Oh what a difference ...

... a couple of months make!

So after weeks and weeks and months of screaming and not being able to set her down, Alice is a better baby! We still were going through plenty of episodes during December. Some if it had to do with switching exclusively to formula. I had started birth control and steadily dried up. At her 2 month appointment I asked the doc if it was even worth me giving her the few ounces a day I was producing and she told me it probably wasn't. So Alice went to full out soy diet. We had pooping problems at first. And then I started adding light Karo syrup to every bottle and it worked like a charm. They say it has to do with the sugar drawing more moisture out of the body and thus making her poos easier to pass. This also means that we ad a touch of extra water to every bottle too. I switched to prune juice about mid-December though since I decided high fructose corn syrup in every bottle probably wasn't the best thing for her. Now she gets 1-2 oz. of prune juice in her next to last bottle and generally goes when she wakes up. So the feeding aspect changed and we adapted. She is still eating every 2 hours though! I keep wondering when that will change.

When week 10 hit ... it started getting better! I would wake up to smiles and get about 2-3 hours of happy baby time in everyday. That's when I started to be more comfortable. Once a baby starts growing into their own personality, I think it gets easier to read them and not to frustrating trying to decipher what they need. By week 12 it was a major improvement. She was a different baby! Don't get me wrong, we have set back days and crankiness and fussiness ... but I can handle it because I've seen much worse from her! It really helped in that now we can set her down for periods of time instead of for less than 30 seconds. You can put her in the bouncer for 30 minutes or prop her in the boppy for 20 while she watches TV. Totally different! She's still needed. She hates not being able to see you if you leave a room so she'll fake cry until you come back. Also, around week 12, she started wanting to be outward facing when held. She loves to look around. But she talks and laughs and gurgles and coos and yells. She starting to laugh more in conjunction with us laughing too. Before she rarely laughed and if you started laughing then she stopped and looked at you funny. Now we can get her rolling on a more frequent basis.

Around the same time came the drool ... and the talking! I feel there is a direct correlation between speaking, teething, drooling and extra spit-up :) She easily soaks her clothes everyday so we are on to everyday baths to help keep her from being nasty. She loves chewing on fingers - hers or ours - but isn't so much into the toys yet as she doesn't grip all that well still. She does reach out and touch things though and she knows how to bring her blankie to her mouth with both hands, but the grip and bring to mouth is almost there and once it is I think she'll be good with chewing toys. I can feel teeth bumps in her mouth but nothing to pressing ready to break through. In really fussy days her hands are in her mouth ALOT and then the baby orajel comes out to play. Oh and she is obsessed with her hands. When I put her down, she tends to spend lots of time just staring at them in front of her face.

On to sleep! It took me going back to work to get her on a better schedule ... and it only took a few days. The first big thing was putting her down for the night in her bassinet. The first night I brought her back in the bed at first feeding. Then after that she was fine. The next big thing was getting her to knock out at 1 and not 3 or 5. And that took a couple of nights. It didn't help that the first couple of work nights I couldn't go to sleep without her next to me. It was too distracting knowing she was downstairs and fussing. But by getting her out earlier, she has adjusted her schedule for the entire day. Now she goes to bed around 12:30-1 and I withe her. She still wakes at 7:30-8:30 for a bottle and then generally goes back until she's ready to wake up for the day around 11ish. This allows Daddy time at night to do school work or play and then still get sleep. When she wakes up for the day she doesn't scream anymore: she stares at her mobile and talks and laughs at the ceiling. Sooooo much nicer to wake up to! During the week she doesn't take a nap until right before I get home or when I get home. And the we sleep for 2-3 hours. She maybe will take another short nap or two before bed. But she's definitely still fussy in the evenings, but not intolerable! And once she's swaddled at night she's usually out in 5-10 minutes if not sooner. So nice to be able to put her out so easy.

Other notes: Her head control is great and she's starting to sit upright really well by herself. My friend let me borrow her bumbo seat and she kind of likes it ... if I put something down by her hands to look at or play with. She likes watching TV mostly if she's being held. When I hold her on my lap she likes to be slightly resting forward and if she gets fussy I just bounce her and pat her back and she chills out.

It was nice last weekend to take her to my Dad's and have her laughing and talking to them for once instead of crying :) Everyday is a better day than before and she's going to be so lovey and fully of personality when she gets just a bit bigger. She's already full of personality and has the lungs to let you know she exists! I keep saying that rock n' roll isn't going to destroy my hearing ... Alice's shrieks will :)

She's graduating to the medium gDiapers today! The smalls just aren't fitting and thus she keeps peeing through them. And I'm about to retire her 0-3 months clothes! She's getting big fast now. I was holding her in the bath the other day and I realized just how much she had filled out and grown and it made me happy. I can make babies and they grow :)