11 Weeks

I am a day late with Annie's weekly update, I'm SURE you all were concerned! We got back from the cabin yesterday evening and I didn't have the energy to write a post then :) Annie's first trip to the cabin will be featured in another post to prevent this one from getting even longer than it already will be! The reason for the nakey pic this week is that we also didn't have the energy to put Annie in a cute outfit after we got home, so decided it would be a diaper only week to show just HOW BIG she's getting! Annie is feeling a lot more sturdy now, and has much better head control. She still gets a bit floppy, but she's able to stand and sit when supported like a big girl :)

At the beginning of the week, I was feeling like I was getting worse at calming Annie down because Ben has been home and he usually was doing that, but then Ben made sure to point out each and every time that I calmed her down so I realized I was just being psychotic :) Annie has definitely been a spoiled little baby the past few weeks - lots of people to hold and play with her all the time - I'm thinking daycare will be a shock to her, but luckily she is young enough that she won't know what's going on and she should adjust pretty quickly. I am definitely starting to get really sad at the thought of leaving her for the whole day :( Don't get me wrong, I still definitely want to go back to work and am looking forward to it - honestly, it will feel like a total break! I've only been away from her for maybe 5 hours a few times, and by the time I got back after those I just wanted to smother Annie with kisses and hugs (which she.... really hates :) so a whole 8-9 hours should be interesting!

Annie in one of her rare moments of consenting to cuddles

Speaking of smothering with hugs and kisses, Annie really just isn't a huge fan of being held in a cuddly way unless I am nursing her, which is kind of sad, but at the same time, I like that she can entertain herself for long periods of time. Even though Annie takes what feels like FOREVER to nurse, and tends to fall asleep, whereas now she can down a bottle in 5-10 minutes, I try to view that time as our cuddle time together instead of as time taking away from something else... sometimes it is kind of tempting to pump and feed a bottle, because in total it would be less time, but I love holding her and getting to play with her hand and rub her head while she is feeding, and I know I will only enjoy that more when we're only doing it 3x per day (if she keeps with her current routine).

Annie is now DEFINITELY tracking things with her eyes, so that worry was again for nothing :) She is totally digging her playmat, and much to Ben's chagrin, loves it even more when we turn the super annoying music on :) She isn't intentionally hitting the toys yet, but when she accidentally does it, she will look kind of surprised and stare at whatever she hit for awhile, like "um, whoa. You just moved, and I THINK I felt something on a part of my body, but I'm not quite sure. Wow, that was wild!"

I try to do however much tummy time she will allow every time she is awake and content - her max is about 5 minutes before fussing sets in, and usually she can only make it that long if she has located one of her fists and is sucking on it, which she loves now. I can't wait until she figures out that she can ALWAYS do that, since it definitely seems to calm her down :) She's pretty close! She is getting WAY better at lifting her head up - she usually has a few good lifts right when she's put on her tummy, and then it's all downhill from there. Annie also has been clasping her hands together a lot, and looking at us with what I call her "concernicus" look, featured below :) The outtakes from the weekly photo shoots are usually more entertaining than the chosen photo!

Sleep this week has still been amazing - even at the cabin she did well! The night we left, we left after her last feeding of the day, and put her in her jammies - she conked out the whole 3 hour trip, and we quickly swaddled her up and put her in the pack n play when we got to the cabin at about 11, and she didn't cry until like 7 - awesome! The next night, she did wake up once to eat at 3:30am, which she hasn't done in almost a month, but the past 2 nights she's back to sleeping 8 or 9-6:30 or so. Even if she does start waking up again, we will always have enjoyed this glorious month of sleep that Annie has bestowed upon us :) Once again, we did NOTHING, and I mean NOTHING to cause Annie to sleep this way - I don't feed her more often than she requests during the day (she usually goes 2.5-3 hrs between feedings), we never had to let her "cry it out", nothing - she just started sleeping longer and longer stretches pretty much since birth, and over time those stretched into almost 10 hours. What MIGHT have helped is that we really aren't quick to respond to her unless she is actually crying - she might be awake and kind of fussing, but she'll put herself back to sleep. The "Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child" book I read did say that one of the reasons that breastfed babies have a tendency to not sleep as long of stretches is more because breastfeeding mothers might be more inclined to bedshare or co-sleep, and then respond to their child at the first awakening. It has nothing to do with hunger or how fast the food is digested, because there was a study of babies who were fed via IV, and they still woke up. So basically, Annie MIGHT sleep so well because I wasn't as likely to respond to her when she first woke up - makes me sound kind of bad, but oh well, it seems to have worked :) The past week we totally just gave in and let her nap in her swing, and even brought it up to the cabin - I don't feel like battling it for the last week we're all together! It has been much more relaxing for the whole family :)

On the way back from the cabin, Ben and I were discussing that this whole parenthood thing still feels a little surreal - it's hard to explain, but it's just weird that things that we talked about for so long are already almost over - my whole maternity leave, the trip to the cabin... I guess I thought I'd feel totally different and turn into a different person, but I haven't. This is just normal now - it has obviously changed our lives tremendously, but we still feel like "us" which is good. I had mentioned in a previous post that I feel consumed by baby things, which I still definitely do, but I think when I go back to work I'll feel even more like myself. It will definitely be interesting to try to fit a social life into the mix once we go back to work - we'll see how that goes!