Calming the Baby

First time in a dress. This outfit lasted about 2.5 hours. It's a cute little Hanna Andersson dress though.

I put her in her bouncy seat on the floor in the bathroom while I shower. She is calmed by the sound of the shower. Of course I do buckle her in, but just for the picture I didn't. She kinda likes the vibration on this thing, but not so much on the bassinett. She is touch & go about the swing. It only seems to work when she just needs that little thing to push her over the edge into sleeping.












Don't let her cute, quiet appearance here fool you. She was NONE of that last night. She was all sorts of fussy and it seemed like the only thing that would soothe her was my breast. Needless to say mom is a little tired & cranky today. It seemed like she was permanently in light sleep mode. She would sleep for 5-20 minutes (this started around 4pm)and then something (or herself) would wake her. At 9:30p we took her for a car ride and she was fussy and crying until we stopped at McD's (when dad went in to buy us ice cream and I sat there and nursed her). She fell asleep in the car on the way home (BTW - gotta be careful about slamming the car door, she doesn't like that.) and we brought her inside in the carseat and set in in our bedroom. She stayed asleep for maybe another 6-7 minutes. She wanted nothing more than to be held & fed by mom. I did swaddle her a couple of times. But I have to feed her and rock her after the swaddling to get her to fall asleep. And that only lasts as long as she doesn't poop herself. The instant she poops herself she cries. She doesn't care as much about the pee, but poop but be instantly removed. So, when she cries we check the diaper right away (unless she is rooting around). Or if we hear her poop, then we jump on that pronto.

So far, today is not exactly shaping up to be much better. I did read that when babies go through their growth spurt they get fussier.

Wonder how I am getting all this typing done? I have the boppy on my lap and am pushed up against the desk. She nursed herself to a light sleep and now lays here. I know if I try to put her in her crib again she'll wake up.

Sometimes she falls alseep when I take her for a walk, but not always. It seems like the little tricks only work every so often.

We do the 5 S's (swaddling, shhh-ing, swinging, sucking, side laying). They do help calm her if she is crying, but I want to get her in a deep sleep.

She wants nothing to do with the pacifier anymore. We try everyday, but she refuses. I am beginning to think we have a high-needs baby. I was just reading about that in the Baby Book (by Sears & Sears & Sears & Sears -- apparently they do things as a whole groups of them) that we got from Carol & Tony. Hopefully, this is just fussiness from her growth spurt.

Tonight we'll do the bath thing. That is supposed to be calming, plus it's bath night anyways. It's the first time we'll use the baby bath.

Calming music - oh, I think she hates traditional classical. She seems fine with the baby einstein CD I have, but that is more like music box sounding, but this one I play in the morning while I am nursing. This other one that is a classical CD for babies & is is done by real symphonies, she cries all the time when that is on. And the other CD I have of kids music is this one from PB Kids and it is playtime music and we use it during that time.

She does seem to fall into that deep sleep faster if the a/c is on, even if it's just turned to fan. But not last night.

I tried using the pouch sling I have. She doesn't like that. I think today we'll try out the Maya Wrap Sling.

She does seem to be pretty gassy yesterday & today. I wonder if that was causing her to be more fussy. I wonder what it was that I ate. I eat a lot of dairy, but have since day one so I don't think it is that. I wonder if it could be the asparagus. Could that make her gassy? That would be a shame, as I bought a bunch (have 3 more dinners worth left) and it tastes so good. Other than that my food has been the same. The only other thing I was thinking was caffiene. 2 other times she was really fussy like this I had 1 cup (although everything said it woud have to be a lot more than one cup) of coffee in the morning. Maybe she's really sensititve to caffiene. I do remember that when I was pregnant if I had 1 cup she got pretty active in me that day. Other than those 2 things everything else was pretty standard of what I ate. Sometimes my food choices can get repetitious. Anyways, anyone ever try Mylicon drops? She does get really upset when she has gas trapped inside of her. I was thinking of picking some of this up at Target today.

Ok - going to go try to put her in her crib so that I can get something done today (other that sit at the computer.)