Update

I wish I had more time to blog, because I feel like I'm missing alot, but there just isn't enough time in the day.

Things are going really well. I can't imagine that I will be back at work in just 3 weeks. Now I see why people don't want to go. Once you get some kind of routine down, it isn't so bad. I even feel fortunate that Grace just gets up once at night although it's usually for at least an hour or two. Ok, let me get to the point.

Weaning
This is going really well from both of our prospectives. At first Grace seemed to spit up more on the formula when we were using the premixed kind that they gave us at the hospital, but once we switched to the powder that we mix with water she did much better. It's not as thick as the pre-mixed and is closer to breast-milk consistency. I've been replacing a breastmilk bottle with a formula bottle every 4 days, so we're going slow. I figure I have enough breastmilk frozen to last until the end of the month with this schedule. I was still making too much milk to take my pump back last Thursday. It would have been too painful. Luckily, they do weekly rentals too, so I think I can take it back this week. I really cut back on pumping last week and this weekend. I shortened my time at the pump and am only pumping when I get engorged and really uncomfortable. I actually didn't pump at all yesterday, but then needed to this morning. I'm pretty sure I'll be in good shape by Thursday.

Scheduling
A friend suggested a book called "Babywise" that dealt with how to get your baby to sleep through the night. I picked it up this weekend and finished reading it today. I wasn't sure how I'd feel about it, as there are some pretty rigid principles regarding feeding and sleeping, but after reading it I'm going to give it a try. Basically, it uses a combination of demand feeding, but also a time schedule to regulate baby's patterns and help with sleep. We're actually pretty close on the feeding schedule already, so I don't think that part will be difficult. The harder part is the wake/sleep part. They have you put the baby to bed and naps while awake so they can put themselves to sleep and not rely on you. Also they have stricter nap and waketime schedules. Starting tomorrow, I'm going to see if I can get Grace on this schedule. According to them, 85-90% of babies following this program sleep through the night (7-8 hours) between 7 and 9 weeks. That sounds really nice to me.

GWO
This weekend was our quarterly GWO at my house. It was so good to see my friends although I felt a little bad that this trip wasn't full of plans. However, we usually have lots of plans and end up not doing them, so maybe this was better. Erica drove over on Friday afternoon. Danialle flew in Friday evening. Heather drove over Saturday morning and Samara hooked up with us Saturday afternoon. Friday night Erica, Eric and I went to Steak & Shake for dinner before Eric went to pick up Danialle. Other than that we just hung out at home and played with the baby. She went to bed at 9:30 p.m. She was up again at 1:30 a.m. and Danialle fed her while we chatted and watched TV until 3:15 a.m. Then Grace slept until about 7:30 a.m. Saturday we took Grace with us for the whole day. We had brunch at First Watch and then went to Babies R Us and the mall. Grace was an angel. She slept a good portion of the time and only fussed a little. Saturday evening we came home and dropped Grace off to spend the evening with Eric and us girls went to dinner at Champps. It was great to just visit and talk and laugh. I think we all needed it. When we got home we were all kind of pooped so we headed to bed around 11:00 p.m. Eric had agreed to do the nighttime duties. I was so excited at the prospect of a whole night's sleep. She got up at 3:45 a.m. and Eric got up with her. However, at 5:20 a.m. he decided he needed my help and I took over. I got her back to sleep by 6:00 a.m., but then she still wanted to get up at 7:30. We got up and layed on the couch until 8:30 and then she was up for the morning. Sunday was a lazy day at home. We sat around and talked. I took a nap around noon. Then in the early afternoon we went to pick up some fuel for my Smoresmaker and pick up some BW3's to eat while watching the football game. We did watch the game which had an outcome no one was happy about. After that we played dominos and later had smores and ordered a pizza. We again hit the hay around 11:00 a.m. Grace was again up at 3:45 a.m. and then we had to get up at 6:30 a.m this morning to take Danialle to the airport. It was nice having other people around to take the baby sometimes and of course to see all my girlfriends. Three more months and we'll do it again. I'm thinking this time I'll see if I can leave the baby at home for the whole weekend. I may need to discuss that with Eric.

Ok, well Grace is sleeping on me and it's almost 9:00 p.m. I don't know if I should wake her for a bath or see if I can put her to bed. Tomorrow we're starting the Babywise schedule and then these naps will be much more structured. None of this sleeping all evening and then staying up until midnight.