This week continued our attempts to wean Miss Josie from her swaddler at night. These attempts were greatly assisted - at least at the beginning of the week - by her thumb. I may rue the day she started sucking her thumb once we're looking at orthodontia bills, but as of right now, her thumb is a wonderful, wonderful thing. She has been going down for the night much easier now, since when I'd normally nurse her to sleep and then have her comfort nurse for however many minutes afterwards, now she's pulling off when she's done eating and putting herself to sleep with her thumb (sometimes even nursing with her thumb in her mouth too, which is not as effective). When she wakes up being moved into her crib or at various other times throughout the night, now she's been able to get her thumb in her mouth with a minimum of face smacking (which is what she was mainly doing prior to this week) and putting herself back to sleep. Her startle reflex has definitely subsided, and she's starting to sleep more with her arms outstretched or down by her sides, whereas before they were always up by her ears whenever she wasn't swaddled.
[Slightly creepy monitor screenshot]
So since one-armed swaddling during the entire night was such a success this week, we decided to try no swaddle again Friday night. It was still not a great success, although not quite as bad as the first time she went unswaddled overnight a couple of weeks ago, where she fussed most of the night. Instead, she was able to put herself back to sleep with her thumb a few times, but still woke at 2am (a couple hours earlier than normal for her first waking, but ok), then 3am (only an hour later? Not cool), 5am (2 hours is slightly better, but this was still twice as many wakings as normal), then 6:45am (15 minutes earlier than we normally wake her up on weekdays). Argh. It didn't help that apparently having both arms free allowed her to spin herself around like a helicopter, and no matter how many times I moved her back, she still spent most of the night like this:
So we're back to one-armed swaddling for the time being, until we feel up to trying her unswaddled again (likely next Friday, so we have the weekend to recover from a potentially sleepless night). We're apparently supposed to stop swaddling when she can break her arms free or roll over, and while she's been able to get her arms out for over a month, she definitely wasn't ready to be unswaddled then. But now she's starting to roll to her side more, so it seems like it's time to wean her from swaddling... too bad it involves less sleep for everyone involved so far.
In addition to gaining more dexterity with her hands, Josie is also working on blowing raspberries. She's been more intent on them, and in turn, they have gotten louder, more enunciated, and more... wet. She apparently goes through a few bibs a day at daycare, between spitting up and her raspberry-blowing.
[Intent on her raspberry-blowing]
Three weeks into keeping a food log and paying more attention to what I'm eating, I think I have figured out some definite possibilities that Josie is sensitive to: broccoli, cauliflower, and strawberries. She also appears to react to my favorite meal ever: garlic chicken kabobs, naan, and rice with chickpeas. Even after switching the garlic chicken kabobs out for regular kabobs and foregoing the chickpeas for some lentils, she still was a bit fussy afterwards, so I may have to admit defeat on that meal for now :( I'm still trying to avoid dairy, soy, and wheat whenever possible, and she seems to be doing much better this week with gas and reflux.
Josie also went to her first wedding last weekend - first wedding, first time to Maryland, and first time staying in a hotel, all at once :) She did so, so well. Just a little bit of fussing during the ceremony until I was able to feed her, and the rest of the time she was a happy little doll baby:
Then she hung out in her wrap during cocktail hour:
And slept through at least part of dinner:
Then smiled and hammed it up through the rest of dinner, even past her bedtime:
And capped off the night with her first father-daughter dance:
[Note the ever-present fist in her mouth]
We decided to not push our luck and took her back to the hotel before she melted down, and she was asleep in her pack n play at 10:30pm and slept well the whole night.
This week also marked the one-year anniversary of my first positive blood test, and last week was the first positive home pregnancy test. Josie and I have been together for one year now, and it will be fun over the next few months to remember going through these seasons last year with a baby in my belly and my heart filled with excitement and anticipation.
And here's this week's miscellaneous multimedia section:
[Waking up before I'm ready for her during the week earns her a walk with Ryan instead, which she was clearly excited about]
I learned this week that it's probably a good thing that I don't work close enough to Josie's daycare that I could go visit her during the day. While I would love to be able to see her more (and maybe nurse more/pump less!), I think I would get far, far less work done that way. I brought Josie to the pediatrician again on Friday (more on that in a second), and when she fell asleep on me while we were waiting for her test results, I started thinking crazy thoughts like, maybe I could stay here until she wakes up, maybe they won't need the room back and I don't really need to go back to work. Then, luckily, she woke up - at least momentarily - and I delivered a sleepy baby back to daycare and then headed back home to work for a few hours.
So yes, I brought her back to the pediatrician again - I felt like I was being a stereotypical "first-time mom" since it was just for a little cough that Josie does once maybe every day or two, but they still wanted me to bring her in just in case it was something more serious, since she's so young. She sounded pretty good, though, so they think she might just have a slight cold. However, first they tested her for RSV (which is a common - and contagious - respiratory virus), which involved sticking a cotton swab up her nose, which was not Josie's favorite. I nursed her to try to calm her down, which worked beautifully, since she fell asleep within a couple of minutes and then I got to enjoy one of my favorite parts of having a baby so far - a warm baby sleeping on my chest :)
Also, Josie now weighs 17lbs! She definitely has been working on her baby fat lately, with her legs that just keep getting chubbier, her rolls that are getting ever-deeper creases on them, and her expanding, bib-holding chins :) It is wonderful to see that she's clearly thriving, and gratifying too - even with all the inconveniences of having to eat a ton and then also having to watch what I eat, it's my body that is nourishing her so well. I also think I'm becoming more enamored with her - I think she's innocence and sweetness personified, and spend probably odd amounts of time just staring at her like a lovesick puppy. Ah well. I know despite the proclamations at daycare almost every day that "Josie is the best!", she will eventually hit the terrible twos and not be quite so sweet and innocent :) But until then, I will enjoy it while I can.
We're still trying to adapt to our new routines with both Ryan and I working and Josie at daycare. She's still coming home practically delirious each day from all of the activity (and not enough sleep), but especially now that I've seen her at daycare earlier in the day, I'm even more convinced that she's doing really well there. She just really seems to love all the commotion, and she even has her "throne" now: the swing that sits in the hallway by the front door. So now she's right in the thick of the action as the kids play in the room right there or the parents come pick up their kids.
Ryan and I have our own special Josie times now. Ryan gets to hold her so I can eat dinner before I start nursing her down to sleep, while her mood becomes more erratic, switching from everything being hilarious, to sleeping, to crying, to being dazed out. Or attacking his hand like a shark:
And then my times with her are picking her up at daycare (when she was ridiculously happy a few days this week when I went to pick her up - huge cheesy grin, wriggling, kicking, and flinging herself around with glee, and making adorable noises. Love it.), and in the morning, when I'm attempting to nurse her before she goes off to daycare. I normally encourage her to sleep if she wants to after nursing, but since this is the one nursing that she needs to be awake after, we're still figuring out the right balance of keeping her awake vs. distracting her so much she doesn't eat. So she's getting a bit better about settling down enough to eat (although I have to nurse her in bed since nursing her in the nursery was apparently too much for her to handle), and now I'm enjoying our morning nursing sessions more, since she's awake and quiet and I can curl my legs up to create a nice little cocoon for her, and she curls her legs up and rests them on mine or my belly, while her hands are patting and grabbing onto me.
Speaking of Josie's hands, that was the big development area for the week. She has started trying to hold onto her bottles at daycare, and her burp cloths are still a favorite thing to grab at.
Her hands have become ever more fascinating to her (as Ryan noted, she looks like she's trying to solve a Rubik's cube, just minus the Rubik's cube).
Last weekend, Josie narrowed it down to just sucking on her thumb (rather than her whole fist) while she was at Ryan's parents' house, and she's gotten better at just sucking her thumb as the week went on, at least with her left hand (she still sucks on her entire right hand, for now at least). And while I am glad that she's able to self-soothe better now with her thumb, I was a bit sad the first night she put herself to sleep sucking her thumb, since that's one instance of her becoming more independent and not needing me as much :(
But I'm not complaining too much, because after having a pretty inconsistent week of sleep (either sleeping so deeply she barely moves during the night, to waking up - or at least fussing enough in her sleep that it wakes me up - every half hour), Friday night she slept from 7:30pm to 8:00am, just waking up once at 5:45am to eat. And that was sketchy at best, since she was fussing but her eyes were still closed, and I just grabbed her since I figured if she wasn't hungry yet, she would be soon enough. But her sleeping for that long was a surprise, since she had been fussing a few other times over the course of the night, and kept me awake for almost the entire 1 o'clock hour - during which time she had almost woken up a couple of times, but then settled back down after getting her thumb in her mouth. So this was her first full week of sleeping with one arm unswaddled for the first stretch of sleep each night. Next up in our attempts to wean her from being swaddled is leaving her one arm unswaddled for the whole night, since she tends to not sleep as well after the first stretch. I had been more worried about that, but after seeing the benefit of her having her hand (i.e., thumb) free, maybe it won't be as bad. We'll see!
To wrap this up, here's a couple pictures of Josie holding herself up better than ever, and not crying during tummy time! She's not rolling over yet, although she's started rolling over to her sides at least.
This week continued the usual pattern of Josie being fussy and gassy at the beginning of the week, and gradually getting better so that the end of the week she is back to being the "best baby ever". After talking with our daycare provider, I'm realizing that I really do need to buckle down and try harder at eliminating the foods that Josie may be sensitive to. I had told her I felt bad for them since I thought Josie was going to be really fussy on that particular day, and she said not to feel bad for them, but to feel bad for Josie since she's so uncomfortable. Oh. That was a lightbulb moment for me - yes, I realized Josie was uncomfortable and I felt bad for her, but for some reason I never quite made it to the next step of realizing the importance of figuring out what she's reacting to, and how her discomfort should be the primary motivating factor in figuring this out, not the effect of her fussiness on the adults in her life. It's an inconvenience for us, but is causing her discomfort and possibly pain. And if I'm as dedicated to exclusively breastfeeding her for her first six months as I claim I am, then I really should be trying harder to ensure her food isn't upsetting her system, because that's just not fair to her.
So even though I thought I was being so unselfish be continuing to try to eat well and not drinking alcohol or caffeine (although both are apparently fine as long as I time it right), I was still being selfish in not being as careful as I could be when we eat out on the weekends. I do look forward to that - especially certain meals that we've come to love over the last several months, like the sandwiches and sweet potato fries at Ledo's - but given that Josie is always fussiest at the beginning of the week, I think I have to admit that it must be something I'm eating over the weekend that's not agreeing with her. So I will be trying to eat in on the weekends instead whenever possible to see if that helps, and I've also started to keep a food log to see if I can start detecting which foods in particular are bothering her.
In the meantime, her gassiness at night has forced me to expand my repertoire for getting her to sleep, which is a bit of a silver lining since being a "one-trick pony" is not useful if she's not hungry. She is continuing to nap better at daycare (except for Tuesday, when she was crying half an hour after each feeding and couldn't sleep from being so gassy and uncomfortable), although she still crashes almost as soon as we get home, leading to her falling asleep in awkward positions like this:
For whatever reason, I'm starting to have crazy dreams again. And I feel like this is something I'm not supposed to talk about, but here it is: I got back to my pre-pregnancy weight within the first month, and I am now almost 10 pounds down from that. I'm not too pleased about that, though, since I don't want to risk affecting my milk supply by losing too much weight. So instead I'm eating nearly constantly - probably a triple-serving of oatmeal every morning with peanut butter, a full dinner-size portion of meat/vegetables plus fruit for lunch, multiple snacks of fruits, nuts, and whatever cakes people have brought in at work, and then another heaping plate of meat/vegetables for dinner. And yet I was barely able to maintain my weight this week, and then it led to having a dream that I had a 8-month pregnant belly again - only this time it was definitely a food belly rather than baby belly. I knew breastfeeding would help get rid of some of the baby weight, but this is a little bit ridiculous - and more difficult too since I'm having to watch what I eat more because of her food sensitivities. But Josie is clearly thriving, and I like the relationship I have with my little nurseling, so I'm going to do whatever I can to keep up with her - luckily I like to eat, so I guess there are worse things that I could have to do.
So there have been a couple of times this week that Josie has nursed for less than 10 minutes before falling asleep immediately and so deeply that she doesn't wake up when I burp her or try to switch sides. She will then wake up after her first sleep cycle, which is good so that I can try to get more food in her before she's down for the night, but then she's been more difficult than normal to get back down again, leading to nursing her, moving her to her crib once she's asleep, her waking up, and then cycling through nurse/move/wake, walk her/move/wake, push her legs up and rock her in her crib/wake, rock her from her belly in her crib/wake, until finally - finally - she stays asleep. And then she's usually asleep for 9 hours straight before she wakes for a feeding, then back down until it's time to get up at 7am. So she still sleeps fantastic at night and I'm not complaining too much, but sometimes it is a pain for it to take multiple attempts and an hour+ to get her to sleep. Especially when I have a sink full of bottles and pump parts that I still need to wash, food to prep, laundry to do, etc. And yet despite all of this, I think this week went much better than last week - I didn't feel so overwhelmed and exhausted at work, and I still get to go home to our ridiculous smiley little baby every night who likes to try to eat my arm like it's corn on the cob :)
I do think daycare is a good thing for her, too. Even on the days following nights she didn't sleep too well, Josie is apparently happy and smiling, and giggling and talking at the other kids. She seems like she really likes the activity and stimulation she's getting there, and she loves being around the other babies... and they all seem to love her too. Almost every day this week, one of the other little ones would excitedly show their parents "Baby Josie" or try to help me put her in the carseat. So sweet :)
They also stopped swaddling Josie at daycare, which is great since hopefully her startle reflex has subsided enough that we can wean her from that at night now too. She has been breaking her arms out of the swaddle if she's having a rough, flaily night, and then she proceeds to gag herself on her fist or smack herself on the head - neither of which are conducive to her sleeping. So we tried her completely unswaddled Friday night, and it seemed our theory was correct that if she has her arms free from the start, she won't wake herself up as readily when she suddenly regains her hands in the middle of the night. She slept pretty well the first part of the night and only sucked on her fist when she got hungry, but after I fed her for the first time at 2:30am (two hours earlier than she normally wakes up for her first feeding), she then proceeded to flail and kick most of the rest of the night, although she never opened her eyes so it seemed like she didn't actually wake up. But I spent from 3am-9am only sleeping in 20-30 minute increments since I would rock her in her crib and she'd settle down for a little bit but then start right back up again, so I would not say her first night being unswaddled was a resounding success, although it may have been because she was gassy rather than because of being unswaddled. We'll see. We're now trying to only swaddle one arm, which seems to be going much better so far. She's still moving around a bit more than normal, but is back to her more usual 4am feeding, and then I'm fully swaddling her after that since she seems to sleep a bit lighter for the remainder of the night.
[Josie's first unswaddled nap on her own] [Monitoring Josie's first night unswaddled]
As far as her development for this week, she continues to get more deliberate and precise with her hand movements, she's grasping and batting at objects more, and and she's getting to be more entertained by her toys. She also seems to be much more aware of her feet, and I've caught her staring at them quite a few times now.
[Hanging out with Ryan on her playmat with her new seahorse]
Ryan also did an outward-facing carry for the first time in our carrier - Josie needed to have good head/neck control before we could do an outward-facing carry, and while we weren't sure if she would be up to that for an entire walk, we figured we might as well try since she spends every walk straining to turn her head when we have her inward-facing. She did well, although she still fell asleep within about 10 minutes and Ryan had to hold her head up the rest of the 40-minute walk so her nose wouldn't be smushed on the front of the carrier, so I think she's going to stay inward-facing for a little while longer.
Even though she may not be ready to hold her head up for an outward-facing walk, she has been able to hold her head up enough now for an exciting new development: the emergence of her neck. I think she looks like a completely different (and older!) baby when her head doesn't rest directly on her shoulders ;)
Here's the random multimedia section of this week's post:
[Josie doesn't look too sure about my ability to put together a color-coordinated outfit] [Me with a sleepytime Josie at a friend's birthday party]
[Ryan blowing on her feet, which she usually finds highly entertaining]
[A video Ryan put together, including clips of Miss Josie valiantly fighting sleep (and losing) and her Dr. Evil hands]
One full week of work/daycare is done! Work went better than I thought it would, and although I would still get randomly teary-eyed, I was much more steady emotionally than I've been in months, so I think it is helping to get back into a more "normal" routine of working again. Although the highlight of my day is definitely the first time Josie and I lay eyes on each other when I pick her up in the evenings - the eye contact and then her slow smile as she starts gurgling and kicking and wringing her hands. For a multitude of reasons, I had always planned on going back to work again, so I think that helped with any ambivalence or thoughts about staying home with her that I might have had. However, it definitely is hard to be separated from her for so long, and to think of all the smiles and giggles she's bestowing on other people that I would have loved to see, or all the learning and "firsts" that they're likely to have a part of, or to think that most of her waking hours are now spent with other people who probably aren't going to hold her as much as she would prefer, or who don't know just how much she likes to have her belly or neck munched on, or her feet blown on or kissed. It's so hard. But I'm hoping that as we get used to this new routine, we'll get to see her awake and happy more often, and we'll all adjust to the times we do have together. Already, I'm seeing how much more tuned into her I am and how much more I value the moments I do get to spend with our family together, now that they're so condensed.
Josie is also already adapting to daycare better. She started off the week still just taking two 30-minute naps during the day, but ended the week with a couple of 30-60 minute naps and one that was two hours! She also had 22oz on Monday, which scared me a bit since I hadn't pumped that much during the workday... and then it turns out that daycare had used all of the frozen milk (40oz!) I had given them last week and sent back the refrigerated milk for the weekend, but since I hadn't labeled them, we only ended up using one bottle since I wasn't sure how old they were, and then threw the rest away. Since I had sent about half of my freezer stash, I was a bit panicked that we had already gone through half of what it took me a month to build up in two days, especially given that I wasn't keeping up with her by pumping during the day. I had only pumped twice at work on Friday, so I added a third session on Monday, and then a fourth session during the day and a session before bed (and possibly another during the night if she is sleeping well) starting Tuesday. The amount I was able to pump has gradually increased each day, so now I'm able to freeze a few ounces each day again, so at least I hadn't damaged my supply too much by pumping too infrequently for the first couple of days she was at daycare.
Besides that, she's doing really well at daycare. She's usually awake and alert most of the day, watching the other kids and apparently charming the adults. The owner told me Friday that Josie is "the best baby ever", which was so nice to hear someone else confirm it ;) And after not taking a pacifier for the last few weeks, she took one for Ryan on Monday night when she was so gassy she kept waking up, so he had taken her downstairs and she slept on his chest for four hours after falling asleep with the pacifier. Then she started accepting it at daycare too, which seems to have really helped her naps, and she has been able to fall asleep on her own several times now with just the pacifier rather than being bounced to sleep. Or maybe she's just really exhausted, since even with the longer naps, she's still so tired by the end of the day. I had been afraid that she would be overtired and fussy and unable to fall asleep, but instead she's usually pretty quiet, just really zonked out. So each day we have played with her for maybe half an hour, then I nurse her down to sleep and she's been asleep for the night by 7:30pm each night, sometimes with a short nap before that. As a result, this week I mainly have lots of pictures of her sleeping in various places:
[How she woke up after her nap on Ryan - we're thinking maybe her arm had fallen asleep, since she was quite upset and sad almost immediately after waking up :( ]
Even with her not getting enough sleep last week, she still mostly wakes up happy (except on the weekend, when it seemed like she was quite put out at being awake at all). She usually stretches a whole bunch of times, flings her arms over her head, and kicks and flails around. This week she's added grabbing her ears to this routine, and also wringing her hands, which makes her look like an evil professor who's plotting to take over the world.
I do find it funny that during the diaper changes in the middle of the night, I'll try not to interact with her too much so that she doesn't get so stimulated that she has trouble falling asleep. So I'll be focused on changing her diaper and not really looking at her face, then will check in with her to see how she's doing. Almost invariably, she'll be grinning and then when she sees me looking, will start into her kicking and flailing dance party, so I usually end up shaking my head at her and whispering, "You're crazy!" to her. And then she usually falls back asleep pretty easily anyway, so those are fun little interludes... especially when she only wakes up once during the night as she did for the most part this week ;) She's also been more playful with Ryan, smiling and giggling in reaction to whatever dancing, singing, or trumpeting he does, rather than mainly just smiling at ceiling fans and lights. She is also starting to like mirrors more - she had been showing some interest in them for a while, but now is all smiles once she gets in front of the mirror, and also likes it when Ryan does "super baby" with her and she gets to fly towards the other flying baby in the mirror :)
Last weekend, we took her to our development's Fall Fest, which was also her first experience with the Cold. She didn't seem to care for it that much, but still managed to fall asleep anyway... possibly because we were in the longest, slowest line for funnel cake ever.
[Not too keen on the cold and wind] [Sleeping through her first funnel cake experience, but helpfully holding our napkins for us]
We also went out for sushi on Sunday, and although I fed her before we left and we went earlier than normal so that it wouldn't be too close to her bedtime, she still was fussy from being tired and hungry. Or, possibly, it's because we dressed her like this:
It was funny, though, since as soon as the other customers left, our waitress immediately came over and grabbed Josie. I felt a little guilty that the waitstaff was taking care of her so we could have some sushi (which is hard to eat with chopsticks when using the wrong hand because holding a sad baby is occupying the dominant hand), but they were thrilled to hold her and she seemed mollified by it, so I guess it was win-win. Although she ended up gassy the next day and I'm not sure if the sushi, soy sauce, and/or tofu may have caused that, so we still have some more experimentation to do to see if we can pinpoint what she's sensitive to. I also need to get better at remembering which foods have dairy or soy in them (hint: if "soy" is in the name, or its main ingredient is soy, chances are it has soy in it).
And here are two random pictures:
[A picture of Josie and me that isn't a self-portrait!]
[This is so funny to me since I think there's something about the perspective of this picture that makes Josie look even more enormous than she actually is]
This week was a busy one - we started off with another trip to the pediatrician to get the remainder of her 2-month vaccines and to remeasure Josie's head. As her head circumference had increased dramatically between her 2-week and 2-month appointments, the pediatrician had asked us to have it rechecked at this appointment. Two weeks ago her head measured 16 1/2" and this week it was 16 5/8", so that was good. She also gained another 4.5oz in the 5 days between appointments, and is now up to 15lbs 12.5oz. She got two shots this time, which were pretty rough. She cried and screamed pretty bad, and actually had some tears going too (she usually saves those for special occasions), but I was able to get her relatively calmed down before we left, and then she was happy and content during the drive home. She did get a slight fever the second day after the shots and was a bit fussy, but given that we weren't dealing with an ear infection at the same time again, the rest of the week wasn't nearly as rough as the first round of vaccines.
[Not quite ready to go to the doctor]
However, this week she had gas problems instead, so she had some problems sleeping since she was so uncomfortable, even crying and kicking in her sleep for up to half an hour before settling down. The pediatrician prescribed Zantac for her since she suspects Josie has acid reflux, but we're not really comfortable with putting her on medication. So instead I'm eliminating foods that are the most common culprits of food sensitivities in breastfed babies to see if that will help first. I cut out dairy and soy immediately, and while she still has some gas, it's been much better than it was so hopefully that will continue to get better.
This week marked some big changes in her attitude towards her swing. She had been tolerating it more and more, and was up to contentedly hanging out in it long enough for me to eat lunch without having to scarf it down. On one of her bad nights of gassiness, Ryan had tried putting her in the swing and she actually slept in it for the first time. For four hours. Then I had her in it for lunch one day and she fell asleep again for about half an hour. Oddly enough, it now seems to calm her down now, whereas before she had to be calm when we first put her in it. So there have been times where she's fussing and not feeling up to being consoled by Ryan or me, and yet she'll calm right down when we put her in the swing. It seems like it should be the opposite, but I guess we'll go with whatever works!
For developmental changes this week, Josie is definitely reaching for objects and grabbing them more. She is my little helper when I take her temperature under her armpit, as she likes to hold the thermometer for me now ;)
[Holding my hand and part of her morning stretching routine]
We also came up with a new game I like to call "Kiss the Squishy Baby Feet". It involves kissing her foot as it passes by while she's in her swing (kissing baby feet is also something I didn't think I would ever do - and how that changed once Josie got here, despite the horrors of the lint collection that I know resides between her toes). She found that game quite amusing, and then more interestingly to me, started lifting her foot up as it passed by me and staring at it, so I think she's starting to become more aware that she has feet and she can actually control them. She also seems to be able to see much further now - she normally stares straight off to the side when we're on our walks, but now has been looking up. Whether she's looking at the sky or trees, I'm not sure, but she seems to be more aware of the ceiling too (and not just the shadows of the ceiling fan), so I think she's discovering there is an "up" up there.
Josie also got her first haircut :( Just a few hairs, though, as she got a knot in her hair that we couldn't get out. So her little rattail she's working on is still intact at least!
And finally, the biggest changes this week were that she started daycare and I returned to work. I was expecting to be an emotional wreck the first day away from her, so she actually started daycare a day early (on Thursday), and I spent the day painting at the rental house we're getting ready to put up for sale hopefully next month. I think since I hadn't returned to my previously regular routine, it still didn't seem that real to me, since I did pretty much just fine being away from her on Thursday... but then cried on the way to work on Friday and teared up each time I thought about her too much while I was at work. After being near her nearly non-stop for the previous 12 weeks (and carrying her for 10 months before that), I definitely felt like I was missing a part of myself to not have her around. Yes, it was nice to be able to eat and go to the bathroom whenever I wanted and not have someone crying at me, but the end of the day couldn't come fast enough for me so I could see her again (especially since I was exhausted and a little overwhelmed after emerging from the vacuum where I had spent the last 3 months).
Josie has done very well at daycare so far. Her daycare provider called a couple of times the first day with updates, which was so nice. Apparently Josie had refused a bottle at first, which concerned them, but after she fussed for a while and they got some gas out of her, she then did better and drank her whole bottle. I had been worried about her napping, and she actually slept close to two hours total for them the first day - although that was coming on the heels of a night where she got half as much sleep as normal since she was so gassy, so she was absolutely wrecked by time I picked her up at 5:00. She was sitting in one of the play rooms with the other kids, and while she seemed content, her poor little eyes were red-rimmed from being so tired. She started crying, so I tried to nurse her for a bit before heading home but she was just falling asleep, so I got her home, Ryan held her for a few minutes (where she actually accepted a pacifier for the first time in weeks, and even held it in her mouth on her own! Except she spit it out again as soon as she saw me), and then I nursed her down to sleep. She then slept from 7pm until we woke her at 7am, just waking a couple of times from gas and once from when I tripped over the scale in our bedroom - which was the first time she also flat-out refused a nursing. I offered, and she turned away and very clearly let us know she was not happy at being awake, and she wanted to be back asleep. Now. So I bicycled her legs in case she had any gas again, and she fell asleep while I was doing that, so back in the crib she went.
[All ready for her first day at daycare]
The second day she slept less than the first day, but she was apparently happier, chatting and smiling. She also ate twice as much, so although she's still not too consistent with taking a bottle at home, hopefully she'll be more amenable to it at daycare. They had tried to keep her upstairs away from the other kids so it would be quieter, but ended up running back and forth too much so they moved her bassinet into one of the downstairs rooms and her bouncer/crib into the other. While that's probably not helping her nap at all, since she's been content to spend most of the day just watching the older kids play (she's the youngest, but the other kids are all under 3), I think the activity may be good for her. She definitely seemed more interested in watching other little kids more so than adults, and since she usually doesn't hang out quiet and content for us for hours at a time, apparently the activity there is more engaging and entertaining for her. But while I don't want to complain too much about this, since it is really nice to get a nice chunk of sleep (and this probably won't last for too much longer anyway as she adapts to her new routine), it is a little sad that she's so tired when she gets home now. So for the two days she's been at daycare so far, she was awake with us for about half an hour in the morning, and then for about an hour and a half in the evening... and of those times, all but about 45 minutes of that was me nursing her anyway, so we haven't gotten much playtime in with her lately. We'll see how this next week goes though - the first full week of daycare and work. Eek.
To finish this off, here's a fun trippy picture of Josie and my mom:
