Naptime Fights!

When Addy was about a month old, we moved her into her own room.  This was the best decision for us since Addy is an extremely noisy sleeper (she grunts ALL night long), and she would wake up everytime we moved or made noise.  Since about a week after we moved her, she started sleeping from 12-6 and then goes back to sleep until 9 or 10.  Its been wonderful!  She absolutely sleeps like a champ.  We lay her down after feeding her while she is still awake, and she goes to sleep on her own.  She rarely fusses, and if she does, it rarely lasts more than a few minutes.  Nice right?

Well, that is night time, but naps during the day are a completely different story.  My child will not sleep in her bed during the afternoon for ANYTHING.  She can be totally exhausted and asleep in my arms after eating, and as soon as I lay her down she screams.  And I don't mean she cries, she screams like a banshee.  She cries so hard she sweats, her face tuns red, and once, she even became hoarse from crying so hard.  I have tried everything I can think of.  I have tried swaddling her and turning on a cd.  I put up a blanket on the window to make it darker, and I tried leaving the light on since she is fine sleeping out in the living room.   Nothing has worked.  Finally, we just started letting her cry it out.  She screams so hard, I can hardly stand hearing it. 

Now, understand, I worked in daycare in Lincoln, and I am very convinced that it is important for babies to learn to put themselves to sleep, and I am completely ok letting her cry it out.  The problem is that she gets SO hysterical--and it can last FOREVER.  I hate to hear her cry so hard, but I think it is SO important for her to sleep in her own bed, and I have WAY too much to do to hold my baby while she sleeps everyday.  Besides all of that, she gets overtired and extraordinarily fussy all evening when she doesn't get good naps in her bed.  So what's a mom to do?  The last few days I have been letting her cry for 5 minutes and then going in to comfort her and then laying her back down.  We do that cycle for 20-30 minutes and then she usually sleeps--for a while. 

I'm just kind of at a loss as to what we should do.  Why will she sleep at night with no problems but not during the day?  I don't want my daughter to have abandonment issues because I've let her cry for too long at such a young age (or so say the parenting magazines), but she needs to sleep in her bed so that she is not super cranky all evening...my goodness!! 

Who would have ever guessed that MY child would be stubborn??

Doctor's Appointment

We went for Addy's 1 month appointment today (even though she is over 7 weeks now).  The doctor was VERY impressed with her development.  Even though he usually goes by gestational age (how old she would have been if she had been born on her due date), she is right on track for her chronological age (how old she actually is) that they are just going to treat her as if she had been full term.  She has gained 3 pounds and 2 and 1/2 inches since she was born, she has met all of her developmental milestones (and even some that she wasn't expected to meet for some time now), she is sleeing through the night, and she is very strong and healthy. 

That was the good news.  The bad news was that since she was doing so well, they treated this appointment as her two month appointment, and that meant SHOTS!!  They were pretty rough.  She cried a lot and had real tears (broke me heart), and then she slept and/or cried for most of the rest of the day.  Poor baby.  Hopefully she will sleep well tonight.  We are just happy to know our little girl is healthy and strong after the start she had.  Praise God!

Life These Days

Wow!!  Its been almost seven weeks since our beautiful little girl entered our lives, and my, how things have changed!!!  Addyson is doing amazingly well, and she is growing like a weed!!  We can't believe how big she is getting, and it seems like she changes every day.  She still has her crazy dark hair, and we aren't sure what her eyes are going to do. Sometimes they look very blue, and sometimes they look more grey. She has the most adorable chubby cheeks that I just love kissing!  At about 6 weeks, she started outgrowing her newborn clothes, and is now wearing 0-3 months (some are still a little big).   She is eating very well, and she has started sleeping about 6-7 hours at night (yay!).  She is starting to develop her personality.  She is a super sweet and easy baby, but she is not shy in letting us know when she's not happy!  Ben and I feel so incredibly blessed by Addy, and we cherish all of the time we have been able to spend with her.

 Ben is still looking for a job, and has three churches that he is waiting to hear back from.  Two are here in Illinois, and one is in Virginia.  Although we really want to stay close to home, we have to go where God leads us, and that may mean a big move for us.  This is an incredibly sressful time for us, but I am also really excited to see where God takes us and to finally settle down for the first time in our married lives! 

Although it has been very difficult searching for a job, we feel so incredibly blessed that we have had this time for Ben to be home with us while we adjust to being parents, and  He has provided the finances for us to make ends meet at this time.  We have been able to really enjoy our little girl together as a family, and that is the most amazing blessing!

Now that Miss Addy is home, we thought we could use our blog to talk about our changing lives and our debut into parenthood.  It is an exciting time in our lives, and we are blessed beyond belief!

Beth