Rexroat Corner: Watch me grow- 11 weeks

10/8/11
11 weeks old
12.2 lbs
23 1/3 inches long

First off, let me apologize for the delay in getting this up. We have been crazy, busy and we are watching the Lord do some pretty amazing things in our lives right now. I will have to create a whole separate blog update to fill you in on those details when the time is ready. :)

While Kelly and I have been super busy watching our Father weave together some events, Catie Grace has been busy GROWING!! She eats, sleeps, fills a diaper, eats, sleeps, eats some more and fills another diaper again. Her one pound weight gain in two weeks is evidence enough that she is going through another growth spurt.

10 weeks old

10 weeks old photo

Even with her going through this growth spurt, I think we have finally started to nail down a routine. I will confess that during my pregnancy, I did not read a single book that had anything to do with putting babies on a 'schedule'. I have never been one who agreed with this idea of forcing a schedule onto a child, but I am all for a 'routine'. Through the natural process of Catie and I both needing to rest, sleep, eat and play, we have naturally established a 'routine' that fits us. I can honestly say that I have never once had to put Catie in bed while she was screaming nor have I ever felt like I have missed out on either sleep because of her wanting to be awake and alert.

Here is an example of Catie's typical day:

7am: Dressed for the day, and top-off feeding
7-10am: morning nap
10am-1pm: cluster feeding and play time
1-3pm: nap in swing
3-8pm: alert, awake, play time with cluster feeding throughout
8pm: bath time
9pm: bed time

It's amazing how your opinions change from before you have children to after you have crossed that threshold of being a mother. One of those issues is co-sleeping. I have recently become a big fan of co-sleeping at night. A major part of our sucessful routine that Catie and I have is due to the fact that we co-sleep at night. Now up until Catie was born and even several weeks after she was born, I was vehemently against the idea of co-sleeping. I did not want mine and Kelly's bed to be 'invaded' by a child because I did not want it to interfere with our intimacy and I also did not want to worry about the possibility of rolling over on an infant while in a deep sleep. So before Catie was born, we set up her nursery and put my rocker that I was going to nurse her into one of the spare bedrooms expecting that her room would be one that we spent hours in. And to this day, Catie has never spent a night in her crib and we have moved the rocker out into the living room.

After we brought Catie home from the hospital, she would wake up and eat every 3 hours during the night and Kelly and I both would get up and sit in the living room with her while I fed her. She slept in the swing that we would bring in and put at the foot of our bed so that her head would be elevated and would help to give her some relief from the reflux, but she never really slept soundly in the swing. So she eventually ended up in our bed. Lots of time, she just wanted to be touched and know that we were close. At first, I was embarrassed that we co-slept and would never had admitted it, but after attending a breastfeeding convention with my mother, I learned of all the benefits of co-sleeping and have now become an advocate of it when it is done safely. Kelly and I bring Catie to bed with us every night and she starts out sleeping between us in our queen size bed. Catie Grace will usually fall right to sleep when we draw her in close and she will stay asleep for several hours. Usually around 1am and 4am she wakes up hungry. We used to have to wake up, get up and out of bed, get her out of the swing, and feed her while trying to stay awake ourselves, and then try to peacefully and gently transition her from my chest to the swing without her waking. We were successful about 1 out of every 5 times. That would make for long, tired nights with a huge interruption in the middle of our sleep cycle. But now we get all our sleep with only having to barely wake up. Catie now feeds at those same times at night, but I simply roll over and help her to latch on then drift back off to sleep. There have been several nights where I don't even remember feeding Catie but its evidenced that I did by the lack of bowling balls on my chest and by the very content baby that we find sleeping beside us when the alarm goes off.

Now I know this topic of co-sleeping is another hot button topic like immunizations- you are either for or against it, no middle ground, but I have to admit that I have flip flopped sides since having Catie. I know this trend is going to need to stop and we will do that after Catie weans. Oh and I feel the need to also just clarify that other 'things' that usually happen in the bed other than sleeping did not suffer from co-sleeping. Catie does still spend some quality time in her swing from time to time :)

Chewing on that fist

Many have asked how the animals are doing with Catie now that she is a bit older and honestly, we could not have asked for better pets! They ADORE Catie and Catie Grace loves running her hands through their long fur. Moose is still uber protective of her and Foxy and Panda are excited to see her for the first 5 minutes, then they loose interest and go back to sleeping or chasing cats.

Foxy giving kisses


Moose checking on his little girl

This weekend marked our first time when Kelly had to spend a night away from both Catie and I. He went to a shooting sports training with 4H and Catie and I took the opportunity to have a sleepover with Grumpy and Nahna. It was a HUGE blessing to both Catie and I to spend the weekend with them because I truly do not like being in a house by myself.