Yet another sleep post...

On Thursday, I attended the infant sleep class that is put on monthly at our health unit. I went to one of these with Gemma and wanted a refresher, to see what it is that i'm missing with Leni. The instructor was different, but the handouts were the same and I basically learned nothing. The simple answer to my problem of Leni waking multiple times throughout the night was "get rid of the soother". I plan on doing that eventually, when Leni is 6 months old, but not now. So I walked away thinking I am just going to have to deal with it for at least another couple of months. 

Once I got home, Jesse and I decided that we needed to have Leni move out of our room. That is the one big difference between Gemma and Leni - Gemma was out of our room at 8 weeks and here was Leni, at 4+ months, still in our room. Jesse is always quick to jump up at every whimper and we were sure that wasn't helping things along. I guess our thought process was that we need to get to her before she starts to scream, in case that wakes Gemma. 

We live in a three bedroom house and really need a fourth room. Our basement is being worked on, but who knows when that will be done? We have a bonus room upstairs that we talked about converting into a bedroom, but we decided that we just can't wait for that to happen. So major room-swapping was done. My mom moved into our room, we moved into the bonus room (though it has no door or closet), and Leni moved into my mom's room. The hope is that once Leni starts to sleep through the night, we can move her into Gemma's room and then we can switch back to the way it was. We are essentially trading privacy for some (hopefully) sleep.

Friday night, Leni woke up twice and I let her cry for a bit to see if she could settle herself. She couldn't, so we had to put the soother back in, but we learned that Gemma will sleep through the screaming.

Saturday night (last night), she slept 11.5 hours straight without us hearing a peep. 

I have to say, that solid stretch of sleep was much needed (for me!) and sooooo appreciated! Thank you Leni! I hope it continues!!!!

Sleep Update

I decided for my own sake, I need Gemma to nap... and she does so very willingly - no fighting, kicking, or screaming. Oddly enough since that one day where I let her go without napping, she has been going down a bit easier at night - no more yelling for me for 2 hours. She has, once or twice, called out to me within the first half hour of being put in bed, but that's been it. And the reason I don't put her down later is that she is up at the same time every morning no matter what time she goes to sleep. So the situation with Gemma seems to have improved. 

Leni, on the other hand, is still a struggle. She is so all over the place when it comes to napping - some days she will have four 20-minute naps, other days she will sleep a 3-hour chunk and no more. At night, she still cries out anywhere between 5-10 times. I really don't know what to do. Well, I know what I'd like to do, which is move her out of our room, but we just don't have the room right now. Our initial plan was to have the girls share a room, but we obviously can't do that with Leni waking up so much. I can't wait for that sleep class on Thursday and I really hope I learn something. 

Taking turns...not good.

Okay, so now that Leni's finally been getting some sleep at night, Gemma is giving me a hard time going to bed! Over the last several weeks, she has been really cooperative at nap times and even walks up the steps to her bed herself. I've been elated that we have not had to fight to get her to nap. At night, we would put her down, and on average she would call out to us twice or so, where we'd tuck her back in and eventually she would go to sleep. The last couple of nights, she would call out for 2 hours or more, crying and flipping out if I don't respond to her most politely. 

So today, I decided not to put her down for a nap. 

We put Gemma down at 7:30 and has not made a peep in the last 35 minutes. 

Sounds like we found a solution, huh? But man, i don't think I am ready for her to drop her nap altogether. Thankfully Leni had a 3-hour nap so I only had to deal with Gemma, but I came to realize that I really need that break in the day where both kids sleep, whether it's 15 minutes or 2 hours. It was like Gemma not napping made ME cranky and, though I hate to admit it, that crankiness was coming out in how I interacted with Gemma. 

Hopefully a better night's sleep means happier mom tomorrow...

night and day

So I guess that long nap really helped her to catch up on some lost sleep, as she slept MUCH better last night. I think one of the biggest reasons for her not sleeping well at night was that our room is just so cold. Apparently a footed sleeper, swaddle, and two blankets on top isn't enough for Leni. So last night, she was in a footed sleeper, swaddled, and then had a thick minky blankt folded in half (so doubled) on top and I put a toque on her. As if that wasn't enough, we had a portable oil heater in our room to keep it somewhat warm. Apparently that was warm enough for Leni as she slept SO MUCH BETTER. 

Today, we went to the health unit for Leni's 4-month immunizations and Gemma's first hepatitis B shot. Normally, hep B vaccines are given in grade 5, but because one parent (me) was born in a hep B endemic area, we have the option of vaccinating our girls early. We do plan to go to Korea at some point within the next 5 years with the girls, so I thought it would be good to just get it out of the way. Leni will get her hep B series once she is done with her normal vaccination schedule. 

Leni weighed in at 15 lb and 8.5 oz, length is close to 25 inches. Overall, she is just under the 75th percentile, head shape looks perfect, and no other concerns. She handled all three shots quite well and didn't cry for too long. We treated Gemma to a happy meal after her needle because she did so well with that. She was pretty happy. LOL.

Sleep!!

I honestly don't know what's going on, but since Thursday night, we have not had a good night's sleep, nor has Leni had a decent nap of more than 20 minutes' duration. I was seriously ready to throw in the towel and just hold her if I had to for 2 hours just so she could get some sleep. 

This morning, Leni got up for the day around 9:30. We went to a friend's house shortly after and she didn't sleep the entire time we were there. We can home just after lunchtime and she fell asleep at around 1:30. She cried out 20 minutes later, at which time I gave her the soother. Twenty minutes later, she cried out again, and I again gave her the soother. I expected that she would wake again 20 minutes later, but she slept another 3 hours and 20 minutes, for a total of 4 hours. 

I am hoping that since she got a bit caught up on lost sleep, she will be able to catch up some more tonight. Will keep you posted.

Leni - 4 months

Tomorrow, my baby is gonna be 4 months old. She is such a joy and I love her more each day. She just loves to be cuddled and as long as she is held, she doesn't make a fuss. She loves to look at books and ride her sister's rocking horse (with some help, of course), as well as look at the mirror and make conversation with the little bald baby looking back at her.

She goes for her shots on Wednesday and so I will have a weight and length at that point. I'm curious to know how much she has grown even from her 3-month appointment. 

I don't know if she is going through a growth spurt or just her stuffed nose is really bothering her or what, but she has been sleeping terribly night and day since Thursday. She was up crying at least 10 times on Thursday night, same on Friday night, and finally last night was better at four times. On Thursday night, I even gave her a bottle at 3 AM because I couldn't get her to go back to sleep (and the reason I gave her a bottle, if you are curious, is because I don't want to be waking up with ready-to-explode boobs at 3 AM for the next three nights because I nursed her that ONE time). Yesterday all day she slept a total of maybe an hour and 20 minutes and so finally I had to let her scream it out for bedtime and she finally passed out after 40 minutes of screaming. 

All that aside, Leni is truly a sweetheart and while I love both of my girls very much, she tugs on different heart strings than Gemma, so it's like they each have different parts of my heart, but in equal amounts. LOL. I am so blessed!

In someone's arms

... that's where Leni wants to be. ALL THE TIME. and she has this incredibly deafening scream that just gives you chills and makes your blood rush to your vital organs because your brain thinks something terrible is happening... She sleeps fine enough alone in her crib and I basically only hold her until her eyes close before I put her down... but when she is awake - she wants to be held. It doesn't matter if you're right in front of her and playing with her - that will give me maybe 5 minutes before she starts to lose it. Thank goodness my mother is here!

First Laugh

Tonight, we had Leni on the bed while she was waiting for her turn to have a shower. I was playing with her, making funny noises, when she gave a laugh! and she kept laughing! Music to my ears!

13 Hours

That's how long Leni slept 2 nights ago. Last night, she slept 12.5 hours. She did stir around 2 AM and we gave her the soother and she slept until morning. I don't want to jinx it, but I sure hope this continues. I wish I could say that I slept as long as Leni did, but with my boobs ready to explode by 5 AM, I was up before anyone else. LOL. Yes, there are some cons to breastfeeding... 

Halloween!

Here is our little chicken, ready to go out trick-or-treat'ing. We got her to practice saying "trick or treat" and did some practice runs of her saying it to us and we would put a candy in her bucket. Of course, she's never had candy before in her life, so she had no idea what it was we're putting in there and really didn't have any interest in that (thank goodness).

Anyways, we got her dressed up and ready to go. I was putting Leni into the Chariot so we could tag along and had the garage door open. Our neighbor across the street was taking his kids around and was dressed like the mad hatter from the new Alice in Wonderland movie and that must've scared the bejeebers out of Gemma, cuz she pummeled her face into my legs and started to cry and didn't want to go anywhere. LOL. Not the best start.

We eventually convinced her that this will be fun and she started to come around. At each door, she would be all shy again, but then as soon as the candy was in her bucket, she would say "another one!" (as in another house, not another candy).

By the end, she was having so much fun (even though it was quite cold) that she didn't want to come back home.

She was the cutest chicken I ever saw.