the marvelous adventures of jules & john

I feel like Beatrice is always growing and doing new things but this week she was on fire. She got her first tooth… followed by the second a few days later. This happened with no pain, no slobber, no crying, and no fever.

Separation anxiety is starting to come into play. It’s not terrible (yet), but she really doesn’t appreciate it if one of her 3 favorite people leave the room without taking her along. 

She has started raising her arms up if she wants to be picked up. This is pretty darn cute – especially when she’s in her crib in the morning with a giant grin on her face. 

and then… are you ready for this?… 

Beatrice Vallee Reynolds has started sleeping through the night thanks to a few tricks that her ol’ dad had up his sleeve. It’s true. It took her (and us) 6 and a half months to figure it out, but by golly, she’s got it!

Last weekend my insanity level peaked and I was a high-strung mess of frazzled nerves. I needed Bebe to start sleeping through the night, and boy, I needed it BAD. She was only waking up once, but even that one feeding was getting to me.

John took charge of the situation. He laid down the law with that little girl at naptime during the day and is now getting real naps out of her – not those little catnaps she was giving us.

Along with the naps, he implemented a new (and vastly improved) bedtime routine. Actually, it’s not really “new and improved” considering we didn’t have a routine before, but whatever. Here’s how the magic happens:

1. Let her get good and fussy but don’t put her to sleep if it’s more than 30 minutes before her normal bedtime. Keep that girl going.
2. Feed her a bottle of formula (5 ounces) in her room with the lights off and the sound machine on. This doesn’t work with a bottle of breastmilk – we’ve tried. Breastmilk metabolizes faster than formula, which in turn makes her wake up faster. I wasn’t keen on giving her formula every night but I was getting a bit… errr… crazy… from lack of sleep, and I might have snapped if I had to wake up at 1am one more time. A bottle of formula a day is totally worth it. 
3. Once the bottle is finished and she’s asleep, lay her in bed and tuck the blanket tight around her so that her arms don’t start flailing. We’re not swaddling her and by morning the blanket could be anywhere, but that initial tuck is enough to keep her asleep.
4. If she starts crying at any time after this, wait 3 minutes before going to her. Yes, that says THREE. Since we implemented this process, there has only been one incident where she cried longer than 3 minutes before falling back asleep. Three minutes is nothing!

We’re feeling pretttty smug pleasant around here. I mean seriously - skipping teething pain AND sleeping through the night?? Our little peanut is one great kid.

Bebe

Slept

Through

The 

Night

For the first time ever. Someone pinch me. I better go find some wood to knock on so I don’t jinx this latest achievement. 

Our girl has her first tooth! It made its appearance with no crying, fever, or discomfort. Let’s hope we are as lucky with the next one!

We’ve all heard that a baby can sense your emotions and will be affected by them. I try to remember this when it’s 1am and Beatrice decides that it’s playtime, but sometimes you just can’t help feeling frustrated. 

Lately I’ve been seeing a common theme in the things I read about separation anxiety and food - if YOU act excited, THEY will act excited. If you grimace when you put green beans in their mouth, by golly they are going to grimace too.

I’ve been testing this theory and think it’s spot-on. 

1. Toys: If Bebe steals my phone or is chomping on a piece of papercut inducing cardboard and I just take it away, she will flip. If I start playing with one of her toys and act really excited about it, she wants it. Oh man, she want’s it BAD. The phone or cardboard is tossed aside to make room for the new object of her affection.
2. Food: Feeding B solids makes me kind of nervous because I’m afraid that she’s going to end up throwing up all over the place (this hasn’t happened, but she sure does gag). When I act excited and eat some of the food with her, we have a far higher success rate (albeit still not good, but whatever).
3. Babysitter: Yesterday Beatrice was left with a new sitter. When I got her out of her carseat she cried, but that was probably because it was so early in the morning. I sat her down, got her acclimated, and as I left I gave her big smiles and big waves, resulting in big smiles right back. Really, I was stressed out and wanted to snuggle her to death and perhaps cry a little bit, but that would have only worried her, and set a bad tone for the day.

Bebe watches my every move and mimics my actions. I’m more aware every day of how she looks up to me and how I need to set a good example for her. I feel like this is a huge responsibility - I certainly don’t want her first sentence to be something that she picked up from driving in the car with me on the interstate…

We went to the doctor this week for Bebe’s 6-month checkup. Here’s her stats:

Height: 25 inches, 20th percentile. shrimp.

Weight: 14 pounds, 11 ounces, 20th percentile. skinny shrimp.

Development: Fantastic. She’s doing what she should be and is a most excellent sitter.

Next on the Horizon: crawling! We’re supposed to start baby-proofing the house to get ready for her upcoming mobility. Yikes.

Shots: The poor kid got 3 shots since we opted to give her the flu shot. I would like to take this point to further guilt John about this since Bebe lives in a bubble and probably would be fine without the shot EXCEPT her pops still hasn’t received a flu shot and works around kids day and night. *shakes head* Anyway, B was pretty sad about this but calmed down once we did a little song and dance number in the elevator. At around 7 pm though, she took a turn and started sleeping very lightly and crying out in her sleep. The next day she wouldn’t move her little leg and felt feverish. She’s better now but on days like that, I wish I would’ve become a scientist and developed an oral form of these vaccines, which could be taken in more frequent but SMALLER doses to lessen the reaction. 

Anyway,

Sleep: Bebe is sleeping much better. She nurses to sleep around 8:00 and I hold her for awhile and then put her in her crib. She wakes up around 1:00am to eat, and then again at 5:00am. She’s up for good at around 8:00am. The 5:30 wakeup acts like an alarm for me and I just stay up after that. The 1am kind of gets to me though. I find that it is VITAL that I get to sleep right after I lay her in her crib. I have to stop watching Downton Abbey and The Bachelor because they last until 10, which is much too late for me to handle. I feel like my life is a rush of work at work and then work at home until bedtime, but 2 hours of my guilty pleasure (The Bachelor), is not worth the exhaustion I’ll feel the next day.

Food: Beatrice is still nursing around the clock, but we’ve tried to introduce solids to her. When I feed them to her she looks at me like I’m crazy, gags, and even BLOWS IT BACK AT ME. Of course, she does none of this when the nanny feeds her, and actually seems to enjoy it. Rascal. 

Teeth: ONE ON THE WAY! You can’t see it yet but you can definitely feel it! She doesn’t seem bothered by this at all.

Loves: Bebe loves sitting and gets pretty aggravated when we lay her down. This is definitely the easiest age because she’s content to play by herself as long as one of us is hanging around within her sight. She always always always pulls out the sun shade on her chair when she’s sitting in it, which is hilarious to me. What’s the matter Bebe? Afraid you’re going to get a sunburn through the window? She also loves to talk and you can have a fake conversation with her. She loves her bath and it’s become a bit wild in the tub lately. She wants to play with whatever we’re playing with (usually a phone). She loves bouncing and if you stand her upright she will most definitely bop up and down. She also likes making noises while I pat her mouth or move my finger up and down between her lips, and will actually seek out my hand and pull it to her mouth if she wants to play this game. She likes to chew on paper and cardboard, but gets paper cuts on her tongue

Dislikes: Food when I feed it to her. Errands that require too many ins and outs of the car. Oh yes, and she hates it when I decide that her outfit isn’t cute enough and try to change it. Changing her clothes once is plenty, any more than that is completely unnecessary. Ohhhh Bebe…

Bebe and Wes are now Tuesday playmates. Looks like they had fun eh?

Six months already?? Beatrice!

You laugh, you jump, you even sit all by yourself! You are a beautiful girl with lots of spunk and personality. You seem to be very intelligent with the way you explore your surroundings and concentrate on the things we are doing and the objects you are holding. You love dogs, electronics, and paper, and received paper cuts on your tongue when I let you chew on a postcard. Sorry about that. I often think about our future children and how there is no way that they’ll live up to the bar you’ve set for them! Seriously Beatrice, you’re the best ever.

All of your recent developments look funny coming from such a shrimpy little thing - you’re still comfortably sporting 0-3 month clothes, but have the actions of a much larger child. When your short little legs start walking, it’s REALLY going to throw me for a loop!

Side Note: For all of you who didn’t get to see Beatrice over Christmas, this is the face she’s started making all of the time. It kills me: