Working Mom

Go ahead and label me because I've been doing it for a full week already. I started back to work last Monday. The transition has not been nearly as hard as I imagined it would be. Jayla's ability to basically sleep through the night now has done wonders for making this an easy transition. Plus, her day care is absolutely awesome! I am loving it and she seems to really like it too. Of course, the day care teachers absolutely adore her which leads me to believe that she must be behaving herself nicely throughout the day...which can only mean that they are meeting her needs - who could ask for anything more? On top of all that, I am pumping adequate milk during the day at work and leaving about 45 minutes early to nurse her in the afternoon/evening. It's almost too good to be true.

I noticed a few changes in Jayla during her first week of day care.

1. As I've mentioned before, her sleep habits are great. She had a hard time napping at the day care at the beginning of last week so, she passed out in the evenings. But, I think she's doing a better job of sleeping during the day now even with so much going on around her. At night, she's going down pretty easily between 10 and 11, usually. Then she wakes around 6:00 - 6:15 in the morning. It's not even a biggy if she wakes a little before that. For instance, this morning, she woke up at 5:30, I swaddled her, gave her a pacifier, and we slept together for another hour before I got up to feed her.

2. She's decided that she can sleep just fine without being swaddled, thank you very much! When I dropped her off at the day care last Monday morning, I was worried about her ability to nap without being swaddled and was giving the day care teacher instructions on how she needed to be swaddled. Ummm...maybe not...that night, we decided to try to put her down without swaddling (mainly because she punched out of it as soon as we did it and her daddy was tired of wrestling with her). She slept fine for 4-5 hours and then swaddled to finish out the night. So, we've been putting her down unswaddled for a week and she is doing great. She basically shows major displeasure if we try to swaddle her now (unless it 4:00am - if she happens to wake in the middle of the night, she loves it and drifts immediately back to sleep). We thought we were going to go through some major drama when it came time to stop swadding her. The little girl weaned herself.

3. She basically feels the need to chew and suck on anything in view except for a teether!!! She needs to have something in her mouth...her fist, my finger, the little bumble bees on her carseat straps...anything!! I think this has alot to do with not being swaddled anymore. She seems to want to suck on her hands all the time and she apparently realized that this impossible if she's swaddled. On Thursday night, she finally discovered her thumb. But, just that once - it hasn't made it into her mouth since then. She's sticking to the full fist for now. At the day care on Friday, she spent all day sucking/chewing on a doll's arm. So, Saturday, we went and bought her a lovey. I think we'll give it to her for Christmas and see what she thinks of it.

4. I think Jayla is learning/has learned her name!! She used to not respond to her name EVER. Then on Wednesday night, she responded in three different instances. I guess it's because the day care teachers use it. I usually call her, "mama's baby, pretty girl, girly, etc..." So, a couple of days of hearing her name and she's starting to recognize it, I think.

So, last week was full of developments. I was so worried about how all of this would play out but, it has just been absolutely perfect so far...

Jayla has her 4-month appointment tomorrow. I'm anxious to see how big she has gotten. I guess we'll also be talking about starting to introduce her to solid foods soon. I'm thinking sometime in January as she's approaching 5 months old!!