This Wood House: Girl's Got Lungs

My little sweet Peapod is one loud little sweet Peapod when she wants to be. And wow has she wanted to practice her loudness recently. She can range from a giggle to a throat crackle laugh to a full blown Mary Poppins "PPPAAAAAAAAHHHHH" laugh all in a split second. You do know what I'm talking about right? I hope so. If not, you should really refresh your childhood days and turn on the classic.

Her laughs are absolutely contagious!

But not only is laughter a strong suit of hers. Within that same split second- Crying. Crying has become a common occurrence for my angel. Not just a little lip quiver cry (which she mastered long ago to pull at my heart strings) but she has found that the thunderous screams from the deep depths below get her some serious attention. I mean the girl can scream bloody murder. My heart breaks a little every time, which by my calculations means that my heart should now be 1/237698472965747947th the size it was prior to September 16th. Most of the time recently, she has been really dealing with her reflux and gas. Gas up and gas out are constant, both again VERY loud. Anyone else have a baby that has dealt with such severe gas pains? And the reflux, while in the morning is totally manageable, at night its a whole other story. Those two or so hours before I give her her nightly dosage, she is one very unhappy camper.

Since being home, I have decided to start getting her on some kind of schedule. I keep hearing about all my friends with babies that already sleep through the night, never cries when learning to be in her new bed, blah blah blah ;) Love you all... but trying to get a baby who doesn't want to sleep on a sleep schedule?... I was not prepared for this. But, thank god for my mom. She has been there 100% helping me establish some kind of pattern for Cheyanne at nights. Even though its not the same every night, its a work in progress that is getting us somewhere. Although my baby still would always much rather eat than sleep, which she has been proving the last few nights by waking up every two hours to nurse. UGH! How are we backtracking? We were at 4 hour stints at night just last week! Now 2? What the? Good thing she is usually easy to get back to sleep, that is until about 5am when she is A.W.A.K.E and ready to talk my ear off. If I can wake myself up enough to appreciate it, I actually really enjoy those moments with her because she is nothing but smiles and babble. Oh only if I could push it a couple hours later. We might be implementing the family rule soon. What family rule? Oh the 7.0.0. rule. No one is allowed out of bed until that clock turns to 7.0.0. That or Aunt T is going to have a really good buddy at 5am when she gets here for Christmas! ;)

But I digress. I've read that Chey is at the age now that I can start working with her to cry it out a little, so that is our goal now. Again, thank god for my mom. I have started with crying it out for 1 minute, then two minutes, then all the way up to ten (all on my own). She hit ten minutes with no end in site this afternoon so I gave in. (I'm a pushover). But with Mom here tonight, we did it. I put her down and she cried. So, mom came in to save me. I sat on the bed while she sat at the bassinet. The baby cried for I don't know how long. Boy did she get angry! I never knew babies could get so angry. But finally after about 20 minutes of serious crying, she started to wear down. With about a minute of sleepy yelps, she finally gave in and called it a night. Now I don't expect for that to be it and for her to sleep like a little angel for now on, but it sure did give me hope. It showed me that she can actually cry it out and that she won't cry for.e.ver. So far, she's still asleep. Granted it has only been an hour. But maybe tonight will be better. And maybe tomorrow night will be even better.

You see how tired she gets.