Mia is 4 months old today! I can’t believe it! I need to book a photography session soon! Actual several photography sessions, hehehe. And I still want Paola’s photo from when I was 9 months pregnant!!!
MIA:
Happy Birthday Mia!!!
Things you do now: You have started to squeal a lot more! Instead of crying. You discovered your feet this month and now love to play with them and try to get them to your mouth – especially if you are wearing socks or pants with feet. You love to grab things and pull on my hair and necklace, especially while you are eating. This month you have started really laughing at things that we do. It is totally random – we never know when you are going to start laughing at us! But when you do we keep doing that same thing over & over again like idiots just to get you to laugh some more! You have also rolled over a few times from your front to back, and you twist around now when on your back and get about halfway to rolling over from your back to front.
Your favorite people: When you are upset you mostly still want me to hold you and cheer you up –Daddy tries but usually you just want Mommy! You love Grandma Maria, Grandpa Ubaldo, Uncle Richie, and Aunt Monsie. You love to talk to Grandma Rebecca, Grandma David, and Uncle Kyle via Facetime on Mommy’s iPod.
Your favorite toys: Princess Sophie doll by Lamaze is your favorite toy. You also like your twisty ball and your faces soft baby book. You love to be on your tummy and have just recently started enjoying spending time in your Bumbo seat! You have always loved watching TV.
Loud noise pumps into the room via speakers. A straight jacket restricts your every movement and 2 hands hold you down against the bed. A gag is shoved into your mouth and held there. Could you sleep like this???
This is just about the only way my 4-month old daughter can fall sleep.
Of course the "loud noise" is white noise. The "straight jacket" is her swaddle and the "gag" is her pacifier. And I am "holding her down" with gentle pressure. I STILL don't think this sounds very comfortable but ah.. Welcome to the crazy world of baby sleep..
If I so much as even move my hand that I have holding down her lower body her legs immediately quiver as I'd she just .. can't .. hold .. back .. the urge to .. Bam! Both legs fly into the air. She must have some type of baby-restless-leg-syndrome, although in her case I think it's more like baby-restless-whole-body-syndrome! When the nurses show you in the hospital how to swaddle wrap your baby pay attention! In our household an unswaddled baby is a wide-awake baby. Of course she needs the velcro swaddleme blankets and still gets out. Little Houdini. Although I don't know why she breaks out because the second she does she's awake and scratching her face, crying, asking to be bound back up again, so I oblige and we all try again.
If I think she is finally in deep sleep mode and try to remove myself delicately, her eyes snap open & she thrashes her head around rapidly from side to side like shes trying to give herself shaken baby syndrome (seriously does anyone else's baby do this? Cuz it freaks me out!) as I silently curse myself for being so impatient - Because how dare I try to remove myself after half-sitting half-standing at the edge of my bed like a flamingo hunched over her cradle for only 10 minutes!
(holy run-on sentence batman!)
I feel like if someone could just invent weighted swaddle wraps & some sort of pacifier holding contraption she could sleep trough the night! Or at least sleep though the evening, wake to eat, sleep through the middle of the night, wake to eat, and sleep through the morning.
Actually forget sleeping through the night, we're working on sleeping through 1 show! Especially if that show is Conan.
When I finally get away I damn well better fall asleep myself in the next 5 minutes because an hour later I'll be getting up again to start the charade all over again. And this is a good night. Don't even get me started on a bad night! ( it involves hours of trying to get a sleep session to "stick" after LO falls asleep at the breast which she clearly just needed to fall asleep and not eat )
When other parents told me to "sleep now because you won't be sleeping once the baby comes!" and all the other baby sleep advice/warnings - I laughed it off. I didn't take it seriously. I figured we'd be up a few times in the night but nothing I couldn't handle. I can't even remember what went through my stupidly smug head or why I thought this wouldn't apply to me. Probably something about how her cradle would be right next to me and I was breastfeeding so I wouldn't have to go downstairs to make a bottle and then into a nursery to feed her like all those other silly parents. And don't get me wrong that does help ALOT but there's more to middle of the night baby shenanigans than eating. There's the middle of the night crib party at 3am. There's the waking-up-as-soon-as-you-set-them-down-syndrome and of course the 45 minute sleep cycle curse. I feel a bit gipped because what they show on TV isn't true - at least not for breastfeeding moms and at least not for the first 6 months. (The couple lies in bed, the clock reads 5am. The baby cries over the baby monitor. After having been asleep since midnight. The wife stirs, wakes the husband and says your turn hunny!) HA! In our house there are no turns - but don't worry - I have informed my husband that he will have his "turn" when she is older. Monster-in-the-closet duty will be his. Along with nightmare duty. Wet-the-bed duty. And one-more-glass-of-water-duty. Although he could do that for 4 years and it will still never equal all the time I've spent awake with Mia in the first 4 months!
So all of this to say, when someone warns you about the perils of baby sleep - listen. Shuffle that pregnant belly of yours over to bed and snuggle down. Because unless you get blessed with one of those mysterious babies that somehow "sleep through the night since 5 weeks old" this WILL be you in one form or another!
Side Note: To those for whom the first few paragraphs sounded harsh - Don't worry - baby gets plenty of nightime snuggling and nursing time! We definately practice attachment parenting in this household and I am with her 24/7 but I am too paranoid about SIDS to have her sleep IN the bed with me - right next to me is the next best thing though! And eventually my need for more than 2 hours of sleep means that she needs to learn to fall asleep in her cradle - (or fall back asleep after falling asleep nursing and being moved to her cradle) peacefully - no CIO here!
