I'm going to be brutally honest with you.
Sophia is not an easy baby.
Or a fun baby.
Nor is she smiley,
content,
or relaxed baby.
She doesn't have colic but she is basically a highly fussy/never sleeps/extremely gassy baby. Some would call that colic, but we don't because she is able to be soothed. Or, rather, she often just cries herself to sleep.
She doesn't like being in our arms.
She loves being swaddled.
She won't take a bottle. Or a pacifier (we will persevere though...)
She does best when we stay home and don't go out and keep a very strict schedule. But "best," isn't really very good.
After saying all of that, know that I love our sweet girl very much. Her dimpled smile makes it ALL worth it whenever she deems it time to flash it at us. And I am well aware of the fact that this is only a season (PLEASE let it be only a season!) and I remind myself of that every night when we collapse into bed, exhausted.
Sleep:
What's that?
Oh.
The idea is that Sophia sleeps from 7pm until 6 am with one middle of the night feeding. She is also supposed to nap for 2 out of every 3 hours.
Well, that's the idea anyways. Most nights, Sophia goes down at 7 after 10 minutes of crying. She usually will wake up, and have to settle herself back to sleep a couple of times. She may need a midnight and a 3 am feeding, but she usually falls right back asleep.
Her nap times are ruled by the 45 minute intruder right now. She eats and plays for an hour, goes down and sleeps for 45 minutes and then wakes right up. She sometimes is comforted back to sleep, but sometimes she is just angry and awake.
We're not really sure how to help her get better at naps so we are just trying to be consistent with her routine and insisting it is nap time, not play time.
Food:
I really need to move her back to a 2 and a half hour schedule, but it is just SO hard to do that with a toddler underfoot. She feeds every 3 hours from 7 am until 7 pm and once in the middle of the night, around 3 am. She usually nurses for 15-25 minutes and she burps pretty easily now (yay! small victory.)
She is also COMPLETELY off of her gas medicine, which might be causing alot of the issues right now, but it was causing some serious digestive issues so we stopped it when we ran out of the last bottle.
We tried giving her a bottle of pumped milk but she wants nothing to do with it. We tried when she was full and we tried when she was hungry, but both times she wouldn't even latch onto it, just chewed it and gummed it around. She does the same thing with any type of pacifier too.
Activity
She has really stretched her awake time now, going almost 50-60 minutes from wake up time until nap time begins. She sits in her bumbo (Christmas gift,) or lays on her boppy, but she doesn't get more than a couple minutes of a time of tummy time. We're working on it.
She's loving chewing on her fists. And by chewing, I totally mean she sticks her whole fist in her mouth, oopens her fingers up, gags herself, trows up, and screams.
Awesome.
And she's scratched the roof of her mouth too.
She does have a great smile though, and for the first 5 minutes after a feeding you can make eye contact with her and get these awesome grins with a dimple showing and a squeak of delight. So fun!
Miscellaneous:
*I dropped my baby. I'm a terrible mom, I know. I was unswaddling her and when I backed away to get settled to nurse her, I didn't know the blanket was wrapped around my leg and...oops! There she went, right onto the floor. I felt horrible (I cried) but she nursed and hasn't seemed worse for the wear.
*She went camping for the first time and did pretty good!
*Sophia stayed with a babysitter for the first time while we went and saw The Hobbit! Sophia was asleep the whole time, but still, now we know we can escape for some "us" time!
*She is in size 2 diapers and wears 0-3 month clothing
Sophia is not an easy baby.
Or a fun baby.
Nor is she smiley,
content,
or relaxed baby.
She doesn't have colic but she is basically a highly fussy/never sleeps/extremely gassy baby. Some would call that colic, but we don't because she is able to be soothed. Or, rather, she often just cries herself to sleep.
She doesn't like being in our arms.
She loves being swaddled.
She won't take a bottle. Or a pacifier (we will persevere though...)
She does best when we stay home and don't go out and keep a very strict schedule. But "best," isn't really very good.
After saying all of that, know that I love our sweet girl very much. Her dimpled smile makes it ALL worth it whenever she deems it time to flash it at us. And I am well aware of the fact that this is only a season (PLEASE let it be only a season!) and I remind myself of that every night when we collapse into bed, exhausted.
Sleep:
What's that?
Oh.
The idea is that Sophia sleeps from 7pm until 6 am with one middle of the night feeding. She is also supposed to nap for 2 out of every 3 hours.
Well, that's the idea anyways. Most nights, Sophia goes down at 7 after 10 minutes of crying. She usually will wake up, and have to settle herself back to sleep a couple of times. She may need a midnight and a 3 am feeding, but she usually falls right back asleep.
Her nap times are ruled by the 45 minute intruder right now. She eats and plays for an hour, goes down and sleeps for 45 minutes and then wakes right up. She sometimes is comforted back to sleep, but sometimes she is just angry and awake.
We're not really sure how to help her get better at naps so we are just trying to be consistent with her routine and insisting it is nap time, not play time.
Food:
I really need to move her back to a 2 and a half hour schedule, but it is just SO hard to do that with a toddler underfoot. She feeds every 3 hours from 7 am until 7 pm and once in the middle of the night, around 3 am. She usually nurses for 15-25 minutes and she burps pretty easily now (yay! small victory.)
She is also COMPLETELY off of her gas medicine, which might be causing alot of the issues right now, but it was causing some serious digestive issues so we stopped it when we ran out of the last bottle.
We tried giving her a bottle of pumped milk but she wants nothing to do with it. We tried when she was full and we tried when she was hungry, but both times she wouldn't even latch onto it, just chewed it and gummed it around. She does the same thing with any type of pacifier too.
Activity
She has really stretched her awake time now, going almost 50-60 minutes from wake up time until nap time begins. She sits in her bumbo (Christmas gift,) or lays on her boppy, but she doesn't get more than a couple minutes of a time of tummy time. We're working on it.
She's loving chewing on her fists. And by chewing, I totally mean she sticks her whole fist in her mouth, oopens her fingers up, gags herself, trows up, and screams.
Awesome.
And she's scratched the roof of her mouth too.
She does have a great smile though, and for the first 5 minutes after a feeding you can make eye contact with her and get these awesome grins with a dimple showing and a squeak of delight. So fun!
Miscellaneous:
*I dropped my baby. I'm a terrible mom, I know. I was unswaddling her and when I backed away to get settled to nurse her, I didn't know the blanket was wrapped around my leg and...oops! There she went, right onto the floor. I felt horrible (I cried) but she nursed and hasn't seemed worse for the wear.
*She went camping for the first time and did pretty good!
*Sophia stayed with a babysitter for the first time while we went and saw The Hobbit! Sophia was asleep the whole time, but still, now we know we can escape for some "us" time!
*She is in size 2 diapers and wears 0-3 month clothing
10 comments:
Oh, I'm so sorry! Georgia was pretty difficult for her first 7 weeks of life so I kind of understand. She is so SO cute though! It will get better. Have you tried another type of bottle? I know you've probably thought of everything!
At least you always see the bright side :)
My nephew was quite similar in the beginning. He is a very awake baby in the day and barely sleeps, although by 9 weeks he was sleeping right through the night for 9 hours. But in the day time he probably sleeps for about half an hour the whole day! so my sister can't do a lot of other chores half the time.
Did our 2nd children talk while in the womb some how and decide to make life kind of hellish for the first who knows how many months?? This sounds exactly like our life right now. I always feel guilty not enjoying this time in her baby life, but I really don't...at all! I just want to fast forward a year and have it be over!! I totally understand where you are coming from, and I totally get it!
oh girl, I'm honestly a little bit scared of what our next child might hold...someone once said that your first born is perfect in order to prevent human extinction, and the second one is terrible, err...not quite so perfect, in order to prevent overpopulation! ha!
I'm glad you're able to see the bright side of things! I hope I'm able to do that if/when baby #2 arrives!
She is growing so fast!!! What does Gracie think of her sister?
Thank you for your honesty, Britney. I'm so sorry that she's having problems with gas :( We've had a lot of preemies with it, too, and the worst part is that there's not much that we can do at the hospital.
Have you tried using probiotics? I don't know what's available to you overseas, but they work really well for a lot of people (myself included).
At least you didn't drop her on purpose! I bit my mom while nursing and she threw me on the ground! She said I never did it again... :P
You are such a great mom, Brittney. And so brave for camping with an infant and toddler! I so look forward to meeting your little ones! :)
I echo the comments above that you are an excellent mommy! You have precious girls and yes, this is a season. She will grow up and out of this phase and you'll look back on it in amazement. I love you and I can't WAIT to meet that sweet little one! 3 months! Woohoo! LOVE YOU ALL!
You are in a challenging time of life - make sure you make time for you and Ian, and try to incorporate adult time into every day - it helps keep you sane. Wish I was there to babysit. Love you sweet niece.
Since Cara snitched on me, I'll do the same for her. She was a very difficult baby also. She slept 8 hours at night by 2 months, but only two 15 minutes naps! She cried a lot and projectile vomited so much my friends were afraid to hold her.
When she started cruising around, about 6 months, she stopped crying. About 9 months he started smiling more, and has not stopped smiling since.
So...have hope!! I pray God gives you strength and endurance.
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