Dear Bridget – I can’t believe you are already two months old! I took you for your doctor’s appointment today and wasn’t super surprised that you weigh a lot for your age – 12 lbs, 15 oz (90%)! However I was surprised that you are also 90% in height (23.5 inches). Your head circumference is 75% at 15.5 inches. You are a big healthy girl! You do prefer laying on one side of your head and this is the only issue I discussed with your doctor. We have tried to force you to lay on the other side of your head when you play but she recommended getting a wedge for force you to sleep on your non-favored side as well, so I’ll get one of those for you soon. You got your first batch of shots and screamed a lot after getting them, even feeding you right after didn’t completely calm you down, but once I got you in your baby carrier you fell right asleep.

You are such a joy Bridget and I love being your mom. You hardly ever cry unless you are really hungry or tired or if you need to burp. I’ve gotten used to the no crying thing and now I wake up whenever I hear you grunting or trying to suck your hand – these are signs that you are hungry before you start your all out cry. I call you “sweet girl” and “precious girl” probably more than I call you by your name because you have such a sweet and content temperament like 95% of the time. For example, you don’t even cry when I wake you up from sleeping, and you don’t cry when you wake up in the baby carrier in the car. I’ll just happen to look back at you and see that your eyes are open. You love to just look around and take in the world around you. It is so fun for me to see you discovering new things for the first time (like the outdoors or new spaces in our house). It is such a joy to get to do this adorable “baby phase” all over again! I”m so thankful.

You are getting really good at tummy time. I have found that it is harder to document your progress than with Lucy because she is very intrigued with cameras of all types. So most of the videos I try to take of you include Lucy trying to grab the camera from me lol. You spend most of your awake time on the piano mat and the Baby Einstein mat with most of the baby toys we have hanging from it. Your favorite toy is a little rolling plastic snail that has a big mirror on one side of it. You like to look at yourself in it and when you touch it it plays a song. Lucy loves getting down on the floor to play with you. I try to keep her from getting too close by making her stay off of the mat, but I’ll admit I’m not 100% successful at keeping her away from you. She has inadvertently bopped you on various parts of your body but half of the time you don’t even seem to mind. Her favorite thing is to lay right next to you with her head touching yours.

Recently you have started to smile at us a lot and coo and try to talk to us. It is the cutest thing ever! You mainly do this after eating. You first smiled around 6 weeks. You mainly smile when we get really close to your face and talk to you. You love smiling at Lucy too – it is the cutest thing ever. She mimics the high pitched voices that we use with you and normally says something like “Hi Baby Sissy!” or “See Baby Sissy? (while pointing at some sort of toy)” You still don’t have much hair, so I’ve decided I need to invest in some more headbands! You get cuter and cuter every day and I just love your chubby cheeks, arms, and legs. You also are really active on the play mat now and really kick and bat away at all the hanging contraptions! I know you are tired when you cry laying down or in someone’s arms – because you normally are such a happy baby. I then swaddle you and put you in your crib and normally you will cry about 5-10 minutes until you fall asleep. I’m hoping that this starts to dwindle down.

You really don’t like the pacifier and most of the time when I try to stick it in your mouth you spit it right back out. You mainly suck on your fist. You are a really flexible baby and we are able to do so much with you. You nap really well in your car seat and most of the time you fall asleep if you are in it and we start driving. You also are pretty good at staying asleep even if I run errands and have to take your baby carrier in and out of the car, put it in and out of a shopping cart, etc. You also sleep well in a pack in play – which we used while we were at the lake house for the 4th of July. If you are really tired you can sleep through anything – including Lucy screaming at the top of her lungs and your dad’s fireworks show that was on the other side of the wall from where you were sleeping! Your favorite place to fall asleep is in the baby swing that is in the kitchen. I barely used that thing with Lucy, but we sure have used it a TON with you. If I am being lazy and don’t want to make you cry your 5-10 min. in your crib, I let you fall asleep in the swing and you don’t cry one bit.

The hardest part so far of parenting you has been your sleeping patterns. I realize now that I was very “on-the-ball” with getting Lucy on a sleep schedule. That combined with the fact that she seemed to fall pretty naturally into a predictable sleep pattern gave me some pretty high expectations for you. Perhaps this is my first learning experience about how the same amount of effort can create different results with different children! But anyways, try as I might, you love to be up the most in the late afternoon and evening. The downside of this is that we (me and your daddy) put Lucy down for bed at 8pm only to then play with you another 2 hours, then crash without any time for just the two of us. You really like to sleep the mornings away. I think it is a vicious cycle because you are tired in the morning from being up so much the night before. But we always let you stay up a lot in the evenings because we are afraid that after sleeping all morning, if you weren’t up all evening then you won’t sleep well at night. You are now 9 1/2 weeks old and I think (*crossing fingers*) that we have started to successfully transition you to a more normal schedule.

Here’s the current schedule (I’m writing this down for my own benefit later on….):

• 7:00 am: (Laura) Wake up Bridget to Eat, change diaper 
• 7:00-8:30: Bridget play time 
• 7:30: (Jason) Wake up Lucy, change diaper, brush teeth, get her dressed, start her watching PBS Kids and/or breakfast 
• 8:15: Jason leaves! 🙁
• 8:30-10:00: Bridget naps – most of the time Lucy and I run errands or go on play dates during this time. 
• 10:00: Wake Bridget to eat – although sometimes she wakes up earlier on her own, in which case I sometimes feed her early, or make her wait until as close as 10:00 as possible to eat. 
• 10:00-11:00 or 11:30: Bridget play time
• 11:30-1:00 pm: Bridget nap time 
• 12:00: Lucy’s and my lunch time 
• 1:00-3:00: Lucy nap time 
• 1:00: Wake Bridget to eat. 
• 1:00-2:00: Should be Bridget play time but most days she is really tired during this time, and since Lucy is also asleep I don’t try too hard to keep Bridget awake! 
• 2:00-4:00: Bridget nap time – if she has been tired during the 1:00-2:00 hour block as well, this is her SUPER LONG nap. Sometimes I leave her on a play mat in hopes that she will wake up and play on her own (which is what is happening while I’m writing this post) 
• 3:00: Wake up Lucy from nap and Lucy’s snack time
• 4:00: Wake Bridget to eat
• 4:00-5:30: Bridget play time 
• 5:30-7:00: Bridget nap time
• 7:00: Wake Bridget to eat
• 7:00-8:30 or 9:00: Bridget last play time (ie – tire her out enough to sleep well that night!)
• 8:00: Lucy’s bed time routine (brush teeth, change to jammies, read Bible, pray together) 
• 9:00ish: Bridget shows signs of being REALLY tired and we let her go to sleep. 
• 10:00: Feed Bridget without waking her up “dream feed”  – don’t change her diaper, leave her in swaddle 
• 2:00am-ish: Bridget wakes up in the middle of the night to eat
• 7:00: If we are lucky, wake Bridget to eat again. Sometimes she wakes up around 5:00 or 6:00am instead. If its 5, I normally put her back to bed. If it is 6:00 or later, I feed her and let her play in the Boppy on our bed while we still lay there half asleep.