sleeping update - first day

So far the naptime thing is sort of mixed...yesterday morning (at 8:00 a.m.) she had no problem with going back to sleep (for the full 1 1/2 hours), in fact she slept longer than I expected, an hour past when I expected her to be up and hungry, but I think that's mostly because she had hardly slept at all on Sunday. At 11:00, the next naptime, she slept for 45 minutes, and then did not want to go back to sleep - she complained in her crib for quite awhile, and then finally fell asleep for about 15 minutes. I got her up after that, on the theory that it was past the 1 1/2 hour mark, and I'm basically training her that she spends 1 1/2 hours in crib each naptime (preferably sleeping). At 2:00 she slept for 45 mins, woke up, took the pacifier back and went back to sleep for another 45 mins (yay!). At 5:00 she basically did the same thing as her 11:00 nap. At 7:30, pretty soon after eating, she was yawning and showing other tired symptoms, and we tried to put her down - but she just cried and cried...perhaps by then she was tired of her crib? I got her up, but she didn't really want to be up either - very fussy. So we took a bath, which she loves, and then I fed her and put her back down.

I was a little concerned that with all the naptimes she might not sleep her full night's sleep, even though, theoretically, she'd sleep better having got her whole nap. But my fears weren't realized, and the "theory" proved good--she slept for 10 hours! She hasn't done that since she went through the growth spurt two weeks ago. It did take her a little longer to fall asleep than normal, but once asleep she did quite well.

Now we're on day 2. For the morning nap (8:00) she talked herself to sleep, and then woke after 45 mins. I let her chat in her crib awhile, until she got upset. Then I went in and gave her the pacifier back. Still upset. So I cuddled her (rocked her) for about three minutes, and she fell back asleep. We'll see how long she sleeps!

Sleeping - another update

We have become increasingly frustrated with Judith's napping only 45 minutes at a time. It means that she doesn't get a full sleep cycle, and wakes up tired, and then doesn't sleep as well the next time, but I've been holding off doing anything about it, because I don't want to put a lot of work in and have it just get messed up by the trip to Michigan next week. But Lance pulled up a couple websites that commented on that sort of thing, and we're deciding to try to do something about it anyway. It could be that she'll fall pretty easily back into sleeping 1 1/2 hours, and if that's the case, we want to get her into that routine as soon as possible. (Yes, I know, it might not be easy, but she's transitioned pretty well to other things, so we'll see.)

Basically, we're thinking that she's just having trouble putting herself back to sleep during her transition from one sleep stage to another. So the plan is for me to "help" her back to sleep when she wakes up after only 45 minutes. And to help that along, we're going to try "scheduled" naps instead of putting her down once we notice that she's tired (on the theory that babies are often tired before they show any symptoms). So for now, because she's still on a three-hour feeding schedule, she'll have one hour of waketime and then go down for a nap. (A direct quote from one of the websites "Most babies will protest loudly [being put back to sleep]" :-) Today is the first day of trying this, so we'll see how it goes!

Baby's First Christmas(es)

Honestly, I have to say that I really didn't expect Judith to have much "fun" this Christmas (she's growing by leaps and bounds, but she's really not aware enough to know what Christmas is, or even what presents are), and that's about what happened.

On Christmas Eve we went to River Rock's candlelight service - and I dressed her up in this dress that we got from a friend at Judith's baby shower. She looks very cute, but the dress is so big that I took it off as soon as we got home, and she probably won't wear it again :-).

On Christmas Day we drove to Oakland (as usual) and Judith got to meet some of the cousins and extended family that she hasn't seen yet. She didn't have a good day, but she didn't have a terrible day, either. The two hour drive to Oakland was fine, except that she was pretty hungry by the time we got there. And for the first few hours she was pleasant, as long as Lance or I was holding her. But she didn't get nap time (just a little time in the front pack during dinner), and there were so many people in a strange place, that by the end of the day she wouldn't even let Lance hold her! Actually, that's not quite true, because as we were packing up the car to go home, her Auntie Christine took her for a few minutes, and Judith was smiley and happy with people. On the ride home she was pretty over-tired again, and I had to sit in the back to help comfort her.

Our second Christmas happened on Sunday night (12/28) at Grandpa Tim and Grandma Sandy's in Roseville. Lance's sisters and their families were there. For the most part, Judith had a better day than Christmas (she's a lot more familiar with that house and those people), and she even got involved in opening one of her Christmas presents (see picture), but once again she didn't get any nap time (about 20 mins in the front pack, and maybe 15 on Grandma's shoulder) and she was pretty exhausted by the end. It took her about an hour to settle down to sleep when we got home.

If Judith could talk, I figure she'd probably say that Christmas was overwhelming. But next year - that should be lots of fun!

Jumping!

This is Judith in her exersaucer/jumper (a gift from my former coworker, Patrick). It's like the an exersaucer in that it's got a bunch of things around the circle to entertain her, but it's actually a jumper - the seat is suspended from three poles so that she can bounce it up and down. She's been not wanting to sit in either her bouncy chair or the bumbo chair - and is squirmy enough that if she doesn't want to be in it, it's not very safe to put her in it! So I've tried her in the exersaucer a couple times. But she'd get bored after a few minutes, and her feet don't quite reach the floor, so she can't jump.

A few days ago, though, I got the idea to put a big book (my cooking class textbook) underneath her feet so that she can push off of something. She will now jump (crowing wildly) for over an hour! She even spins herself enough to move from entertainment to entertainment. We don't have any batteries in it yet - it's busy enough as it is - but she sure has fun with it. It's so exciting to watch her interact so strongly with her environment! (And she's getting lots of exercise with that jumping - she's going to have muscles well built up for walking!)

Sleeping and Eating Update

The last 10 days or so have been pretty rough. It started when we went to Tahoe and Judith seemed not to want to eat very much. I started thinking maybe it was time for me to move from feeding her about every three hours to about every four. And so on the Wednesday after we got home, I tried it. It worked just fine that day. She slept a lot (probably recovering from the trip) and she had no problem with eating every four hours. And I thought, "can it really be this easy?"

And the next day she started a growth spurt and was eating every two hours. That lasted for two days, and even affected her sleep patterns (previous growth spurts haven't). She woke up in the middle of the night for several nights running.

When the growth spurt ended I tried to go back to every 3 1/2 to 4 hours (feeding) instead of every 3. That didn't work, because Judith was screaming hungry after 3 hours. And she continued to wake up hungry in the middle of the night! On top of that, she (I think) is teething and in some pain, which was waking her up every hour or so once we put her to bed (at the usual for-the-night time). She seemed to be almost on a caffeine high when we would try to put her down - overstimulation? She was just spastic.

I spent a couple days trying to figure out what I could do to help her sleep again. I tried cluster feeding her before bed (which didn't really work too well, because she won't eat much if she's not hungry, and apparently she wasn't). I sat with her in the dark to try to calm her down (after an hour I gave that up). But pretty much I had to wake up and get her in the middle of the night for four or five nights. Finally, last night, she slept from about 9 to about 6. (Not back up to 10 hours yet, but close!) I'm hoping that wasn't a fluke. We'll see! (I'm taking comfort in the fact that she WILL grow out of this eventually!)

Bathtime changes

As Judith has gotten bigger (and much more mobile) it's gotten a lot harder to have the little bathtub on the bathroom sink as we'd started doing - the floor was getting soaked. As a result, we moved her bathtub back into the big bathtub. She had so much fun splashing around that I thought "what if I get in with her, and she has the whole big tub to splash in? So that's what we tried tonight. And she had so much fun. Actually, I'm not sure it was fun. She didn't laugh - she very seriously kicked her legs over and over and over, watching the splash and discovering how she could move around. My dad would say that she was "making connections" about how she interacts with the water. It was a lot of fun for us to watch her learning like that. And the best part is that for the first time she didn't scream hysterically when we got her out of the tub. Maybe she'd had enough playtime to not be upset? Maybe the transition was easier? I don't know - but it sure was better this way!

Tahoe Trip (12/7-9)

Lance's parents have a time-share in Tahoe that they've had since he can remember. They go every year about the first week of December, and his aunts, uncles, and grandma join them. This year we decided to take Judith up for a few days to meet the family. We stayed two nights and two days. It was Judith's first night away from home, and she really did much better than I was expecting. Based on how she didn't sleep in the pack-n-play when we went up to Chico a few weeks ago, I was really expecting her to have a hard time. But she even went down for naps in it (albeit fewer than usual), downstairs away from us! She also slept all night (although she was restless, something I think is probably normal; I just don't normally notice it, because she sleeps in her own room!). Unfortunately, she also seems to be more aware of who is familiar versus who is unfamiliar. She took awhile to warm up to the relatives, and would often look around to make sure Lance or I was there, if we weren't holding her. While it's fun to know that she knows who we are, it's also a little harder because she wants to be with us and not someone else. (Yes, I know that this is a developmental stage and will pass.)