Week seven finds Miss Ingrid with some new skills. She is deeply engrossed in her right hand. She balls it into a fist and moves it away from and towards her eyes. When it's a couple inches away her eyes totally cross. Very cute. That hand is also good for wacking things (like her new wooden rings, thanks Kendra!!! ) and occasionally even grabbing something on purpose. She likes to chat now too and finds it very funny when I copy her sounds. AaaaaH! EeeeeeeeeH! and she really likes Eh-Oh!. Those teletubbies were onto something. A couple days ago she discovered that when she kicks the arches of her baby gym, the whole things shakes. At first this made her squeal with delight. Then it kind of freaked her out. Sort of like discovering you can cause earthquakes. She almost has her head under control, which helps when admiring herself and her many goofy expressions in the mirror. She can entertain herself on the mat for about 15 minutes now (then her squeals of joy turn to screams of over stimulation) and also enjoys such mellower activities as listening to Mike translate One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish into German. She also had her first session with a babysitter on Friday afternoon (lovely Rebecca, the post partum doula who helped me the milking machine). Mike got some reading done and I got my hair cut, bought some duds for my new shape and for Ingrid (note the polka dot sundress, love the baby consignment store here in town) and spent some quality time at Downtown Subscription, my beloved local coffee shop. She also made some progress on her "sling training". Last time we tried, was the first time she did not scream while I was putting her in it. What she seems to hate is having her head in it. Since she can hold it up pretty well now, I just leave it out until she starts to snooze. That's how I plan to schlep her on the airplane to MI in a couple weeks, so she needs to understand that my goal is not to smother her.
Oh and wait, I almost forgot the best new trick of all... last night she slept from 1 a.m. until 6:45. Of course I didn't, but thanks to the wonders of expressed milk I was able to sleep from 8 a.m. to 12:30 today.
3 comments:
Yes, the wonderful first long sleep stretch! Nate was down around 11pm for a long time, then up in the wee hours, gradually sleeping all the way through. Then the other trick was putting him to bed around 6:30-7pm FOR THE NIGHT! If you can imagine! It will happen!
I was keeping Nate up (around 12 weeks) fussing until 9pm, which I figured was a reasonable bedtime for a kid, then my mommy group lady said babies go to bed more like 7pm. Oh.
Good job getting out and gelling a little at the coffee shop. If you figure out a good baby walk "track" with that sling the exercise will help you sleep too.
6:30 for the night? That sounds crazy to me. Afternoon nap #2 is usually just ending around then and then it's time for dining with Heidi the cow, maybe an cool evening walk and a bath at 9 pm. Then she's usually asleep sometime between 10 and midnight for the first segment of "night". Morning (i.e., not going back to sleep after eating)usually starts around 6-7 a.m. When is morning if night is at 6:30 p.m.?
I just referenced my notes on my old calendar and I didn't start putting Nate to bed early until almost five months. 7pm.
It wasn't until after 5 months that he lengthened out his wakings until he *very gradually, over months), slept all the way through. He would be up around midnight, then 1am and 4:30, then only 4:30am. They tend to drop the midnight/1am dining first, and wake up only once. I also started letting him put himself to sleep (and get himself back to sleep without a snack) at 4 months, which merited a giant red circle around that day! I remember it like it was yesterday: I left his room to go wash my hands and I heard the usual "Waaaahh! Waaahhh!" then "wah?" then quiet!
All of this is slightly in Ingrid's future, but something to anticipate, you're still in the strange space-time continuum of the first few months. You'll notice if it seems like she just doesn't want to hang out after 7pm.
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