The Blessing of Good Sleep!

The other day, G woke up after we put her down for the night. She was crying and eventually she spit up, so I had to change her and the crib sheets (luckily it only got to the first two layers, she's got 6+ layers on her bed for just this type of situation), and also feed her again. Oh well. It was probably our fault because we changed her sleeping routine slightly.

Two nights ago, G woke up again about 30 minutes after we put her down. After a few minutes, I went into her room. At first, I just put my hand on her chest to comfort her, no good. Then, I sat her up, which stopped her crying, but when she laid back down started up again. Eventually, I picked her up, but stayed by her crib, in her room, in the dark. We talked about how it was night-time and how she was supposed to be sleeping in her crib by herself. After a few minutes, I put her back down in her crib, and she didn't cry. Yay! Then we said goodnight to her and walked out of the room, and she didn't cry. Yay! A few minutes later she was asleep, double yay! We're very proud of G's sleeping habits. She's a good sleeper, even if she's too distracted to sleep when we are out (I tried to put her in a friend's crib when we were out on a play date, she just kept looking around and not sleeping, oh well).

Gotcha!

I must have some hidden spit-up target on me that only G can see.

Last night, in our effort to bump up G's bedtime, we (again, royal we, it was only me feeding her) started feeding her at 9:15pm. At 10:15, I got her off one side and gave her to E to change her diaper and get her into bedtime clothes (we do this to wake her up more to finish feeding her). While they were busy, I got distracted on the laptop and started surfing. E was holding her for an extra 10 minutes waiting for me. The instant he passed her over to me, she spit up. Not huge, but just enough on her and me that we both needed to change clothes.

Me: Why does she always spit up on me, you were holding her for a good 10 minutes.

E: I don't know. (Hiding a laugh)

Me: Has she EVER spit up on you?

E: Oh, of course. There was one time...

Me: (interrupting) One time? Great.

E: Ok, never mind.

(In case you were wondering, the second half of G's feeding also took an hour and we put her to bed at 11:30. Part of the problem is that I fall asleep too. The trick is to have E be around to keep me awake but not disturb G, a tricky balance.)

My clothes regularly go in with her wash because of spit up. Take Saturday, for example. After our hike, we went to eat at one of our favorite restaurants. Between dinner and dessert, (G had been making gagging sounds which we assumed was just her gagging herself with her fingers) G had a major spit up all over herself, my pants, the bench we were on, and some on the floor E had been sitting right next to me, but he was completely untouched.

E went to the car to get her diaper bag and comes back just as dessert arrives. E says to me, "Can I take a bite first?"

I gave him that look that said, "Did you ask me that just to annoy me?"

Granted, it was a warm cobbler with ice cream, which slowly melted as we had to wipe down everyone and everything and change her.

Don't worry, E still managed to eat his dessert while the cobbler was still warm and some of the ice cream was still cold.

It's been ages...

I know, things have been crazy around here.

Last week, G turned 4 months. That means that she got loaded up with shots at the doctor's office. The last time she had shots, she slept through the next two days. We were told by her ped. that typically babies will react the same way for all their shots. She did sleep, and seemed really sad and wimpery all day. But she also seemed hot. As the afternoon wore into evening, she seemed to get hotter and hotter, and I got more and more worried, and had E pick up some baby Tylenol from the store (the normal drops kind, last time he picked up some in rectal suppository form, eeww!).

When he got home, we prepared to give her some after debating what exactly 0.8 dosage meant (0.8 of the dropper not full but where the line marks the full dosage, and not 8 drops). I squeezed it slowly, just like they did at the dr's office for her oral vaccine (which I failed to mention that she promptly spit up and they wanted to re-give it to her, but we became concerned about overdosing so we dressed her and left without the second serving). For some reason, maybe because it was taking a while, I squirted the last bit in. G promptly spit up all of it. We called the dr's office advice line (our first time, not bad for 4 months and first time parents!) to find out if it was ok to give her another dose since she spit it up. We got the go ahead and did another dose, this time very slowly. G spit that up too. Second call to the advice nurse. But by the time they called back, her fever seemed to have gone down and she was nursing so we just decided to forgo the Tylenol. The nurse suggested if her fever went up again to use the rectal suppository form (great, we already have that!) and walked me through the instructions on how to insert them (apparently flat side in, not pointy side).

By the next day, her fever was definitely gone, but G was not her typical self. She nursed longer each feeding (and spit up more), still seemed sad and wimpery, and for the next few nights woke up at 5-6 hrs instead of her usual 8-10 hrs. After the few days passed, it seemed like all the vaccines had messed up her immune system so that she ended up catching the cough and congestion that E had earlier, and that S was beginning to catch. It's a dry cough, that makes S gag, but poor G hasn't mastered the ability to control her gag reflex yet, thus all the spit ups. We've broken out the nose sucker to use (yes, G hates it) once or twice a day. We are prepared to put saline drops in her nose also, but she seems able to breathe fine, so we are holding off on that.

Anyways, that was my last week, and my reason for not posting.

Also, E's parents were in town this past weekend visiting. We went to Hakone Gardens with them, which was pretty and peaceful (there was one wedding party there taking pictures and another one that had rented out the gardens for their ceremony/reception).

Pictures to follow later when I get a chance to go through and upload them.

The price we pay

G slept 9.5 hours last night!

When E picked her up, he noticed her clothes were a little wet and commented that maybe she spit up. Later on, he noticed that the bed was also wet where her head was. After futher investigation, we had to pull off all 5 layers of her bed (two crib sheets and 3 burp cloths) to wash this morning, which means that she's now back to sleeping in her bassinet. I don't know what we will do in this situation once she outgrows the bassinet, let her sleep on our bed? I don't really like that thought because I don't want her spitting up on our bed either, but maybe that's the only alternative. Unless I open up her portable tent and let her sleep there.

Anyways, to finish the story of G's busy morning, while I was still nursing her, she pooped. As I was changing her diaper, she apparently hadn't finished pooping and more started coming out. We thought she was done and pulled away the old diaper, but the poop kept flowing. I think it was one of the first times we had actually seen it coming out (luckily it wasn't shooting out, and didn't get anywhere outside the diapers). One feeding, 3 diapers, I don't know how many wipes.

She spit up again after I finished nursing her, but just a normal amount. And only a little on me (most of it I caught in her burp cloth, unlike last night where she spit up right down my shirt).

I told E that G missed us because she slept so long, so she wanted to give us a lot to do this morning.

Now I'm waiting for my bass to arrive...

15 & 9

G is now 15 weeks old, it's so hard to believe how quickly she is growing. I saw a mom with her baby at BRU over the weekend, and the baby was only 8 days old. I thought fondly back to when G was that small. Yesterday at the mall, I saw another newborn, the mom had to stop in the middle of the aisle to attend to her crying baby, and I smiled at her.

So, what is G up to these days? Well, the big news around town is that G slept NINE HOURS last night! She must have known that her parents needed that because they stayed up late talking. It was a good talk, though both E and S were tired. We need to do more of that, talking, that is, it's good for our relationship. This is how we found her this morning.

This was not the first time she has squirmed into a funny position in her sleep. Here are some other ways that we have found her:


Also in G's headline news, she's outgrowing her newborn and 0-3 month clothes. We are cycling through them, taking last pictures, as S is figuring out how and where to pack them away. We've started putting her in some of her 3-6 month clothes, lots of onsies and summer dresses.

G traveled again this week. Another day trip, but this time to Coloma, a small rafting town near Folsom. It was a grueling drive there and back. We went for E's Grand Canyon rafting trip reunion, one of the guides was giving a talk, with dinner planned afterwards. S and G missed most of the talk because they were in the car trying to eat, but mostly being fussy because G wanted see what was going on around her new surroundings (probably also fussy from the poop she was trying to get out all day, and finally managed to just AFTER we finished changing her diaper).

What are G's favorite activities for this week? She loves to arch her back, probably practice for rolling over. She is getting better at grabbing her ball and is also starting to bat at her hanging toys. Did I mention last week that she started sucking her upper lip? So cute! Oh, and she's also practicing her ab crunches, bringing her legs and knees up and in, then stretching them out and hitting the floor (or bed). When she does this in her bassinet, we can see her feet come up over the sides, which is really funny. We think this is how she gets into the funny positions we've found her in. Also, her naps are becoming increasingly shorter, pretty much just an hour these days, unless she's out, then she might get 2+ hours.

We just got back from a play date in the park. I didn't get a chance to take a picture of G in her play tent before she had a huge spit up all over everything. It was in her hair, her ear, all over her play mat, and soaked through both layers. Guess what we're doing tonight? Laundry and a bath! But at least she fell asleep afterwards and is still sleeping now.

Output

So G hadn't pooped in two days. We were not terribly worried, as we've been told by her doctors and books that breastmilk is easier to digest, so sometimes babies can go for several days or even up to a week without pooping.

Well, what goes in must inevitably come out... and last night it finally did. E was changing her before we put her down for the night. We usually change her diaper in the middle of her feeding, it helps to wake her up so she'll eat more. From the other room, I heard E. Usually, it means she spits up. When I came by to investigate, I saw the aftermath. It took 3 diapers and two burp cloths and her onsie to contain her explosion. I was told that there were at least three waves. Needless to say, we did another load of laundry that night.

Yes, it was the second load of laundry, as the first one contained the massive waterfall spit up from the afternoon. It was so big, it got all over both layers she was wearing, both legs of my pants, the sofa (luckily it's leather so it wipes off nicely), the floor (hardwood so it's easy to wipe up), and S's new glider chair (good thing S had the foresight to cover the chair with several of G's burp cloths). We're trying to figure out if her big spit ups are related to what S eats. S had lunch at Costco, eating samples of everything, so maybe it was from the spicy sausage. We have been suspecting garlic, though dairy is another possibility that we know others have had trouble with.

Busy Mother's Day Weekend

G is 11 weeks today! Wow, it seems so amazing how time flies. I still love to look back on all our photos of her, how much she has grown and changed since her birth. We have been suspecting that her hair is starting to fall out, I've been so afraid of that because I love her hair so much, it's so thick and soft, and I love how it curls when it's wet. Plus, it hides her cradle cap (which is pretty much gone by now). I started to notice little hairs in her bed last week, and throughout the week, I've been keeping an eye on the sheet we have on her bed to catch her spit up which has been collecting hair every time she goes down for her nap.

This weekend was also G's first long car ride (long defined in the Bay Area as over an hour), as we drove to Sacto for a family get-together for Mother's Day on Saturday. She did extremely well, considering she was out and about for over 13 hours! G started the day with S at church for a worship team meeting at 9:30am. Then E met up and we started our drive up to Sacto at 2pm, arriving at 4pm. She slept really well the whole day (pretty much 4 hours between feedings, which she usually only does one time in a day). Her eating wasn't so good because she was "Little Miss Distracted" and was continually trying to look around to see who was talking and what was going on. On our drive home, we discussed whether to be worried that she wasn't eating enough and whether the "on demand" feeding method we do should mean that sometimes we need to wake her if she sleeps "too long" during the daytime. S even called a bunch of her friends trying to find out whether we should be worried she wasn't eating enough.

So, when she woke up fussy and probably hungry, and we were still an hour away from home, we decided to pull over to feed her rather than trying to rush home. As S was feeding her, she wondered also if we needed to change her as well, as she kind of smelled something. As S was passing G up to the front of the car for E to change her, he noticed that the entire backside of G's outfit was a wet yellowish color. At the same time, S noticed that her WHITE pants had a nice big wet yellowish spot as well. We were very well prepared for G, having brought two complete spare outfits, 4 bibs, and 5-6 spit up cloths. We were not, however, prepared for bringing a change of clothes for S. It seemed that even the car seat was not spared from G's blowout. So, we changed her, found a bag to contain her mess, and proceeded home. Note to self: make sure to keep plastic bags in her diaper bags. The minute we got home, S went straight for the shower and left E to deal with G.

And deal, he did. Quite well, I might add. This was E's first time giving G her bath totally unsupervised. Here she is totally enjoying her bath, busy watching the other baby in the mirror getting a bath too! E also took apart the fabric from the car seat, as well as gathered up all the other poopy clothes (including S's) and put them in the wash (with that much poop, sanitary cycle! No, it's not energy efficient, at over 200F and 2 hrs long, but it kills bacteria. Towels and sheets also get washed on that cycle because it kills dust mites as well.).

Whew, and that was just Saturday. We made it to church on time Sunday for S's debut return to the worship team after her 11 week "maternity leave". Making it on time was a feat in and of itself, especially because we only had 30 minutes to get all three of us ready! At her 5:20am feeding, I noticed a balloon floating near the bed. It wasn't until 9:00am (the best present she could possibly give her mommy, SLEEP!) that I noticed that the balloon was tied to a big green box. S was super happy with the Mother's Day present that G picked out (with Daddy's help). The last pic was taken in our backyard, what nice rose bushes we have!

Then, Sunday night we all went out for dinner to S's favorite restaurant and then picked up our friend at the airport. While at the restaurant, G slept really nicely and only woke up towards the end. She had a big spit up, that seemed to only have gotten on her bib and her spit up cloth, mostly missing her clothes, but also on the side of her car seat. It wasn't until we left the restaurant and started putting her in the car that E noticed the car seat was "dripping". Yes, the spit up was dripping out the bottom of her car seat. Lovely. After the airport, we took apart the car seat (for the second time this weekend) to wipe up what we could in the cracks and spaces of the plastic frame and let the foam air dry. I guess we should count ourselves lucky that her car seat made it this far. I suppose later on we can look forward to cheerios and other crumbs and juice box stains in her car seat.