Tit For Tat

It seems that every time I solve one annoying baby habit, another one begins. My latest and greatest conquest was finally getting Amanda to sleep through the night. Yay! We sleep again. We're not so crabby, the bags under are eyes are starting to go away. But wait, what now? Oh yes. Since she is sleeping all night long, 11 hours, she's ready to get up by 6 a.m. Sometimes earlier. Like this morning. 5 a.m. and she was ready to go. I ignored her for awhile, but she's loud when she wants to get out of her crib. Charlie went in and turned her mobile on, which quieted her for a bit, and then I finally got up to feed her at 5:5o a.m. Sorry, but that's way too early for me.

I used to be a morning person. Back in high school, even college. I was the nerd that took all 8 a.m. classes and was done by noon. I loved it. I was up, ready to go, starting my day. I had all afternoon to do whatever I wanted, which sometimes was watching a marathon of soap operas, but other times it was driving out to Brown County and breathing fresh air and watching the leaves change.

After having Andy, the early bird, I stopped being such a morning person. I love to sleep, but I also love my personal time, and I don't get very much personal time until the kids go to bed. Charlie and I are always saying what idiots we are for staying up so late, but if I don't get some time without the kids, which only happens at night, I may go insane. If you think I'm crazy now, just wait.

So, getting up at 5 a.m. to hang with Amanda, as much as I love her, is not so fun. I try to put her back to bed after I feed her, but she usually doesn't go for that. On the weekdays Charlie gets up soon after that and she hangs out in our bathroom while he showers. I usually get up while he's getting dressed or just out of the shower. But on the weekends, it's a different story. I get up to feed her, then the other two get up, and it's pretty tough to go back to sleep after that.

I know it's just a stage and it won't last long, but the shorter the better. I'm ready for some other weird habit to start, one that doesn't mess with my sleep patterns.

Three, It's A Magic Number, Yes It Is

I've been planning on writing this post for awhile, but kept thinking it wasn't an issue anymore, or wouldn't be much longer, so why write about it? Unfortunately, I've been telling myself this for a couple of weeks now, so I think it's finally time to get it out. You see, Amanda will be eight months old on Friday, EIGHT MONTHS, and she still isn't consistently sleeping through the night. Except for a few, wonderful occasions, she wakes up sometime in the three o'clock hour each morning and stays awake until around 5 a.m. Everyday. I, of course, am an idiot, and still stay up late because it's the only time I ever get to myself, so I've been running on a disjointed 5-6 hours of sleep for months.

In the beginning, I convinced myself that I was breastfeeding, and breastfed babies take longer to sleep through the night, so it was okay. Then the holidays came and it just wasn't going to happen at other people's houses with all five of us in one room so I waiting until the beginning of the year. We were getting closer, and I really wasn't giving in, but then we went on two more long weekend trips that messed it all up. So, when we got home from Miami over spring break and didn't have anymore trips planned until mid-May, I decided I was going to be tough and get this done.

I had a little help, at least on the metal preparation side. People kept telling me about babies that were Amanda's age or younger that we're sleeping all night long. People who were getting a full night's sleep. On one particular morning, very early, after I had been up for a couple of hours with Amanda and only gotten a few hours sleep, Charlie mentioned how Joshua was sleeping through the night and had been for awhile. Joshua is only a couple of days older than Amanda. Of course that was not the best time to pass along that information, as I was dragging my butt out of bed to get Sarah ready for school. Then Sharon told me that Reagan had been sleeping through the night since she was 11 weeks, and it only took two nights of a little crying to make it happen. I knew it would be a little tougher with Amanda because she was older, but how hard could it be? The books say you can do it in three days. With Andy it only took three days (we won't talk about how long it took with Sarah, that's a whole different story). No problem.

Yes, that was three weeks ago. Three days my a**. I'll admit I didn't go hard core at first. I was nice. The first week or so I would get up with her and rock her but refused to feed her. I needed to break her habit of wanting to eat. She didn't need to eat, she was just used to doing it. I knew that wouldn't really solve the problem, because I was picking her up and rocking her and giving her attention, so another week later I no longer fed her or picked her up. When we would come in the room, instead of it calming her down, she would cry even harder and longer than when we weren't in the room. The next week I started letting her cry longer before going to her room. Ten, fifteen minutes. Still she cried. Every time she would keep it going and then peter out close to 5a.

Then, two days ago, I started to have faith in the baby books again. Maybe they were right after all. I walked into her room in the middle of the night and instead of crying harder, she stopped crying. I went over to the crib and started smoothing her hair back, sort of petting her head. Her eyes started to close and her breathing became softer. She wasn't going to let me leave that easily, but when I pulled up a chair and sat next to the crib she didn't cry and tried to go back to sleep, calmed by my presence. The whole thing took maybe 20-30 minutes and then I was able to go back to bed. An accomplishment for both of us.

Unfortunately last night we had a few things working against us. First, she's teething. I think she actually cut her second tooth last night, so maybe tonight will be better. Second, we have family in town so we're running all over the place having fun and not putting the kids to bed on time, especially Amanda. Third, she's starting to roll over in bed and hasn't really figured out the sleeping on her stomach thing. She gets onto her stomach but then doesn't know what to do with her head or face. I think she wants to sleep that way but just isn't comfortable with it yet. A lot of the crying last night was just trying to get situated. So it could have been a combination of being over tired, her teeth hurting and not knowing how to sleep comfortably.

Whatever it is, I hope we're almost there. In the past month she's had so many milestones - first teeth, rolling over, sitting up, eating solids - so many changes for such a small little person. I'm sure that's some of it. However, I'm getting tired of the 3 a.m. wake up call. No, I'm way past getting tired, I'm just plain tired. So we'll give this new routine three days, just like the baby books say, and maybe, just maybe, my darling number three will be sleeping through the night for good.

To Be Or Not To Be

People comment on Sarah's hair on a daily basis. Seriously, everyday. Even people that see her several times a week will stop and comment on her hair. How beautiful it is, how curly it is, how much they wished they had her hair.

I love her hair. I can say that because I'm her mom, and because I don't have curly hair. People would die for her hair. They would pay serious money for her hair. The sad thing is, I know when she gets older she's going to hate it. Hopefully she won't cut it all off, but I wouldn't be surprised if she does. Cuts it all off and then gets it straightened.

Those that know Sarah and her famous hair often ask me if Amanda is going to have the same hair. I hope so. Then Sarah won't have to go through it alone and she and her sister will be able to commiserate together. Maybe it will be something they can bond over, how much they hate their hair.

Here's a picture of Sarah in the fall and Amanda last night, right after her bath. What do you think?

Rolling, Rolling, Rolling

Charlie has a very difficult time sitting around doing nothing. He always has to be doing something, moving, learning new things. If he is sitting, a lot of time he's shaking his leg, the energy trying to find a place to exit his body. Sometimes at night when we're trying to fall asleep I can even feel the vibrations across our huge, heavy, nobody can lift this thing king-sized bed. He doesn't even realize he's doing it.

He's like that with the kids too, in a way. Always wants to take them out, show them things, or teach them stuff. He started teaching Andy how to read when he was four, because he couldn't wait any longer (Charlie, not Andy) and he is already starting to lay the ground work with Sarah. So it shouldn't surprise me that one morning last week while I was sleeping in he decided to teach Amanda how to roll over.

Side note: Sleeping in is not as exciting as it sounds. We each get to sleep in one weekend morning, usually him on Saturday and me on Sunday. If you aren't up and about soon after 9a, the kids are allowed to come wake you up. It is an extra hour or two of sleep a week, but we are so behind after months with a newborn that it's only a tiny drop in the bucket of how much we really need to make up. Of course, a tiny drop is better than nothing.

Amanda was pretty close to rolling over on her own. She'd roll on her side, almost always from the right to the left, and would be about 95% there and then she'd roll back onto her back. Unlike my first two kids, who absolutely hated being on their stomachs, Amanda doesn't mind it and I think even enjoys it. Occasionally she will cry after being on her belly for too long, but usually she plays happily for quite awhile. She didn't care that she couldn't roll over, she was happy with her 95% performance, but that wasn't good enough for Charlie. So he and the kids showed her what to do and now over she goes whenever she wants.

It's not that I don't want her to be able to roll over, I do. I'd like her to make all of her developmental milestones. It's just so easy when she can't move. You put her down, go get a load of laundry to fold, and when you come back she's still there. In the same place. Now, who knows where she'll be when I come back. With her head stuck under the coffee table, feet in the fireplace, or whole body under the kitchen table.

If she was the only child, I wouldn't be that worried. However, we have other kids who drop lots of food on the floors and are not so good at picking up their toys. Little toys like Legos and Polly Pockets and Little Ponies, all with tiny pieces that Amanda would love to shove in her mouth and choke on. The kids kind of understand what choking means, but I think they'd have to really see it to understand and I'm not ready for that demonstration.

The problem with rolling over is that it leads to crawling, then walking, then running. Then my baby won't be my baby anymore. I won't be able to just pick her up and take her wherever I want without protest. She won't be hopelessly in love with her mother. Instead she'll be one of these big kids that test me and say no and talk back. Hopefully by then the older ones will be a little bit easier, but I don't think so. If they are anything like my siblings and I were as kids, they'll probably just gang up on me. Sorry Mom.

So yes, I'm excited that she is rolling over, but I also would have been happy with my plump little baby lying still and waiting for me to come back for just a little bit longer.