sweet sounds

Sara has started babbling some consonant sounds this past week, and it's so adorable. Our conversations go a little something like this...

Me: Do you have a story to tell Mommy, Sara?

Sara: Baa baa bwaw ba waaa baba!

I love it. She also tried to put her beloved Sophie the Giraffe or soother in our mouths, which must mean she really loves us!

As for her night waking, I wish I could say that has been resolved. Our doctor seems sure it's behavioural based on what's been happening. She checks out fine, and if it was teething she wouldn't settle as soon as one of us picks her up... it's like she's waking up and wanting one of us, especially me. We had a couple of nights that were back to normal, then last night she woke up after only 20 minutes crying really hard. Ian was at work, so I waited a bit and then tried some Gripe Water solely for the purpose of ruling out any digestive discomfort. I've even started a food diary just to see if there's any correlation between sleep and meal size/combos (at dinner in particular.)

She was quiet, so I lay her back down and sat beside the crib. She started to cry again and pushed her hands and feet through the crib slats to reach for me... it went against every maternal piece of me to not pick her up and comfort her, so we almost had both of us in tears! She quieted down after a few minutes, and I slowly backed out of the room trying not to trip over anything or make unnecessary noise.... but I couldn't fool her. After another nearly half hour of intense crying alternating with snuffling as she tried to go back to sleep, I had to go back in. That's when I smelled poo in the air! I picked her up, changed her, held her for a minute and put her back into the crib, and she fell alseep immediately for the rest of the night. So... was it the poo that kept her awake, and I let her cry needlessly? Was the poo from crying so hard? Regardless, it was hard not to feel like an awful mom.

Tonight she has woken twice so far, the first time for about 10 minutes, and then for about 5. We haven't picked her up, just rubbed her tummy or rolled her to her favourite sleeping side. And there seems to be no connection to her diet today, which was 100% tried, tested and true. So confusing.... this is one phase that I can't wait to get past!