It's been a few weeks since my last post and I have a few minutes of quiet, so I thought I'd do a quick update. Piper turned 5 weeks old yesterday...I can't believe how quickly time has gone already! I think we've finally gotten things figured out around here and are comfortable in our new "normal." It has certainly been challenging with many crying episodes among Ellie, Piper, and me, but we're surviving =).
Piper has been an interesting baby so far. When we came home from the hospital, we started having issues with her sleeping. Most newborn babies sleep all the time (or it seems that way) but Piper was fighting sleep and got into the habit of skipping naps between feedings, so she would be awake for several hours at a time, which equaled A LOT of crying. This went on for the first couple of weeks and I was going crazy. It seemed like no matter what I did I could not get her to sleep. Holding, swaddling, pacifier, feeding...none of it worked. I'm a very emotional person when my hormones are fluctuating, so obviously I was a total wreck. I'm also one of those people who needs sleep...I don't do well at all when I'm sleep deprived, and to be at my best I need 9 hours of sleep. I know that seems like a lot, but that's just my personal sleep number. So needless to say the first few weeks of Piper's life were pretty overwhelming.
I think I have *finally* figured out the "tricks" to get Piper to sleep. With Ellie, she was pretty easy. All she needed was a super tight swaddle and maybe some white noise to go to sleep (and of course, she needed to be at an angle due to the whole spit up problem). Piper also needs to be swaddled, although she does not like it. Ellie would instantly calm down after being swaddled, and Piper usually throws a fit. However, if I leave her unswaddled she flails her arms constantly and won't sleep. If she actually falls asleep, she wakes herself up by squirming or scratching her face. So I swaddle her in those handy-dandy velcro wraps that are *amazing* and then wrap her in a fluffy blanket to keep her warm. Ellie was definitely a hot-natured baby and would overheat really easily...and Piper is the opposite. I think part of the problem was that I would get her asleep and then set her down somewhere and she would wake up because the surface was cool. So I wrap her in a warm blanket and hold her for a few minutes to make sure she's nice and warm, and then I can set her down. We're still using the pacifier on and off during the day for naps, simply because it's a quick fix and it can help her chill out enough to fall asleep amidst all the noise of a dog and toddler running around. However, someone has to be close by to pop it back in her mouth when it falls out (which drives me nuts, by the way). We definitely don't use it at night because as soon as it falls out she starts crying and it just makes the whole falling-asleep process longer.
She's still sleeping in our room, although she's in my walk-in closet because I was going crazy with all the little baby noises she makes in her sleep. I was also getting her out of the bassinet to feed her before she was truly awake because of all the noises. I would hear grunting and think she was ready to eat, when really she was just in an active stage of sleep. She's doing great sleeping at night now...she only cries for about 15 minutes and then falls asleep. And for the past 6 days or so she's been sleeping at least 6 hours in a stretch, with the past few nights at 7-8 hours. I know I shouldn't expect her to continue doing this every night since she's only 5 weeks old, but I'm enjoying it while we have it. Ellie was 10 weeks when she started consistently sleeping through the night, and Piper appears to be on her way to doing the same (maybe earlier than Ellie?!).
We're doing Babywise with Piper, just as we did with Ellie and so far things are going well. I know that there's a lot of controversy over Babywise, but it really truly works for our family. I don't think it works for everyone because, obviously, all babies are different and all parents are different. Everyone has a different philosophy on how to raise children and there is no universal right or wrong answer, but rather what works well for you and your baby. With that being said, Babywise fits with my personality and parenting style, and it has worked well for our children. I'm not hardcore Babywise...we don't follow a specific, timed schedule where every feeding is at the exact same time every day. I know people who do this and love it because that fits their personality, but I would go crazy trying to follow that type of schedule because I'm just not a schedule person. I did the flexible routine with Ellie when she was a baby (and honestly, we still do that) and it worked so well that I figured we'd do the same with Piper. Basically, I let Piper wake up when she wants to in the morning and then plan all of her subsequent feedings off of that time. So if her first feeding is at 6:30 am, then the next one will be around 9:30, then 12:30, and so on. If she wakes up at 7:30 the next day, then her feedings will be at 10:30, 1:30, etc. This just works well for us since I don't really keep to a schedule anyway. I just make sure to wake her up for each feeding on the 3 hour schedule...occasionally I'll let her sleep a little longer, maybe 3 and 1/2 to 4 hours depending on how the day is going. And if she seems hungry before the 3 hours I'll feed her. Honestly, Piper has set her own schedule at this point. I really just follow her lead now since she's accustomed to the 3-ish hour routine.
So now that we've kind of figured things out, I feel like I'm starting to become myself again. For a while, I was having a lot of meltdowns and experiencing a lot of stress and anxiety. I get stressed out easily anyway, so the early stages with a new baby are difficult for me. I had the same feelings when Ellie was a baby, so this definitely isn't new to me. I guess I just get overwhelmed easily when my babies cry and I feel like it's hard to cope with everything all at once. I called my mom very frequently (often crying) because I was just too overwhelmed to handle things and needed another adult to calm me down. I'm thankful that I've been getting more sleep this week, as I think it's really helped with my ability to handle stress in a more reasonable way. I don't feel quite as emotional as I did before, so hopefully my hormones are starting to stabilize a little and I will start to get back to my normal self.
Now that Piper is a month old, she's really starting to show her personality. This week she started smiling, cooing, and focusing on objects/faces. She definitely loves attention right now and doesn't like to be put down very much...she seems happiest when she's able to look at someone's face and listen to them talk. I know I'm biased, but I think she's the cutest baby ever =)
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| My precious munchkins! |
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| Silly face |
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| Such a ham! |
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| Sweet little sister =) |
