Friday, January 30, 2009

Update on Tallu

Tallu is ten months old. She's stopped biting during nursing, and is still sleeping through the night in her crib. I no longer have to climb into the crib to nurse her to sleep. Tallu is still not crawling, but I discovered yesterday that she can skoot herself on her butt to move around. She loves Cheerios, cherries, sweet potatoes, and prunes, but is not interested in drinking anything other than milk. The doctor says her iron levels are a bit low, so I have to give her the liquid vitamins in her food.

Speaking of food, Tallu has decided that she wants what's on our plates now, not that wussy Cream of Rice cereal! She snatched a chocolate chip cookie from me a few days ago. Last night I fed her some of my pizza (caramelized onion and apple, with mozzarella, no sauce). She paid for that this afternoon, starting around 2pm, and I learned a valuable lesson: Tallu and pizza are a bad combination. I'm sure the BM was painful, what with the screaming and straining, and I felt so bad that I'd caused it. But I was a good cheerleader, telling her to let that poopy out, and that she was such a big girl to go through this awful thing, but that she would have such a good nap afterwards, which she did. I nursed her for about two hours, and gave her a few droppers worth of water, massaged her back and her thighs. She woke up at 7:30pm much happier than when she fell asleep around 4pm.
(I saved the diaper for my husband to see- it was solid and dense, not what you want from a ten month old. He asked if I was going to take a picture of it. I declined)

Although she's not crawling, Tallu is standing and pulling herself to stand. A co-worker of my husband says I can't let her skip crawling, as there is critical mental development that occurs when babies learn to crawl. I have to look that up. She's working on sitting up by herself. I don't know what milestones are when, frankly. I'd also like her to work on waking up a little happier, but for now, I am grateful she sleeps in her crib for the whole night. At least I have some time alone. Unfortunately it's in the middle of the night, time I'm supposed to use for sleeping.

Thursday, January 15, 2009

Back in the crib

I looked at Tallu's mouth today. It looks like her two top front teeth may be errupting, which would explain her middle of the night wake-up. I gave her medicine and she's asleep in her crib. She did have some trouble getting to sleep, but thank God it was nothing like last night. I wish I could say I'm going to bed too, but I'm listening to the monitor and watching TV, just in case she freaks out again

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Happy New Year

I've waited seven days to write this post, for fear that if I wrote too soon I would jinx it.



Tallulah is asleep. In her crib. Since 9pm.



She started doing this last Monday. Last Saturday she woke up in our bed at 4am. I tried putting her back to sleep for almost two hours, and finally gave up and put her in her room to play. That didn't work, but I went on strike, so her father had to tend to her. Her dressed her and they went out for a drive. She slept for twenty minutes. When I woke up at around 11 am, Tallu was still awake, giggling and playing. Sunday was the last night she slept in the family bed.



I was going to write that she's been sleeping through the night, but now she's up and crying. Her father is now walking her up and down the hallway to put her back to sleep. So, until tonight, she was sleeping through the night.



How do I get her down for the night? Here's the routine. Tallu has dinner- some solid food. She plays and, depending on how dirty she is, takes a bath. I plug in her humidifier, turn on her rainforest nightlight and put her in the crib. She starts to cry. I climb in the crib and nurse her. (Yes, I CLIMB into the crib!) She falls asleep, I climb out of the crib.



My mom laughed when I told her that I have to climb into the crib with Tallu. She asked if the crib was strong enough to hold the both of us. Yes, the crib is sturdy enough to hold the both of us. I'm not sleeping there for the night. I figure there are plenty of babies who have that last bottle of the night in the crib, so why can't Tallu have her last booby of the night i n the crib?



The baby monitor is a horrible invention. I was up for hours listening to it, making sure no one had broken into our house and was chillin in her room, or making sure the whimpers didn't turn into full on crying. The good news is that no one has broken into her room. The better news is that I am not waking up in the middle of the night needing to nurse, so we've managed to night-wean. So, Tallulah is starting to eat solids, she's sleeping in her crib, and the all-night buffet is closed. I think my husband is very happy to not have his face kicked in the middle of the night, and to have his half of the bed again. I am trying to get used to having my half of the bed to myself.

Tallu's crying an awful lot. I guess the stroll didnt work. So much for this post...