Dear SAHD

Dear SAHD,

I have am 8 month old who seems to only take naps while I am carrying her. My wife has the advantage of nursing but if I even think about putting her in a horizontal position when she is tired she howls like a child who is being beaten within an inch of her life. What do I do? Is there anyway to get her to lay down for a nap?

Exacerbated,
Deaf Dad

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Dear Deaf Dad,

I have a recently discovered solution that might work for you.

Love her and play with her so she will let her guard down. Feed her as much as possible even if you are squeezing two of her feedings closer together than you should or would like. Take her to the crib and lay her down. Walk away long enough to get another cup of coffee and take a few bites of your lunch. At this point she should be screaming bloody murder - no need for a baby monitor it will be loud enough.

Get a swaddle or blanket large enough to swaddle. Firmly break her concentration by firmly saying the child's name, pick her up and sooth her. Next you want to swaddle her. If she's anything like my child you have to do this straight-jacket tight. Sooth her more and lay her in the crib. Lightly pat her chest while slowly decreasing pressure. If you get no change in facial expression when you stop it is time to walk away and enjoy the solitude.

Hope this works for you.

Signed, SAHD

Sprawled

Sprawled
Originally uploaded by bmitd67

She started the night wrapped tight inside of the swaddle. As you can see the swaddle is still in one piece but Julia wiggled both arms out in an effort to grab her puppy.

Miss Personality

Even at 4 weeks old (and before), we know Julia has got some personality. This girl already seems like such a character! It might be gas (that's what you hear), but she already smiles, almost beams at you as if you are the best thing ever, and laughter will soon follow.

Every parent believes their baby is the most clever, awesome, beautiful, brilliant (and additional positive adjectives). I used to laugh and think how nauseating and now I am that parent! Julia completely fascinates me and I find myself compelled to stare at her. Actually she has an amazing ability to stare - I would not want to be in a contest with Julia as I would lose!

We feel extremely lucky as we call Julia our zen baby. She is usually calm and peaceful (as long as her meal ticket isn't taking too long). People said the baby would probably be calm outside the womb since she was calm while I pregnant, but you never know. No guarantees!

All babies might make these hand motions, but I've never heard anyone mention it (though I usually didn't listen to those kind of baby details from other parents):
rock star - she did this one the other day with her fingers; we chuckled
flipped off - that middle finger seems conveniently UP too often : )
fists - Julia keeps her "dukes" up, especially while nursing - don't mess with her food source!
prayer - she folds her hands over one another, adorable
yoga pose - Julia has put those 2 fingers together a few times

Tara forgot to mention the diva pose - one hand behind her head

Staring at the ceiling fans - we discovered that our friends' 5 month old son, Sam, does this often too and we wondered what is with it. Most of the rooms in our house have fans, but Julia & Sam stare at light fixtures too. We suspect it is the contrast of dark on light, but we didn't think babies could see that far at this age. Who knows, but she points her stare on the ceiling just as she does people.

Swaddle Houdini - that's one of our nicknames for Julia. It doesn't matter how well we think we've wrapped her in a blanket, Julia's hands/arms eventually escape the wrap. Extremely frustrating! Our friends loaned us one of Sam's "magic" swaddle (that's what I call it) which is an awesome invention. Amazingly Julia is able to wrangle her way out, but not as often as with the traditional blanket wrap.

Julia makes all kinds of movements & noises, grunts and sighs and those stretches! One of her funniest is the snort. Julia loves to suck and the breast can only be available so much. Once she discovered her fingers, life was good. Now Julia works on getting her thumb in mouth and the snorting began! Last night she successfully kept it in for a minute or so and the expression of bliss was priceless (as was the sound of silence as the crying ceased). Julia has long fingers and that thumb and people mention piano playing (thankfully we have one, needs tuning).

Julia is one determined girl & the most AWESOME baby ever!

No sleep for the weary

Yesterday Julia decided that crying is better than sleeping.

As far as we could tell there is nothing really wrong with her, her temp was at the low end of the acceptable range, her diaper had been relatively poopless. She was eating and burping but after 5pm she did more crying than not. It got worse around 9:30pm when Tara and I got a little short with each other. We tried every trick in the book (literally) to help get her to sleep. Finally at 1:30am I decided to try something one of my "new father" books suggests - let her cry it out, unattended for 10 minutes. I changed her, swaddled her as tight as I could manage, turned the lights off and took a shower. I heard her cry through the entire shower - my mind was racing wondering what was wrong. As I was toweling off at about the 8 minute mark, her crying slowed and by the time I was out she was was asleep. She slept the rest of the night ... thankfully!