wiggles

Started feeling the baby move over the past few days! Overall I'm feeling like this is easier the second time around; knowing what to expect, knowing better how to take care of myself. I'm eating much better than I did with Valerie, partly because I'm cooking and keeping around lots of healthy food for her, and partly because I eat at home most of the time instead of on campus (where it was a lot of cinnamon bagels and decaf soy lattes). So more fruits and vegetables this time.

Valerie has been going through another difficult phase with the sleep. For seven nights straight she fought bedtime (sometimes past 10 p.m.) PLUS would wake for about 2 hours sometime after midnight. Last night though she went down easily, was asleep by 9 (it tells you something that that felt like a major accomplishment) and only woke for about 45 minutes in the night. It seems like changing her diaper when she wakes up helps her get back to sleep more quickly. We're trying to be super-consistent with the night-time routine, and I want to see if we can creep bedtime to an earlier hour as well. The biggest challenge is getting enough food into her before bedtime. I've been tracking it, and it seems like it takes a good 2 hours for her to eat supper. I'm not kidding. That's how long it takes until she's full. Of course she doesn't sit in her high chair that whole time - she gets too bored - but whatever it takes to get food into her, I'll follow her around with her bowl and spoon as long as she keeps eating.

We're also making some adjustments with her childcare schedule so that the days are on a more predictable rhythm. Hopefully that will help. I hired a new babysitter 3 weeks ago who we love, but it's taking some time for V. to get used to having her come. I was having her come Tues/Thurs for 3 hours in the a.m. and 3 hours in the p.m., but I think it was too confusing for Valerie to have that split schedule. She never knows from one day to the next what's going to happen. So now we're going to have the sitter come 4 mornings a week - luckily her schedule is flexible enough that she can make that change. The afternoons are just tricky, anyway, with V's naps sometimes going long, and her waking up cranky sometimes too. I'm also hoping this change will allow us to start dinner earlier (like 5!) so we can move bedtime earlier too.

Hopefully this will all come together soon because Terry and I are POOPED and GRUMPY.