Thu 5 Jan 2012
I partially swaddled Allie (arms free) and tried to put her down to bed last nite. She had her usual nighttime fit at 9pm, fighting me, refusing to go down, “leh”ing all over the place altho I’d just fed her, sweating, making me sweat, scratching my chest to ribbons with both hands as she made catfight-sounding wauls. At 10:30p I finally gave up, unswaddled her and took her to her nursery, which we rarely use for anything but pumping milk and storage of her clothes and things. I closed the door, put her in her crib and curled up on recliner, intending just to wait it out for a little bit to give myself a break from the screaming. In less than a minute, she was silent. I walked over and peeked in. She was ASLEEP on her fuzzy bear. OMG! I settled back into the La-Z-Boy, curling up horizontally like I used to when I lived on my own and fell asleep in the comfy chair watching TV. Allie stayed asleep happily until almost 2:30am, when I changed and fed her at her request. Then just as easily, she dozed off, I placed her on her back in her crib again as I snoozed in the recliner, and altho she may have awoken here and there, she mainly was able to soothe herself quickly back to sleep and didn’t fully wake up again until past 5:30a for her next feeding. Then 8am for the next feeding. I didn’t have to get up and rock her, silence her, like I had been doing the night before and before I got into the room, and she wasn’t waking up twice an hour. WOW.
I’m trying to following the lactation nurse’s advice yesterday to pump after a morning feeding, but didn’t know how to do that. So this morning, after her 10am feeding, she fell asleep in my arms and I laid her on her back on her changing pad, which I inclined on a pillow. It was hard when she cried a little in the beginning and spit up and I was strapped to the pumps so I couldn’t go to her, but she fell asleep after that on her own and is STILL asleep now from that nap, even tho I moved her to the swing downstairs. Note the time…1:32pm!
WHO is this angel?
I also got a chance to play with her this morning after I changed her. She awoke hungry, but beared (bore?) with me as I massaged her tummy, bicycled her legs, talked to her, and we smiled at each other. Touching her cheek brings on this huge open-mouthed smile, as with touching the tip of my nose to hers. I also made the mistake of leaning down and kissing her cheek while she was eating at one feeding, and she smiled so big my breast fell out of her mouth and I couldn’t relatch her properly.
Here are some photos of her hanging out with her cousin Alexandra yesterday! Alex is 2 months older than Allie, about 3.5 months old right now. Allie is about 6 weeks.
They’re about the same length!!
Allie likes her new cousin.
Alex finally sees my camera!
We were all like this:
Thanks for visiting Babyland!
so glad to hear that things are going so wonderfully! now you can be the one telling new mom friends “it gets better. i promise.” 😉
I’m sorry I doubted you in my haggard days. 🙂