Life with a Baby: Week 16

In an effort to maintain some of our sanity during what appears to be the 4 month sleep regression we’ve tried a couple new things this week. I’m happy to report that it’s been helping quite a bit! The first thing is putting Adriana down to bed earlier. One of the big lessons I’ve learned is to put her down for naps and bedtime when she’s sleepy but not overtired. When she’s overtired she fights sleep like crazy and will cry much more. If we catch her at the right moment when she’s sleepy but still content, she often soothes herself to sleep on her own. The difference is like night and day! It took me a while to catch onto this, but isn’t that what being a new parent is all about? Trial and error. The other thing we are doing is implementing a consistent bedtime routine. We’ve done it in the past, but we were never overly consistent with it. Our bedtime routine (and this happens for naps too) consists of feeding her, reading 1-2 short books, and singing a couple lullabies. If it’s a bath night we give her a bath to kick everything off. We also keep the room dim and the room temperature cozy (we now turn on a space heater since the room gets terribly cold when the door is closed). Judging on how sleepy I feel (and how much I yawn!) during our bedtime routine, I’d say it works like a charm! hah. I’m also still putting her down for naps in the bassinet (in the bedroom), as opposed to letting her sleep in the swing like I did in the early weeks. I noticed a big change in her in the past couple weeks where she now has a hard time sleeping in rooms with distractions, so I knew this was a good time to make the shift to napping in a dark, quiet room. She has responded really well to this and seems much more rested during the day.

All of these changes seem to have helped and it feels like we are getting into a better routine, even if she is still waking up more during the night right now. I’m confident this frequent waking phase will pass and we’ll be back into a good groove again in the future!

The biggest milestone this week is that she rolled over again. She hadn’t rolled over since that time around 10/11 weeks so it was exciting to see her do it again after several weeks. She is also going through a really chatty phase lately and loves hearing herself scream, grunt, and squeal all day long. I heard from a couple of you in last week’s post that your 4 month old did the same thing for a few weeks, so I’m glad we’re not alone! Adriana also seems to command attention lately. She loves to scream with joy or gasp loudly if one of us walks near her. It’s so cute. She knows how to work that charm already!

Yesterday also marked 1 year ago since I found out I was pregnant with her. I wrote this on Instagram yesterday:

“One year ago today I found out I was pregnant. I wish I could go back in time and tell my pregnant self not to be so scared of the unknown…just take each day as it comes, try your best, and at the end of the day if you have love you have everything. I don’t know how I ever lived without her.”

Enjoys: Listening to daddy play the guitar, being sung to, reading books, soft books with crinkly textures, diaper changes (except the middle of the night changes – she recently started to wail during them), making loud noises, smiling at mommy and daddy, practicing standing up and doing the “invisible hula hoop” move, squeezing my boob while feeding, grabbing her toes and hands, laughing and being tickled under her chin.

Blog post of the week: My friend Joanna’s post on What It’s Like Being Pregnant With Twins. Very interesting read!

Exercise: As I mentioned in my last post, I fell off the exercise bandwagon for a couple weeks due to feeling run down. I started to feel a bit more rested late last week, so I’ve been incorporating some exercise back into my day. It definitely makes me feel better – I need to remember this! I’ve been doing the Popsugar 10-Minute Pilates Butt Workout and some reconditioning ab exercises from Moms Into Fitness. Not a whole lot, but even 20 minutes makes a difference right now. My ab muscles still feel pretty weak since my pregnancy (especially where I had some separation near my belly button) so my goal this month is to work on my abs a bit each day and try to gradually build up my core exercises again. I want to get that strong core back!!

All over this: Ikea kitchenette hack – OMG.

Well that’s all for this week. Keep your eyes peeled for a round-up of some of my favourite baby products!