The Stotts Family: Baby Girl and Life Update

So obviously I haven't blogged much since Carly was born. It has been quite the roller coaster ride. Granted she is an easier and more predictable baby, it is still hard. Although I do believe I didn't really pay attention to Grant's tired cues when he was this young so he was probably overtired a lot but also had some reflux. Anyway, I decided I wouldn't blog unless I was on the high part of the roller coaster. I swear every half a week I'm either on one side or the other of the spectrum. So being a mom of a newborn and a toddler is hard, especially if you are trying to keep up with potty training. Its hard to help Grant go potty while nursing at the same time and both things are time sensitive you know! Either a screaming baby that is hungry or an accident of pee or poo. So as of late we are having Grant wear pull ups all the time and he general is going poo in the potty every time he needs to and basically never pee in the potty. I'm so disappointed because I was doing so good with him. Oh well. I guess I will really focus and get him potty trained once he is 3. Boys are always late at it anyway. Which makes me really want Carly either fully potty trained before baby number 3 or not even close which means the two of them will be really far apart or really close together. I haven't decided which.

So I tried some methods of "sleep training" for Carly that were supposed to help her sleep long times at night. None of them involved crying mind you, just constant comfort until they fell asleep, just not nursing or rocking to sleep. Well it totally threw her off and her nights were horrible! 1-2 hours of sleep stretches. Ugh! Then I decided I didn't care if she like its when I hold her and rock her to sleep. I mean come on, she's a baby and needs to feel loved and nurtured this early on anyway. So I let her nap on me or she falls asleep rocked to sleep and then put in her swing, or her best naps are in her car seat when we go somewhere and she stays asleep when we get him home for a while. So ever since I have relaxed about her sleeping she has too I think because she goes to bed at 8 or 9pm and I either dream feed her at 10 or not. Depends on my mood and tired level as it approaches that time. Then She wakes to nurse between 2am-5am. You know she is still young and a little unpredictable but if you do the math that is more than 2 hours of sleep, so success. Then sometimes the rest of her night is crappy, waking every hour or going 4 hours. I never know. Anyway, the unpredictability still drives me a little crazy but we are getting sleep here in the house.

Also Grant can get out of his bed and he can knock over his child gates, so in the morning he just comes out whenever, but I basically refuse to get out of bed if its before 7am for him. He sometimes comes and cuddles for a minute or two before telling me he wants breakfast. Anyway, during these times Carly is usually sleeping in until 9 and I keep thinking if she were my only child I would get sleep in, or if Grant were my only child, I would have been able to sleep 9 hours straight. Oh well. When they get old my sleeping will get better. It will dang it! At 6 months I will sleep train somehow. I remember that being the magic number for Grant and my sleep when he was little.

So Carly is about 2 months or 9.5 weeks old. She weighs 9lbs. 13 oz and is 23 inches tall. Weight is 25th percentile, height is 75th percentile. So a tall, lean girl. She is very happy too. Always smiling and cooing. The rewards of having a baby this age. She even takes formula if I don't feel like pumping for a date or outing where she has to stay home. She has horrible eczema also. I am finally able to treat it. But no soap for my children. Their skin just can't handle it.

I struggle to get all my chores done in a week but she does like to play on her activity mat or bouncer which gives me like 15 minute stretches to spend time with Grant or do a chore. So that's nice. Grant never wanted me to put him down. He would fuss until I picked him back up again. She just makes a weird hiccup noise when she is wondering where everyone went. No fussing though, unless she is tired.

I have been able to get showers in during the day but I'm still working on getting a good workout in. I haven't figured that one out yet. I just don't like working out unless my house is clean because working out is like my de-stresser but a cluttered house stresses me out so I can't reap the benefits if the house is a mess, unless I leave the house to work out. So anyway, here is some eye candy and videos for you all. These were all taken in the last week.