Screaming Mimi

Max is becoming pretty good at naming things, family members included. If you ask him who Molly is, sometimes he'll still reply, "It's a baby," but more often than not he'll call her by her name. His pronunciation is still very much that of a two year old, so "Molly" often comes out as "M'wee" or "Mimi." So, it appears that Max has given Molly her first official nickname (aside from all the silly things that Mom calls her) -- Mimi it is!

We're still struggling to improve Molly's sleep habits, especially since she's recently gone from waking up 1-2 times a night, to waking up 4-5 times a night (and not wanting to go back to sleep). I keep trying to blame her poor sleep habits on a variety of extenuating circumstances (teething, reflux, hunger, etc.), but I'm running out of excuses! Molly's newfound ability to pull herself up on things isn't helping matters any -- as soon as she wakes up at night, she pulls herself up in the crib and stands there clinging to the rail and hollering for her Mama. To illustrate what I wake up to several times a night, see the picture above (but imagine it's dark and your vision is all sleep blurred and the oh-so-cute baby is howling like a banshee). Since I have a really hard time letting babies cry it out for any length of time, we're working on a kindler, gentler baby boot camp, so we can get our Screaming Mimi to sleep through the night (and then promptly evict her from our room and send her off to pester Max).

The new rule is that Molly goes to bed at 6:30 p.m. after going through our normal dinner, bath, nursing, story, and song bedtime routine. If she wakes up before midnight (after leaving her to fuss a bit to make sure she really is up and isn't going back to sleep), she can nurse and go back to bed. But, between midnight and 5 a.m. I've instituted a complete moratorium on nursing. I can pick her up and hold her to calm her down or turn on her crib music, but snacking is not allowed. Once Molly is consistently sleeping between midnight and 5 a.m., we'll work on cutting out any other early evening feeds. I did something similar with Max and it worked well, so I thought it might do the trick for Molly.

Molly must not have gotten the memo, because the first night of Baby Boot Camp didn't go smoothly. Molly woke up at 9 p.m. to eat. She woke up again at 11:30 to eat. When she woke up at 2:30 a.m. and Mama didn't immediately offer comforting milk snacks, Molly let everyone know that she was NOT HAPPY. For an hour and a half Mama tried various soothing techniques (short of nursing). I cradled her like a little baby, I held her on my shoulder, I sat her on my lap. I patted her bottom and stroked her belly and rubbed her back. I put her in her crib and turned on her music. I picked her back up and repeated the whole process multiple times. Finally, at around 4 a.m. she was tired enough to pop her fingers in her mouth and fall asleep in her crib. At 6 a.m. she got up and nursed and I had Dad pour me some coffee.

On the second night I put Molly to bed at the normal time and gritted my teeth and steeled my nerves for another early morning battle. Around 10 p.m. Molly fussed a little, but went back to sleep on her own. When Dad and I went to bed just before midnight, Molly woke up and nursed. After I put Molly back to bed, I zonked right out, only to be awakened by my insistent little banshee, who was standing up in her bed, shaking the bars, and proclaiming her hunger. I groaned and rolled over to look at the clock and was delighted to discover that it was almost 5 a.m.! Molly ate and went back to sleep for an hour before getting up for the day. Since that was by far the best she's slept for a few weeks, I'm hoping that my plan might be working.

In other Molly news, my little girl is ten months old today! I can't believe that she'll celebrate her first birthday in two months. In the last few days, she's progressed from merely pulling herself up on things to creeping along the furniture. At the rate she's going, I'm guessing she'll be walking by her first birthday! Where did my little baby go???