I realized the past few weeks how easy of a baby Carter was the first 7 weeks. She ate great, slept great and was generally very happy and content unless she was hungry or tired. I hope that with these changes of medications and my dietary changes that my sweet girl will feel more like herself again. This parenting stuff is hard, y'all. When she would not eat and was so pitiful and lethargic, I have never felt more helpless in my life and it was an absolutely horrible feeling. I must have cried just as much as she did and I would have given anything to take away her pain and discomfort. I am so blessed to have so much support from Harrison and my family. I don't know how people do this alone.
Starting to give tiny, purposeful smiles! |
Before her "Sip and See," wearing a smocked dress her grandmother made her and her first time wearing shoes! |
Carter's first Thanksgiving! |
Another thing we are struggling with are naps. We are very fortunate that she does great at night and has started sleeping through the night some or just waking up once around 3-4 AM to eat. I feed her around 7 or so and she goes to bed right after and then I wake her up (or sometimes she wakes on her own) around 9:30 or 10 to eat and then goes right back down. Naps on the other hand are a different story. We have not sleep trained her yet. I tried around 6 weeks and I just don't think she was ready (or maybe I wasn't). Then about a week later, all the reflux stuff started so there has just been too much going on. We are still swaddling, rocking, and patting (girl likes a firm butt pat!) to go to sleep. Once asleep, we put her in the rock and play and she sleeps 20-30 minutes but then wakes up. She doesn't wake up crying or anything. I've heard of the "45 minute intruder" where in a baby's sleep cycle, they arouse after about 45 minutes. I let her lay in her rock and play without going in, but she never falls back asleep. After about 20 minutes, she will start to fuss. By this time, its usually pretty close to time for her to eat again. We try to stick to the Baby Wise routine of eat, play, sleep but its hard when after she's eaten, she's usually been awake for close to 2 hours and falls asleep eating. I'm just not sure what to do. I don't know if she's just needing to be sleep trained so that she will learn to soothe herself back to sleep once she wakes up in the middle of a nap or what. Any advice from moms out there? When did you sleep train and how did you do it? Did you let them cry it out?
Stats: Weight- 9 lbs 8 oz on 12/8 (20th percentile), then lost 2 oz on 12/10. Was 9lb 9oz on 12/17.
Height- 22.1 inches (50th percentile)
Head Circumference- 39 cm (60th percentile)
Likes: Still likes all types of motion. We discovered in doing bottles that she likes white noise, mostly the sound of running water when she eats. And yes, we have tried all kinds of apps. We even recorded the sound of the facet on my phone but girl knows the difference and prefers the real thing!
Dislikes: Sadly our biggest dislike right now is eating, nursing or bottle. I wish at least one way was easy. If she would take a bottle easily without a fight I would probably just go that route and give up breastfeeding. Right now, both forms are a pretty frustrating, stressful and hard 30-45 minutes. What's harder is that I'm the only one that can do it. She hasn't taken a bottle from Harrison or my mom...just me. Its exhausting. Its heartbreaking knowing that her most basic and essential need right now is causing her pain, discomfort, and making life pretty hard. I can only hope and pray that this is just a phase and that it will get easier with some time.
Friends, please be praying for us that things start to get better and that we can get all this stuff with eating figured out.