Sadie Coos

Life as a family

Life with Sadie has been fantastic. Sleep deprived but fantastic to say the least! With finals week behind us we have been having so much fun just enjoying this new little person in our family.
We love dressing her, bathing her, and taking her on walks. She is NOT a fan of the stroller but loves being snuggled in the Bjorn backpack.

We mostly just walk through the other apartment complexes and enjoy the beautiful San Diego weather. Other days we'll venture out and go see some sights of San Diego. She's too young for sun block but we take her to the pool anyway and keep her in the shade. She's too cute in her little bikini to not show her off to everyone.
She loves to sleep on Chase's chest and he loves it too. We're working on the whole sleeping through the night thing. I read Baby Wise twice to ensure that I knew what I was doing when she arrived and I still feel like a basket case. They say to start implementing the tactics at 10 days but I feel like letting your newborn"scream it out" for 45 minutes is just too brutal.
Chase and I about died after 10 minutes while we were trying to eat dinner. She really wants to be held all the time. It's crazy around here!!! Tommi Hymas lent us her swing and that helps a little. Sadie will last about 5 minutes in there before she starts screaming again. I still remember putting her in there the first time and watching her quietly swing back and forth. Chase and I embraced because we thought we were "out of the woods" but then she started screaming again. Whoever said parenting was easy was WRONG! (Has anyone ever said parenting is easy?)

We have since retrieved a copy of Happiest Baby on the Block (thanks Heidi) and feel like we finally have a little more control. The five S's (swing, suck, side lay, swaddle and SHHH) have saved us these last couple of weeks. Swaddling along with the Baby Wise method has really worked and at 6 weeks our little lady slept 6 hours through the night!! It was so amazing to sleep longer than three consecutive hours. I am one of those people that goes completely crazy without enough sleep (just ask Chase:-).

Another problem we've encountered is how sore and painful it's been nursing Sadie. She had a tongue tie that had to be clipped because she had left me practically raw on both sides. Sometimes when she would have a spit up she would cough up some of my blood she had somehow ingested. It scared me to DEATH!! Was it her's or my blood? It was her's but that in itself was need to panic. Everytime she latched on, my body would shake in pain. It was awful!!

Once we clipped her tongue at about two weeks I healed a little more every day. I only had a hand pump (the electric ones were too expensive) and it took FOREVER to pump out her meals 6 times a day!! The sacrifice of a mother I guess. Now that I'm healed and don't tremble at the thought of feeding her every 3 hours, life is much better.

Now that she's sleeping a little more and I've got the feeding thing down, I'm not as crazy and Chase can finally have his wife back...sort of. I don't know how long it will take this whole sleep deprivation thing to wear off:-) We love our little Sadie so much that through it all, it's been more than worth the midnight feedings, and the ban on "regular music" and television.
From what I've read children should not watch TV until age two because it causes ADHD. Too many images for them to process. Mozart is supposed to make them bright and smart so Sadie has a little CD player in her room and listens to soothing tunes while she naps. I like to think she'll be a genuis one day:-). I'll never forget eating my turkey sandwiches in the car while on my lunch break at Hinzman and Associates so Sadie could hear some Mozart from the radio. I would blast that music in hopes that she could hear it from the womb. I still can't believe she's here. So surreal and superb all at once!!