All three of us have been sick since the last post. Jay has had the worst of it. I was sick first and am feeling fine now. Jay was just getting sick when he ran a 1/2 marathon last week, and that caused him to get sicker than I did (in the period right after any race, your immune system is really low for several days). And Anja was sick for several days, and now seems to be feeling much better, but has lingering congestion and a runny nose. It hasn't been pleasant for any of us.
The sleep issue was REALLY bad early in the week. Laura sent me some good vibes on her blog (http://everyseasonbutwinter.blogspot.com/), possibly building up some karma for when she's dealing with this in a few months :-) Looking back, Anja probably wasn't feeling well when we were having sleep problems, but we didn't know that yet. She wouldn't go to sleep easily, and once she was asleep we would rarely get a full two hours before she was up again. One night after feeding her I tried for 1.5 hours to get her back to sleep in her crib, but she would wake instantly as soon as she touched the sheets. Most of the time I just gave up and brought her to bed. We started dividing the night again like we did when we first brought her home: one of us takes the first 4 hour shift, and one takes the second. Even so, we both lose sleep, because we both wake up when she cries.
You'd never know from the pictures how much trouble she gives us at night :-)
There are some simple techniques you can use to help your baby to establish better nighttime routines. Well, simple in theory. You are not supposed to try them, though, if she is sick or if your routine will be disrupted, and we are going away for a few days this next week, so now is not the time to try it. But if we are still having issues in a couple of weeks we will try something. Mainly what you are supposed to do is establish a regular routine (ie bath, food, book) each night before bed, and we haven't been very good at that. And then if she wakes up before we know she should be hungry (for example, after only two hours), then we comfort her in bed without picking her up and feeding her, until she falls asleep. Eventually she learns to comfort herself back to sleep. Again, in theory.
Anja has finally started crawling by moving both hands and feet to go forward. She was doing it for a while yesterday, but then she went back to the army crawl. I think that when we dress her in slippery clothes (like fleece) she finds that it's easier to just drag herself around on her belly, especially when she's on the wood floor.
Yesterday she sat up without using her hands several times. The first time she went over backward (again) and bumped her head on the floor. But that didn't stop her from doing it again right away. She held it for a little while, it was pretty neat. And she has been pulling herself up on anything she can grab. There isn't any good video of it yet because I need my hands free to catch her if she falls.
Now that she is getting stronger, she doesn't want to sit in her reclining bouncy seat anymore. This seat has been so useful for putting her in while we make dinner, or take a shower, or do anything that requires two hands. But she leans forward so far in it now that she can pick up toys on the floor in front of her.
We rarely buy new things for Anja, both because we don't need to and can't afford it. But I broke down and bought this at Target today:
Her friend Toby has this set and she was playing with it when we visited this weekend. I couldn't help it! It's a "musical set", complete with plastic drum and centipede drumsticks, ant jingle bells, bee maraca, caterpillar tambourine, and ladybug xylophone. It's made by Parents brand, they make some pretty cool interactive stuff for kids.
I also broke down and bought a "tag blanket". Anja absolutely loves playing with the tags on things. She likes to feel them and suck on them. Apparently this is common, which is why you can buy a fuzzy blanket covered in tags. She loves it.
Speaking of things she loves that we didn't buy for her, look at her reaction to a sheepskin rug. Kim and Scott pulled it out for us when we were over yesterday. When we put her on it she started laughing and burying her face in it. She couldn't get enough of it. Here's a video I stole from Kim's website:
And as usual, she still has plenty of energy:
No comments:
Post a Comment