Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Happy Birthday Viv!


Vivian is finally four months old! At her checkup, we found out that she weighs 12 lbs. 12 oz and is 26 inches long. That puts her in the 35% for weight and the 95% for height! I think she is going to be tall and thin like her dad and big sister.

I have to admit that I am not very good with tiny newborns. Both of our girls have been high maintenance (Savannah much more than Vivian), and the last few months have been exhausting. Viv was very fussy when we took her places. I spent a lot of the time at church in the mother's lounge trying to get her to stop crying. Whenever I took her to Young Women activities, she ended up crying and I would usually have to leave early. Evenings were particularly hard, because she would cry for at least an hour or two every night, and there were many times I just wanted to get in the car and drive away!

Luckily, the fussiness and long bouts of crying for no apparent reason are fading quickly as she matures and gets into a sleep schedule. She is getting to be a lot more fun with big smiles and giggles. One of her favorite things is to be held by Savannah. She always looks for her in the room when she hears her talking. I get the feeling that they will be good friends.

On a side note, another difficulty of having a newborn is not the newborn, but the sibling toddler. Savannah is very good at waiting until I am distracted with Viv's poopy diapers to get into my makeup and other things that are off limits. I frequently find her in the bathroom racing to try on every lipstick before I discover her. Her latest was accomplishment was washing her own hair. She managed to reach the shampoo and lather her hair. What a mess!

Thursday, July 23, 2009

Sleep Glorious Sleep!



To every parent who has ever tried to sleep train a baby, my heart goes out to you! I was lamenting in the last post about how I needed to get Vivian a place of her own to sleep. Our dear pals, Debbie and Greg, loaned us their Play-n-Pak for her to sleep in until we get her a crib. It is so wonderful to have a separate sleep space for her...except that she insisted on waking up every half hour. So, I gave in and put her back in bed with me. Grrrrr. That didn't really help much, since she was still waking up a million times every night. It just meant that I didn't have to get out of bed to pick her up.


Enough was enough! Hyrum and I had been waiting until she turned 4 months old on the 25th to officially "sleep train" her, because that is when our book said she could pacify herself. As you can see, she is clearly pacified with her fingers. (Yes, I know I'm a bad mother for putting my child on the counter top. Let's just blame my poor judgement on lack of sleep :)


In our desperation, we began the sleep training journey last Friday. So far, it's been pretty rough. Hyrum is sleeping on the couch, Savannah is waking up in the middle of the night and is tired during the day, and I think I got about 2 hours of sleep last night. But we have hope that she will figure it out soon. Until then, I need some encouragement!!