We sure had it easy with Katie, it turns out. As a baby, she never really spat up, she didn’t cry too much, and she did a decent job at sleeping at night. Even at 3 months, she only woke up once per night and we had her sleeping through the night just after her six month birthday. Amelia has been more of a challenge. She cries much more often (any time she’s not being entertained), she spits up all the time, and she’s been waking up 3-4 during the night most of her short life.
I’m very happy to say the tide has turned. Since she’s been eating solid food just before her 6 month birthday, her spit-up quotient has gone down from throwing up 20% of what she eats to about 1-2%. After my crazy experiment of having her sleep in the basement failed, I came up with a much more rational plan of having her sleep in my office on the main floor. This way we can barely hear her, yet she stays warm. After a couple nights of a she cries-I don’t sleep standoff, I’m happy to report she is either sleeping through the night or getting up just once. Over the past 5 nights, she’s slept through the night twice and she just got up once the other nights. I can’t tell you how much better I operate the next day when I get a full night’s sleep instead of getting up 2 or 3 times.
She has also now learned how to sit up. She enjoys sitting up so she can see all the action around her. Katie loves grabbing her hands and playing with her now, so they’ve been playing a lot of patty-cake together. As for her crying, that’s gotten better too.
All in all, it’s been great to see the new and improved Amelia. She’s always been such a sweet baby, now we can enjoy it even more.
Eric's space 