The Pevey's

Before I had any children, I thought having a baby would be easy especially if I was working only part-time. I imagined her being on a predictable schedule for feedings and naps (2hrs in the morning and 2-3hrs in the afternoon) and by 3-4 months she would be sleeping through the night (at least 8hrs). After all, this is what all the parenting books say this is true for a majority of babies. Brooke has her own schedule. I do have to say since about 6 months old she has been sleeping consistently 8-10 hrs straight at night. As far as feeding and naps go there is no real schedule. I can give an estimate of when she will be hungry and need a nap, but I can't stick to a schedule like she eats at 8, 10, 12, etc and naps at 10, 1, etc. I just feed her on demand and they do the same at daycare and I lay her down when she is acting tired. Some days she takes good naps (3 hrs total) and others not so good (maybe an hr). I keep track of my nursing using an application on my iphone. Some days I wonder if she eats enough and others I think I am not going to have enough milk to satisfy her. She definitely keeps me on my toes. One week I will think that she is starting to get into a nap routine, just to have the next week completely different. I have tried to stay pretty strict with her bedtime ritual (at least within a 30min window). We take a bath around 6:45pm and then nurse and then to bed. If I stick to this schedule she goes to sleep pretty fast. This past week she was waking up at 5am every morning to feed and usually if she woke at that hour she would go back to sleep for another hour until it was time to go to daycare, but not this week she was AWAKE and ready to play. Then she would fall asleep during the 15min ride to daycare and wake up just as I was taking her out of the car. Then she would only nap for 30-45min once during the time she was at daycare. Today has been a completely different day. She woke at 5am as the previous days and was ready to play, instead I just tried to hold and rock her to see if she would go back to sleep. 20min later she was still trying to get out of my arms to play on the floor. So, I let her and after 45 min of play she finally was sleepy again and I layed her down for another hour of sleep. Then at 7:30am she was awake for the day. We nursed and ate breakfast, then said good-bye to daddy as he is on call today. After clean-up we went for a jog around the neighborhood then played some in the nursery. Around 10 she went down for another nap for an hr. Then we got up and played and ate carrots. Her high chair arrived and I assembled it. Then around 1pm she was acting sleepy again. So she slept for another hour and woke up hungry, but fell asleep in my arms after feeding and during this feeding the lawn people showed up, so I just held her the entire next hour while she slept. This is unusual. She doesn't normally nap for 2 consecutive hours, but if you are keeping track this is a total of 4hrs for naps today (counting the early riser nap). Just now I finished feeding her and once again she fell asleep in my arms and has been asleep for an hour so far. At first, I thought I just wasn't cluing into her signals that she was tired, but now I know she is just on her own schedule and cannot be forced to a set schedule. Today is definitely a sleepy day. I guess maybe she is going through a growth spurt or just trying to catch up on her zzz's from the previous week.

She has had a couple of first's for this week. Yesterday, Ryan and I saw her sitting up in her crib after she woke up from a nap for the first time. She is also pulling up on her knees.

It is also a mystery to figure out the noises that bother her. Sam could bark while she is sleeping and she won't move a muscle. Then I will be reading her a story and making all the noises that go along with the book and when I "ROAR", it makes her upset. Today, while the lawn people were here, she slept through the lawn mowers and weed eating, but when they started the blowers, she woke up upset. I don't get it. She used to also be frightened by the crunching of wrapping paper, I have since broke her of that. She also doesn't like it when I vacuum unless I am holding her. It is hard to judge what she will be sensitive to because some things that I would think would bother her she doesn't bat an eye, but other things that I think shouldn't bother her do make her upset. It is funny but I guess it is all learning about our big new world.

I finally found a high chair that I liked and received it in the mail. I got it set up today. I like it because she is so active I needed something that would strap her in and keep her safe. We have been using the bumbo seat with a tray up until now and there is no securing her or the seat to the table. It worked for what I needed up until now when Brooke is getting bigger and more active. When I was registering for baby showers, I was so undecided about high chairs and just figured I would decide when the time came.

Enjoy our pics and video. :)