The Great Bumper Pad Debate

I never realized how useful bumper pads could be! Nowadays bumper pads are "illegal" since they can contribute to SIDS. But now that Paige has been sleeping better, with the one "sleep through the night" and then a 4:45 wake up the following night I can see how the bumper pads could be useful. Last night she woke up 3 times and 2 of them, her head was up against the bars of the crib. I assume this is why she woke up! Before I may have thought she was just hungry, but because I know she can make it through the night, I contributed the wake up to the bump of the head! Maybe the bumper pads would have made for a more gentle bump! I was able to just feed her once out of all 3 of these wakeups though (at 3:30 and then not again till 9:30), but it made for a crappy sleep for me!

I know all of the Grandma's agree! Mike and I had bumper pads and we're ok!

Speaking of us as babies.....is this Paige in a few months or what!!??

Here's one of Mike

She slept through the night!!

On the eve of her 16th week she slept through the night! She went to bed at 10:30 and slept right through to 6:30! I mean, no soother plugs, nothing! And, Mike got up at 6:30, so she may have even heard him at that point. Who knows how long she would have slept! Me on the other hand, I woke up a bunch of times because I heard her make random noises in her sleep, and then I had to go to the bathroom. Also, I kept assuming she would wake up! Anyone who can sleep straight through from morning until night, I salute you! I have created a poll on the right hand side of the screen about sleep!

Paige had a pretty fun weekend. Her "step-great grandmother?" came to visit for the first time with Great Aunt Mary Jo. And then we went to Grandpa and Grandma's house for dinner where she slept for 2 hours! Who would have ever guessed after a long nighttime sleep that she would sleep through the night! Oh, she also got some really cute Emu boots from Grandma Maura. Paige has a collection of really cool shoes. She has her Emu snow boots, tiny pink crocs, and pink cowboy boots for the spring.

This photo was taken by the fireplace to indicate that, indeed, it is freezing in our house. 15 degrees when I got up this morning to be exact.

Sleep baby, sleep

Woah! What was that? A sleep straight through from 10:00 till 3:50! That's more like the old Paige we knew and loved! I know what it is too, I think. It's her blasted humidifier which is probably going to peel our paint and wallpaper border! She was all warm and cozy. She was probably cold the night before since we were approaching St. Albert weather here.

The problem, however, was that I fed her less than usual (3.5 oz), which was enough to satisfy her, but not make her sleepy. She just stared at me afterwards as I rocked her in the chair. I sat with her for maybe 20 minutes and then decided to put her in her crib. Well, she lay flat on her back for about 45 minutes just making cooing noises and staring at the ceiling, occasionally spitting out her soother and searching for it with her mouth. Strange, but once she fell asleep she was good till 7:50 when Mike fed her another 3.5 oz. She is still sleeping now (9:45), so the plan is to feed her a 6oz bottle at 12:00, but we'll see what happens when she wakes up. Sometimes she can sleep so long in the morning that I have to wake her up in order to go walking with the neighbours.

Routine Poutine! (Canadian for Routine Schmootine)

Just when we thought things were going well...

She has decided she is not hungry at all in the morning. This leads me to believe that she does not need to eat in the nighttime. Maybe when she has cried it is due to her being cold, poopy, gassy, or something else. Maybe we are feeding her too much in the night. She probably only needs to eat a certain amount of times a day, so she has been forgoing the morning feed since she is full?

Also, introducing a bit of formula to her diet is probably messing things up. The formula takes longer to digest so she probably needs to eat less often, or have less formula and more milk?

It seems to be a bit of a guessing game. Our strategy for tonight was going to be feeding her less in the bottles so that she would be hungrier during the day, but she has eaten so little today that it seems unreasonable to feed her less for tonight. At any rate, we're probably in for a long night.

All I know is that I am scared to feed her after she wakes up from her nap...the last 2 bottles she was screaming and pushing them away...and pooing....hmm.

I have no idea, I guess we'll see what happens.

Growing up quick!

Today I decided to try on the next sleeper size--"6 months". Her 0-3 month sleepers from the same brand are almost stretched to the max. Everytime she goes to sleep in them, she wakes up and all the buttons around the bum have popped!

But, as you can see, she is swimming in the 6 month size!It is all fleecy and cozy though, so I imagine it feels pretty nice anyway. The feet look like flippers.

Something exciting happened as well! Paige laughed for the first time! I was showing her that her new sleeper was great for me because it was a zip up, rather than a button up one. I was saying ZIIIIIP! and pretending to zip it up. She made a few growling like noises trying to laugh, and then she had a few ha ha ha noises! She sounded just like a little kid! It was sooooo cute! I had wondered before if some of her noises were laughs, and I think they were the beginning of her trying to laugh, but this was definitely a laugh. Unfortunately she was hungry after that and started to get a bit grumpy. Hopefully when her daddy gets home he can try some new tricks to make her laugh. Too bad I was the only one around to witness it!

Funny about the weather too. It was bright and sunny this morning, but about 10 degrees. I wasn't sure how to dress her, so she ended up in a

sleeper with a toque and a warm blanket.

She seemed ok, no crying, just looking around.

I am not sure what to do if the temperature drops any lower. Doesn't feel right putting her in a snowsuit! I guess I'll have to layer on the blankets.

One thing is for certain though, if I don't walk in the morning, I end up feeling so stiff and scummy. The stiffness in my joints hasn't gone away from the pregnancy, but I have noticed that if I walk a couple of times a day it keeps everything loose. So Paige will have to get used to a variety of temperatures. Well, she will have to be primed for Edmonton at Christmas anyway.

Oct. 23-- 15 weeks old!

Paige is really starting to like to stand. She seems happiest when she is being held in the standing position.

She hasn't really taken a particular liking to any toys yet, mainly because (I think), she is too interested in trying to lie on her side, sit up, and stand up. She will play with a stuffed bunny, or other soft toys for a minute, only because she likes sucking on them! Although in the past week, she has learned how to hold on to objects with 2 hands. She really studies things when she is holding them with 2 hands, but she will usually just drop them and not seem to really care.

This is our first week where we have nothing going on. Before this we had Salsa Babies once a week. I held her inward facing for the duration of the class, except for the last day where she was outward facing. She did ok with the outward facing since she seemed to be really interested in the instructor and all of the movement going on in the class.

She has been napping really well. She has one nap around 11:30, then a long nap after her 2nd bottle of the day--usually between 12:30 and 1:00. She stays in bed at this time for about 3 hours. Then she has another nap around dinner time. Then it's off to bed at 9:30!