in a room of her own

Today is the 2nd morning after she slept in her own room in her new crib, and took all her naps in the new crib. I have to say, it's a nice thing for all of us.

It took me long enough to get the crib sheets and bumper after the crib and mattress were sitting there for a few weeks. I should be honest and say it was a conscious delay. I wasn't ready to move her, even if she was.

I was apprehensive because I get up so often during the night to feed her that I thought it would be a real pain to have to go to the other room. In fact, last week and the week before I remember thinking that we were losing progress and she was starting to get up MORE often. At least it felt like it.

As it turns out, she gets up less often in her own room. In fact, the 2nd time she ever slept 5.5 hours was the first night in the crib. She's gone from waking up 4-5 times a night to 3 times a night. Eating for 4-5 minutes to eating 8-11 minutes during the night.

I feel badly when she cries after 4-5 hours of sleep since she's STARVING! So I try my best to get up as quickly as possible as soon as I hear her. We haven't bought a baby monitor. I'm still not sure we need it, but we may. We open her door when we're going to sleep and leave our door open. If we closed them both, we couldn't hear her unless she was screaming as loud as she possibly could. And no one wants her to have to do that.

There's no sense in trying to force her to eat more before she falls asleep since she eats as much as she needs/wants and won't take more. In fact, she's taken more than she needed recently and only spit it up shortly after.

I'd like to say that this means she's napping better during the day, but it's about the same. More frequently during the morning and then 2-3 hours of being awake towards the end of the day, with a bit of being 'crazy'. It all seems to sort itself out one way or another.

Her naps are now a bit longer, however. I think this has a lot to do with the fact that her new room we have blackout shades AND blackout curtains. So unlike before when she was in our room, and she'd wake US up when morning light was peeking through the curtains. I now have to go in to her room, open the shades and curtain to wake HER up.

It's a nice change.

I'm still waiting for her to be able to travel on the subway and bus more, so we keep trying. And the car...

I've been putting her in the car seat during the day when I walk around the apartment or the room to do something else. Mostly it's to get her to sit in the car seat and not cry.

Tomorrow Carolina and I are going to my parents place in the afternoon, then Ismael is going to join us that evening for dinner. The following morning we are all going to the beach for a mini vacation.

As I've heard from friends of mine with babies, this is not going to be a relaxing vacation for me BUT it'll be interesting.

I'm more curious now than anxious to see how she is during a nearly 3 hour car ride. See how many times we need to stop. How amenable she is to napping in the car. And what she'll be like sleeping somewhere that isn't her room. We're taking her pack n play and she will be, again, sleeping next to our bed.

I'm packing the white noise machine, but since we'll be in a room facing the ocean we may not need it. There will probably be a lot more light in the room, so she may get up more often. I'm willing to put up with that :) It's not terribly unusual.

In fact, when she sleeps more than 3 hours, and I'm awake (or wake myself up), I both miss her and wonder if she's breathing.

I walked in to her room this morning about 5am when she cried out and saw she was on her belly. She wasn't resting, she was struggling. She has started to do this more often. She can roll over on her belly but can't quite roll back. I know where she's landed since the crib sheet is wet where she had her mouth.

Mostly she is squirming and picking her head up and legs. Her arms don't seem to realize they can help out too. I've been trying to help her with this by putting something on the end of a string and having her track it with her eyes. I keep expecting her hands to reach up but they don't. Her arms may start to move around but it's not coordinated by any means and her hands usually stay in a light fist. She might open them but not to reach out and touch.

Her legs, however, do respond. So I guess it's a matter of time for when her hands decide they want "in" on the action.