Gretta's First Tooth!!!

she got her fist tooth break through today!!! She's almost 9 1/2 months! It's (HER) bottom left tooth!

Gretta Winter 2013/14

Blowing bubbles
Longer naps
Rolled over three times (and both ways!) from her belly to her back on 12/1.
Sucking on fingers
Sticking out tip of her tongue
Eyes smiling behind her Binky
Lifting her head up and doing 'crunches'
Toe tourniquet :( ER on Christmas
Nickname 'beautiful angel love precious pretty princess'!
She's been actually LOOKING at and noticing toys and people's faces, and
starting to reach for toys and grasp them
Diaper rash AGAIN. She gets it fairly bad.
Her skin didn't like something about AZ (water, climate?)
She sits up really pretty good on her own (around 5 months), but we always put
support behind her bc she still falls over easily
Seems to have fallen into SOMEWHAT of a consistent nap schedule of a long
morning nap 1.5-3 hrs then two short (30-40 min) naps in the afternoon. We
USUALLY get her to bed between 7 and 8. This still varies quite a bit sometimes
though.

Gretta Moves to Nursery!

We put Greta in the nursery in her crib with Georgie at night for the first time last night. They made it! Georgie of course was horsing around and hit his top lip on his upper tooth and blood a little bit and we had to bring him into the family room while he cried, but that actually gave Gretta A chance to fall asleep. Then he was pretty quiet after that and went to sleep. It's only been one night, but my hopes are high. And, Greta woke at her normal 6:30 AM times that she had been waking, but then she actually went back to sleep for another hour, and it was probably because it is darker in there than it is in the front room where she's been sleeping in the pack and play. That has worked well for us for a couple months, but it was starting to be really bright in that room because of the long days, and since she had been sleeping for the night for two weeks minus a couple nights, we decided it was probably time to move her into the nursery. Hopefully it will continue to go okay, and their bedtimes will lineup. Bedtime for both of them is generally around 8 o'clock, that is very general though. And it only works if credit does three naps still. So that is what works for our family, though it is getting a lot more difficult because of how late it is staying so late. Hopefully will make it through the summer! And on top of that, Georgie has been taking a long time to fall asleep at nights, so we are hoping that he can at least stay quiet even though he's not falling asleep (he's been having issues with being afraid of the dark and occasionally noises). But we are hoping that since Gretta is in the room with him now, that might ease some of his fears.

Gretta Sleeps Through Night!

She randomly slept through the night last night for the first time!!! (Hadn't even come close!). I did everything exactly the same tonight, in her routine, so we'll see if she sleeps through the night or not again. Probably not. But we were really excited anyway. Right now I come in the morning because she doesn't completely empty me, and sometimes I will come about an hour after a feeding during the day too. By the night time, I have enough milk to make at least one bottle 2.5 ounces, and we offer that to her after she nurses before bedtime. Sometimes she'll take some of it, and sometimes she won't. Also, she has really been starting to eat quite a bit lately. When we first gave her solids, she wasn't really quite sure about them, and I think she is pretty sensitive to texture. She likes them pretty puréed up. She seems to like the saltier foods maybe A little better. I usually try to nurse her and then feed her right after that, and give her some sips of water out of her camelback throughout eating. She really likes her Camelback and water. My milk hasn't been super awesome, but it has been enough for her, so I'm okay with that. I thought about cleaning her since she's almost 9 months old, and there would be a lot of advantages to that, including being able to eat dairy again. But when I read up on it, I decided to go ahead and nursed her to a year. We still have not had to supplement with any formula, and I've been able to build up a decent stash of pumped milk that is non-dairy. We've done cry it out with her a fair bit, and it works really pretty good for her. The night before last we actually let her cry for about an hour and a half when she woke up for her second feeding, which I knew that she wasn't hungry for. Yes, she sometimes still does two night feedings. Very frustrating – she has pretty much done one to two feedings a night since birth, going through different phases where she would do two feedings for a while and then she would just do one feeding for a while, for whatever reason she has been inconsistent and hasn't consistently prompt that second feeding. I know a lot of it was because of her rash and then my clogged duct, thus less milk, and so she probably really did need to eat because she was hungry. But now that she is eating quite a bit of solids, and my milk seems to be fairly decent, I am feeling more comfortable with trying to get her to sleep tonight through the cry it out method. I've been getting free baby food at some of my Mops meetings, at the giveaway table, and our Cuisinart has been broken, so I really haven't made much homemade food. So I've basically been giving her whatever I get for free, which lately has been a lot of fruits. I did buy her some baby food that has beef, turkey, or chicken in it as well as other vegetables or wheat cereal mixed in with it, and we never really gave Georgie meet from what I can remember. So she is probably getting better protein than Georgie did, and she seems to like it.

Georgie and Dark

Is now afraid of the dark and has a harder time falling asleep at night (bc of it?). We leave his door cracked.

Georgie Stuff

Says "play airy airy airy" for play area - he's a good talker so not sure why, but SOOOO cute!!! Gritting his teeth to show love and affection (for me and Gretta particularly)

Gretta Ponytail

I put a ponytail in her top hair (Mohawk) a few days ago, and it looks SO cute. She gets lots of compliments and smiles! :)