I absolutely love my baby girl, but this past month has been a difficult one. Over the past few months I have been a slacker. When Landen started his second job and Ellie went through a fussy spurt from teething I got her out of the habit of going to sleep on her own at night. I would just hold her until she fell asleep then I would lay her down. Well, I knew we needed to get back on track with her sleep schedule. So we started re-sleep training her. And when I say "we" I mean "I" since Landen is asleep in the evening. It is hard. There have been LOTS of tears, on her part and mine. And her cry, now that she is older, it much more intense. Miserable. I just had to keep telling myself it would be worth it. As I was getting her nights back on track she started to refuse to nap. She wouldn't even nap when I held her, she just fought it. Oh my gosh. We moved her bedtime up to about 5:30 p.m. (which sounds ridiculous, I know...and I swore I wouldn't be one of those parents, but you do what you have to do) since she wasn't sleeping much during the day. She needed it. Unfortunately it made her get up quite early in the mornings between 5:30 and 6:00 a.m. sometimes. Let's just say I was quite sleep deprived since I have problems going to bed early... It has taken a few weeks, but we're getting on a better schedule. Ellie still cries when I put her down for naps and at night most of the time, but it is getting better. Slowly but surely...or so I hope! The frustrating part is that is seems like all my friends I've talked to said their kids figured it out in 2-3 days, how to go to sleep on their own, but Ellie is going on WEEKS! I just feel bad letting her cry, hopefully we'll get to the point where she can go to bed on her own without crying. She is sleeping well at night for the most part. Naps are still a little crazy. She'll cry for 15-30 minutes and then only sleep for about 30 minutes. I'm thinking she is just a short napper...and she sleeps long at night so maybe that's all she needs. Oh! I just wish she could tell me what she needs ;) Anyway. The one good thing about her going to bed early is that I can put her to bed and then go to Young Womens, Book Club or the store without her since Landen is home sleeping too. It's worked out quite nicely. Update: Today she actually took 2 naps that were almost 1 1/2 hours each!!! Where did that come from?!!! I'll take it! Granted, the past 5 days she's been waking up around 5:00 am, but I don't get her out of her crib until 6:00 (I don't get sleep during that hour so I've been exhausted). The past few days I've decided to throw out what "the book" says about putting them down for a nap within 1-2 hours of wakefulness and decided to keep her up longer, more like 3 hours, to get her to the next feeding so I can feed her and then put her down when I KNOW she is tired...today it worked awesome! She cried less than 1 minute at the beginning of each nap and actually slept! Woo-hoo!!! I finally feel like we're making progress. I'm sure hoping we're on the right track... Other than her sleeping situation things are going well.
* Ellie is starting to stand on her own! She is standing a little longer each time. Until the last few days she would only do it when I let go of her or scooted away from her without her knowing it. On Sunday I looked over at one point and she was standing completely by herself amongst her toys! Now she does it all the time. Next step...walking...I'm not sure I'm quite ready for that...
* She likes to turn pages in her books now. It is cute to watch her just sit there and turn the pages. She also has started to touch the "touch and feel" parts of the books! There's still chewing, but I'm just glad she isn't chewing on them as much!
* Ellie is a tongue twister! It is awesome. And she totally gets it from her Daddy.
* She is just barely starting to wave a little and associate it with hi and bye.
* She is much more efficient at giving kisses now! Tho she likes to kinda lick a lot of the time...slobber kisses!
* Ellie has started to know her binky is still there when I hide it in my hand or behind my back and she looks for it.
* Today she started pulling the cloth over her face and off by herself to play peek-a-boo!
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