her little frown

i think i've mentioned this already, but it bears repeating. Eden is a much easier baby than Moses! already at 8 weeks, she can go down to sleep without crying, with no pacifier and no drama. the only difficult part is that her latch is slightly uncomfortable, and she is not a strong eater (sleeping or losing interest after just five minutes or so). it is probably part of the reason behind my mastitis on both sides and ensuing antibiotics. meh. once we pass through this nursing difficulty, i think we'll be golden. 

anyway, the reason i started this post is that twice i have seen her immediately frown and start to cry when she's heard moses crying! it's the cutest little frown you ever did see. even so, i hate to see it, because her smiles are so much better... but i love to think that she is really compassionate, just like moses is. i love these kids so much, and i really think they're going to love each other well too. 

she sometimes stops nursing to smile at me. moses hardly ever made eye contact with me, like ever (!), and he really never smiled at me either. she is just utterly delightful. ;)

Fresh canvas

Sometimes the quickest way to get a baby to poop is to change her diaper, because everyone likes a fresh canvas. I think of it as part of the process of preparing to put Eden in her car seat. One diaper sacrifice to make sure she poops before we leave the house. It's worth it. :)

huge baby

i sat next to another mom yesterday during church in the mother's room. she had a baby girl too, but she was 4 and a half months old. while it's possible she was a preemie and still catching up, baby Eden was easily about 1/3 larger than this other baby. wow. we did move up to six month clothes (7th week), which i suppose means that she is the size of an average 6 month old. except she's 2 months old. what? it's hard to really wrap my brain around. she's growing too fast. :( 

in other news, if i put this baby down somewhere between 6:30 and 7:05 or so, she doesn't cry, and just goes right to bed. it's been a wonderful discovery. the only drawback is that i have to get her ready for bed during regular dinnertime. 

3 strikes

Just before her 7th week, baby Eden is moving up to size 2 diapers. She's technically still in the size 1 weight range, but she's had 3 diaper blowouts recently. 3 strikes is what tells me, it's time to stop fearing poop on her clothes, my clothes, and furniture everytime she makes her poop-face, and embrace the next size up! :) Baby Girl, you're growing too fast!

at the end of the 6th week

i have to say, these newborn days have been tough. not only because we have a newborn (obviously), but we have had:

• Shane starting a new job
• Moses home from daycare full time (I can't provide the mental, emotional, social, physical activity he gets at daycare, and it simultaneously breaks my heart [because he misses it so much] and makes me crazy everyday [because he misbehaves, acts floppy, and has attention problems at home all day with me]) 
• cockroach infestation treatment (requiring us, i.e. Shane, to pack all our kitchen and bathrooms and move them out of the area and to clean after returning)
• an unexpectedly extended time at Shane's parents' place (1.5-ish weeks), living out of bags and in transition is not really easy for me
• hemorrhoids (just me, not we)
• a UTI (again, me, not we)
• renovations/construction on our apartment (unannounced until they were actually starting to saw into the wall) 
• power tools, saws, sledgehammers, wood splinters, SO MUCH NOISE, Jude peeing on the carpet in the living room, children screaming and crying... it was kind of stressful
• mild mastitis (again, me)
• The ER visit and hospitalization for little E
• Wondering whether money would work out 

Lots of things were on our plate. It has been unusually stressful. I'm sure it'll get better soon...

Cry It Out (CIO)

I got to a point soon after the hospital stay (during week 4), where I was taking an hour to two hours to put Eden down to sleep. I was pacifying her with my pinky, bouncing her, patting her, rocking her, nursing her... only to put her down and have her fuss again. I even faithfully tried the Baby Whisperer techniques (which, over Thanksgiving weekend, only made me miss every meal we had together). 

So, beginning week 5, I decided to CIO. I know it seems early, but (1) we do have more than one child in this family, and it was getting really exhausting and pretty unmanageable to have to [unsuccessfully] soothe Eden to sleep 4-5 times a day, (2) I am not a very nurturing/soothing person in general, and thus, not that good at putting babies to sleep, and (3) as the Baby Whisperer says, start as you mean to go on, which means, don't start habits you're not willing to keep for years to come [and I wasn't willing to keep up the bouncing, rocking, nursing for very much longer anyway]. 

It's been almost 2 weeks now, and I've been keeping a detailed journal of how long Eden's naps, cries, eating habits, awake times have been. I was flipping through the other day, and Shane asked me what I was noticing. I honestly can't find too much of a pattern, I told him. He told me what he saw--that we have a newborn baby on our hands. haha... I guess so. :) 

These past few days, there have been times when Eden wakes up early from her naps a lot, or nurses every 2 hours through the night, and I'm guessing it might be a growth spurt type of thing. It's kind of hard to see with her, because she really is such an erratic eater, and there isn't a consistent every-two-hours pattern that I can see. But I guess it all comes back to trial-and-error. After all the books, schedules, and rules, it really is what I did with Moses too. Every child really is different.

The good news is that I got to go to bed early with Eden at 7 ish last night (she didn't cry at all going to bed--maybe we've been keeping her up too late!), and she did 3-4 hour stretches all night last night. It was a welcome change from the night before when I had to get up a whole lot between midnight an morning. It was tough. She's been nursing every couple of hours or so today, so hopefully that will help her sleep tonight too. Who really knows.

The actual crying it out hasn't been bad for naps. Sometimes she doesn't cry at all, and the most she cries for naps these days is about 20 minutes. Nighttime is the hardest, and she can cry up to an hour. That's some dedication. I'm going to start her bedtime routine at 5:30/5:45, bathe her and nurse her and try to put her down early tonight and see if that helps (since it did last night). I'll keep you updated.

her voice

i just love E's voice. i don't think i felt quite the same way about Moses's voice. but every time she coos or grunts, i am just in love! i'm just dying to hear more. and for now, it's a little raspy and rich--i hope it stays that way. oh, and she is overall much more of a solid, rough-and-tumble kind of baby. much more so than i would have thought. all throughout the pregnancy, i imagined she'd be some cute, petite little wisp of a girl, but i guess i was wrong!

she's also much, MUCH easier than Moses was during his newborn days. she cries considerably less and is quite easily comforted, though i'd guess she's also categorized as a "touchy" baby, like Mo. this means she is an erratic feeder (sometimes acting like she's forgotten how to eat), she wakes up angry at the world, she is very sensitive to changes and lights, and is overstimulated easily. once her needs are pretty well met, she is probably a "textbook" baby, which is great!

it makes me wonder how great it would be to get an "angel" baby. ah, life would probably be so so much less stressful. :) those must be the moms that say they absolutely love the newborn phase. i can't even imagine. i mean, i love this child, but i am really looking forward to about 6 months from now.

her 1-month well-baby checkup was on Monday, and she was 11 lbs 5 oz (94th percentile), 23 inches long (96th percentile), and 86th percentile for head circumference. it sounds like she is right on track to follow big brother's footsteps. :)