Nine Weeks Old!

Weight: My best guess is around nine and a half pounds. When I did my nifty scale trick yesterday, I first got that she was nine and a half pounds, and when I did it a second time, it said 10 pounds... so I'm guessing we're around nine and a half, up from almost nine pounds last Monday at her two month check up.

Sleep: Remember how I was all bragging up my baby and my mad parenting skills last week because I thought I'd had Little Miss all figured out? Well, God sure knows how to humble a lady, because we have no sleep schedule at the moment! This last week, her daytime snoozin' has been erratic, to say the least. The most I'd been getting out of her for naps was 30 minutes... 30 minutes! So we went from three hours naps last week, to half hour naps this week. Sheesh!

Which wouldn't be a problem, if she were happy when she woke up.

But she's not.

More on that later.

Anyway, luckily, I've  been keeping a little journal for her since last week, and I noticed a trend. When I stop paying attention to her "sleep cues" (or encourage her to stay up a little longer, even after I notice the yawns, because I don't think she can possibly be tired yet!), she has crummy naps. However, when I am mindful of those little yawns, she naps like a dream (i.e. today... yay me!). It seems baby girl has trouble staying up for longer than an hour and a half at a time, because after that, she gets cranky. And I think overtired -- because when I consulted my friend, Dr. Google, about crummy baby naps, "he" shared with me that if a baby is overtired, they won't sleep long enough to come out of being overtired -- does that make sense? Well anyway, I decided to go with this and with what my little sleep diary was telling me, and whaddya know? Today, she's sleeping like a champ for naps. She took a one-hour nap this morning (after sleeping in until 9:20... whoa!) and is going on two and a half hours for her afternoon nap. Wowza. Let's hope my revelation is for real, and I'm not just getting lucky today :)

Her nighttime sleeping generally remains the same, with a four hour stint in the beginning, and then another three hour stretch, and finally another two or three hours after that. She and I did have a few mornings where we battled from 3:30 to 4:30, but that seems to have passed.

The big question I'm struggling with at this point is: When should she honestly be putting herself to sleep/self soothing? And how do we do that? I'm having slight panic attacks of letting her "cry it out", but maybe that's how it goes? Help, mommas!

Medical Issues: We're still using gas drops after each feeding, except in the overnight hours. I did introduce Gripe Water one evening this week because her gas issues seemed to be bothering her.

Clothes: Newborn items are still our friend, and still working on growing into a few things. Still haven't outgrown much, but our pants are starting to get a little short! So we might have to start wearing our 0 to 3 month pants because of that. We'll see.

Socialite!: Lucky babe got to meet some of our college friends over the weekend at a wedding in the Twin Cities! They loved her, and she equally loved them ;) It was so fun to see some of those faces again. I love friendships that don't change, no matter the time or miles that separate you.

But this is about her, not me, so enough about that.

Lucky girl also got to meet a dear friend of mine and her daughter yesterday. They stopped by to visit on their way from Fargo to the Outlet Mall in Albertville. We had a short but sweet visit and they got to snuggle Lizzie Bear all up :)


Diet: Milk -- still nursing exclusively.

Baby Gear Love: Still loving our Sleep Sheep and SwaddleMe swaddlers. She's also taken a real liking to her Snuggabunny Swing. She loves looking up at the little birds that rotate around while she rides in it. It is so sweet to watch :)

Crying: As mentioned previously, sleep has become an issue again simply because poor sweet baby isn't a happy girl when she wakes up from one of her cat naps. She wakes up crying, and she doesn't hardly stop long enough for us to enjoy her -- which makes me feel  bad because she's not getting fun interaction, but instead some bouncing or some "shhh"ing in her ear (I promise we're not mean... just read Happiest Baby on the Block and you'll get it) just to keep her from crying. When she does get enough sleep, she's a complete dream boat and full of smiles and coos. She is a sweet, sweet, sweet baby! But everyone needs good sleep to be in a happy mood, including this little one!

Mommy News: If you haven't noticed by photos of my little lady, I have a slight obsession with headbands for her. I've invested a fair amount of money in them, thanks to Etsy and VeryJane, and I've decided that's foolish. I mean, really -- how tough is it to make a cute headband, especially with Pinterest tutorials galore? So gone are the days of paying for headbands, because I'm opening up my very own sweatshop in my very own living room, with myself as the sole worker. Now let's hope I can find the time to finish a few :)

Also: the baby clothes obsession continues. BabyGap, stop making cute clothes already!

Milestones: The smiles and coos just keep coming and keep getting sweeter and sweeter! Yesterday I was singing to her, and she joined in and "sang" along :) It was so. Darn. Cute!