First Bubble Bath

I always get so excited when Amelia gets to experience something new...

And then I am the one that is more excited than her when it happens.

Take this bath for instance. It looks like she is having a great time because of the bubbles..

Nope. She always has this much fun. She hardly even noticed the bubbles. 

It wasn't until I put the bubbles in my hand and she tried to grab them that she started playing with them... and it lasted about 30 seconds. 

We will keep trying though.

Cruisin' Millie

Amelia is crawling.. bless me.

She figured it out on Sunday. She still hasn't grasped the fact that she can follow me outside of whatever room we are in, and starts to cry when I leave. It is so cute to see her crawl after things that she wants and/or things I don't want her having!

On Monday she tore out all of her books from the bookshelf and has started to demolish the paper books.

We have a baby-proofing-weekend ahead of us!

I have never uploaded a video. I am not sure if this will work, but if it does not, it was proof of her crawling.

Cry It Out Method

 A lot of people have been asking what I did to make Amelia such a good sleeper, so I thought I would share what I did. I have no clue what I am doing, so take what I say as a personal miracle, and know that EVERY BABY is different!
It is so funny, because I know that she is a good sleeper, as in time wise, but she doesn't sleep through the night without eating... So it's not perfect, and I don't expect to ever be. I am grateful that we have found something that finally worked for us.

We tried the Cry It Out Method (CIOM) several times, but it just broke our hearts, and then Anthony would cave. It wasn't until she got her first cold and was wide awake until 8:00 AM that we decided we couldn't rock her to sleep anymore. She needed to learn she could do it herself! (Plus I started getting really bad back pains...)

I think the biggest part of the success was putting her on a schedule so she knew that when she was laid down in her crib, it was time to sleep, not play. I got some good advice from my friend, Emily, to start at nap time. It worked great. It only took 2  naps until she got the hang of it. We also play lullabies in her room during sleep time to "set the mood" and it also blocks out noise from what we are doing (cleaning, talking, watching a movie...)

She cried the first night for about 40 minutes. I would go in and check on her at 5 min, then 10 min, then every 15 min after that.  By the 3rd night, she was asleep after 5 minutes of crying. She would wake up after about 30 minutes, but I would go put her binky in and leave and let her cry. Now she goes down without cry AT ALL... For naps or bedtime. Can I tell you how AMAZING it is? I feel like the luckiest girl in the world now! I don't dread bedtime and it is finally a time I can relax! Phew! We both agree that we would have done CIOM earlier (maybe at 5 months) if we would have known she wouldn't hate us in the morning.

This is her schedule: I based it off Baby Wise's "Sleep, Eat, Play..."

9:45/10:30 (it changes): Wake up and drink bottle
11:00: Eat some fruit
11:15-12:15: Play time!
12:15-2:15: Nap time. She is pretty solid on 2 hours.
2:15: Bottle
2:30-3:15: Play time! (Or running errandds)
3:15: Veggies
3:30-4:30: Play some more!
4:30-5:30 (or 6): Nap time. This one varies from 1 to 2 hours.
6:00: Bottle
6:15-7:00 Play time
7:00- Veggies if she hungry.. generally not though.
8:00- Bath time with Dad!
8:45- Bottle
9:00 Bedtime!

12:30-- nursing

7:30-- Nursing..

This last week, she has only been eating one time a night around 2:00 AM and then sleeping until 10:30! Now we are just working on getting her sleep without eating during the night.

We just switched her to formula yesterday. She will only nurse in the middle of night, so I was pumping 4-5 times a day, and keeping my milk supply up without a nursing baby was difficult since my body wasn't getting the baby's supply and demand effect. I was having to eat constantly to get enough calories to get more milk and I was gaining weight. Then I would work out, and my milk would get cut by half almost instantly. So it was becoming extremely stressful for me. I LOVE nursing her at night, but the pumping all day is just not working out for me. It will also be nice that I won't have to haul a pump around Utah and put breast milk in everyone's fridge... It IS kind of awkward. So far she is liking formula, so I hope it works for us.

And what is a blog post without some pics... (I wouldn't leave you hanging!)

I'm getting "mommy muscles" from my 20 lb baby!

a little Throwback Thursday Saturday for you.