Cutie Patootie

I just love this picture of Keelyn! Isn't she the cutest in her stylish hat?? She is really turning into such a good baby. I remember really enjoying it when Mackenzie reached around 4 months, and I realized this week that we are almost there for Keelyn :) Something about that age seems to be such a good age where they are interacting more, more content, not feeding quite so constantly, just all around good age!

I do, however, wish she would sleep through the night on a consistent basis. By this point for Mackenzie, it was a done deal. She slept good from about 2 months on...... I've just decided everyone was right that we were lucky with Mackenzie & I've decided that Keelyn is a light sleeper. She can make it a whole 7-8 hours, but it's just as likely (or more likely) that she won't make it that far. If it's been 3/4 hours or less since her last feeding and she's crying, I try not to go get her b/c that just means I'll be feeding her back to sleep. So I give her some time, maybe 5-10 minutes, to cry and often she'll go back to sleep. If it's more like 5/6 hours since her last feeding, she will NOT go back to sleep. And being a little peanut, I go feed her because she probably could use the extra calories! The whole not taking a paci is a bummer b/c I could sometimes get away with that if Mackenzie did wake up in the middle of the night & just run in, put the paci in and go back to bed......

We're trying a new bedtime approach that I'd heard of folks doing, but never had to do with Mackenzie. And that is to do a midnight feeding. I wanted to move up her last feeding, but she wasn't sleeping longer so it was hard to move it too far up. (With Mackenzie, as I slowly moved it closer & closer to 8pm she just would sleep longer and wake the same time in the morning....) So, she's doing her last feeding around 8:30-9 and going to bed at that time. Then, I wake her to feed around 11-11:30 when I'm going to bed & she doesn't even really wake up. I top her off and head to bed myself to extend my sleeping hours! I really like this since it didn't seem she's ready to sleep through the night but I couldn't handle her after 9pm - I needed more "me" time :)