Baby For Sale

I kid, I kid ... though I can't say that over the past week, I hadn't thought of doing it.

The past week seems to have been an evil combination of the general grumpiness that occurred after Natalie got her 4-month shots on Thursday and this interesting phenomenon of the '4 month wakeful period' that I hear is pretty common.

At four months, babies become increasingly more aware of their surroundings and become easily distracted while eating. So they're not eating as well (or as much) as they normally do during the day. And when nighttime comes, they haven't had a good day's worth of meals ... so they wake up many times during the night to eat, even if they had been sleeping through the night before.

Up until a week ago, we had a pretty good run of getting a full night's sleep. We had a few nights where she'd get up in the middle of the night for a feeding, but there were a lot of nights when she would sleep from 9pm - 6:30am. And it was goooooood.

And then the craziness happened. She was becoming more and more distracted while she nursed and then would pitch a royal fit when I closed up the Buffet O' Mommy. She was fussy and irritable when she had a clean diaper, a full belly, and wasn't sleepy. She seemed bored and annoyed after doing an activity for 1.2 nanoseconds. She started waking up two and three times a night to eat.

Getting her 4-month shots certainly didn't help the situation. She handled the shots well, only crying for a few minutes (it made me, a complete needle phobe, so proud). But the whining increased exponentially.

Saturday night was the worst night's sleep we'd had in a looooong time (bad timing since that meant we were all severely sleep deprived on Mother's Day). We put her to bed at 8:30pm. She woke up mad at around 11:30pm. She woke up mad again at 1:30am. She woke up yet another time at 3:30. Lee went into her room and put her pacifier back in her mouth, hoping that's all she needed. He came back to bed and said "Well, I've got good news and I've got bad news."

Me: What's the bad news?
Lee: She's wide awake.
Me: (groaning) And the good news?
Lee: She's really, really cute.

We can hear her over the monitor half fussing and half babbling. And then we hear her fill up her diaper. It sounds pretty critical, so we both drag our bleary-eyed selves into her room to check out her diaper situation.

She sees up come into her room and immediately breaks into this huge gummy grin and starts babbling up a storm. I'm sure this is what she was saying "Hey guys! Oh, boy! You couldn't sleep either? What a fun coincidence! Take out these blackout shades, guys - I know it's really something like 9am. You can't fool me. Now get me out of this crib so we can play!!"

Lee and I clean her up, put on a fresh diaper, and wrap her in a clean swaddle. We finally get her to sleep, only to have her wake up again at 5:30. Ugh.

Thankfully today seems to be a much better day. She's been pretty good-natured all morning and is sleeping peacefully in her swing.

So Natalie, as much as I talk about wanting to give you away to the panhandlers on Davis Hwy, please know I'm only kidding. Daddy and I couldn't bear to part with you and your smiling eyes, your happy squeals, your tasty feet, your chubby legs, your warm hugs, and your kissable cheeks.

But I'm hoping this 4-month wakeful period is short-lived. I hope this phenomenon only gets its name for when it starts, not for how long it lasts.