Claire Olivia Week by Week: 11 Weeks

Claire turned 11 weeks old yesterday.  This past week I finally got her on a 3 hour schedule!  She was eating every 2 1/2 hours during the day still up until last Monday, but finally she started sleeping until the three hour mark after her last feeding.  Once I knew she could I just started holding her out until the three hour mark if she woke up too early.  After a day and a half she got into a schedule and has stuck to it ever since.  It has been so nice! 

She has basically been sleeping through the night so I decided to try moving her to her crib last Wednesday night.  The transition was actually much easier than I anticipated.  I think it helped that she had been taking all of her naps in her crib already.  Since she was about a month old I followed a lot of the babywise method and I think it has helped so much.  We start the first feeding at 7 a.m. and still do the eat, play, sleep routine (every three hours now).  She takes four 2 hour naps a day after every eat & play cycle.  After her 7 p.m. feeding we do her bedtime routine and I bathe her, rock her, and sing to her.  I put her in her crib between 8 & 8:30 pm. then I wake her up at 10 p.m. for her last feeding (babywise calls it the "dream feed").  I keep it dark in her room and nurse her in the rocking chair.  She nurses until she falls back asleep then I put her right back in her crib without any awake time.  Then she sleeps in her crib until 7 a.m.  She sometimes fusses a little around 5 a.m., that's when she was in the habit waking up to nurse.  She's not all the way awake, her eyes are still closed and she just cries a little, so all I have to do is give her a binky and she puts herself right back to sleep until 7 a.m.  Supposedly after a week or two of this she'll learn to sleep through it once the habit of her middle of the night feeding is gone.  I am pretty lucky she has been such a good baby, but I definitely think sticking to a routine and schedule has helped immensely.  She knows what to expect every day, and I know her schedule so I can easily figure out what she needs if she ever fusses.  

(Sorry that was so detailed, just documenting for my own benefit and for future babies :)   

I wish I could freeze time every once in a while.  I will miss these days when she is so small and just wants to cuddle all the time.  I will probably want to freeze time at every stage though.  Being her mom is just the best.  This girl has my whole heart.