Sleep training, night 1

We have 2 issues to address:
Sleeping in the crib instead of with us
Sleeping instead of eating all night

It's pretty clear that I am a human pacifier. Last few weeks, she's not eating that much but also WON'T LET ME GO. She's 12 months and almost 2 weeks old and eats like a champ during the daytime. She is physically capable of sleeping and not eating overnight. We just have to help her realize that.

So the plan was to have me nurse her before bed and put her down as always. But for all night wakings, The Hottest Computer Scientist in the Universe would go in and comfort her and put her back to sleep.

10 pm: asleep finally
10:30: awake. Kinda angry that THCSITU went in instead of me, but after a while she calms down for him and goes to sleep.
11:30: cries for under a minute before falling asleep in his arms. However, he has a really hard time lying her down. No clue how long that took - 45 min? Longer?
1:30: this time she is a bit madder but otherwise like previous? Not sure.
3:35: THCSITU tries to comfort the kiddo. 25 min of hysteria. Eventually they come find me in our room, Baby Girl leading her Papi by the hand. He is upset to see her so upset. Which I understand. It was no fun for me to listen to it either.

I don't want her to think she can scream till she gets her way - but since she has an on-the-boob night waking habit, she probably was honestly hungry by that point.

I put her on the boob as we talk about it. I was wrong to try and eliminate all the night wakings at once. She may not NEED to eat at night, but her body sure is accustomed to it. She settled down for THCSITU tonight with very little fuss, until this 4 am feeding. We talked about boob vs. bottle. I advocate that tomorrow we do the same thing, but at any 4am-or-after awakening I will go in instead of him. To feed her and put her to sleep - and leave her sleeping in her crib. We'll see if later in the week or next weekend we can start trying to push that feeding back, substitute a bottle of milk and then after switch to water, or just skip it entirely.

I took her back to her room where THCSITU had put her crib mattress on the floor and put some play mat next to it for him to sleep on. I nursed and rocked and sang to her - and noticed that she popped off before she fell asleep, and rolled back to sleep.

I set her on her mattress, which caused her to reach for the nipple again. But I just took it out of her mouth and she rolled to her side and fell asleep.

Here's hoping her next waking is at 7 - although this room doesn't have a curtain so I don't know if she will sleep once it's light out.

If only I could sleep... this mat is so uncomfortable!!

Vocabulary!

Ok, so, it's mostly receptive at this point.

The only thing Baby Girl says with consistency is "Allá!", which is more or less Spanish for  "Over there!" She'll point into the distance and insist, "Allá! Allà!" Or, drop something off the changing table and go leaning over the edge pointing at it: "Allá!" And if you ask her something like "Vamos por allà?" she goes towards the front door and points sort of generally "out".

She also is trying reeeeeeally hard to parrot back anything you say, though she doesn't understand it. She said "ocho" pretty well this weekend, but there was no context. THCSITU says he heard her say "gato" last month at my dad's house (he's got several cats). And, what with a preschool aged cousin and a bunch of insane aunts and uncles, we spend lots of time meowing over at Grandpa's too, and she meows along with everyone else, though not independently.

But she does understand these words:

Bye/Adios: Double handed, single-hand-clap/squeeze motion 

Hola/Hello:  Waving

Panza/pancita: Gripping/rubbing her belly with both hands

Luz: Points at a light fixture or a light that is on

Abaníco:  Sorta waves her arm in an attempt to show the fan spinning

Me lo das? Hands you whatever she's got

Eso no se come. Takes whatever she has out of her mouth. Or stops putting it in. Or does neither of those things, but looks at you mischievously to see what you are going to do about it.

No me muerdas/No me vayas a morder: She knows she's not supposed to be - sometimes saying that will stop her, sometimes it doesn't. Seems to depend on how much her teeth are bothering her. 

Bueno? (answering the phone greeting in Spanish) Puts whatever she's got up near her ear (more like curls her arm and wedges it in her neck).

Basura: Goes to garbage can and points. If you hold her up and open the garbage can she will wave whatever she has over it, sometimes letting go.

Vamos pa'fuera/Vamos a la calle: She will get her coat and bring it to you and stick her arm out to put it on.

Papi: She knows that Papi means THCSITU. She will go find him if he is home/go look for him. 

Allá/Allí/Acá: She will follow your eyes to figure out what you are talking about.  

rojo/azul: she knows that one specific piano key on one toy is red, and another specific piano key on another toy is blue. But (of course) does not know red/blue in general. (Example: both toys have a red and a blue key.)

Pajaros: This kid LOVES birds. She'll stop eating to point out the window at the birds. So she points at the window or goes to the window to point if you talk about pajaros.

She also has this RIDICULOUS trick that the babysitter taught her. She grabs a stuffed animal - she has a couple of favorites for this one - and puts it on her shoulder. She starts to rock back and forth (same as if she were listening to music) and she pats the toy. "Durmiendo al ______" whatever jugete she has. It is ridiculous and horribly genderized and SO freaking cute.
In other news, baby girl LOOOOOOoooooooooooooooOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVES trains and buses. Shrieking, pointing, looking at you and back at the bus/train again and again to see if you understand OMG THERE IS A BUS RIGHT!! THERE!!! Her whole body practically convulses as she bounces with excitement..

We have a TODDLER

This week, Baby Girl finally made the switch from walking sometimes but crawling by default, to walking (or attempting to run) almost all of the time. This past weekend, 11 months and one week old, she started standing up from sitting on her own, without using anything (or anyone) to pull up. The classic butt-in-the-air push off the ground standing.

Now, as she careens around, she falls ALL the time, but she falls on her butt, and then pushes herself back up and continues to wherever she was going. No pause, hesitation, no looking for or waiting for help. Totally independent. She also has two walker toys (both presents). One, she drags laterally or walks backwards (?!) as often as she pushes it. The other, last night she was using to crash into the dining chairs on purpose! It has a pretty smooth wheel action, so she can go really fast. Run-run-run CRASH back up, back up, back up, run-run-run CRASH like that.I LOVE IT we are SO PROUD of her!!

Another big announcement: last night at dinner she drank water from a "glass" ALL BY HERSELF. She soaked herself in the process, but she picked up and put down the "cup" several times. The "cup" that worked is actually a Medela breast pump bottle. While she was getting a bath the week before, she grabbed one of the bottles that I was washing in the sink next to the counter her Papi was bathing her on. She sat down and did a good job of drinking... the bathwater. She already does a great job drinking from a water bottle, which also has a small mouth, smaller than this baby bottle. But we don't have any cups that have a comparably small mouth and are neither too heavy nor too light for her to use.

So at dinner last night, I put half an inch of water in the bottle and let her drink. That didn't work, because she needed to raise the angle of the bottle really high and tilt her head farther back than she is accustomed too. I don't know if her arms are even long enough to do that. She did try though, and sucked away at the air for a minute. So then next time I offered her a drink, I filled the bottle all the way up to below the screw-rim part. Big mess possible, I know. But she grabbed it with two hands and gulped away! She did sort of stick her mouth in the middle of the opening instead of drink from the edge, which caused her to get pretty entirely soaked, but it was before bathtime - and she's got to learn by experimentation anyway. We're on our way!

I am SO SO excited about these developments. The walking I knew would come soon, but the drinking out of a vessel on her own I wasn't sure how long that would take. AMAZING, my smart girl!!

Bottomless pit!

This kid could not. stop. eating. tonight!

She had:

• a bowl of soup. I don't mean like tomato soup or something light either, this had "fideos" (alphabet noodles), broccoli florets and chopped stems, onion and garlic, cabbage, and some other dark leafy green. This was an adult-sized bowl.
• 1 raspberry
• 4 large strawberries
• 20-30 blueberries
• a bite of bagel
• some swordfish (size maybe 1 or 2 tablespoons)
• an entire sweet potato
• two huge hunks that she bit off a whole russet potato!

Now, she almost didn't eat food all day, and she's been kinda constipated. But nonetheless, how on earth does she have space for so much at once!

Today she is 11 months old!

It had to happen sometime

Post-bath insane playtime ended in the first-ever split lip and tears.

Favorite books at 10 months old

Tied for #1:

Clip-Clop!

given to us by a librarian friend who clearly knows what is the good stuff!

Superman!

given to us by my cousin who I don't think knows anything at all about babies but he picked a total winner!




Tied for #2

The Very Hungry Caterpillar

A classic. The shortened pages, the holes for tiny fingers, what's not to love?

I love you Stinky Face

I had never heard of this one till a friend brought it for us (the same friend who gave us the Caterpillar above) but it's a great one.

Pat the Bunny

This is a classic too of course. The story is insipid but we've got two copies and they have already been quite abused.







These are the books that baby girl searches for. She dumps everything she can out of her bookshelf, and finds these. She will sit, turning pages alone. Sticking her finger in any holes, patting the bunny or Krypto, etc. If you come upon her and start reading while she turns, she is ecstatic. Stinky Face and Pat the Bunny are also especially tasty for reasons I don't know. I think a measurable percentage of the fiber in her diet comes from Pat the Bunny.

Baby girl Does It All

From (really) crawling (full time) the week after Thanksgiving to pulling up to stand that same week to starting to creep along the furniture before Christmas to rarely falling as she makes her way all around the room with one hand on the furniture and standing all by herself for short stretches. And growing 5 teeth. Months 8 and 9 were busy ones.