Baby Blues

Eliza turned six weeks old yesterday. Unbelievable! I feel as if we are finally settled into some sort of pattern in our day. Eliza sleeps in her cradle, wakes 2-3 times at night to eat and goes right back to sleep, and is more alert during the day. She will sleep in the car seat and is a great passenger, but hates the bouncy seat and swing - so much so that I put the swing away completely and only put her in the bouncy seat for 20 minutes for my morning toilette. She usually naps in the playpen instead. In those first couple weeks, I never thought we would get there (I always feel this way at first - must be those hormones!). Part of me loves having the baby in bed with me, but the part that wakes up with a sore neck and back from falling asleep while nursing the baby is not so fond of it. But here we are, six weeks later, with a baby who predictably will spend the night in her cradle, and is "easy" enough overnight that Shawn at least gets a full night's sleep. (I am not bitter - this works in my favor for sleeping longer in the morning and letting him start the mad breakfast rush with the older children.)

Our bedtime is not as predictable, though. Right now, my sweet husband is doing his nightly duty of baby rocking since I have declared a nursing freeze for the next hour. Eliza will struggle to fall asleep for hours at night. Once she is down for the night, it's golden. But getting her there is frustrating. She fusses, needs constant position changes, wants to nurse, nurse, nurse until I want to scream, scream, scream. Shawn and I alternate between me nursing and him rocking. Some nights, we do this for a few hours. And, again, I know we will get there (since I have four older children currently asleep!), but the getting there part is so hard sometimes. This time with our tiny baby is so short and I don't want to wish it away. But it would be nice to get a little more sleep!