about a week after my last post. From that conversation, we started adding rice to her milk and it has made a huge difference. She still spits up quite a bit, but it is not near to what it was. We occasionally have meals where it's worse than others, but for the most part, it's not nearly as bad as it used to be. We own A LOT of bibs and A LOT of burp cloths. And she goes through a lot of clothes.

Wubanub is still her favorite pacifier, but she also likes the purple ones she has. With regards to the NICU stay that I referenced in my last post, Hannah spent two days in the hospital for jaundice. When they sent us home on the 17th, we had orders for one final bilirubin test since her levels were higher than they would like, but not high enough to treat. On Saturday, her levels had jumped so they wanted her to come in for treatment. We spent Saturday night, all day Sunday, and most of the day on Monday hanging out at the hospital. We were able to stay in a family room in the NICU wing so we got to see her every three hours. I was allowed to nurse for 10-15 minutes then she got a bottle of formula and eventually pumped milk. The big goal was to get her peeing and pooping to get the bilirubin out of her system. She was quite dehydrated which was part of the problem. She wasn't getting enough to eat since my milk hadn't come in, but no one suggested supplementing. While we were in the hospital, we got lots of one on one attention from lactation and I started pumping as well. She responded really well to treatment, and we were down to only one light by Sunday afternoon in the hopes that even if levels were still high on Monday, they could send us home with a bili-blanket. By Monday, even that wasn't necessary. We had a final test on Tuesday the 21st and her levels were continuing to drop without treatment.

Unfortunately, she developed a dependence on the bottle that we weren't able to break once we got home. She continued to need the bottle after nursing regardless of how long she would nurse. That was part of the reason I decided I wanted to stop nursing. It was not the great bonding experience I had hoped, Hannah didn't seem to respond well to it, and I spent a lot of time feel like I was a failure. I felt much better once I started pumping and we started bottle feeding.

Hannah still doesn't really like bath time. I think it's just going to take time and practice to get her used to it. I can't wait until she likes it as much as we do. She is still super cute afterward, with her fuzzy post-bath hair. And she smells good too....

She still likes tummy time, but with the spit-up issue, we're not doing it as much as we should. She's doing a great job holding her head up and we're practicing sitting in her bumbo chair. She easily focuses and turns her head to look when she hears voices. She likes to watch the TV or the computer screen when they are showing something brightly colored that's moving. She also likes to look at ceiling fans. She has a couple of toys that she enjoys reaching for, and she likes her rings on her car seat.

Obviously, I have gone back to work. I've been back for almost a month now, and it's going well. I spent just less than a week doing observations and getting my room ready. The kids started on a Friday, but I was missing half my students so it wasn't a good representation. Monday, when everyone was there, and my two new kids started, things were definitely more exciting. It's a very different experience, but I'm enjoying it. My bosses seem pleased with the job I'm doing as well. It's a little weird to kick my boss out of his office twice a day to pump, but it's working well.

Overall, we're doing okay. Still figuring things out but we're doing well as a family of three.

Drive-By Photos

A post of pictures.

A sweater from mommy! 

One-month wiggles!

 This is my farting face!

 Smiley baby (pic sent by daddy shortly after I went back to work)

 Action shot of meeting GusGus for the first time

 Happy Halloween!

Sitting up, playing with my owl from Aunt Ace

Two month shot!

It's amazing how much time being a working mom takes up. I'll post again soon. Maybe during a late night feeding.....

Quick post

Hannah is officially one month old. Man, where did the time go? At our last doctor visit (a week and a half ago), she weighed 8 lb 13 oz and had grown to 21 inches long. She's quickly outgrowing her newborn clothes, and is quickly growing into her 0-3 mo stuff. Unfortunately, the weather is cooling so the 0-3 stuff is needing to be layered since it was all summer stuff. Oh well...... It's hard to find time to post as often as I would like since her schedule seems to change day to day. Some highlights:

-We've stopped breastfeeding, and I am pumping exclusively. I still haven't completely processed all the factors leading up to this, but will probably post about it in the future. So far, things are going well and I think it is the best choice for us.

-Hannah is able to focus on faces and will occasionally track items in her field of vision. I think it's a matter of getting it the right distance away from her face so that she can both focus and track.

-As mentioned above, we're quickly outgrowing our newborn clothes.

-Hannah is objectively adorable. As in, our complete and utter belief that our daughter is adorable is not due to parental bias; the general populace agrees. We accept compliments on her behalf every time we go out with her, often more than once or twice.

-Speaking of going out, Hannah is amazing when we go out and about. This is due to her undying love and affection for her car seat. She mellows quickly when placed in her car seat, and usually falls asleep quickly once the car is moving. She will stay asleep until a bit after we get back home. The other night, she slept for almost an hour and a half after we get home. But in general, she behaves well when we're out. If she's not sleeping, she eats her food quickly and then is content to chill with her wubanub (pacifier).

-We have found that she is soothed by a pacifier. I hadn't wanted to use a pacifier, but if we hadn't chosen to introduce it her second, the nurses in the NICU would have given her one when she was there. I still need to write up a post about our NICU stay, but yes, Hannah was in the NICU for 48 hours.

-Hannah eats like a horse and is pooping and peeing like a champ.

And here are some pics:

Hannah is slowly getting used to bathtime. Matt and I love how cute she is when she's snuggling after the bath; we're working on ways to keep her warm and comfy during the bath so she doesn't cry the whole time.

 This is a post-bath picture. Everyone says she looks like Matt in this shot.

 Hannah is really strong already. The doctor actually commented on it when we were there. She seems to like tummy time. Luther often comes over to check things out when she is doing tummy time. She can pick her head up for periods of time and will turn her head toward the sound of our voices.

 My kid has monkey arms like her daddy.

Snuggles with mommy!

Matt's family came to visit over Labor Day weekend. Here is Hannah with his dad;

His mom;

His brother;

And his grandma.

Hannah wanted me to know I had taken enough pictures already.

The owl toy in the picture was a gift from Matt's sister. She will grab at some toys when she feels like making mommy happy.

This is our troublemaker face. She's just so gosh darn cute you can't be mad at her!

Snuggling with mommy after bath time.

Luther investigating what Hannah is doing. She was watching the Packer game with daddy.

We are completely in love with our little girl and even though we have days where she doesn't sleep and is fussy all the time, we wouldn't trade it for the world.