Sunday, December 29, 2013

Our life in pictures


Hannah expressing her dislike for bedtime. Each night, when we go to swaddle her, she will go from laughing and cooing to screaming in about four seconds. It's as if she knows what is coming. The crying, however, only lasts a few minutes. Then she's out like a light until about 5:30-6:30 the next morning. She is sleeping in the crib in Abigail's room. This is actually working out way better than we thought it might. Abigail will say, "Hannah die!" when she hears Hannah crying, but overall, she tolerates the crying well. 

Here is the youngest and oldest of our children pictured together. Scrubs continues to be AMAZING with all the kids -- especially the new baby. I've actually had to be very cautious about leaving the room when Hannah is present, but it isn't because of Scrubs. It's because of her big brothers and sister. They have gotten a little overly friendly recently. (We walked in the room to see Isaac standing her up, trying to play 'Ring Around the Rosie' with her last week.) I'd actually prefer to have her in the room alone with Scrubs then with her people siblings. He's an amazing dog, and truly seems to understand how to be gentle around the babies.

JB continues to be the main chef in our home. With his Mom here, she is helping with meals some, but as always, JB loves to cook, and we love to let him. Here he is taking a picture of all the different fruits that went into the pie he made for Thanksgiving. He did the Thanksgiving and Christmas meals in our house this year ... like usual.

The temperature has been dropping which means we are having to use the fireplace more and more. Not sure I'll ever get used to living in a house with central heat or air. While the room with the fireplace gets nice and toasty, the rest of the house stays pretty chilly. I'm definitely ready to go back to America -- if only to have central heat!

We made a trip to downtown Angra to get Mom K's visa renewed, and it went flawlessly. Here are Abigail and Hannah hanging out at the photo shop next door, waiting for Grama to get her new Visa pictures. You can only reside in country for 90 days so this meant she needed an extension on her Visa. Dad and Mom will be here until mid-January. They will then go home for about 4-6 weeks before returning to finish out our time here at Lajes. We are due to make our way back to the US of A in early June, 2014!

Our little Hannah is an incredibly sweet little girl. She loves to talk, and cries very little -- only when hungry or tired. She is incredibly content, and overall, just a sweet little girl who has managed to get us all hooked on her sweetness!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Loved this post! I am working on getting my first child (who is four months old) to sleep thru the night and just had a few questions about what works for you. I realize each kid is different, but any info is helpful!

Wondering what time Hannah usually goes down for the night and how much she drinks before bedtime?

Also does she take a pacifier to bed? Do you have to pop it back in at all?

What do you do once your kids are rolling? My son is rolling so we can't swaddle anymore!

Does she get dirty diapers at night? That seems to wake my son up during the night. I guess there isn't much I can do about this though :)

Thanks for any feedback, It is much appreciated.

Wendi Kitsteiner said...

Hi friend,

Firstly I did a series of posts called "MY SLEEP BIBLE" which detail how JB and I have had success with getting all of our kids to sleep through the night by 10-12 weeks old:

http://flakymn.blogspot.de/2011/04/my-sleep-bible.html

Keep in mind that my kids (due to breast feeding issues) have almost all been bottle fed by 3-4 months old. That usually makes for easier sleeping through the night.

Hannah usually takes 6-8 ounces before bedtime. She usually goes to sleep between 7-8pm and then wakes up around 6am. Recently, she's been getting up a bit earlier (4:30 or 5) so we are going to try and hold her out an extra hour in the evening.

When our kids started rolling over, we stopped swaddling. Or, we just swaddled their bottom half to help them fall asleep and then let them bust out of it. Four months is an early roller!

Two of my kids used pacifiers and two did not. We did not put them back in. We gave them a pacifier to go to sleep but then let them have it fall out. However, sometimes, depending on the kid and the season they were in, we'd go in an 'reset' the baby we called it. We'd give them their pacifier, give a little rub, and encourage them to go back to sleep.

The trick to them falling asleep and staying asleep through the night is you not feeding them when they wake up. Four months is still a tad early for this, but your child is now at/getting to the age where they can go 12 hours without eating. Try to hold them as late as you can at night before putting them down!

My kids traditionally don't get dirty diapers at night. But if it does happen, we change, and immediately put back to sleep without any feeds. This can be tricky though and would definitely complicate things.

Take a look at the sleep bible and feel free to ask any additional questions on those posts that you might have. Hope this helps!

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the response Wendi - I appreciate it. He has only rolled twice while fighting with his swaddle so I know they are flukes, but I don't trust him in it any more :) We are only up to 4 or 5 ounces per feeding so I am guessing once he starts taking a little bit more milk we might be closer to sleeping thru the night. Again I appreciate you taking the time to respond!