Elizabeth is awesome. I love her so much. My love is fierce and I have trouble physically letting go of her to put her in her crib for naps and at night. I love rocking or nursing her to sleep. I don't do it the majority of the time, but I do indulge myself a lot.
Elizabeth was sleeping through the night, but hit the four month sleep regression and has been waking up once a night, sometime between 2 and 6. I feed her (and recently have started changing her diaper so she won't leak out) and put her right back. It takes 18-20 minutes if I just feed her and normally right at 24 minutes if I have to change her diaper and reswaddle her too.
I haven't been giving her her Zantac for a few weeks. I only ever gave it to her during the day (because I knew she wasn't taking a full feeding due to reflux pain) and not at night because I felt it wasn't necessary. But I've weaned her off of it and she seems just fine. She apirs up pretty frequently but it's never a lot. She does have a knack for spitting up in my cleavage during the night though. Nothing that can't be fixed though. ; ) AHE always lets out a big burp (typically dry) and it's almost always followed by another burp that includes spitup. Even though it's never much, it always seems to get a little bit on twelve different things. Like seriously it'll get on my hair, shirt, undershirt, jeans, the burp cloth, Elizabeth's pj's, and her swaddle blanket. I've started burping again with a loosely thrown A&A blanket and have had better success keeping us clean. ; )
Elizabeth fills out the length of three month sleepers and gets her feet stuck in 6 month sleepers. So neither fit and I have her wear both. Same for 3 and 6 month onesies. Pants all seem big but she's great with leggings. Also, I need to just get her more fleece footie pjs (we only have one pair because Abigail was a California baby) because she hates clothes that have to be pulled over her head (and followed up with trying to feed her wet hands through small sleeves) and she sleeps all the time anyway and I don't have patience to put together outfits for a kid no one sees. She wears a size one diaper during the day and a size two a night (which I have to change if she wakes up to eat). She blows out of everything regardless. It's just the force with which it comes out, not the amount.
Her temperament is super chill. She's easy to forget about. Like really super easy. One of my greatest fears is that illicit her in danger by forgetting about her. My heart always goes out to those moms on the news that forget their kid in a parking lot shopping cart or whatever. Because that's totally me with Elizabeth. She's like caring for an empty car seat. I do forget her lots of times per day in a way I can't explain without writing a whole post about it. She's a good kid to have for a third because she's so forgiving and patient when I need to care for other kids before her. When we get home from somewhere and I have to wash my hands or go to the bathroom or help Brady go potty or get lunch for the kids or anything else like that, I just leave her in her car seat (and maybe forget about her) for 3-30 minutes until I have time to take her out and feed her or get her down for a nap.
She neeeeeeds her beauty sleep. Her happy awake time is for the first hour and a half. After that, it's a gamble. Maybe she'll be happy for three hours of being awake (happens if we're out) or maybe she'll just get really angry. If she's fussy, it's 95% likely that it's because she's been awake for over an hour and a half and needs to go to sleep. She is fine as long as she eats every four hours although it's easy for her to go longer and she won't fuss unless it's been closer to five (like today when I was gone at a baby shower and it was five or something hours between eating and she was just fine hanging out). She's started this loud cry that's kind of like a squeal. That's normally when I'm swaddling her and she's desperately tired. But on a typical day where she's feeding and sleeping on schedule, she's golden. So smiley and happy and I loooove making her laugh.
All of this is a very generous give or take, but... Our typical day at home is that she wakes up around 8:30 (give or take an hour) and I feed her and she hangs out and is awake for an hour and 20 minutes before I feed her again and put her down for a nap. Then she sleeps for around 3.5 hours. I feed her when she wakes up and she hangs out. After an hour and a half or so then I feed her and put her down again so she'll sleep for another several hours. When she wakes up, it's around 5:30 and I feed her and she hangs out with us while we do dinner and bedtime. Then I feed her and put her to bed around 7 or so. Then she sleeps for about 13 or 13.5 hours during the night, waking once to feed maybe around 4am. So, I use 4 hours as a guideline because I don't want her to go longer than that without eating, but I still feed her a lot because I nurse her when she wakes up and before she goes to sleep. She typically just takes the two naps during the day. I know that's not normal for most kids her age, but it's just the schedule that works best for Elizabeth and me and my boobs. Also, I love nursing. Also, swaddling her for naps would be annoying to do a million times a day. Also, I know I could put her down for nap without feeding her, but then she would wake sooner and I would need to cycle through (sleep, eat, play) more frequently and that's a pain with older kids to care for. I remember doing this schedule for a while with Abigail as a baby and I'm glad I'm doing it this time with Elizabeth sooner around. We'll see how things progress. My milk supply is doing great. I don't have the excess I did with Abigail and I don't feel like I need to play catch up like I did with Brady. It's just perfect. She always has enough and I'm almost never uncomfortable.
Other random stuff.... I'm horrible at putting Elizabeth down for tummy time. She seems developmentally behind physically. Stuff like neck strength, rolling over, legs stuff all seems behind what Abigail and Brady and typical kids are, but not everyone can be a over average unless you live in lake woebegone so.. I'm not worried about it. But really she won't put any weight on her legs. I'm only semi worried about it but I think it'll come. Mentally and socially, she's right on. And I place far greater importance on that.
Anything I'm forgetting? She's super oral (like Abigail was) and drools a ton. She's always sucking and biting on her fists. She's always congested after she wakes up but doesn't mind getting the snot sucked out of her with the blue bulb all the time. Also, Brady is still obsessed with her and she love him too. She loves both of her big siblings and I'm excited for her to play with them soon. Also, her cooing is the cutest thing every. Even cuter than her laughing. She just coos and talks and the face she makes while she does it is beyond words. Her laughing face looks like she can't breathe. ; )
Anyways, there's tons more I'm forgetting I'm sure, but this is better than nothing. She is perfection and we all love her sooooo much.
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