Heidi Update

Amazingly enough, I have all three kids down for a nap (Benjamin is playing in his room, but close enough).  So I thought I'd use this lovely alone time to give a few mini-blog updates on Heidi.  Yesterday marked her 5 weeks of life.  Sometimes I can't believe it has already been a month, other times I feel like she's been here forever.  Here are some things that are going on with her...(forgive me for being wordy)


Reflux Redux

Things with Heidi seemed to be moving along smoothly.  Sure, she was a bit fussy.  In fact, if she wasn't sleeping or eating, she often looked like this

But she seemed to be sleeping well at night and eating fine, so we just figured she didn't much like being awake.  I thought she might have some gas issues, so I cut down on my milk, tried some fancy gripe water and just dealt with it.  Actually, compared to the craziness with the other two, she was the least stressful.  But mid last week things took a turn.  The first warning came when she started throwing up across the room.  Benjamin spit up quite a large volume, but Heidi put him to shame.  I'm talking 4 feet distance with several heaves.  Pretty disconcerting with such a little one.  Then came the crying during nursing.  We'd seen all this before with Lacey.  So we took her to the doctor to confirm she has acid reflux.  Oh joy.  We were hoping not to have to deal with this again, but alas.  She's now on medicine.  The projectile vomiting has stopped as well as the difficult feedings, but she is still proving to be a bit of a fussy pants.  No one's perfect I guess.


Sleeping Like a Baby

I'm not sure how this phrase started.  It doesn't make much sense since it's supposed to mean sleeping well and everyone knows no baby sleeps well...that is, no baby except for mine.  Heidi has more than made up for her fussiness by sleeping extremely well.  Since she was born, I started out her night time routine around 11pm.  That way I could capitalize on her long block of sleep.  Towards the end of the first week she would sleep until 3 or 3:30am.  Sometimes she would even sleep as late as 5:30ish.  Much better than I expected.  She gradually started wanting to be put down earlier, and I was able to smoothly move her bedtime routine up a little at a time with her still sleeping til at least 3:30.  This last week she was going to bed around 8:30pm and not waking til 4am.  I was a little worried last night because she acted tired at 7:30.  I figured I'd have to wake a little earlier, so Brian and I tried to get to bed earlier to make it easier on me.  This was not necessary.  Much to my surprise, Heidi did not wake up until 7am.  At 5 weeks old, I am amazed at how well she sleeps.  I'm not expecting an awesome night like that again tonight, but you never know.  At least it's a sign that she could be sleeping through the night in the next few weeks.  Woo Hoo!  Then comes the hurdle of moving her into the bedroom with Lacey.  That's gonna be interesting.