24 Weeks

So, I'm not sure if it comes through in my posts when I'm going on about Audra's sleep (or lack thereof), but seriously. This baby is just a joy. Yes, she wakes up a lot overnight (we're holding steady at "many" wakeups still), strongly dislikes the car, and has a very loud (and instantly stress-inducing) cry that she's not afraid to use, but she is usually just so happy, sweet, and funny. I mean, this was her expression most of the weekend:

So while Ryan and Josie were both sick with a nasty cold and had a pretty rough weekend, I had a lot of fun with Miss Audra, who was just thrilled with life. One of the worries I have about not getting enough sleep is that I'm afraid it will impact my feelings towards Audra, but that doesn't seem to be the case. I think she's just the best, even (or maybe especially) when she's attempting to latch onto my chin with a big grin on her face instead of going to sleep :)

Audra continues to be a super squirmy baby, and I felt like I was trying to nurse a wildcat this weekend as she flailed around (kicking and punching) when I was trying to put her down for a nap - I even sustained wounds on my collarbone from when she used it to pull herself up (ouch). On a related note, her nails seem to grow inhumanly fast. I cut them every Saturday (obviously the collarbone injury preceded it this week), and usually end up filing them every day starting on Wednesday to try to make it to the weekend before I have to pin her down and try to cut her nails with any precision. Diaper changes have also become a bit more difficult, between her lifting her butt in the air as soon as I get the diaper under her (which immediately shifts her off it again) and her undoing the velcro as soon as I can fasten them :)

She still loooves tummy time. We can just leave her in the middle of the floor and she's perfectly content to slap the floor or spin herself around in circles. Or, apparently, push herself up on hands and knees. She isn't starting to rock back and forth yet, but we still thought this was an exciting development :)

We also got a baby swing for her and hung it up on the swingset this weekend. Josie quickly claimed pushing rights for Audra, and actually pushed her the whole time she was in the swing. Audra was quite delighted with the swing, especially once Josie moved around to push her from the front instead and Audra could see her again. Her happiness was apparent given that she immediately stuck her tongue out ;)

Sleepwise, Audra seems to be doing better with her naps than she had been. She was apparently passed out for hours at daycare one day last week (although this followed a day when she only slept for an hour total, and that was with waking every five minutes), and while she still only takes about a half hour nap in the morning and in the late afternoon, her mid-afternoon nap this weekend was 2-3 hours. I'm still napping with her on the weekends though, so I'm not sure how much that helps or hinders her. But until I'm able to sleep more at night, it seems to be working for us for now, since I just fall asleep while nursing her down and it helps me catch up on my sleep a bit.

Her night-time sleep is...evolving. I was thinking of going cold turkey with cutting out the swaddling tonight, but instead Audra beat me to the punch and pretty clearly insisted on it last night - she wasn't nursing well and wasn't falling asleep, so I unswaddled her to try putting her in the swing, and instead she promptly fell asleep as soon as her arms were free. So there you go. She's been waking up very upset many times at the beginning of the night again, so I've just been leaving her in bed in hopes that not disturbing her by moving her to the crib will avoid one wakeup, at least.

I also had a glorious few days of being able to sleep through most of the overnight nursings, finally achieving the level of ignorance of how long or frequently Audra was nursing that I've heard about as being a benefit to bedsharing, where mom/baby can even get more sleep (despite frequent nursings) than non-bedsharing mom/baby dyads. I've always woken up when she does (although I can normally fall back asleep once she's latched), but last week I was able to sleep through a lot more and actually felt quite well-rested. And then one night I suddenly couldn't fall asleep at all while she was still nursing (which, again, is usually not an issue for me), so I gave her half an hour and then pulled away... and she fussed for a minute or two and then fell asleep on her own. The same thing happened twice more that night, and a couple times the next night, so although I'm a bit torn on bedsharing the whole night again, it does seem promising that she's able to fall asleep with a minimum of fuss like that. Bedsharing doesn't seem like it gets us any closer to her sleeping through the night on her own (although I realize the path there can be circuitous), but I also miss her tremendously when she's not snuggled up next to me and I imagine she feels the same, so we'll keep going with the flow for now.

Miscellaneous cuteness:

[Helping Ryan with his computing]