Sleeping

What is cuter than a sleeping child in bed at night? Nothing!

Except maybe a child napping over an open book, surrounded by toys. (After I put her down in a clean bed, she collects toys to sleep with. I like to think she doesn't want to fall alone into the unconscious abyss without the comfort of her stuffed friends.)

I get these pictures when I sneak in to check on her, add a blanket, retrieve her sippie, or turn toys off.

Sometimes she succumbs mid-play. (If you look close, Elmo's eyes are peeking out from her diaper over her pants.)

How did she balance up here?

And my favorite pose: where she looks like she was in the middle of teaching animal school when she drops.

Sleeping Like a Baby

Dave and I both wanted to get Jessica on a regular sleeping schedule. We had watched friends and relatives who did and did not have their kids on regular rest, and we decided it was important to us. With others' advice (especially Dave's mother,) we used the book Twelve Hours Sleep by Twelve Weeks Old, something I discovered at the library when I was babysitting another little girl. Gratefully she has an easy disposition and isn't collicky.

At first she needed feeding every 3 hours, except in the evenings when she was fussy & scarfed more. At one month old, Jessica dropped her 5 am feeding. During her second month, she starting sleeping through from 7pm to 2am, her only night feeding, and sleeping again until 7am. Dave took that middle-of-the-night feeding on the weekends, and I took it during the week.

But at 8 weeks old, I was sick of it. I announced to Dave one morning, "We're waking Jessica up at 10pm from now on, feeding her, and hoping she shifts her 8 hours to the same as us." She did, and except for a few ounces at 10pm, (which we are slowly weaning her from), and a few random awakenings, she now sleeps 12 hours at night. The evening is ours after 7pm. Yay for us!

It's taken some juggling and debating to get to this point. We had to find the balance between "gentle" formula, which gives her gas, and soy formula, which gives her diaper rash. And in the evening she demands extra food and extra attention to keep her awake until bedtime: we take turns entertaining her starting around 4pm. Then Dave takes her for a walk at 6, and I bath her at 6:30; then bottle & bed. (We're enjoying it now, but I'm sure she'll get sick or start teething and it will all go out the window.)

Smokey likes to snuggle to whenever I feed Jessica on the couch.

She's so adorable when she falls asleep after food during her burping!

Dave loves to hold and feed his daughter after a long day at work. He took a lot of morning feedings so I could sleep in, too; he's such a sweetheart.

We do the 10 pm feeding with her still half asleep.

She reminds us of a limp cheetah hanging in a tree.

Her favorite starfish position.

Sometimes she arches her back so much she's halfway sleeping on her side.

And sometimes, after all that work, she puts us to sleep!

First full day as parents wasn't as hard as the first night...

We had a low-key day. Birth mother was recovering, Dave had a slight fever and slept a lot, and the baby slept like a . . . well, baby. Dave worked on his laptop and read, and I tidied up and talked on the phone. Our hotel provides hot breakfast and lunch, so we took it easy today didn't even leave the place. Alabama is cold anyway.

Last night was harder. All evening we kept checking on all her noises and wiggles. Dave and I watched her in shifts to feed her and hold her when she protested. Despite our swaddling efforts, she liked to play Houdini and wiggle out, then cry and flail. (I wrapped her up in more clothing today, and she stayed wrapped and warm and slept better.) We did figure out not to feed her as much as the hospital says is "normal" yet, so she wouldn't spit up everything she was fed. It's like feeding a little bird. It's still so weird to think there's a girl in our lives, and we're not babysitting.

The social worker is getting our paperwork in order, and we're meeting the Alabama lawyer this week to apply for finalization. We should be here another 5 days - 8 days. By-the-by, Dave and I have always wanted to have a BIG PARTY to celebrate the end of a painful lonely part of our lives, and you are ALL INVITED. Plan on coming to an open house in a few weeks when she's bigger, and we'll hand out chocolate bars, instead of cigars, and you can all give us advice.

Here are a few pictures.

Here she is 4 days old smiling about something. Today she was wrapped in yellow and I called her the little banana:

We ran outside the extended stay hotel for a quick, chilly self-portrait in the evening.


And here she is with the fluffiest, prettiest afghan I've ever squeezed, made by her birth grandmother.