16 Weeks

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]

[Going through her vowels]

[Josie says Happy Halloween :)]