Making friends

Kate hung out with her new friend Eleanor this week (Mamacita's friend's daughter) who is two months older than she is. They mostly just gazed at each other and occasionally tried to touch each other.



This week Kate has been "learning" to fall asleep in her crib. Kate's really good at falling asleep while eating and then being put in her crib. She can even wake up and then fall back asleep with no problem. But, as the day of weaning approaches, I would like to know it will be easy to stick her in the crib and let her drift off to dreamland.

The first three days went pretty well. Day 1 consisted of me feeding her, reading her a book, and singing to her then putting her in her crib. I sat next to her with my hand on her. She talked for about 30 minutes, then whined for another 10, then cried for 5, then whined for another 3, then fell asleep. Day 2 the process was the same except I brought a book to read while I sat there and Kate shorted the routine to 30 minutes. Day 3 she took it down to 25 minutes.

And then... I got too ambitious and decided to add on the challenge of falling asleep at Grandma and Grandpa's house. That was just a plain disaster. She wouldn't sleep in any way -- on her own, bouncing her, nursing her, whatever. She got so frustrated by having to take a nap instead of playing that she melted down. I haven't heard her cry like that in two months. But finally, FINALLY, she down. Emotionally control is hard enough for adults. It's a hard thing to teach a baby!

So we're back to trying at home for this week with no other demands on the baby but playing and learning to nap. Hopefully we'll pick up today where we left off, but I'm not optimistic.