Just When You Think You've Got a Routine....

Helping Dad with the wirestrippers.

I just reviewed my last post and can't believe that was only a week ago. Since that post, Ellie has suddenly caught onto sleeping in her crib – although as I write she is fighting bedtime with all her might.

We finally installed our blackout curtains in the nursery (although the black trash bags worked better, these look nicer). I've been catching Ellie's sleepy windows. And, she's been going to sleep relatively quickly with little fuss MOST of the time. Usually, her first nap is about an hour after she wakes up, or halfway through my breakfast. Then, she sleeps around 11 or 12, and around 2, and then we make a final push to meet our quota around 4. Most of her naps are about 30 minutes. Every now and then, she'll go 45 minutes or her record of 1 hour and 15 minutes. That's why we're currently at about 4 naps. However, according to the sleep book I'm reading (slowly), naps of less than an hour or naps with motion (ie. in the car, the swing, the baby carrier, etc) aren't very restful. I find that troubling since that's about all the sleep she gets during the day. Her last nap usually starts in the crib and ends in the Ergo carrier. For some reason, she can sleep in that about 95% of the time. For hours. Today, I had to wake her up so she didn't sleep into bedtime. Now, I'm thinking I still let her sleep too long. She was NOT happy with me when I woke her.

Okay, she is finally asleep. A mere 55 minutes past "bedtime", which is 8 pm. Usually, we start nursing around 7:40 so she's in bed around 8 and generally asleep by 8:30. Tonight, she had no real appetite and then threw up when I kept trying to get her to eat more. So, we changed her clothes (for the second time) and sleep sack and then I put her to bed. I think I need to move her max nap time to 2.5 hours before bed instead of the 2 hours I currently use. The book I'm reading also suggested that short naps mean that she's overtired and needs to go to bed earlier. So, I think we'll start inching bedtime up this weekend until we notice improvement. Supposedly, we may see her sleep 10-12 hours straight through. That makes my boobs hurt just thinking about it. She slept 8.5 hours straight last night and I thought I was going to burst. But, I'm sure I'll adjust.

Other than sleep, her eating has changed drastically also. Last week, she was eating 2.5 hours a day. The last few days, she's barely nursed an hour or hour and a half. She snacks for 6-8 minutes on a side and then starts arching her back and giving the boob dirty looks. She doesn't seem overly gassy, so I'm not sure what's going on. Her attitude is still mostly sunny though, so I'm guessing she's getting enough to eat. Still, I am willing to bet her weight gain has slowed significantly.

She was playing with Daddy the other day and he got some beginner giggles. See the video below.