Every week seems to be marked with new successes and challenges! I am thrilled to report that this week we conquered the bottle! I thought the process would take much longer but maybe having three nights out (some work, some fun) the week Emma decided to refuse the bottle actually was a good idea? She got lots of practice with her various caretakers! We have given her one every day since last Monday, each time with less and less refusal. Last night Graham gave her one with zero crying. Hooray! We are warming it at least to room temp now (I gave up my dream of her taking it cold awhile ago...) Now we just have to keep it up....Every. Single. Day.
Sleep, sleep, sleep...that's been the main challenge this week. It's so complicated to figure out any sort of a schedule when you have two because there are so many factors to consider! But I've reached a point where I neeeeeed to get a bedtime established for Emma so I can be guaranteed even just one hour with my hands free during the day to respond to emails or work on MOPS stuff. And sleep training right now is not as cut and dry as it seems given our recent milk supply/growth issues. I would like to feed Emma less in the evening but then want to make sure she's gaining weight as she should. Ultimately my main two goals are: a bedtime before 11 pm and a good afternoon nap that coincides with Isla's. For whatever reason, we just haven't been able to get Emma to sleep (and to stay asleep!) any earlier than 10:30 or 11PM. She'll fall asleep earlier but then wake every hour or two and eat half-heartedly each time until she falls back asleep. I have a couple problems with this: a) I do not want to use feeding as a method to get her to sleep and b) she doesn't actually appear all that hungry. So, I'm attacking sleep this week. I set up the pack 'n play in the guest room with a nice white noise CD so that we can start to let Emma fuss a bit in the evening without waking her sister (this has been the main reason we haven't done it earlier). Graham gave her a bottle at ~7:15 PM with the hopes it would be her last feed for the evening. I laid her down awake at about 8 PM and she went to sleep. As if on cue, she woke up at 9 but I refused to feed her. We took turns giving her the binky and trying to soothe her which was less than successful. Finally Graham picked her up and she was out in minutes. We did not hear from her again until 5 AM--woohoo! Of course, eventually we will try to get her to go back to sleep on her own but I figure we'll take it in steps. I put her back in her own room after her early morning feed because it made me sad to have the girls separated again. :) Emma will spend the whole night back in her room once we get a good bedtime routine.
In other news, Emma is now rolling from her back onto her side to reach for toys. She hasn't made it all the way over that direction but it's progress. She also is arching and craning her neck a lot when she's on her back to see what's above her. I think full on, regular rolling is just around the corner.
Ok, and I gotta close with this one. This is how Emma really feels about these weekly photo shoots (gasp!)
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