MaKenna update

So now that she is 6 1/2 weeks old, I think we finally figured her evening meltdowns out. After a very particularily trying day (she cried on and off for almost 8 hours only to sleep for about a total of 1 hour during that!!!), I decided something needed to be done. I went out and got the book "The Happiest Baby on the Block" not really knowing what to expect or if it would really work. Let me just say that I needed this book from the beginning!!! It turns out that MaKenna has pretty bad gas. Even if she burps two or three times during/after nursing, she still can have some bubbles in her system. This led to pretty intense crying sessions which then in turn led to an overtired, cranky baby. So we now give her some Gripe Water which takes care of the gas and use Dr. Karp's 5 S's for calming: the first night I tried it, she went from screaming to sleeping in 6 minutes! And just for clarification, the 5 S's are swaddling, "sssshhhh"ing, side/stomach, swinging, and sucking. Since she refuses a pacifier (we have tried 5 different types!) and can't nurse, the sucking really doesn't come into play for her. What I found to work best is to swaddle her super tight (and I mean tight!), craddling her in my arms with her on her side and bouncing up and down on our mattress.

This book was pretty insightful. Dr. Karp is a big proponent of attachement parenting (which is the parenting style we follow) and discussed the "fourth trimester"...basically how some babies just need an extra 3 months to adjust to the outside world and thus needing to recreate the womb for comfort. All I know is it works!

Tomorrow, we have our 6 week postpartum check up and I will know how much she has gained. She definitely does not eat like the boys and even though she was a big baby, she doesn't seem to be gaining as rapidly as them. She graces us with some pretty awesome smiles which I cannot for the life of me capture on camera. They are the smiles that involve the whole face...just melts your heart. She also is starting to "talk". I love when the social interaction begins...they don't seem like sacks of potatoes anymore! And it looks like Blake got his wish...she has blue eyes! He didn't want to be the only sibling with blue eyes.