Alethea had her two-month well baby check up today.  Her current stats are: Height – 23.25 inches, Weight – 13 lbs 7 oz, Head Circumference – 41cm.  That puts her in the 90th percentile for height, 97th for weight and 95th for head circumference.

On the developmental front, she continues to “talk” more each day, adding new sounds and she grins and laughs if I make the same sound back to her.  Just in the past few days she has started rolling over deliberately.  Yesterday, she rolled over from her tummy to her back four times in a row.  When I put her back on her stomach the fifth time, she started fussing at me, so I figured the game was over at that point.

She also found her hands this month and will sometimes bring them up to her face just to stare at them.  A few times she has managed to get her hand around a toy and bring it up to her mouth to taste it, although the action seems to be mostly a reflex.

We’ve had a major breakthrough on the sleep front.  Alethea had been sleeping pretty well at night, but getting her down for naps during the day was nearly impossible and I was fairly certain that the only reason she was sleeping well at night was because she was exhausted after not sleeping at all during the day.  I tried everything to get her down for naps, swaddling, rocking, bouncing, singing, shushing, back patting, but none of it made her fall asleep and the longer we went into the day without a nap, the crankier she’d get.  Just late last week, I finally put two and two together and realized that since she gets over-stimulated so easily, perhaps all my “get the baby to sleep” efforts were actually keeping her awake.  Now at nap time I swaddle her up, give her the pacifier and put her on my bed with the lights down low and don’t talk to her or touch her.  She’ll look over from time to time just to make sure that I’m still there, but it seems as though when she’s had enough, even rocking or holding is too much for her to handle.  About 90 percent of the time she’ll just fall asleep like that with little or no fussing.  Now I’ve been testing it out in her crib and it seems with the swaddle/pacifier/low light combo, she’ll sometimes even go to sleep without my having to be there at all.  It’s like having a whole different baby.  She’s so much happier and so am I!  I’m just sorry it took me so long to figure it out, but it never occurred to me that I could have a baby who didn’t like being cuddled to sleep.  I’ve never heard of such a thing.

All in all, it’s been a challenging, but good, month.

In the continuing adventures of “Get the Baby to Sleep” I feel that I am beginning to understand cause and effect as it relates to Alethea and her sleep patterns.  These revelations began Wednesday afternoon when I took Alethea to Target.  To make a long story short, it took me longer to get out the door than I had anticipated and I was not as efficient in getting through Target as I meant to be, so we missed what should have been the beginning of nap time.  Alethea seemed to be taking it all in stride, enjoying looking at the colorful products as we walked the aisles and being the typical angel that she generally is in public.  However, as soon as we got to the car, she let out a giant wail and continued to fuss and grump the rest of the day, not sleeping for more than 30 minutes at any given point and didn’t finally give up until 11:00pm that night.  I did feel properly chastised for over stimulating her and getting to nap time late and resolved that in the future I should not attempt shopping trips without more careful planning.

Then Thursday evening, she started getting fussy around 8:00pm, but she was over-due for a bath, so I decided to go ahead and put her in the tub anyway since usually it helps her calm down.  She was the angel that she generally is in the bath tub, smiling and taking it all in stride.  However, as soon as Peter pulled her out of the tub, she let out a huge wail and continued to fuss and grump the rest of the night and into the morning, not giving up until 4:00am.  It was a exhausting night to say the least.

Now while I feel that the punishment Alethea dished out was probably not in proportion to the crime of keeping her up 1/2 an hour past bedtime, I have to say that the extreme nature of the punishment has certainly made me more vigilant since in getting her to bed at the first sign of tiredness.  We are doing much better now, nap time is easier, and she even slept for 10 hours last night with only one feeding.  I only wish I had realized earlier what was causing her extended napless crabby hours.  We could have gotten to this a lot sooner:

Prior to Alethea’s arrival Peter and I spent quite a bit of thought and energy in creating what I hoped would be a fun and memorable nursery for her.  (To see pictures of the nursery, click here.)  However, it seems that her favorite part of the room is the only thing that was in the room before we started, the ceiling fan.

Now I can’t see anything particularly special about it, but Alethea will stare at it for minutes on end, laughing and talking to it.

I suppose you are all thinking, “Of course she likes the ceiling fan, it moves and lights up.”  But the funny thing is, she only stares at it when it’s not on.

This it seems to me is a clear illustration of The Cardboard Box Principal.  That is, no matter how cool the toy (or room in this case), nine times out of ten, your kid will generally prefer the box it came in.  I guess I didn’t need to spend all that time painting after all.

Alethea has suddenly decided that she likes sleeping at night.  She slept 7 hours straight on Saturday and Sunday nights and last night she did 5 hours before she wanted to eat.  I certainly feel better, but what is more exciting is that Alethea is a much, much easier baby the past few days.  She’s smiling, talking and laughing more and when she’s awake, she actually goes for more than 10 minutes without fussing.  I only hope this sleeping during the night phase will last!

Here’s a picture of our happy baby girl (Peter thinks this could be a cuter version of the Uncle Sam “I Want You” poster):