Life:
The coolest thing just happened! I noticed Harmony was getting a little groggy as she was eating around 9 am, and I know that usually we're on our way to "school" at that time and she has a little nap. So I put her in her crib with her soother for a nap and went back to bed myself (I'm feeling sick today, fever and what not...). I thought she was asleep, but after five minutes, I heard her talking to herself, so I got up to get ready to take her out of her crib. I really want her to associate crib time with sleep time, so if she's playing, I'd rather she play elsewhere. So I went to get my contacts in, and popped a bagel in the toaster cause hey, if she's going to stay up, I might as well have breakfast... Anyways, I went in to go get her and I found her sound asleep!!! I've been trying to work on that alot this week, and a couple nights this week I even got her to go to bed for the night like that. I'll put her in her crib groggy, but still awake, and sing her a song, give her her soother, tuck her in, give her a kiss, and then leave. I'm always so impressed and happy when it works- my little girl is just so smart!
Also in the "sleeping skills" department, I'm really trying to work on getting Harmony to bed earlier. It's gotten a lot better since when she was a newborn she'd got to bed at like, 11 or 11:30 (and that week of staying up 'til 2- yikes!) and now she goes down at 9:30 or 10, but I'd ideally like to have her settled into a routine of going down to sleep around 8 pm, and going until 7 am. I'm going to continue slowly moving her bedtime back, this week I'll try to have it consistantly at 9:30. Hopefully by the time she's six months old she'll be going to bed at least as early as 8:30. Then after I have her bedtime at 8 pm, I'll try cutting down the middle of the night feeding. Right now she goes 10 til 4 or 5, then back til 7 or 8, so I imagine if she goes to bed at 8, she'll probably wake up at 2 or 3 for a meal. I've noticed that for her middle of the night feedings, she really doesn't eat very much. This morning she was up at 1:30 and I gave her her soother and she went back until 3:30. Even at 3:30, she didn't eat very much at all, so maybe I should've tried just giving her a soother then too. I started reading a book about getting your baby to sleep through the night and they've said that a lot of time when babies reach around 6 months, they often keep middle of the night feedings for comfort or because of habit and not because they actually require food. I hope all goes well, and hopefully in the next journal entry I'll be writing about how Harmony settled off to sleep at 9:30 every night. :)
Harmony's Growth:
Harmony weighed 16 lbs 4 oz on Tuesday, which is down two ounces. However, Harmony is now wearing significantly lighter clothes because of the weather, and is also spending a lot more energy doing active things like sitting and rolling! She rolled for the first time on Wednesday, and has only rolled fully over once since then, but she's been rolling from side to side alot. As for her sitting skills, she's getting so good! She can now sit for up to a half hour before getting tired or falling over. Her hand eye co-ordination has also noticeably improved in the past week. She's making more of an effort to reach for those toys and figure out how to get them into her mouth. Harmony had peas for the first time yesterday (Friday) and she really seemed to like them. I have no idea why because wow, do those peas ever smell disgusting, but ok, if she likes 'em, I'm not complaining! Maybe they taste better than they smell (although I'm not going to test that theory!) :)