I knew life has been busy, but I did not realize it has been a month and a half since I last got a chance to blog. This time of year through the beginning of the new year is always a busy season for us, but it has been complicated this year by sweet little Chloe.
Chloe loves her doll "Miss Pearl"
Tiny but mighty, this little peanut has turned out to be one of my most challenging babies. And I'm afraid we have nobody but ourselves to blame. With plenty of older siblings to help out, she has been picked up, carried, rocked, and otherwise treated royally since birth. We didn't just jump to attention at the slightest whimper out of her, but rather before she would ever even start complaining. As a result, she had become quite "spoiled," for lack of a better term. At first, after getting her to sleep, I could at least move her to the bed/cradle/swing, but soon she would wake immediately after being moved, and so for the last two months Chloe has only slept when being held by me. And not just held in a carrier, which would give me some freedom of movement, but held in my arms, rocking her in my quiet, dark room with the door shut. You can imagine how doable that is with a large family!
We were all starting to get sleep-deprived and desperate, and things were getting worse, not better. Evidently, you CAN indulge a baby too much, and teach them bad (sleep) habits at a young age. All my other babies were good sleepers and naturally fell into a good routine by 3 months of age, so this is a new experience for me.
Chloe in the matching clothes that Miriam made for her doll.
The last couple of days, after all else had failed, I have been working on sleep training little Chloe in earnest, much to the horror of the little girls who cannot stand to hear her crying at all. Yes, there was crying involved. :( It was rough, really, but desperate times call for desperate measures. Thankfully, Chloe is as smart as they come, and just as she was clever enough to figure out how to make us all do her bidding without being able to say so much as a single word, she has very quickly caught on to "time to go night-night." I'm sure there are still some rough patches ahead of us, but both last night and this morning she went down while awake happily and without complaint, and then stayed asleep for long stretches of time. This is a huge improvement from taking two hours of my time to go down to nap, only to wake 5 minutes later!
In one of those hours of newfound freedom, I have been able to upload some of my pictures from the last two months. As soon as I get the rest moved to the computer, I will be able to blog more about what we have been up to recently. Like this little guy:
Come check back soon! :)
