Week 7 (and a half): All hail baby whisperer!

This has been a big week! We had Scarlett's first Xmas eve at Tracy's, her first Xmas at Dan & Michelle's, and her first Turducken dinner (yes, a chicken stuffed in a duck, stuffed in a turkey) all in one fell swoop. She stayed awake the entire time at Tracy's and seemed fascinated by all of the people and things going on. The next day, probably as a result, she slept almost the entire time with Paul's family. She was 50/50 at the Turducken dinner. Scarlett made out like a bandit with Christmas gifts. She got some fun new toys (including an inch worm and an American doll from Nonni, which we can give her again in five or six years!), some great clothes, and some cute stuffed animals. Thank you to everyone!

Scarlett's schedule has been increasingly erratic and Paul and I have been increasingly tired as a result. By chance, we happened to run into someone at the Turducken party who has two kids, both of whom they had sleeping through the night by 3 or 5 weeks of age! You can imagine how feverishly I began hitting him with questions as to how they accomplished that feat! It turns out that they swear by a book by Tracy Hogg, the Baby Whisperer. I'll try anything once, so we went out that night and picked it up. She advocates a routine that she calls the E.A.S.Y. method (eat, activity, sleep, time for You). At Scarlett's age, it means putting her on a 3-hour cycle during the day (e.g., 7 am, 10 am, 1 pm, 4 pm feeds, plus cluster feed at 6 and 8 pm) and at night, moving toward them sleeping through. You put the baby down to bed at 730 or 830 then do a sleep feed (feed while they are sleeping) at 11 PM then cross your fingers. If they wake up, only pick them up if they are CRYING. If they are just fussing, let them try to soothe themselves back to sleep.

We started trying this on Tuesday night (after a horrible day of her not sleeping for 7 hours straight!). The first night, she went to bed at 8 pm, we sleep fed her at 11 PM, and she slept until 1 AM. Back asleep at 2 AM and woke up at 5 AM. The book says that if they wake up, they probably aren't getting enough food during the day, so we have been trying to increase her intake. Last night she went to bed at 830 or so and didn't get up until 3 AM! Then she was back to sleep at 430 and slept until 7. It's getting better already! She doesn't like napping before 4 PM, so we have some trouble getting her down, but otherwise it is going really well and we like the predictability of it all. The other thing is that she is now sleeping in her CRIB! We miss having her snuggled up with us for naps, but we are definitely sleeping better and she probably is too. We'll keep at it... wish us luck!

Scarlett has officially outgrown her newborn clothes! She was 9 lbs 5.5 ounces as of today -- still a little small for 3 month pants but too long for newborn clothes. I'm excited about getting her into some of the cute outfits we have in the next size but sad that a phase is over. We love her being so little! She was having some problems spitting up every 5 minutes, but that has been much better today. Hopefully it was a fluke.

Today is New Year's Eve -- the last day of the decade! It has been a wild ride... especially the last 2 or 3 years. We're spending the evening working on the EASY routine, sipping champagne, and enjoying our new little family. Sounds like a great start to the next decade!