8 Weeks

Firecracker has made it to eight weeks. People with kids talk a lot about "well, when she's six weeks or eight weeks...", and then they have words of wisdom about some big transition they'll experience. But her transitions haven't been that cut-and-dry to me, and I certainly can't equate them with a particular week. The first couple of weeks were the most different of all, just like "they" say. She slept all the time to the point where I had to wake her every two-three hours to eat. And she slept pretty much anywhere you'd let her. All of that is different now, starting with the fact that she won't sleep anywhere but right next to us or literally on us.

Now she takes short little naps throughout the day, and I'd say longer "naps" at night. Now she wakes up like clockwork every 2-3 hours to eat and be changed, and in the middle of the night, I can mostly get her to nuzzle-in and go back to sleep after she eats. Sometimes she starts her day at 6am, and sometimes we can go back down for an hour or two. And if it's been a really long night, sometimes we go back down yet again and stay asleep until 11am. These are the nights when she doesn't go back down as easily between feedings and we are up for longer periods. Mind you, I am always up for longer periods between feedings because once she starts to drift off, my job is to pat, kiss and rock until she's in a deeper sleep so that I can then sleep myself. Otherwise, she wakes up right away and we have to start over.

Something else that changed right after two weeks were our quiet evenings with a sleepy baby. Not only did she start to wake up a lot more than when she was first born (totally expected), but she spends most of her time between 5pm and midnight crying. At first, I thought this might be kind of a normal new baby-thing. But soon we learned to better read her cues and could tell that she was agitated, grimacing and very unhappy. I remember yelling out to Erik one night over her cries, "Is this what colic is???!" Sure enough, I think we have a "colickie" baby. When I ask and observe other mommy friends with babies the same age, they say their babies don't do this. They happily make dinner and watch movies together at night while their baby coos on a nearby blanket or in a swing. Not only does Firecracker not let us put her down, but she would never hangout cooing in a swing long enough for us to watch a movie and eat dinner!

After several straight days of it starting at 5pm and going all night, I started a typical Google adventure for diagnosis, and I read many posts from other mom's that called this the "witching hour" - basically when your baby screams from 5-midnight for "no reason". I think she is one of "these" babies, but I don't think it's for no reason. We can hear lots of activity in her belly, and she seems to find relief when we massage her belly and keep her in upright positions. She absolutely will not tolerate a cradle hold (the most precious hold that everyone wants to share with their baby...), and I think it's because of residual reflux and/or burning from spitting up and having general baby indigestion. She has a pediatrician appointment in a few days, so we will revisit the issue. Their advice last time was to try Gripe Water.

Let me tell you a little story about how we almost killed our baby with Gripe Water.

Gripe Water is a supposed remedy for babies with colic. "Sounds good. Whatever - we'll try it". So one night Erik is giving her a dose of it when she spits it all out. He asks me to go refill the eye dropper with more from the bottle on the counter. So once I give it to him, I go back to the bottle to double-check the directions and close it up when I realize that it's not Gripe Water - it's cod liver oil. I ask you, how many small cobalt blue glass bottles do you have in your refrigerator? Well, we apparently have two.

After a mini freakout, we calmly call the pediatrician after-hours line, and the nurse is nice enough to do a three-way call with us to Poison Control. While cod liver oil sounds harmless enough, it is toxic if given over a certain amount because of the high levels of Vitamin A and D, things a baby can't handle in high doses. Because we hadn't given it to her two days in a row (and she spit-up the first batch), they assumed she'd be OK, and they gave us a list of things for which to watch out - otherwise it would have been off to the ER to have a tube put down her throat into her belly! As we were on the phone with them and she was lying on the bed, she drifted off to asleep, and Erik asked in his panicy voice, "Is it OK if she goes to sleep??". They said yes. But since she NEVER just goes to sleep like that, we were freaked. I'm wondering how old she has to be to have another dose of it... :)

So nights are hard to say the least. We spend the evening trading her off, back and forth, trying all of our tricks and then handing her off to the other parent when our tricks fail. We spend A LOT of time walking up and down the street (the hot and sticky night air sometimes distracts her). Once she finally goes down, that is usually my cue to go down too so that I get a head start on the sleep I won't get later. So essentially, there's not a lot of time for us as a couple, but we still steal kisses and smiles in between the cries, and we always eat dinner together, even if one of us is pacing around with the baby while the other cuts up the foods and feeds us both.

There is one exception to all of this, however. Company. If we have a house full of company or if we are at a party or something, she will sit in the sling or the Moby Wrap and sleep for hours. "What a good baby you have!", people gasp. "Thank you", we say politely.

It breaks our hearts that she struggles at night - it really does hurt to watch your child go through this. So we're particularly happy when she enjoys her days (though she struggles with gas a lot then, too). Hopefully we'll see some of this "8 week" magic about which we keep hearing, when their intestines start to settle down and develop more fully. Until then, we'll comfort her cries and adore the rest.

Oh, did I mention she started smiling on purpose (not just in her sleep)?? Soooo sweet.

"I like to scratch myself."

An anomoly - she's sleeping somewhere other than on us...

Her usual place in the bed, right next to Mama.

Rise and shine, Rosebud :)

Sportin' our sling. She loves it...NOT! Look at that face!

The expression of tolerance.

Except when Daddy does it (show off).

But we love the Moby - that's for sure.

See?

But nothin' beats sleepin' on the parental units.