Lucky | Sleep | Schedule

I have realized I'm lucky now in the sleep department. Whereas a few months ago, Mia still woke up once or twice a night to eat, she can now, five out of seven nights a week, sleep for 10-12 hrs straight. She may go down to sleep between 8 and 9pm and not wake up until 7 or 8am. I know every baby is different, but it does make a huge difference when you are able to sleep more than 4-5 hrs in a row. A BIG difference.
Now, when she is teething, has been sick or just off from traveling, things change, obviously, and it can take a while to get her back on track. Yet our schedule (now that we actually have a schedule) looks something like this:

7:45am Wakeup, suck down a bottle
play
8:30am Eat ≈2-3oz baby food (oatmeal & fruit puree)
play
9-10am Go down for nap, by sucking down another bottle
sleep :)
11:30am/12pm Wakeup, snack on a bottle
Eat ≈2-3oz more baby food (veggie / fruit, sometimes mixed with oatmeal OR rice)
play, maybe run an errand with ME
2-3pm Go down for afternoon nap, another bottle down
sleep :D
3:30-4:30pm Wakeup, more milk or food snacks (you get the picture)
Hang out in high-chair while dinner food gets made, read books, throw toy after toy on the ground
6pm Watch mom & dad eat dinner, make noises, clap, wave, beg for attention
play
7:30pm Bathtime!! (Mia gets all goofy-excited when she hears the bathwater)
8pm Bedtime
lots of sleep 8-)

Being on a schedule is great. Before I had a baby, or even when Mia was 6 months and under, I wasn't too sure about a schedule. I'm not a time-oriented person myself (family members are scratching their heads right now, asking, "Really??") and I just didn't want to be "tied down" to a schedule. You've probably seen those parents that freak out if it's past 2pm and their child isn't home for a nap, and conversely, those parents who let their child stay up and out much later than you'd think is normal, and the child is fussy or has trouble falling or staying asleep later (and there are some who do not fit on this spectrum at all!). I have found that for us, it is good to be somewhere in the middle. "Flexible scheduling" is what it is called. It may have taken us 7+ months to get there, but hey, I'm just glad we're here.

Lord Willing, if we have another baby, getting on a good schedule earlier on is something I will aim for. That, and seeing if they'll take a pacifier on occasion. Right now, Mia thinks it's a chew toy. And of course, there are other things I'd like to do differently, but those are all for another post.
Instead, I'll leave you with the ever-so-grainy video of Mia crawling. You can thank my cell phone (it was the most readily available video-recording device.)

Mia Crawls from Megan Ciampa on Vimeo.

PS: Why I sound like a 9-year old while recording Mia is beyond me. I do hope I really don't sound like that on a regular basis in real life, and if I do, please break it to me gently.

Roly Poly

So, I read somewhere on the internet -- what a great source of accurate information, by the way ;) -- that when babies start rolling around all over their cribs and up on their hands and knees, it means they might be ready for crawling. If that's the case, then I'd expect some crawling action from Mia any day now.

She about scared the willies out of me the other night when she awoke around, who knows, 3 or 4 am?, and I went into her room and she was propped up by her arms just looking (and crying) at me. I'm not used to be eyed like that when I enter her room; it used to just be a squirmy crying baby laying in her crib.

In fact, she just woke up from a nap (a bit early, I might add!!) and is just playing quietly in her room, and I can see on her video monitor some backwards scooting action. What's funny is that if she can't get to where she wants to go, she just rolls back and forth, from tummy to back and vice versa, until she gets to whatever corner of the crib she feels like hanging in for a bit.

Good news in this arena...I have discovered that she will not necessarily scream bloody murder if she just so happens to roll onto her stomach. She has done that occasionally over the last couple of weeks and she might whine a bit but she seems to find a way to go back to sleep *most of the time*. We are still working on regulating sleep patterns, but I'm finding that teething, these amazing developmental milestones, sickness, and traveling are throwing off our games a little bit.

Every now and then I think, whatever, I'll just get over it (the whole sleep deprivation thing), but then one day I'll have a very angry moment where I'm really cranky and sleepy...and somehow, we just keep moving along. It never seems to last that long anymore.

Well, she threw a blanket on her face and hasn't figured out how to get it off herself apparently, so to the rescue I go.

*Sigh* My time is not my own anymore... :-S