As Long as She's Not Crying

I realized yesterday that I had said this phrase ("as long as she's not crying") several times over the past couple of days. That's mainly because Alaina spent so much of last Saturday crying. She'd go down for a nap and sleep only 30 minutes, then wake up inconsolable and not stop crying until her next feeding.

Sunday was better, but still not great. Anytime we got her comfortable was satisfying to me -- I threw her "schedule" out the window, for the most part.

She still seemed uncomfortable, and there was only one thing that was different: her diaper rash had turned nasty in the past several days, so I called the doctor, who wanted us to come in so she could look at it.

Here's Alaina after her appointment. I love the post-car-ride nap! Somehow her hat gradually worked its way off and over her eyes, but it didn't wake her up!


The doctor gave us some advice. Basically, Alaina has a very high-maintenance bottom right now that involves not using wipes (too irritating), letting her go diaperless to dry, occasionally soaking her in warm water, applying antibiotic ointment to the open sores, lotrimin on the other red parts, balmex over that, etc.! Thankfully, I'm already seeing some improvement even after just a couple applications. I can only hope that this was the source of her irritability. She seems better today.

Here's an old photo I love from early January -- I never posted it because I thought it had potential for birth announcements, but we decided to use a different photo. I just think it's a great one of her face:

The other interesting thing from her appointment yesterday is that she now weighs 12 pounds!

Other items of note: last night she was fed at 9:15 and 2:15 and then 7:10 this morning. That's right, folks -- she went 5 hours between feedings twice in a row! She only woke up once last night to be fed! Granted, when she woke up at 2:15 I didn't actually get back to bed until about 4:10 a.m., and most of that was spent getting her back to sleep (the feeding and diaper change part was done by 3 a.m.), but still, I am very pleased! I think I actually got about the same amount of total sleep that I have been lately (6 1/2 hours or so), but it was in two big chunks instead of 3 smaller ones. Also, she has been really smiley in the past 24 hours. When I was changing her diaper and swaddling her last night, she kept smiling at me, and she did the same after her feeding at 7:10. It is so hard when she smiles at me in the middle of the night -- I'm supposed to avoid eye contact because it stimulates her, but it is so cute when she keeps smiling that I can't help but smile back! So maybe it's partially my fault that she couldn't get back to sleep easily.