3 months already!

Riley turned 3 months old already. She's keeping me quite busy. She's of course adorable and worth all of the sleepless nights. She still has a wobbly neck. She can turn to her side by herself - mainly by swinging her legs over. She's started blowing bubbles recently.

I've started taking pics each morning when I drop her off at daycare (which still is quite hard). Here are some cute pics to share.

Exhausted

Ok, that doesn't even begin to explain it...but I'm quite tired.

Let me first say that I'm so sorry for being a bad blogger friend to all of you. I'll be back...sometimes...and hopefully soon. I'm not neglecting anyone on purpose. It's just I have very little time these days, and what I do have is devoted to Riley and sleep :-)

So, I've survived the first 2 weeks back to work. Riley has also survived her first (almost) two weeks of daycare. I've had my tears from missing my baby girl, and Riley has already had her first runny / stuffy nose. We are still trying to figure out a schedule that works for everyone. It's hard since now we only get about 3 hours of awake time each day with her. We want to make the most of that time, but we also have stuff that needs to get done (like eating). Her sleep schedule is what I'm most concerned with currently.

Before returning to work, Riley had gotten to where she would sleep 5-6 hour stretches when we first put her down and then a 4 hour stretch after that. I LIKED that! This week that has turned to a 4 hour stretch, followed by 2.5hrs and then 1 hr. Still, in infant terms this seems to be pretty good...she's thriving after all. Her mommy, on the otherhand, needs to find some better under eye makeup! Maybe she's getting up because she wants more time with mommy and daddy? Maybe it's because she sleeps too much or too little at daycare? I just hope that something evens out in the next week or so. I so want her to sleep longer for my sake - I've been toying with the idea of "cry it out". Thing is, I just don't think I can do it. I tried one night for about 20 minutes, but then my DH gave in - or he just told me to give in. He can't stand to listen to her cry either. Plus, there seems to be something so wrong in doing it after all we went through to get her here.

I read a book about a no cry method, and I'm trying to do that now. It focuses on getting her to fall asleep in her crib rather than my arms. I was successful tonight. I left her mostly asleep in her crib, and now she is out! It took about 30 minutes of singing and patting and bouncing the bed...but hopefully it will pay off.

I know I need my sleep because I can feel myself being cranky! Does anyone else get that way. It's like you can feel the mean thoughts and words and looks creeping up, but you just can't stop them. I warn my DH, but that seems to make him taunt me more - he's a bit of an instigator :-) So, I should probably go to bed now. I'll be up in about 4 hours...or hopefully later than that.

Work and daycare

The first week back to work was hard. It's an understatement to say I don't want to be there. Plus, my job is quite stressful. That stress was placed on my work friends while I was away, and I can see it on them now. I haven't taken the stress back yet - I don't want it!

A part of me appreciates doing some work, but most of me would just rather be home staring at Riley. In fact, I do that for part of the day anyway. Our daycare has video cameras...so I can log in and see what she is doing. It sounds way better than it is. The screen is so small and the definition so bad, that half the time it is really hard to figure out which baby is her! If I dress her in lime green it's not nearly as hard though :-)

The camera has gotten me in trouble. I watch too much for my own good. I just want to make sure that they are paying enough attention to her. I also want to make sure that there are enough teachers and that they actually feed her and change her. I'm a crazy mom, and I'm okay with admitting it. I only called daycare 3 times in the first week. I think that's pretty good. My main issue has been that they put her in the swing...A LOT. I had DH mention it to the teacher and ask for more interaction and they complied for a bit. I think it might be something we have to keep asking for. They are completely comfortable with letting Riley sleep in the swing all day...and I'm just not!

Everyone keeps telling me that it gets easier week by week, but all I know is that with each day I just wanted to spend more time with my baby. Saturday couldn't come fast enough!