As my sweet little girl grows deeper and deeper into the toddler stage it has never been more apparent that we are born with a sinful nature. I never worked to teach her selfishness and manipulation, yet she is learning every day how to leverage these things.

This is a new realm of "tough" in parenting.

I love my daughter. I want with all my heart to believe that she will forever be sweet and innocent and obedient. But sadly I know this is not the way it will be. Not in this sinful world we live in. And lately I am beginning to see the root of sin - selfishness - creep into my little girl. She doesn't mean it to do any harm, but I can tell that her actions are turning into the result of the question, "What do I have to do to get what I want?" Sometimes it is sort of sweet... like insisting on never ending hugs and kisses at bedtime so that I won't leave her room. Other times, like the past couple of nights, it is screaming and crying until Mommy comes into the room - then the waterworks turn off and she wants to play and read books. When did she learn to manipulate like this?

It is really hard to be an honest parent. I have to admit that my child really ISN'T an angel and that she was born into sin in a fallen world, just like the rest of us. My job description is beginning to get longer. I can't just get by with meeting her basic needs anymore. She is reaching an age where teaching and training will become crucial in shaping her behavior. She will need to learn to obey, and more importantly learn about the One who gives us the strength to obey even when it goes against our human desires.

I am (and always have been) excited to watch my little girl grow. I love watching her learn and seeing her gain independence. I'm so proud of who she is becoming. But at the same time I'm a little terrified at how major a role I play in shaping who she becomes! I thank God that I have him by my side... and an awesome church home to help me out as well. But I sure do wish that they could stay innocent forever!

I'm having a hard time keeping up with Lydia's baby book(s) and it's making me very nervous about my ability to do this for future children. I even started out with intentions of not going all-out for Lydia and doing a ton of stuff that I won't be able to commit to with others. But here I am, just doing trying to do the minimum and failing! I finally sat down today to attempt to document all that Lydia learned, liked, and disliked when she was 10 months old and quickly realized that I can hardly remember. Oops. I'm a bad mommy. Ha!

So Brent and I decided that we'll just see how things go with future kids and will hide or burn all evidence of extra stuff that we did for the first one or two. Better to deprive tham all then to gradually deprive them more and more... ;)

Yesterday Lydia turned 11 months old, and while I realize that many moms continue to speak of their childrens' ages in terms of months through the second year, this is the last time that it is more or less necessary. She won't be "zero" years old anymore. The next step is the big ONE YEAR.

I'm excited and anxious at the same time. So much has changed in this past year. Lydia has grown into an adorable, fun, sweet, joyful, and downright entertaining toddler. I can't get enough of her! As will be the case throughout her life, I find myself thinking about all of the stuff that is over, as well as all that is to come.

We continue to move slowly but steadily towards weaning. Now that she is 11 months old, I have backed off to just 2 nursings a day: first thing in the morning & last thing before bed. Pretty soon the morning one will switch to an after-breakfast thing, but we'll keep with 2 nursings for another couple of weeks at least. I've moved gradually from 4 down to 2, but the last 2 will likely both disappear in the week or two before her first birthday. Lydia does pretty well with finger foods, but gets pretty involved playing with it rather than eating it. She doesn't care for milk very much, so she'll probably be getting her dairy needs met with yogurt and cheese. I really wish she would get more teeth so she could do better eating some of the things the rest of us eat. It can stress me out sometimes trying to come up with enough things for Lydia to eat to provide both nutrition and variety... as well as being easy enough for her to pick up to feed herself.

Discipline is another item on my mind a lot. It's so hard to figure out how much she understands! She definitely can throw little tantrums now, and she obeys often enough for me to believe she understands what we mean when we tell her no... but boy is it difficult to decide how to handle things when she disregards our instructions!

The house has undergone a major babyproofing overhaul as of late. It still looks like a house in which civilized adults live (we are not going to be those parents who clear the entire house out so the kid can't touch stuff), but we've added in a few more precautions. Brent installed cabinet locks on the cabinets containing harmful items (though Lydia still has not shown much interest in opening cabinets anyway). We bought a gated playyard (6 connecting gate panels) and have used these to gate off the entertainment center so Lydia can no longer get into all of the cords. And finally (my favorite) we got the playroom set up upstairs! The bonus room above our garage is one of the largest rooms in the house, and now it is cleaned out and full of toys and activities for Lydia. She loves it! She has lots of room to crawl around in there and space to push her walking toys also. I still want to add some things to help organize all the toys, and also a child-sized table, but I'm so pleased to have it be functional for now.

I had an epiphany the other day when I went to Babies R Us. I realized that baby stuff is EXPENSIVE! Yes, it took me 8+ months for this to really sink in, but as I prepared myself to spend another $40 on 2 sleep sacks because my wiggly baby may never keep real blankets on, this epiphany finally hit me. I very quickly passed up the pink dots and cute girly prints for the gender neutral green fleece and teddy bear print sacks. I plan to have more of these little bundles in the future and I can't be certain they'll all appreciate pink!

So here's my advice to new/expectant moms out there: go gender neutral whenever you can. Now I understand there are some things you are just gonna want to go all out boy/girl with. Clothing is a big one for me. I hate dressing my girl up in yellows or greens (unless obviously girly styles). When we go out, I want people to know she is a GIRL! But I'm starting to let go on some of the other accessories. You can spend hundreds of dollars in blankets, toys, carseat accessories, and baby equipment. Imagine having to do it again if your next kid is a different gender! Trust me, your baby girl will not care if she doesn't have the fancy pink stroller with pink strap covers, pink toys, and pink diaper bag hanging off the back. If you go pink with the clothing and stick with gender neutral for everything else, people will have plenty of evidence that she's a girl.

Yes I know what it is like to find out the gender of your baby and be soooo excited with visions of filling that nursery to the brim with everything pink imaginable... but do yourself a favor and try your best to reign it in a little. Your wallet will thank you later!

My dear sweet Lydia has always been a noise maker. So it's certainly not surprising to hear all kinds of things coming out of her all day long. But lately one of her favorite things to do is SCREAM. And let me tell you, she can be loud! We took her to a restaurant last night and let her play with a straw. This, of course, was the best toy ever and required many many joyous screams. Brent was noticeably embarrassed (I mostly found it cute... what mom wouldn't?), so the straw was soon taken away.

Other fun noises in Lydia's repertoire have been growls, lots and lots of raspberries, and my favorites: babbling "mamama" and "dadada." And beyond straws at restaurants, kitchen items have also become popular toys. Lydia's favorite currently is a spatula, though she also got a kick out of holding a tupperware container to her face and babbling into it. Her real toys are no longer interesting. She will ALWAYS choose something on my desk or an item offered from the kitchen over the bright, soft, jingly, musical, or otherwise "cool" baby toys.

She is growing increasingly intelligent. It so fun to watch her learn! She's quite good at pulling on blankets to move toys closer to her. I even watched her figure out that she could get a balloon in her hands by pulling on the ribbon to make it come down. Is she supposed to be this smart already?

People keep commenting that we're going to see teeth soon. But people have been telling me that for 3 or 4 months... and ya know what? We got nothin. Lydia gnaws on everything in sight, but we still haven't seen any pearly whites making their debut. I'm fine with them waiting awhile to show up. I don't look forward to getting bit while nursing, and I kind of enjoy not having to be TOO worried about stuff she's chewing on knowing that she can't easily bite pieces off yet.

In the realm of feeding, we're working on a few changes these days. As of yesterday I'm starting to give her solids twice a day instead of once and I am now attempting to drop her late night nursing (the 10:30 one). She did pretty well yesterday and last night. She had pears at lunchtime and carrots at dinner (while we were at Red Lobster... that made life interesting!). Bedtime feeding was around 7:45 and she slept until 5:30 this morning at which point I went in and found her crying on her belly. So I'm not sure if she woke up due to hunger or because she was on her tummy and too tired to roll back over.

It makes me a little sad to be decreasing nursing times. I love nursing Lydia and I know how healthy it has been for her, but I also know that I have to allow her to grow up. At some point she will need to adjust to "real" food and it has always been my intention to wean her at a year old. So, it's only a matter of time before this will come to an end. One of many phases that I will see come and go throughout her life.

Going to try to take some 7 month pictures of her today. Keep an eye on Facebook and Shutterfly to see them!

Lydia is currently in her crib crying. I have been running in and out of her room for over an hour now. Every time I comfort her, calm her down, tell her it's time for night-night, and leave. As soon as I am out of sight, the screams begin again. This last time I cuddled her a bunch, then put her in her crib and stood to the side. She smiled and babbled to me, and happily began to suck her thumb (a typical bedtime ritual). But again, as soon as I left it was as if something was ripping her leg off.

*sigh*

She just quieted down again. I'm hoping she's finally going to sleep. I've heard that around 6 months it is very common for separation anxiety to kick in and it is also common for this to disrupt nighttimes that are typically without issue. Oy. I had hoped we were past the need to cry it out. If this was a one-time thing I'd think less of it... but she was doing the same thing last night too. If she does it again tomorrow, I'm going to be in trouble. Brent and I are supposed to go on a date to a Mudhens game tomorrow night after Lydia goes to bed. Bad timing, sweet daughter! :-P

Just another day in the life of this mom... dealing with the ever changing phases of my growing girl.

Still hearing silence over the monitor. Maybe victory at last!


Edit:

It's 9:20 now... about 2 hours since bedtime began and Lydia is completely asleep. It really did end up being a sweet night though, despite the struggle. My earlier proclamation of victory was premature and Lydia began crying again not too long after I wrote that. So again I went back up to her room to pick her up and calm her down. This time I decided to sit down with her in the rocker and see if I could manage to get her to sleep.

Lydia has not fallen asleep in my arms in a long time, so I didn't expect much. I just wanted to give her some snuggle time and see if I could at least get her to go back to sucking her thumb and relaxing. We sat there snuggling in the dim, quiet room, just rocking and staring at eachother. Lydia would gaze at me with a look of complete wonder, then she would reach up and touch my mouth and nose. She'd then pull her hand back and suck her thumb for awhile, still staring, before reaching up again and repeating the process. I couldn't get over how amazed she looked. It was as if she was seeing my face for the first time ever and was trying to take in all of the details.

Eventually she went back to sucking her thumb and her eyelids started to get heavier. I watched her as each blink got ever so slightly longer. Her thumb in her mouth and her fingers gently gripping the zipper of my sweatshirt, she finally drifted off to sleep. We stayed snuggled up in the rocker until her little body went completely limp. Ever so gently I stood up and slipped her back into the crib.

What a beautiful night it turned out to be. :)

No, this isn't something I intend to make a habit of. I'm still a firm believer that it is best for the whole family for her to be able to put herself to sleep. But tonight I didn't mind bending the rules. Just for one night. Sometimes it takes just a little bit of rule bending to form the best of memories.

In my last post I mentioned how every mother settles into their own method based on their unique lives & children. I said that most parenting books probably only 100% worked for the mothers that wrote them.

With that in mind, let me say how much I hate hate hate HATE reading stuff from people who accuse mothers of being unloving if they do things a certain way. I hate it! Very few things that I read can get me fired up, but know-it-all folks who act like it is their way or the highway can definitely set me off. Come on people, let's be real here. Different things work for different people and just because they don't agree with YOUR way of doing things does not make them cruel, cold, and heartless!

The "cry it out" way of handling a baby and sleeping has been one of the big subjects where I've seen this annoying trend. Some people who oppose this idea practically paint a picture of parents who are sitting around laughing and eating bon-bons while their child lies alone - cold, crying, in desperate need, eventually giving up on the world and falling asleep in pure exhaustion. Give me a break!! Seriously. Can't we all just acknowledge that 99.9% of parents out there LOVE their children and make choices based on that great love for their child? Did I let Lydia cry it out? Yep. Did I make absolutely certain that she was warm, changed, fed, and otherwise comfortable before I did so? Of course! I also was very careful to assess the situation. If she was happy as a clam and then started screaming the instant I put her in her crib, I knew that she was only reacting that way because she did not want to sleep. Despite being tired, she wanted to fight it and stay up and play. She was reflecting her WANTS, not her NEEDS. She needed sleep.

I also never ever just left her there crying for hours upon hours (though sometimes 5 minutes felt like 5 hours to me!). I checked on her frequently, went in to pat her on the back and help her to calm down, and always made sure I was assessing the situation to know if she truly needed something. And no, she did not lay there screaming until she, exhausted, gave up on the world and resigned that life was cruel. She eventually would quiet down, still awake, and then peacefully drift off to sleep.

Anyway, this post is not supposed to be about my feelings on crying it out. It's supposed to be about my feelings on "to each his own" and the fact that too many people don't embrace that mantra when it comes to parenting. I chose not to co-sleep because I felt it could be dangerous and out of love didn't want to endanger my child. Others choose, out of love, TO co-sleep because they feel it is the nurturing thing to do. Am I appalled by their choice? Do I go telling them how awful they are or how I feel they could endanger their babies? Nope. Because I know they are only making that choice because they feel it is the most loving choice for their family. And I respect that. In the same way, I expect respect from other moms who may not choose to do things my way. I love my baby girl more words can express, please stop painting me as cruel for making the choices I feel are best for MY family.

I remember shortly after Lydia was born looking at an article about co-sleeping vs crying it out. The author set it up as if he was going to explore the pros and cons of each. Yay! Something that acknowledges that both sides have risks and benefits... at least so I thought. I got down to the lists of pros and cons and they read like this: "The benefits of co-sleeping; The so-called risks of co-sleeping... The so-called benefits of cry it out; The risks of cry it out"

SO-CALLED? I immediately wrote the article off as biased and closed it right then and there. I get so tired of know-it-alls. Can't we all just acknowledge that no one knows everything and that all things come with pros and cons? And for the love of God let's realize that, besides the random few psychos out there, every mother wants the absolute best for her children and makes her choices based on love, not cruelty.

I could go on and on about other examples of this. Spanking vs not spanking is another of those hot topics. But the discussion is pretty much the same as above. Bottom line: If I choose to spank, it will be a choice I am making because I love my children & want the best for them. If I choose not to spank, it will also be because I love my children & want the best for them. And I personally choose to acknowledge that other moms make their choices for the same reasons... and I will respect their choices, even if they are different from my own. All I ask is for the same respect in return.

Parenting is one of those things that no amount of instructional books can fully prepare you for. I babysat a lot growing up. I knew quite a bit about babies and I read a lot before Lydia's arrival. I felt like I had a plan in place and was ready to go. Perfect, right? Well of course I bring my sweet, innocent little bundle home and she decides that she doesn't like the plan. She has her own plan. And part of that plan is to change the plan as soon as I think I've figured out what the plan is.

But despite all of that, I do feel like I have learned a lot as a parent just through my experiences thus far. I've battled through colds, ear infections, sleep training, traveling with an infant, learning to nurse, learning to spoon feed, treating dry skin & diaper rash, and cleaning up whatever liquid of the day is spewing out of my child. I feel like a mom. :) When I first started this mommy gig, I was so terrified of messing up. It was as if some part of me truly believed that I would kill my baby (or at the least scar her for life) if I didn't do things the "right" way. A billion opinions are out there and if you aren't careful, you'll find some that practically imply that you WILL greatly mess up your child if you don't do things THEIR way.

Well I did things MY way and Lydia and I are still here. I suppose I don't really know yet if I've scarred her for life, but the constant smiles and giggles give me pretty good indication that she's doing fine. This morning I tried to think back on how I've done things the past 6 months. Is there anything I would change? They say that the first child is your practice kid and that you know better ways to do things with subsequent children. So, have I learned anything in retrospect that I'll want to change for kid #2? Honestly, I can't say that I have. Partially because I am not so naive as to think that kid #2 will be exactly like Lydia. Things that have worked with her may not work with #2... and things that I could not for the life of me get Lydia to do, #2 may fall beautifully into compliance. Or maybe I'm just tooting my own horn and think I managed to do things so perfectly with my "practice" child that I'll just do it again with the next. Ha!

I suppose my current mindset is just evidence of how being a mom has changed me. I went into it with all sorts of ideas and plans, a belief that if I followed a certain set of guidelines my baby would be happy and healthy... and so would I! But as it has turned out the #1 thing I have learned about being a mom is that you have to roll with the punches. You can read up on the methods and guidelines, but you will ultimately learn to pick and choose little bits of that knowledge to piece together methods that are unique to you and your family. I think it's probably pretty rare to find a mom who followed any textbook method to a T and had it work out (except maybe the author of the textbook!).

So is there really nothing about my "method" that I think I'll change next time around? Well... maybe a few adjustments to diaper changing to avoid flying poop splatter on the wall, or some choices of medications that ultimately weren't necessary, or possibly a bit more bottle use so that #2 doesn't decide that bottles are for sissies... but you know what? I'm not making any plans just yet. ;)

About the Baby:

that my daughter will change on me the instant I think I have her figured out?

It is currently 2:15 in the afternoon. She is still in her crib sleeping after I put her down around 12:45. It has been a long time since she has taken any nap lasting longer than 35 minutes (45 at the absolute most), and just a day or two ago I had resigned myself to the idea that this is the way it will be now. So I adjusted, worked on establishing proper meal times so that she wouldn't be completely exhausted whenever it was time to feed her, and was all set to carry on with the general schedule of 2 hours awake + a 30 minute nap - repeat.

Then she goes and sleeps for an hour and a half.

Once again my stupid schedule is smashed all to bits. She was supposed to eat at 2:00, but heck if I'm going to wake her up for that! So much for having a plan for the rest of the day. I'll feed her whenever she gets up and we'll go from there.

Why do I even bother with planning?

...not just the other way around.

I can't help but grin a little when I think about how much Lydia is affecting me. I have always been very much a planner. I like to schedule & organize things and am not very often a "go with the flow" person. Spur of the moment things are nice once in awhile, but in general I like to know what is going on and when everything will happen.

Lydia is not this way.

She has been the biggest lesson in patience I have ever had. Despite my best efforts to have consistency in the home, Lydia is a completely inconsistent child. Every day can be identical as much as I can make it, yet Lydia will continue to vary when & how long she naps throwing everything else "off schedule." Right now she's about 2 hours into what I assume will be a 3 hour nap, yet for the past 3 days she's not taken any naps longer than 30(ish) minutes and the day before that she took her long nap in the afternoon instead of morning. I simply never know what she will do from one day to the next.

I used to hate this but I'm learning to accept and even love it. She is teaching me to loosen up a little and be more willing to take things as they come. I enjoy the long naps and try to get as much accomplished as possible, but I'm learning to be less irritated when a long nap is nowhere to be found. I do what I can in the 30 minutes then welcome the opportunity to enjoy my bright-eyed baby girl.

She has shaped me so much in the last 4.5 months... how much more to come in the years ahead?!

This weekend Lydia took her second trip to Nana & Grandpa's house in Cincinnati. My mom's birthday was on Friday & my oldest brother's birthday was Sunday. Erin (sister in law) was throwing a surprise party for Joshua on Saturday, so our family journeyed down to be a part of the fun. We had a great time and Lydia really enjoyed seeing her Nana, Grandpa, Aunts, Uncles, and cousins! Don't they look so sweet in their matching outfits??


It turned out to be a lovely day for fun at the park. A bit warm in the sun, but since I try to keep Lydia out of the sun anyway, it was perfect weather for being in the shade!

I was nervous about having Lydia away from home now that we have her bedtime routine all established. I worried that she might have a terrible time getting to sleep and staying asleep in a new place without our typical setup. But my sweet girl is smart and flexible... she did awesome and slept through the night all weekend in her Pack N Play with no trouble at all. This is GREAT news for me because we're taking her camping in a couple of weeks, so I would really be in trouble if she didn't like to sleep away from her crib!

So yeah... the weekend was a success, but sadly today (Monday) has not been so great. Lydia still slept well last night and took a great 3 hour nap this morning, but I noticed her ear was... well... yucky. When I was feeding her after her nap, I noticed waxy goo in her left ear and it smelled awful. I'd had to clean that same ear off the previous day and figured she just got spit up in it. So I cleaned it up again today and put her down on her blanket where she proceeded to grab at that ear for awhile. I called the doc's office and they said to bring her in.

I took her to the pediatrician, but still wasn't convinced anything was wrong. In fact, I started to feel a little foolish as the nurse kept asking questions and I kept answering that Lydia was doing okay (eating well, sleeping well, not super fussy, only tugged at her ears a teeny bit this morning, etc)... perhaps I shouldn't have bothered bringing her in. Lydia sat on my lap smiling and talking, not seeming the least bit irritated while we waited for the doctor to come in. At last she had her ears checked and I was actually really surprised when the doctor remarked, "Oh my that looks terrible!" ... "So it's infected?" I responded ... "Oh yes. I can't even see her ear drum there's so much fluid. I'm surprised she is still so happy!"

My happy little girl. :) Anyway, the doc didn't want to give Lydia an oral antibiotic since she is so young, so we are trying ear drops first and going back for another look at her ear on Thursday. We're on strict orders to call right away if she starts being really fussy or gets a fever. So far everything is continuing as normal though. As I type this Lydia is fast asleep in her crib. Hopefully her stinky ear will be all healed up in no time!

I'm not enough of a writer to make an update post that doesn't sound completely boring... so here are some bullet points instead.

- I'm getting started on my new job with the church. The leadership team there is super excited about me coming on staff... which has me slightly nervous that they think way too highly of me! But I'm looking forward to learning and pray that I can at least come close to their expectations.

- Lydia's bedtime is going well at 8ish. We start the routine around 7:30 and she's in her crib close to 8. Generally she goes back and forth between mild fussing and quietly sucking her thumb until she falls asleep around 8:30. I've noticed the past couple of nights that she tends to stir around 9:30 but calms herself down and goes back to sleep. She then pretty much sleeps through a 10:30 diaper change & feeding and is completely down for the night at 11. Last night we had our best night yet... not a peep out of her from 11-7!

- One of my favorite things is how, towards the end of her "mealtime", she'll pull away and just stare up at me. When I look down, smile, and say "hi" or "I love you" she will get this huge grin on her face and then bury it between me and the pillow.

- Lydia has started grabbing the toys from her play gym. It's so fun to watch her learning to control those little hands! She also rolled over this week! I could only get her to do it once, but the one time when I flipped her on to her belly she decided to keep right on going and continued rolling til she was on her back again.

- We bought a new "family tent" for our camping trip next month. Am I crazy to be taking a 4 month old camping? I guess we'll find out!

Lydia slept all night in her crib last night! I was fully prepared to have her sleeping in the swing again... took it up to our bedroom and everything. At 9:00 I settled her into the swing and let her fall asleep there. She has always had a really hard time falling asleep at that time of night, so I went straight for the swing. But I decided that when I got her up at 11 to change and feed her I would try starting her in her crib. Historically she has done very well in her crib after that feeding, so I expected her to fall asleep and stay in her crib until around 3:00. At that point I planned to move her to the swing to help her go back to sleep.


Well 3:00 came and went and my sweet girl didn't make a peep. I, of course, woke up numerous times during the night wondering if she would be awake at any moment and debating if I should climb out of bed to go check on her or not. When 6:00 came, I couldn't get back to sleep so I checked on her... sure enough she was comfortable in her crib lying spread-eagle across the sheet.


I don't know what to thank for her full night of sleep... breaking the cycle with 2 nights in the swing? Her ability to find her thumb now? Or perhaps just having a busy day with lots of outside time? Regardless, I'm pleased that she was able to be in her crib. Tonight I may try doing the crib at 8:30/9:00 as well and see if we can get that working too. Here's hoping for more good nights of rest in the future!

Lydia conked out this morning after playtime.

I do not understand why bedtime is so difficult for Lydia. Throughout the day she does really well with naps. She is excellent at falling asleep in her swing or even by herself in her Pack N Play. If I put her in her crib for a nap, she might fuss a little bit but 99% of the time she is asleep within 10 minutes.

For her late night feeding (generally sometime between 10 & 11) and for any middle of the night feedings, she also sleeps very well. For those I change her diaper (at late night feed), feed her, then simply lay her in her crib. She may take a few minutes to fall asleep, but she never cries after those feedings. Just wiggles and grunts a bit then falls asleep.

But for some reason her early evening feeding + bedtime does NOT go well. In the past I had been feeding her then doing some bedtime "waketime" activities (bath, PJ's, clean diaper, rocking, singing, etc). When that wasn't seeming to work, I decided to do the bedtime activities first then feed her... since obviously she was doing well at other nighttime feedings where I'd feed her then put her straight back to bed. And it has seemed that she's been falling asleep around 9:30 (I hope to move that earlier eventually).

So anyway, tonight I got her all snug in her PJ's, turned off the lights and settled down in the rocking chair to feed her at 9:00. After eating she was still awake (even though she'd been up for over an hour which is usually the point at which she gets sleepy), so I let her have a paci and rocked & sang to her for a little bit. At 9:30 I put her in her crib with the paci and walked away. Forty five minutes later she FINALLY fell asleep.

No, I did not make her cry for 45 minutes. In fact, most of that time she was not crying... just making noises and generally not settling down. I went in about halfway through to see if she needed to burp and check if she'd spit up on she sheets... she had, so I scooched her further down in the crib out of the wet spot, returned the paci that she'd spit out, and left again. Still it took until 10:15 for her to fall asleep.

I don't get it. Every single time she goes to sleep she has very little trouble except for this ONE time... bedtime. The only difference really is that I rock her and sing to her for a little bit before putting her down (and the paci, but she had trouble before and thus the reason why I decided to try the paci to see if it would help her settle). I love my time singing to her and want that to help cue her that it is time to go to sleep for the night... I really hope that that isn't cuing her to fight sleep instead!

Any moms out there had this problem and figured out a way to deal with it? I honestly don't understand why only this one time of the day is so difficult for her... she falls asleep so well every other time!

Lydia was having some "independent time" in her pack n play this morning while I caught up on Facebook and she fell asleep in there. She hasn't slept in it since her first week home from the hospital and I was planning to start trying to do some naps there to get her used to it for travel... looks like she beat me to it!

I'm so glad my baby can put herself to sleep. Sometimes she still has a little trouble, but for the most part she can fall asleep without me, without motion, and without a pacifier. I just plop her in her crib and walk out. She might fuss for just a few minutes, but usually settles herself down just fine after that.

She's still learning though... we definitely still have rough moments. Yesterday I put her down for a nap around 2:30 and she initially fell asleep pretty well. But after 10-15 minutes she woke up crying... an obviously "tired cry" not one indicating she needed anything. So I'd leave her be and she'd resettle after a minute... but then she'd wake up again after another few minutes. This went on for nearly an hour! I went in a couple of times to try to burp her and each time the poor thing was just SOOO sleepy but was having such a hard time staying down. Finally at around 3:30 I burped her and cuddled her for just a minute, then layed her down and she was able to sleep for another 30 minutes.

So yeah, we still have some naps that don't go so well, but I'm thrilled that she's learning to do this without needing any aides.

Currently I'm working towards getting a solid feeding schedule for Lydia. I'd been feeding her ever 2.5-3 hours during the day... typically starting around 7am... but I never had a good routine for it. Some days would be mostly 2.5 hour blocks, others would include more 3 hour blocks. It just made it more difficult to plan our days. Now I'm trying a solid 3 hour schedule with her first feeding at 7am and last one at 10pm. This gets her 6 good feedings during the day and 9 hours of solid sleep at night. Yesterday was the first full day on this schedule and she did really well on the 3 hour blocks. I was afraid I might have to deal with some fussing in the last half hour since she's used to sometimes eating after 2.5 hours, but she had no problems at all yesterday. She did wake up a little before 4am this morning, but rather than jump to feed her I tried the pacifier first and it worked! She took her paci and fell back to sleep by 4:15 (I had to go put it back in her mouth a couple of times before she fully fell asleep... precisely the reason I don't often let her sleep with the paci!). I'm really hoping that after a few days of this routine she'll settle in and get back to sleeping longer at night. The last time she fully slept through the night, I didn't sleep well because I kept wondering if she was okay all alone in her crib. :-P

For not even being 10 weeks old yet, and being exclusively breastfed, I'd say Lydia is a champ at sleeping! She still has rough days (and always will), but she is learning very well and all of the good days make for a very pleased mommy. :-)

We had a lovely Easter yesterday. Lydia did great in the nursery at church (slept the whole time!) and I really enjoyed watching the CedarCreek.tv message. It was amazing to me to realize how much more meaningful Christ's sacrifice is to me now that I am a parent. As I watched a video depicting the crucifiction, I cried... praying that someday my little girl will know and understand the great love her Savior has for her. Then as I watched another video of a father having to choose to save a train full of people by sacrificing his son, I had to bite my lip to keep from bawling. I just don't know that I could bear to make such a sacrifice. I LOVE my daughter... how could I ever choose to let her go for ANYONE?

It just made it so much more real to me what an incredible sacrifice God made by sending his Son into this harsh and ungrateful world. To put his Son through such torture knowing that most people would be oblivious to what a great gift had just been offered to them.

Amazing how having a child can change your perspective.

After church we dressed Lydia up in her fancy Easter dress to take pictures. I know I'm biased, but I think she's the cutest baby I've ever seen!





I would have put her in her dress for church, but since she was going to the nursery the whole time and we wouldn't have time for pictures until after church, I didn't want to risk her getting all messy before the photo shoot. So instead she dressed up for pictures first, then wore the dress to her Great Grandma's house for dinner.

This week I'm going to try to keep close track of Lydia's schedule... particularly her napping habits. She used to be a good napper, but lately she has decided that being awake is more interesting so she only catnaps during the day. I wouldn't mind too much if she was happy and content when awake, but the past few days she's ended up overtired and super fussy by the end of the day. I try and try to get her to take good naps, but usually they are no longer than 30 minutes. Thankfully she is at least doing okay at night. Last Wednesday night she actually slept through the night! I got 7.5 hours of continuous sleep! But the nights since then she still wakes up once or twice. She's still only 7 weeks old, so I'm not expecting much different... it can just be so hard on me when she's up several times a night and then won't nap long enough during the day for me to get a nap (or get anything done for that matter). So anyway, I'm hoping if I track her behavior better I can notice some patterns and we can go from there.

Every day as a mother is bringing me new lessons to be learned!