she's growing up too fast already

I don't know whether to be thrilled or miserable. Anastasia just fell asleep without me.

She's 19 weeks tomorrow, and after four and a half months of needing a lengthy nursing session every time she fell asleep (every nap, every evening, and every night waking every two hours), I was thinking about making some changes. The last few days and nights her sleep has been very disturbed for no discernible reason...the other night she (and I, of course) was awake from 3 am to 6 am. So I was really ready to try something different.

Then a mom in my playgroup told me she had an Amby bed she wanted to sell. The Amby bed is supposed to be very gentle and comfortable and very good for babies who want to be held all the time like Anastasia, so I'd been thinking about giving it a try. My friend told me we could borrow it for a week to see if Anastasia liked it before we bought it. So I picked it up yesterday.

Last night she still woke every two hours at her usual times, but she didn't take as long as usual to go back to sleep. I took her out of the bed, nursed her for five or ten minutes until she stopped sucking hard, and then put her back in the bed and swung it for a minute or two. Every time, she went straight back to sleep. The whole process took less than twenty minutes every time. She usually falls asleep within twenty minutes for her night wakings...but I take longer to fall back asleep, because she's right beside me and I disturb her if I move at all. Now with her in her own space, I'm able to get comfortable without bothering her. I feel like I got twice the sleep I normally do!

But most amazing of all was this morning, when I tried it for her morning nap. She's been having a lot of trouble with this nap; I know she needs it, but for some reason she'll never fall asleep in the morning any more. But today I swaddled her as usual when I thought she was tired, nursed her, and then put her in the Amby bed. I gave her a pacifier, too, which I'm not fond of, but at this point I need a break from the nonstop nursing. Anyway, then I swung the bed for a few minutes. She didn't fall asleep right away, but she was clearly relaxed and tired, and her eyes were closing occasionally, so I stepped out of the room for a minute to brush my hair. I came back and sure enough, she was asleep. It's been twenty minutes and she's still sleeping. Maybe she'll even get a full two-hour nap like she used to! Yeah, I'm definitely sold on the Amby bed. I'll be giving my friend a check at playgroup next week.

Here's a picture of her asleep all by herself:

pacifiers are not a gateway drug

Yesterday Matt convinced Anastasia to use a pacifier. He'd been saying for weeks that she needed one. "She just wants to suck on something," he kept saying, as she fussed and cried and I kept trying to nurse her. "She needs a pacifier."

Reluctantly, I bought a couple of Soothies last week, but I was secretly delighted when she absolutely refused them. However, on Friday I decided to get a couple of Nuks just in case. I was worrying about our upcoming car trip (to Virginia, on Memorial Day weekend); weighing my hatred of pacifiers against my dread of her crying, I decided the pacifier was worth another try. But I was still disappointed when she experimentally mouthed the Nuk for a few minutes and then settled down happily to suck on it.

I expected that Matt would be proud; it was his idea, after all. Instead, he cried.

I looked at him in amazement as he wiped his eyes. "Are you crying?"

"I feel like I'm corrupting her," he admitted, half laughing as he wiped another tear off his cheek. "She used to be so sweet and innocent. Now she's a woman of the world."

I looked at our little girl, staring at us wide-eyed with a pink pacifier attached to her mouth, and I felt myself getting a little choked up too. "But she's happy," I said, trying to convince both of us.

I think we were both relieved when she spit the pacifier out and cooed at us reassuringly. "Don't worry," she seemed to be saying. "I'm not addicted. I can quit anytime I want."