I started last week’s update by saying that Lydia’s cold was a thing of the past. Ha! That cold is long gone, but, as of today, she has a new one. Oh well. I can feel what is almost certainly the same cold in the back of my throat, and am very much hoping I don’t get it. I had a few nights in a row of not enough sleep, but I think I’ve gotten back on track now with napping and going to bed earlier, so I think I’ll likely beat it.
I saw the first inklings of this cold yesterday, so most of this week wasn’t about that. At this point, Will going to work in the morning and coming back in the evening very much feels like the new normal. Lydia’s growing and changing, but I’d still say this has been a pretty easy period for me. She’s fussy sometimes, but I haven’t been getting overwhelmed with parenting in a while.
As I think I’ve said before, I’m still a bit confused about why having an almost eight month old is so much easier than having a pretty happy newborn that sleeps all the time. I have my theories, but I’m still a bit confused by the situation. I realize it also almost certainly depends some on the individual baby. So anyway, things are good.
Sleep
Probably the most notable thing from this week was Monday, where Lydia took one massive nap. I don’t remember when she got up, but it wasn’t super early. Maybe around 8:45? We usually go upstairs and nurse lying down in the first sleep window that she gets, in case she wants to go to sleep, but this time she didn’t. She didn’t sleep until around noon, and then she slept for a little more than three hours! In the past, her longest naps have tended to be strapped on walking around, but this was just lying with me on the bed. I definitely nursed her at two transition times, but mostly I slept too. Twice, i think I actually thought she was almost certainly awake so I got her up and tried to potty her, but she started crying. We lay down together again, and she went back to sleep both times. She went to sleep early for her, around 8:30 that night.
Not sure if this one nap thing will continue to be a trend. However, the two nap thing is the new normal. They don’t need to be big huge naps for her to only have two of them.
Co-sleeping has been on my mind recently. I really like it, and I must say I’m a bit confused about why it doesn’t seem to be working for so many people I’ve talked to who’ve tried it. Some nights Lydia is up all the time to nurse. I think some other nights she actually doesn’t nurse as much. She kicks me a bunch, and my sleep in pretty interrupted. But here’s the thing, I don’t actually think it matters much. It used to bother me more, but it just feels like I’m over it.
Who knows. Maybe when I finally get an uninterrupted night of sleep one day I’ll sigh with relief and realize what I’m missing. But maybe not. I used to feel like I was getting bad sleep, and I had various complaints and back pains, but it’s been a while since any of that has bothered me. Is this how cosleeping usually works for people? Is there just a learning curve? Are newborns inherently more tiring or harder to sleep with? What’s going on?
As a note, I actually went out for a few hours on Saturday night while Lydia was asleep on Will. It worked well. Strapped on, she didn’t need to nurse for long after she usually does when she’s snuggled up to me. I think it was maybe 2:00am or so?
Nursing
It feels like Lydia has been nursing more recently, at least during the day. I think she’s teething, so maybe that’s why. Oh, and now she’s sick again, so that could be it too.
Solids
Today, Lydia had blueberries for the first time and seemed to love them. She ate quite a few. I don’t have a ton to say on the solids front. She seems quite in to them. Physically getting things to her mouth and swallowing them is rarely challenging. I feel like once I relaxed about trying to use the high chair and decided to mostly just feed her in the wrap, she’s actually been more okay with it. She’s communicating more clearly about when she wants out (more on that below), so I’m trying to be sensitive to that.
Another note about water. Before, she was grabbing my cup and drinking from it, at least a little. But these days, she seems more interested in putting her hand in the water. I’m not totally sure what’s going on here. Sometimes, if there’s ice in there, she’ll put the ice cube in her mouth. I’m guessing this is because she’s having teething pains and she finds the ice soothing. So that one makes sense to me, but I don’t really know why she likes playing with the water otherwise. I guess water is just generally fun to play with.
Elimination Communication
I did lots of time in just underwear this week. I’ve also really been backing off with offering the potty based on timing and trying to read her cues more. This approach results in somewhat more misses, but it’s more interesting for me, and I think it’s more educational for both of us.
Lydia basically isn’t peeing at all after she goes to sleep for the night most of the time these days. However, until she goes to sleep she often pees quite a bit a few times in a row, even if it’s late. I had been pottying her around when the sun came up, but she started not peeing when I did that. Now, I basically don’t offer even if she’s squirming around until 8:00am or so, which is pretty close to when she wakes up for good. Before that, I just nurse her.
I’ll say more about this below, but I think Lydia is intentionally trying to communicate with me before she pees. (Poop is mostly just once in the morning, so that’s easy.) She’s signaled a lot of the time since she was a newborn, but that seemed more like she was just upset at the prospect of peeing in her diaper. Not that she realized that I would help her out if she got my attention.
Today, for example, we were at a playground. It had been a while since she’d peed, but I didn’t take her when we arrived there. She was happily playing on her own for a while when she crawled over to me. I sort of thought she might need to pee, but was involved in a conversation, so i didn’t take her. About a minute later, she stood up (she likes to stand to pee) and waved her hand around as she peed. I could tell immediately when I saw her doing it that she was peeing, and that she’d probably wanted me to take her when she crawled over. She’s crawled over to me when she had to pee at the playground before, which is why I thought she might mean that.
Other times, Lydia will crawl off the bed before peeing. As far as I can tell, she usually attempts eye contact and some sort of gesture, but the communication is still pretty noisy.
As I said, she likes to stand to pee, and if she’s in the bedroom she’ll almost always crawl over to the area where the potty and the door to the outside are. I’ve actually never had Lydia pee on a bed or rug or anything since I’ve had her in underwear.
I think once Lydia gets the hang of the sign language thing, our EC success could dramatically improve.
Last week I said I’d try to start using toilet paper to wipe poop instead of our cloth wipes. I did that sometimes, and I’m ambivalent about switching over.
Babywearing
Lydia is getting heavier these days. She also pretty frequently wants to see what’s going on when she’s awake. I’ve mostly been using the FWCC up until now, sometimes shifting her into a hip carry when she wants it. But it’s been on my mind to learn new carries. Maybe next week?
I’ve been better about actually wearing Lydia around the house when she wants it. It’s definitely the single thing that I think I should do more of, but I’ve been improving.
No big news here. She feels heavier (haven’t weighed her recently, but maybe as much as 19lbs?), but I must be doing something right with the wrapping, since it’s comfortable to do it for hours at a time. My form isn’t awesome, but Will’s shoulder started hurting in the wrap after less time than that when he did it, and he’s stronger. (Usually he uses the Ergo, so he’s not as practiced a wrapper.)
Motor Skills
I think Lydia did get noticeably better at standing this week. For a while, she’d gone back to only really doing it on the side of the mattress in the bedroom, but now she’s adventurous again. She’ll do it on the tile floor and in various places outside the house. And think her judgment is right here. She almost always lowers herself down carefully when she’s standing on a hard surface.
It’s so cute seeing her get really off-balance and then contort so that she gets her balance back.
Her maximum standing time is about the same, but her average length of standing session has gone noticeably up. I can sort of picture her taking a step, even though I don’t think she’s that close to actually doing it. Before it seemed hard imagine.
She’s more confident with stairs, and now she can get up the bottom (tallest) step, though it still requires substantial effort.. She might be able to now though, because it’s been a while and she definitely seemed close. She’s gone up some random staircases other than at our house. Still no luck going down.
At the playground today, there was a drop of maybe a bit less than a foot, so more than a staircase, into the sand pit. She happily toppled off head first and got a face full of sand. She seemed unfazed. Other parents often seem surprised that I let her do stuff like that, but I figure trial and error is the best way to learn.
On the fine motor front, she’s definitely going for the pincer grip more. I just gave her a bunch of peas to eat, and while she had more success picking them up with her fist, she kept trying with her thumb and index finger.
I don’t think she has the fine motor control to even do an approximation of the “more” sign.
Oh, and I remember the baby-led weaning book talking about the skill of intentionally opening the hand to eat something out of it. She can do that now. I think it’s a newish skill.
Communication
Lydia is gesturing much more than last week, but actually not waving at people much anymore. She’s more inclined to wave at random objects, or when she wants something, I think. I’d call what she’s doing manual babbling, from what I’ve read of baby sign. She seems to make gestures that seem like approximations of waving, “all done”, and “milk” (though I’m less sure about that one.
She doesn’t seem to have much idea of which sign is going with which thing, but I think she is more inclined to gesture when she wants something from me. That could be that she wants the food I’m eating, that she wants me to pick her up, or that she has to pee. Probably other things too.
I guess now is the time to up the consistency of my signing with her.
Personality/Other
As I’ve said, I think Lydia is teething. It doesn’t seem to upset her all that much overall, but sometimes she does seem unhappy about it.
Oh, I tried a bit of clicker training again. I’m trying to “load” the clicker by clicking, then giving her something she wants. She does want food, so I’ve been trying to click before giving her things like blueberries. Then, I was trying to shape her signing more, but it didn’t work well. I think she actually doesn’t have the best motor control, so I should try shaping something she’s actually capable of.
Me
Once again, I had an awesome weekend. We had lots of friends over from Saturday evening through Sunday night. Then we hung out with people again Monday night. I didn’t get enough sleep for a few nights in a row, but it was worth it.
I also consulted with a stylist last week, something I’d been wanting to do for ages and ages. I like clothes and shopping, but really don’t trust my sense of style. And, I went away to a party for a couple of hours Saturday night, as mentioned above. So I did a few things that were fun for me while Will took the baby. Fun bonus!
On the being more present with Lydia front, I think I’m doing okay. I’ve been remembering to be present during diaper changes, even if I don’t always follow through on the thought. I think it’s building towards being more of a habit.
