emolychan

SIGH - I have been so emotional lately! I wonder if it's because 1) I've had too much time to myself to think (b/c my mom has pretty much been gone for the last 2+ weeks) or 2) hormonal changes (b/c of postpartum hair loss). Whatever it is, it's a good thing, because I haven't had time to 'feel' or think about anything else other than just taking care of baby's needs and then my meals and showers. I already know in my head that every day I hold Mya is the smallest she'll ever be. It really hit home today when I was holding her up against my shoulders. UGH. She's so freakin' cute. I always love getting the side angle of her face when she's right next to me and I get a good close up of her chubby cheeks and I can't help but kiss them or tell her how cute she is. I started slow dancing with her and started tearing up just thinking about how fast she's going to grow. How many more months where I can still hold her like that and have...

Sorry (not sorry!) about all the sleep training updates. It literally consumes my entire life so I can't NOT talk about it. Any time that she's not awake, my eyes are glued to the baby monitor. I imagine it's going to be like this for a while. Hopefully one of the last ones, for the near future at least. Usually when there's a final and last post to something - it means good news or at least an end to something. I'd like to gladly announce that it's one of my last sleep training posts, because we are REALLY darn close to Mya consistently getting full night's rests like she should. I happened to look at her sleep log and it's improved leaps and bounds. See below! The teal blue is when she is asleep. The periwinkle (purpley) blue is when she's in bed but fighting sleep. You can see she's been getting more sleep and her sleep is consistent now. Weeks before, she never got big blocks of sleep like that and it was never consistent. Ideally, ...

Been about 5-6 full nights since the last update - I didn't post an update because honestly, the progress had been stagnant for the last 5-6 nights. I was feeling pretty defeated because I have put in SO MUCH WORK and I felt like I wasn't making any progress :(. (We'll talk more about my feelings on it so far later.) She would always sleep for about an hour after I put her down for bedtime, but then be up for 2-3 hours until she'd be able to go back to sleep again. This is not really "normal" for a baby after sleep training for two weeks now, most babies will only be up for an hour at most and then be able to go back to sleep. Most babies can be fully sleep trained within a week. But, our situation hasn't been typical. We're trying to reverse about a month or two of having a late bedtime for her, simply because we didn't know any better. So I think her body is just running its course and taking its time to adjust to the new schedule of about 6...

25 inches 14 lbs 11 oz Gained an inch and 11 ounces since the last checkup. Started rolling over from back to belly (YAY!). Did it pretty sloppily and only when she was in the mood for it around the 4.5 month mark, around the 5 month mark, does it pretty often when I put her on her belly. If she's tired though, she can't roll over. I feel like she likes to roll over because she just HATES tummy time that much. Lol. Can keep head up at tummy time for an extended time. Good head and neck control. Not as conversational as she used to be, seems to be more of a quiet observer now instead. (Maybe taking after me??! Quiet bb??) Better at trying to grasp objects, but still not grasping them. No longer interested in her playmat. Doesn't show much interest in toys! I bought her new toys but she doesn't seem to like playing with any of them. She's more interested in watching me, or watching me play with the toys FOR her instead. I was reading that babies at this age d...

About to hit the 5 month mark! Already have started thinking about baby #2 and things we would have done differently. If you asked me a week ago about having another baby, I would say, HELL NO! Having one baby is a fuck-ton of work. If Mya's sleep continued to be like that, I would have not been able to deal. And I can't imagine dealing with that TWICE. Which relates back to the title of this post. Things I would have done differently knowing what I know now. Before the 4 month mark when they start getting sleep cycles, I would have went out on a lot more outings, because baby can sleep on the fly wherever and whenever. Semi-related to the above - - I should have went outside more during the first month of postpartum. A LOT more. To get fresh air, to get some light exercise, and just for the baby to be outside, just to be in a different environment than home. Because you really are there 24/7, it's nice to even just get some sunshine and feel the wind on your face. I sh...

About to be 5 months postpartum next week! Pretty sure postpartum hair loss has hit me. I swear I'll find random strands of hair everywhere and the shower drain has more hair buildup than usual. Have more time to actually post now so here's an update on me. The last 4 weeks have been a whirlwind! I have had zero time to myself, with packing up our apartment, flying back to SF, traveling to Canada, making sure to get as much time in with Carlo as possible, and then finally being able to settle into a routine with the baby and getting used to taking care of her on my own for most of the week, then dealing with the 4 month sleep regression that I didn't know was coming at all! I already read up a bit more about about future baby sleep regressions or developments now that I have dealt with my new first one - in an effort to be more proactive versus reactive so it doesn't hit me blindsided.. O_O. Next one should be at around 6 months - haha, so I have about a month to...

WTF Y'all. What. The. Fuck. And I mean that IN THE BEST WAY POSSIBLE. Sleep training is working much quicker than I'd thought it would!! Naps have been going MUCH better than anticipated. She goes down for her naps pretty easily. Sleep is a work in progress. I looked at my logs for the last few weeks, and it looks like since we got to San Francisco about 3 weeks ago is when we essentially messed up her schedule where she would be sleeping at 10PM-11PM every night.. so it's been a bad habit set by us for the last 3 weeks that we essentially need to reverse now, so that will take some time. Hopefully tonight goes better. It was really heartwrenching to hear her cry nonstop for about 3 hours last night but I read that it might be an 'extinction burst' where she'll show progress but then psychologically revert back to her bad habits to see if it will get her anywhere. I read that this is common around day 3 and 4 for using my specific sleep training method, so...

Watching your baby on the baby monitor in the midst of sleep training is like watching a strange voyeuristic, sadistic free show, that's eerily.. I wouldn't say entertaining, but like.. intriguing?!? Just seeing how your baby progresses (or lack thereof at times, but overall, progress). I mentioned in my last post that I was going to delay sleep training for a multitude of reasons. BUT WOW. After having the worst day of my life since Mya was born, I gave in and gave it a try out of desperation. As I mentioned before, since moving back to SF, her schedule has been out of whack and she's consistently been a nightmare to put down for sleep. She will ALWAYS fight her bedtime and we'd be trying from 8 PM-1 AM on average to put her down for sleep as she's hysterical and crying. It's horrendous. If you've ever even held a hysterical crying baby for 10 minutes, you'll know that it is extremely trying, mentally -- so imagine that for hours... for over a week. ...

So after I wrote the attack of the poopy monster post and attributed the bad sleep to constipation and poop.. I realized I probably wrote something similar like LITERALLY a month earlier when she had her immunizations?? Or that time she had another huge poop and I stayed up for most of the night with her. WELL, this time, I think her bad sleep is actually attributed to sleep regression. Ah, I have finally hit that lovely milestone (sense my sarcasm here..?!??!) Her sleep has been pretty bad consistently since we moved back to SF. Coincidentally, the move back to SF was as she turned 4 months old. It probably didn't help that she is also in a new environment completely and her whole schedule and routine was out of whack when Carlo was in town. Nothing that could really be helped, of course. SUCKS THOUGH. Her nighttime (AND NAPTIME!) sleep is worse than it's ever been. When she was a newborn, she was relatively easy to put down, she would just wake up a lot to nurse, but that...