Updating the Update

The decision Tuesday night to stop swaddling Josephine came none too soon because by Friday, she'd figured out Part Two of the rolling thing-- flipping back to front. (I've always worried that she'd accidentally flip onto her front while swaddled and not have her arms free to push her face out of the mattress-- so I'm glad that was averted by giving up the swaddle first).

Anyway, this new ability brought a lot of confusion regarding what to do post-roll... she had some happy moments but also a lot of miserable ones...

So that's how she spent her Friday morning (flipping and screaming-- trying to get used to the whole thing), while I did this:

The little curtain for the top window. Why? Because frankly, the not-swaddling thing isn't going so well, and I was hopeful that blocking out a little extra street light would help (...no, so far it hasn't. But I had the supplies on hand so it wasn't too time consuming of an effort.)

The first night of being not-swaddled, she was GREAT. Not a bit of difference-- we were so relieved! But since then, we're having increased transitional whimpering throughout the night, which eventually leads to either a middle-of-night feeding, or a very early wake-up time (5:30ish), or both. Complicating the issue is the fact that her daytime feedings aren't being exactly stellar due to the teething. After the quick let-down is over, she doesn't like actually sucking; it clearly hurts her mouth, and since her initial hunger pangs have been satiated, she just gives up. When she's truly hungry, she'll take a full feeding (like first thing in the morning). But then the rest of the day I can't get her to do more than what seems like partial feedings, if I were to guess at how much she's getting. So this means the middle-of-the-night crying is hard to ignore because I'm willing to bet she's actually hungry (and when I've fed her, she has indeed taken a full feeding). BUT I do NOT want to be re-instituting a nighttime feeding habit-- I'd RATHER her just take full feedings throughout the day.

So I simply don't know what to do. And like many moms have experienced, trying to develop a logical plan of attack when you've just woken from deep slumber is near impossible, so I just lie there confused, wishing the crying would stop-- and then just go in and feed her. I'm hoping that once these teeth cut, all these troubles will go away... but who knows when that'll be... I still can't feel a thing.

I did finally find a teether she seems interested in (along with every other baby). Sophie the Giraffe. To quickly tout its many fine attributes-- it's very lightweight with thin, squishy limbs so she can hang onto it... all natural rubber with food-grade paint, not made in sweatshops... it squeaks which makes for a nice cry-interrupter... it has a face, which really appeals to her... and I'm sure there are more. But even a good teether doesn't make the teeth come in any faster-- I'd pay mega money for one of those!

Here's Josephine mid-roll, Sophie in the foreground.

By the end of Friday she was much calmer about the whole rolling thing. Now, after fervent practice, she's a rolling machine. Which means, to top off our youngster's newly found abilities, she's achieved record levels of SCREAMING due to appendages getting caught in the crib bars. She's nearly inconsolable after this happens. I'm sure she wonders why we keep feeding her to the crib monster trying to eat her arms and legs.

So that makes for three confused members of the Sims household. On whole, everything is lovely, and we're not complaining about all with which we've been blessed. Only when things are going quite so swimmingly can one blog about relatively trivial obstacles. Suffice it to say that we've all just had moments lately where we're not sure what's going on or what to do about it.