Again, a belated update but as I’ve explained in my posts, I’ve been in the parenting trenches! Right now Cami is actually asleep in her crib…alone…and has been asleep for almost two hours! That is a serious occasion! First nap of that length on her own…ever! So I’m taking advantage of the downtime. After sorting and folding laundry as well as putting away clothes she has outgrown, I realized I have a FREE MOMENT! Why not blog? 🙂
Cami at 10 months is so much fun and also a handful. For some reason, I find the fact that she has entered the double digits to be very reassuring and I am allowing myself to start day dreaming about celebrating her first birthday and beyond!
She is growing and developing like crazy! This weekend she took her first steps! It’s only a few days away before she will be walking all over the place!
And this little spit fire is trouble! Talk about scanning the room for choking hazards and picking my battles about what she sticks in her mouth versus what I take away.
She has also learned to navigate the stairs (gasp!) so one of my agenda items today is to get safety gates!
Besides being everywhere and into everything, this little one is feisty and very needy for her Momma. She is usually fine unless she sees me and then it’s Momma or Bust. We believe the culprit are the sharp new top teeth breaking through her tender gums. Poor thing. Sometimes her neediness overwhelms me and other times I love cuddling her and knowing I can calm her down.
When she is not needy for me, she loves following her sister everywhere. Just this morning they played for an hour in Hailee’s home-made fort. Hailee can make Cami smile and giggle like no one else!
Cami has expanded her culinary tastes and prefers what is on our plates to her baby food. She has got the pincher grasp down so anything those two fingers can grab, they will! She really enjoys eating and it’s fun to give her new foods.
Other skills include the new ability to wave! Also I swear she is saying “Momma.” It sounds like, “MMMMomma.” But she says it when she wants me and I really try to reinforce her for it by immediately responding! Even if it’s 1am.
Speaking of ungodly hours…I am seeing many of those these days. Cami was the one who decided she was done with her bouncer and just shortly after turning 10 months she outright refused to sleep in it anymore.
So into the crib she went where she luxuriates in stretching and sleeping on her tummy! Gah! My personal work has been to be OK with that. After a few nights of trying to roll her onto her back to Cami’s adamant protests, I realized this is a battle I need to concede. You’d think with that concession, Cami would peacefully return to sleeping through the night. Oh NO. Cami is very convinced she wants to take up residence snuggled between Chad and I. This results in many nights feeling like we have a newborn.
Because Cami sleeps in our bedroom, we aren’t good at letting her “cry it out” as she will stand there and scream at us as if saying, “I can see you! You aren’t fooling me! I know you can hear me!” And then her cries turn to desperation and sadness and inside I feel my heart break for her so I go to comfort her.
Comforting her involves crawling into her crib to snuggle her back to sleep. About 63% of the time I accidentally fall asleep with her and wake up kinked and sore about an hour later. At that time I very carefully crawl out of her crib and hold my breath, praying she’ll stay asleep. 95% of the time, within 5 minutes (just enough time to enter a light doze with the promise of deeper sleep) Cami wakes up, immediately realizes I’m gone and the crying resumes.
If I’m too tired, I concede the war and bring her into bed with me. Now I know what you are thinking. TRUST ME, I think it each time I allow her into bed with me. Co-sleeping is the most dangerous way for babies to sleep and results in the most sleep-related infant deaths. But simultaneously I’m SO tired and I know if I just let her win, we will both be asleep within a few minutes!
However, because I’m crazy anxious, if Cami ends up in our bed (which is most nights) I don’t sleep well. I cradle her in my arms just so in a way that it is impossible for her to roll over without waking me up. This works quite well except that a couple hours later my arm is killing me. At which point I will move her to a spot between Chad and I and try to move the pillows and blankets as far away from her as possible. I will then also position myself just so where my arm is touching her torso so that if she rolls, I will wake up. This system works but results in my own serious sleep deprivation=emotional bordering on dysfunctional Anna.
And this system isn’t foolproof. With how sleep deprived I am, there are nights I have jolted awake or Chad has waken me and we’ve noticed that Cami’s face has been almost face down either in my pillow or on our soft pillow top bed.
So we really need to bite the bullet and be more consistent about her sleep training! I need to not interpret her cries as believing she feels rejected and allow her to figure out how to self-sooth and sleep alone! In her crib! All night! I also need to be OK with my own feelings of missing her on the nights she sleeps alone in her crib.
Maybe writing this and publishing this will hold me more accountable to these goals and starting tonight we’ll keep her in her crib! And maybe her nap this morning is indicative of her own ability and readiness for this transition as well!
Cami’s babyness is quickly melting away and while I’m excited for her to turn 1, for obvious reasons, I have really loved all the baby phases we have passed so far!