3 MONTHS (basically)!!

So, if you go by day of the week, last Wednesday was technically 12 weeks! However, I guess I'm supposed to go by date now, so in that case we still have 4 more days, but whatever. We've made it through the missing 4th trimester as some like to call the first 3 months (since babies are more like fetuses during this time, things like swaddling and white noise tend to soothe them so well because it's like they are back in the womb). I really started noticing a difference in her a few weeks ago though. She's at the super-alert and observant stage of her baby-hood for sure (much to my chagrin at times)!

For a "short" week, this has been a really long one! Tuesday was pretty good - got a report from day care that Madison is THE most easy-going baby they have :) She has never cried once while there, so that makes me happy! She really is a pretty easy baby, with the exception of naps. She's still not napping well. I'm afraid if she doesn't get better I may have to consider full time day care. I can't lose my job!! She wakes up 30-45 minutes in to every nap and is usually impossible to get back down. About half the time, she also wakes up about 1 hour after going to sleep for the night. All the books talk about how you should (at this point) let the baby cry herself to sleep when trying to put her down. Well, getting her to go asleep is not our problem at all! It's getting her past that 30 minute mark. Over the weekend, we knew she was so tired, so we let her cry one time after waking from a nap. We barely made it to 30 minutes (most books I've read say allow 1 hour of crying during nap time). That was with Danny blaring football and me re-organizing the pantry to distract ourselves :( We couldn't do it. I'm not doing the "cry it out" thing again until my pediatrician tells me to, and even then I'm not sure how I will be able to handle it. Sure enough, she showed how tired she was by sleeping from 6:30pm-5am Saturday night. That's the first all-nighter without having gone to day care! I think she just wants to spend time with her amazing parents, and who could blame her?? hehe! :)

Wednesday was a "Murphy's law" kind of day in the Werlinger household, for sure! It rained heavily all day on Tuesday and that night. So, first we woke up to a large sink hole in our front yard (the soil had eroded underneath the grass and it collapsed down in to the ground). I wish I would have taken a picture but that still wouldn't have done it justice. This whole was about 2x2.5 ft on top, but wider underneath and about 3 ft deep! I bought little caution flags to put around it because I was worried about one of the neighborhood kids falling in. Turns out the water line easement ran right through there so I called the water company to come take a look and, sure enough, they determined it was their problem and fixed the hole the next day! :) So glad we didn't have a bigger issue on our hands. Now, we have a big dead patch of grass but that's easily fixed! Then, because of the rain, Dashall would not go do his business (well he peed but wouldn't stay out longer) so at some point during the night he decided to finish his business in our study (which I discovered about 1 hr after we found the sink hole). Thankfully we have wood floors so it was easy to clean. Well then, when I went to pick up Madison from day care, despite the clear instructions I've left with them (and that they have been following just fine for weeks now) they gave her a full bottle of water instead of her milk bottle. I send some water in a bottle because sometimes she likes to sip from it while trying to fall asleep for her naps when she's already finished her bottle. Well, I'm not sending water anymore. Apparently the girl couldn't find the milk even though I had given it to them to put in the fridge that morning. Argh! Most of the girls there are great but there are a few I worry about...I was so upset because there is clearly no nutritional value with all that water, plus excessive water can be dangerous! So, when I picked her up, her stomach was FULL of water yet she was still starving (and cranky at that point). Thankfully, she was able to keep the bottle down when I gave it to her but then I was all paranoid for the next 12 hrs or so. If something like this happens again I may need to re-evaluate my options (or maybe just figure out when that girl works and not take her then)!

Also, during the day this week, she's been wanting to eat every 2.5hrs! I can't get her to make it to 3 much less the 4 she should be going (she still usually does 5+ hrs between feeds at night thankfully). And even when she's drank an amount that usually fills her up she seems hungry again 30 min later - she gets really fussy and/or she starts sucking her hands. I know that could be a soothing thing but usually when that happens feeding is the only thing that calms her! She now weighs 12.4 lbs on our scale. The average baby should be eating 2-2.5 oz per lb (which puts her at a max of 31 oz/day) but she usually tries to take closer to 34 oz/day! I'm hoping she's just going through a growth spurt. I worry about over-feeding her and since she's got chubby genes on both sides of her family, I feel it's important to keep watch over her eating habits from the beginning. Don't worry, I'm not putting the girl on a diet already, but they say that healthy eating habits are established very early. She's still in the 90% for her height so even though she seems kind of heavy, as long as the height/weight move up proportionately I guess we are all right! Now that she's reached that 12lb mark, we are also supposed to start weaning her off her mid-night feedings. We've started slowly cutting back the amount we give her at those feedings so we'll see how long it takes... I still cannot get her to sleep in her crib, although that is my last concern at this point. If she's happy in her hammock/bassinet thing, she can stay there! It will hold her up to 25 lbs :) I think it's more because she feels so snug in the hammock (it sort of hugs her) but she feels the vast emptiness of the crib.

A few other fun tid-bits this week...she got a new toy bar which she LOVES! It attaches to the car seat, the high chair, her swing, her bouncer, and probably also her hammock (haven't tried that yet) - it's so versatile! She will sit there and stare at it for a long time and then usually reach out to try to grab the hanging toys. She's definitely using her hands a lot more now :) She's also got really good neck control now so we got her a stationary jumper. It's still too big but with a pillow underneath and a rolled up blanket under her arms/around her chest, it will work. She only lasts about 10 minutes at this point but she seems to love looking at the flashing lights, the sounds/music, and bouncing up and down a bit! She's also taken a few short strolls in her stroller without the car seat. As much as she likes to look around right now, I thought it would be more entertaining for her looking out from that perspective since I usually have to pull the shade right over her line of sight when the car seat is in the stroller because of the sun. She does just fine until you stop! :)

Bismarck wants in on the fun!


OOOH!

She loves her dragonfly toy also...

bath time - in her cute kitty robe Mimi gave her


Well, I think that's about it for this week. Next week I will attempt to get her in to her Aggie cheerleader outfit! :) Do we even have a game next week? LOL! Yeah, I'm a bad 2%'er Aggie, I know! Well, if we do, it will be a good excuse to put it on her, even if only for a little bit!