Sophie: Our Spirited Child

Sophie's colic has improved dramatically over the past couple of weeks. Thank God! Since she hasn't been screaming all the time, we've noticed Sophie's personality emerging. Sophie is a spirited child according to the Baby Whisperer book. The spirited child is described as loud and aggressive, not shy about letting us know her likes and dislikes, who often flails her arms & legs, and doesn't want to sleep for fear of missing something. That's Sophie. She's very emotive. She must have gotten that Nana (my mom). The other categories of personalities are textbook, angelic, and grumpy.

Sophie had a couple really good nights when she slept from about 9pm to 5am. She's been pretty good at sleeping at night, but during the day ... ugh. Sophie won't sleep more than an hour in her crib. Most of the time she'll sleep for less than 30 minutes at a time. But if I hold her she'll sleep for two hours in the morning and for two hours in the afternoon. Needless to say I get very little accomplished either way. Sophie is much happier and sleeps better at night when she's slept well during the day. Brian and I found that we don't have the stomach for the cry it out method after enduring months of colic. I know we need to teach Sophie to fall asleep on her own, but it is so hard to let her cry when there is something we can do to stop it. So Sophie is going to be one spoiled little girl until the colic becomes a distant memory.

The pictures above show Sophie when she is laughing and smiling, which is occurring much more often these days. She has a huge smile and a loud laugh. She still screams sometimes but she smiles and laughs more than she screams. Hopefully the screaming will eventually stop altogether.

8 weeks, 11 lbs. 10 oz.

So here is the video I promised. I started out with an example of Sophie fussing. This is how she spends much of her time, particularly between 6PM and 11PM, but also during the day as well, although it's not at the same time consistently. During the day it can vary from morning to afternoon. It keeps us both quite busy.

Sometimes the vacuum is the only thing that will calm her down, so the floors get regular cleaning. Sometimes that doesn't work, and we put some tennis balls in the dryer. Sometimes this noise will settle her.

I ended the video with some happier times. These are becoming more frequent.

I ended with her sneeze because it's just too cute (biased parents opinion)

Breakin' Through

This is a long overdue pic from Maw Maw and Grandpa Abram's visit.

Sorry for the delay in postings. The last few weeks have been the toughest...at least for me. Katie handles everything in stride. My inherent problem was that Sophie seemed to be at her fussiest during the times I was home....ie after work. She tends to binge around 6 to 8PM and we have been trying to have a bath in there, which we've solidified at 7:30PM. And pretty much from bath time till bed time, she's mine. Katie is usually in bed about 8PM. (Katie handles the feeding/diaper duties from about midnight on so she's doing more than her share) So the way things went this past week, that means from 8 until at least 10:30 I was trying to silence a screaming baby. Pretty much every night Katie would hear Sophie or me struggling and come to my rescue. It was particularly disheartening for me when I would try and give Sophie a bottle, have her repeatedly refuse it, then Katie would put her on the breast, she would take it, eat and fall asleep. It was astonishingly frustrating for me.

By last Friday I had enough. Katie insisted that Sophie was so much happier in the morning, so the plan was that I would spend a lot of time with Sophie on Saturday. Saturday morning came around and I was not in the mood, and to top it off, Sophie was unusually fussy Saturday. Thankfully that afternoon I got in a better mood, and Sophie did too. We had a good night Saturday with Sophie smiling and laughing and going to bed at a reasonable time. Sophie was particularly happy on Sunday. I hesitate to get my hopes up because that has always ensured reality to come crashing back shortly, but as I type this on Monday night, Sophie is asleep...granted she's been asleep and awoken already 3 times between 8PM and now (9:50PM) but she's not uncontrollably fussy. Usually I can tell hunger vs. tired, and when she needs stimulation.

So dare I say we're getting through this colic thing? Not yet, but I'm in a much better place physically and emotionally. Katie started to see the improvement during the day about a week ago, but it took longer for it to show at night.......although as I type this she's fussing a bit.....we'll see if she falls back asleep...nope. Ok, I'm back. She's fighting sleep, but not really fussy, just not wanting to go to sleep.

Anyway, we have some videos of happy Sophie. I want to do some editing before I upload, so I'll work on that the rest of this week and hopefully do another post this weekend.

Waking up in the crib

For those who don't already know, Sophie was diagnosed with colic. The past few weeks have been trying to say the least. I won't go into the details; I think Brian is planning another cathartic blog posting. Last night was a good night for Sophie as far as sleeping goes. She only woke me up twice. Today has been pretty smooth as well, which allowed me the rare opportunity to update the blog.

There have been brief moments when Sophie is awake and not screaming her head off. Generally when she wakes up during the day in her crib, Sophie entertains herself by looking around. That is unless she is really hungry. Then she lets me know she's awake by crying loudly. Sophie is starting to vocalize other than through cries, grunts, and screams. The cries, grunts, and screams predominate though. Enough for now. There's lots of stuff to do while Sophie is sleeping.

Just the Two of Us

After Sarah left and before my in-laws arrived, I had a few days with Sophie all by myself. At first I was relieved by how content Sophie was. Here she is, fascinated by the plaid pattern on the side of the pack and play. She stares at that pattern for at least 10 minutes. However, shortly afterward Sophie had a meltdown.


Fortunately I discovered that taking walks around the neighborhood settle her down. She screams when I put her in the stroller and continues until I get a few feet down the driveway then she's fast asleep.

Sophie also uses the swing but she has to be calm when I put her in it in order to enjoy the experience. Her calm moments had been few and far the days I was caring for her by myself. Sophie was really uncomfortable as a result of constipation and gas issues. The pediatrician suggested giving her dark karo syrup and using a rectal thermometer to get things going. Brian delegated that job to me. I don't know what torture is worse: the wet washcloth or the rectal thermometer. Anyway, boy did it do the trick!

The gas issues have been more difficult to manage. We've tried mylicon which did not really work, but gripe water has been moderately successful. On the positive front, Sophie learned the difference between day and night. It seems like she's developing a schedule at night where she eats around 9, 11:30, 2 and between 4 and 5. This schedule is tiring but not exhausting. Thankfully my mom and Sarah were around for the pre-schedule period. Thanks you guys- I couldn't have done it without you.

Here's an older picture of Sophie that I really like.

Checking in

This next picture is for Nana. Sophie specifically requested this shirt. I tried the Steelers outfits, but she just fussy. This settled her down. (Thanks Paw Paw and Stella for the excellent Bills gear)

Katie's sister Sarah arrived from Germany on Saturday, and her parents departed on Sunday. Nana and Pap Pap were super helpful and we really appreciate their support for the 2 weeks they were down.

Sorry for the delay between posts. We had a pretty good week after a rough start. We think Sophie got over stimulated on Easter. We went to some friends for about 3 hours for an afternoon dinner of leg of lamb, mashed potatoes, asparagus, brussel sprouts etc. and there were about 10 people there. She did fine at the gathering, but would not settle down that night.

That seemed to be the MO for the week. We'd have a good night, then a night that was a bit of a struggle, almost alternating. (as I write this we're coming off a difficult night)

A big Thank You to Sarah for coming all the way from Germany to help us out. And an extra big thank you to Mike for using his vacation time to watch our nephew Ben so Sarah could visit. We really appreciate it.

Picture Updates

Mom and baby are both tired
I'm not sure what to call this play mat thing other than the Thunderdome. Sophie was not too crazy about this thing.

Her first ride in her swing. I was not there, but she doesn't look too jazzed

This is Katie's favorite Sophie face. Usually occurs before a feeding

One of the few times I hold her and she doesn't fuss. I think this is primarily because I'm home when she's most fussy. From 7AM to 5PM she's a doll, so I hear. But 2 days this week the fussing has started the instant I walked in the door. I'm home today for Good Friday, and I can attest she has slept most of the morning. She should because I was up with her from 9:30PM to 1AM last night. Then she slept for an hour and fed again. Pretty much her MO for the night. We're trying to keep the house bright during the day and dark at night to fix her schedule, but it's going to take some time.