Rock-a-Bye Baby

We have all had one of those days where we wake up and have no intentions of leaving the house or even getting out of bed. Today did not start out that way for us, however it has turned into that day. Sitting in bed here looking up yahoo articles while the husband is next to me playing Mario Party, the princess lays on my chest passed out full off that liquid gold and the prince is on the floor with his head stuck in a cone.  LAZY DAY!
(I wish I looked that good on a lazy day!! Heck, I wish I looked that good on any day!!)
---------------------------------------------->

Raquel happens to be the queen of lazy days, then her daddy comes in second. Her sleep patterns have gotten a lot better from when we first brought her home and that has been a huge help to mommy. I am not sure if you all knew what her schedule was like in the beginning. My little princess did not understand that night was night meaning we sleep. To her it was more like, night is night meaning we party! We basically had slumber parties every night and I felt we were always having that competition where we see who can stay up later. I always won. I had no other choice.

Our sleep schedule was like this. Midnight - 7am was wide awake, party time, lets eat every hour. 7am- about 3pm we would sleep. Then the time in between I was awake, and she did what she wanted. It was really hard on not just me but her as well because I tried very hard to get her to be awake during the day and to sleep at night and she had a whole other plan. Our plans were clashing and it was just exhausting.

One night, when Raquel was around 6 weeks, I was done. I couldn't do that schedule anymore. So I gave in and brought our little princess into bed with Brandon and I. Like magic, she fell asleep immediately. The next couple nights I tried to get her to sleep in her room like I usually would but after about 2-3 hours of trying I would give in and, again, she would end up in bed with us. I realized what I had been doing wrong, and I remembered being told that every baby is different and they have different needs. I had been trying too hard to do two things at one time. I was trying to get her to sleep through the night and to sleep by herself. I was exhausting myself, which was causing me to be an unpleasant person, and on top of it all I was exhausting my daughter. I was expecting way to much out of my little girl. So I decided that I would have her sleep with us for a couple weeks, therefor getting her used to sleeping through the night. Then when we have defeated that obstacle, I would work back on getting her to sleep in her room. For three weeks Raquel slept with us in our bed every single night.

At around nine weeks I started working with the crib again. First night I tried, she slept the entire night. From about 1am until around 9am. The full night of sleep felt amazing and was just what I needed. At this point I am still working at easing her back into her crib, where as some nights she will sleep in her crib, others she will stay with us. It just depends on how I think the night is going to go. Happy to say that Raquel has slept in her crib four nights in a row. That is a new record!
This makes me feel really good not just because she is sleeping in her room and sleeping through the night, but also because I feel like I know her. Which I know what you're saying, "you're her mom, you should know her". It isn't quite like that. Yes I know her "I'm hungry" cry as opposed to "I'm wet" or "I'm just mad" cry. This was a decision that I made, as a mom, to benefit her and I, and it worked. And even though that may not make sense, it makes perfect sense to me and it fills me with joy knowing that, in my mind, I made a choice, stuck with it, and it is now showing success.

@ Gramma Tasker.
Koda is doing a little better. He is getting better at walking around with his cone. Still wont go outside with it though and if we force him out he wont go potty. He will just stand there looking sad.
We did not get any chocolate covered strawberries :( We forgot that stand does not take cards so we didn't have cash for them but we did have kabobs and cold stone. YUM!
When we go out to Michigan we should make some home made chocolate covered strawberries and bananas! And you will have to teach me your ways of nanananana bread because, I just can't do it like you :p