DIY Co-Sleeper

Sunday night was the first night with this new arrangement.

So far so good.  Although she was still mostly snuggled between the two of us, the fear of her rolling off was not there.  We all slept like babies.

Dave is working out of town for a couple of nights, and we figured it would be a good idea to finally set the crib up in our room.

I love it, I love it.  I get more space, but I still get to be close to the ones that I love while I sleep.  Dave thinks it's a step in the right direction to eventually transitioning Olivia to her own bed.  I agree.  She should be in her own bed by time she goes to college at this rate.

I added these pictures that I took last night.  I moved the crib back so that it's against the wall, I think this is an even safer option.

Having faith

Me: Wow, Olivia is almost nine and a half months old.

Dave: Yup.

Me: That means that she is almost 1 year old.

Dave: Yup.

Me:  I cannot believe that I'm actually going to make it to 1 year of successful breastfeeding, pumping and working full-time. I had my doubts, but now I know we are going to make it.  I'm pretty proud of myself, it's been kinda hard at times.

Dave:  Yup.

Me:  Seriously?  That's it? Not even a pat on the back???  I deserve something big. Huge.

Dave:  Due to recent budget cuts "we" will no longer be giving out pats on the back.  Plus, I never once doubted that you would make it.

Wordless Wednesday - New Orleans

I miss getting to blog

I started a new job and life has just been very busy for our little family as we try to settle in to our new normal.  I miss blogging, I miss sharing fun stories about my baby, and I miss uploading fun pictures.   Instead of blogging I'm trying to spend some really good time with Olivia in the evenings and on the weekends and it hasn't left me much time to write and upload pictures.

I promise to get back into the swing of some regular blogging.  I feel like I have a lot to share and my baby girl is doing new things everyday.

Life is very very very good to us right now and I'm trying to take the time and enjoy it.

8 months

Oh, what to say about this little girl full of personality. Sometimes I try and describe her personality and I feel like words do not do her justice. I am constantly amazed when I watch Olivia in motion. I see her thinking and processing and make calculated movements, and it's absolutely awesome.

Hours old and after her first bath.

I'm blown away by how quickly Olivia has developed and grown in these past 8 months. She is crawling very quickly and able to get anywhere she wants to go. Olivia is pulling up on objects with ease. Her balance is getting better each and every day, and a couple of times she has even taken a few steps while holding on to the wall or furniture.

While we saw Olivia progress from rolling to sitting to crawling to standing all so very quickly, in about a 4-6 week time span, she has become more cautious lately.  Thank goodness! I was so worried about her lack of caution. I would hover over her protecting her pretty little face from getting bumped and bruised. Olivia now works hard to steady herself while gripping whatever she is holding herself up on and seems to somewhat understand the concept of falling. Babies are so smart.

Olivia's very first car seat experience.

Olivia currently has a very strong dislike towards the car seat.  She hates being placed in the car seat and will fight it like crazy.  So much so that she has earned the nickname of Emily Rose in our household when it comes time to put her in the car seat.  It doesn't take her long to settle down, but the act of getting her buckled in can be pretty darn dramatic. 

 My sad, pathetic attempt of trying to get a nakey baby picture under our little tree.  (3 weeks old.)

Olivia is communicating with us more and more. "Da-da" was a favorite of hers, and in the past month she has finally started to babble "ma-ma" and "ba-ba." She also makes a funny sound back at you when you tell her "boo!" Olivia claps, she waves, and she nods when we say, "yes, yes, yes"! She understands who Thor is, and the minute we get home she squeals with delight at the sight of him. She also whips her head and body around to be able to see him wherever he is at in the house when we say, "Where's Thor?" He's a wonderful big brother to her.

Olivia is still only kind of sort of eating solids. Some meals are better than others. Overall, she just is not a very big eater, whether it is at the breast, bottle or spoon. I've slightly given up worrying about it so long as she is drinking enough milk throughout the school day, and nursing well for me at home.

Yesterday, I took a picture of Olivia during lunch and sent it to Dave. It was just a cute picture of Olivia being busy at play. Dave wrote back, "Nice picture. I seriously cannot wait till she starts talking." And believe it or not that was enough to make me cry! While her growing and becoming the most precious little girl is amazing, it also makes me teary-eyed. I know babies grow up, and I know there isn't anything I can do to slow down this process, but I am certainly working VERY hard to remember each little thing along the way.

 

 

Re-visiting our sleeping arrangements.

Sleeping with our precious baby has been one of the most rewarding parenting experiences, ever.  Especially since we are both working full-time, it has allowed us to be able to reconnect with our little snuggle each day after work.  In the early days, it really was a life-saver and I was able to get pretty decent nights of sleep, even waking 3, 4, or more times a night to breastfeed.  Although I would wake up, I wouldn't ever have to get up if Olivia was just an arms reach away, and many more times than not, Dave wouldn't wake up at all.   I also feel like I have been able to have such a smooth and successful breastfeeding relationship as a full-time working mom, because we co-sleep. 

So it has all been very nice for us, and happened out of trial and error, and realizing this was what worked best for our family. 
Well, last night for the first time ever, Olivia fell off of the bed in the middle of the night.  I still feel terrible about it, and I have no idea how it happened because usually she is pretty contained between the two of us, and pillows at the foot of the bed.  Thank goodness Olivia was not injured at all, and she just cried for a short time before nursing and then going back to sleep.  I was a nervous wreck though, and stayed up for a couple of hours after the fall, just to make sure she was okay, and was continuing to breath.

So now it's time to consider how to prevent this from happening again.  Although she has been mobile for many months now, she isn't particulary squirmy in the middle of the night.  It's usually quite the opposite, she will somehow link her little arms or legs around my arms or legs and stay latched and fastened pretty tightly.  I just don't want her to ever take a tumble from our bed in the middle of the night like that again. 

There are a couple of options for us.  We can take our bed off of the frame, and that would lower it closer to the ground, considerably.  Or we can attempt to make her crib, which is currently being used as a very beautiful and expensive laundry hamper in her room, into a co-sleeper to our bed.    I have seen this done here on this page, and I would love to try this first. 

Olivia is still nursing throughout the night, which I'm completely fine with, but I figured the co-sleeper crib thingy idea would be a great baby step sort of transition for when she is no longer nursing at night.   I'm anxious about this very little change as I usually am about most changes.  I'm just hoping it solves the rolling out of bed "problem", while continuing to allow us to have the benefits of our bed sharing relationship.  Wish me luck!

Cooking for Baby

Boy, oh boy, are we learning a lot as we go! My approach to feeding Olivia food has slowly changed overtime. Originally, I wanted to try the Baby Led weaning approach which is basically giving your baby table food to 100% feed themselves. Waiting till 6 months means you can skip the rice cereal and just start with foods. It also theorizes that if you allow babies to feed themself they will stop when they are full, versus possibly continuing to eat more if they were spoon-fed.


We started by offering Olivia avocados, banana, and sweet potato wedges. She loved playing with her food, but did very little eating, which was fine because she was just 6 months at the time. She was not sure about the texture or taste of most of the foods that we offered her. She usually made a face as though we were trying to poison her.

Slowly, she got better at feeding herself and figuring out that the food was meant to be eaten. That's when dinners started to get a little more stressful. Olivia still does not have any teeth so she would gum off way more than she could manage and gag; one of us was always on guard fearing she would choke.

So I decided to try some of the puree recipes from this book that my mother-in-law gave to us.

I have really enjoyed doing the puree food feedings.  I feel really good about making her food from fresh fruits and veggies, and dinners have become fun, again!

It's really easy, too. Wash and clean the fruit or vegetable. Then steam, broil or bake it, and throw it in the food processor. Let it cool and then you can serve if fresh or freeze in ice cube trays as pictured above!

In addition to being easy, it's also MUCH cheaper than the jarred variation. I was pricing some of the jarred food, and wow. Anywhere from 64 cents to upwards of a buck for one jar of food, which can be 2-4 ounces or so. One head of broccoli was 1.89 at HEB and it made about 16 ounces of puree. So making the food is definitely cost effective.


 

So far I have made broccoli, mango, bananas, butternut squash, cauliflower, and apple.  Surprisingly, Olivia loved broccoli.  She has yet to try the cauliflower, but I'm hoping she likes it, too.  Those are my two favorite vegetables, and Dave's least favorite. 

Oh, and Josie Wails is with us for the week while Annette and Reese go off to Santa Fe to celebrate their 38th Wedding Anniversary.  She is an awesome pup.