2 months with Lyla
Well, two whole months have come and gone with our baby girl! It is getting easier and more fun every single week... I know, it's inevitable that she'll go through a growth spurt, start teething, etc., and then it will be hard again. But we are really loving this stage! Lyla is still happiest in someone's arms; she is full of smiles and starting to giggle and coo a little more, too. She is more and more interested in books, toys, and the world around her. It's so fun watching her little personality develop!
At her 8-week well baby check-up, Lyla weighed 11 pounds, 14 ounces and was 23 3/4 inches long. She's in the 72nd percentile for weight and the 97th percentile for height--the girl is tall! [Shocking, I know. She doesn't take after her mama or anything :)]. And holy moly is she strong. The girl is a wiggle worm and just wants to be on the move. She pushes herself up on her forearms and holds her head and chest up for eons, not to mention that she can scoot herself all over (and off) her playmat. The pediatrician took one look at her on the exam table and let me know that she was going to be an early mover. We went home and she promptly rolled over (stomach to back) for the first time. Um, babies typically do that at 4 months. 4 months, people. And it wasn't just a fluke, either, because she did it again yesterday morning. Good night. I am going to have to baby-proof this house WAY sooner than I thought.
Also, she is sleeping through the night. My word, what a difference it makes. We have gone through all kinds of sleep phases with this little one. The first week and a half of her life, she refused to sleep unless she was sleeping on someone (except for naps. Naps she did just fine in her Moses basket. What was fundamentally different about night time, I will never know). So we took turns sleeping in 2-3 hour shifts. Talk about exhausting. Then we caved and co-slept for several weeks because Jake and I were becoming zombies, plain and simple, and there was no way we could keep sleeping in shifts when Jake went back to work. While we were at my parents' house, we put her in the Pack'n'Play bassinet for the first time and she did great--again, just for naps. When we got home, we thought we would try that at night and it worked like a charm. So, by 6 weeks she was out of our bed and sleeping 5 hours a night, by the following week, 6 hours a night, and by 8 weeks, we've now gotten up to 7-8 hours a night. It is amazing. [In case you're wondering, we didn't do anything magical to make this happen. I read books about sleep training, but I haven't implemented a dang thing the "experts" suggest, nor have I tried to put her on any sort of schedule. She just started sleeping a little longer each week on her own.] We're also almost over the whole sleep battle thing. She still wakes up soon after we put her in her bed, but she's getting really good at putting herself back to sleep (white noise, particularly the sound of rain, really seems to help). It's just that this usually doesn't happen until between 11 PM and 12:30 AM... and I'd really like it to happen between 9-10 PM (she will fall asleep earlier at night, but she won't stay asleep). Apparently, I was the very same way as an infant, so I'm thinking this is one of those genetic revenge things. Sigh. We'll get there. Baby steps (ha).
I am going back to work after Labor Day, so my goals for my last five weeks of maternity leave are to get Lyla used to bottles (this hasn't been going so well... not that we have put in too much effort), get myself better acquainted with the electric breast pump, bump baby girl's bedtime up a little earlier, and transition her to sleeping in her room at night. She is totally ready to sleep in her crib in her nursery; whether I am, or not, is a different story :(. If any of you working mamas out there have words of wisdom about this whole transition from full-time mama to working mama, I'd sure love to hear it!
At her 8-week well baby check-up, Lyla weighed 11 pounds, 14 ounces and was 23 3/4 inches long. She's in the 72nd percentile for weight and the 97th percentile for height--the girl is tall! [Shocking, I know. She doesn't take after her mama or anything :)]. And holy moly is she strong. The girl is a wiggle worm and just wants to be on the move. She pushes herself up on her forearms and holds her head and chest up for eons, not to mention that she can scoot herself all over (and off) her playmat. The pediatrician took one look at her on the exam table and let me know that she was going to be an early mover. We went home and she promptly rolled over (stomach to back) for the first time. Um, babies typically do that at 4 months. 4 months, people. And it wasn't just a fluke, either, because she did it again yesterday morning. Good night. I am going to have to baby-proof this house WAY sooner than I thought.
Also, she is sleeping through the night. My word, what a difference it makes. We have gone through all kinds of sleep phases with this little one. The first week and a half of her life, she refused to sleep unless she was sleeping on someone (except for naps. Naps she did just fine in her Moses basket. What was fundamentally different about night time, I will never know). So we took turns sleeping in 2-3 hour shifts. Talk about exhausting. Then we caved and co-slept for several weeks because Jake and I were becoming zombies, plain and simple, and there was no way we could keep sleeping in shifts when Jake went back to work. While we were at my parents' house, we put her in the Pack'n'Play bassinet for the first time and she did great--again, just for naps. When we got home, we thought we would try that at night and it worked like a charm. So, by 6 weeks she was out of our bed and sleeping 5 hours a night, by the following week, 6 hours a night, and by 8 weeks, we've now gotten up to 7-8 hours a night. It is amazing. [In case you're wondering, we didn't do anything magical to make this happen. I read books about sleep training, but I haven't implemented a dang thing the "experts" suggest, nor have I tried to put her on any sort of schedule. She just started sleeping a little longer each week on her own.] We're also almost over the whole sleep battle thing. She still wakes up soon after we put her in her bed, but she's getting really good at putting herself back to sleep (white noise, particularly the sound of rain, really seems to help). It's just that this usually doesn't happen until between 11 PM and 12:30 AM... and I'd really like it to happen between 9-10 PM (she will fall asleep earlier at night, but she won't stay asleep). Apparently, I was the very same way as an infant, so I'm thinking this is one of those genetic revenge things. Sigh. We'll get there. Baby steps (ha).
I am going back to work after Labor Day, so my goals for my last five weeks of maternity leave are to get Lyla used to bottles (this hasn't been going so well... not that we have put in too much effort), get myself better acquainted with the electric breast pump, bump baby girl's bedtime up a little earlier, and transition her to sleeping in her room at night. She is totally ready to sleep in her crib in her nursery; whether I am, or not, is a different story :(. If any of you working mamas out there have words of wisdom about this whole transition from full-time mama to working mama, I'd sure love to hear it!
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