A Rough Day

When your baby is usually such a sweetheart, you really notice when she has a bad day.

This morning, she awoke at her regular time, right around 6:00 am. She was all squeaks and smiles, and took her bottle and her change very well. I rocked her a bit and she started to seem a little drowsy. I put her down and tried to go back to sleep, thinking she'd drop back off to finish up her overnight sleep, as she's been doing for weeks.

About an hour and a half later, she was still rolling around in the crib with open eyes, squeaking and generally demanding attention.

The mister took the baby downstairs and let me get some more sleep, which was much appreciated. I went back to sleep for another couple of hours, going downstairs at 10:00 am to see how they were doing. Imagine my surprise when they weren't there!

I set in to finishing the childproofing of the cabinets (a more truly horrible job, I have not seen for years) and before long, the rest of the family returned. I learned then that she'd been cranky all morning, not taking food or succumbing to her obvious fatigue to take a nap, so they went for a car trip in an attempt to lull her to sleep.

Sleep, she did not, but we did get her to take a little food and play for awhile, showing off her newly good mood, until she finally did get tired and allow me to take her upstairs, put her in a sleep sack, and then lie her down for a nap.

She slept for several hours, then we went out to the grocery store, all three of us, once she woke up. She was her usual silly self while we were out, but she started to get cranky again in the car. A general lack of her usual level of food and rest seemed to be catching up with her.

I did manage to get a little food into her once we got home, until she started to fidget and pull away. She fell lightly to sleep on my shoulder, so I took her upstairs at about 9:00 pm to put her to bed for the night.

An hour later, she was still crying and unhappy, even though she was clearly rubbing her eyes and tired. I finally really listened to her third bout of crying over the monitor, and realized it sounded like her hunger cry. Didn't make sense, really. She'd just rejected the rest of her bottle a little while before, but I was willing try anything. I went upstairs and gave her a little bit of food, and she curled right up and put herself to sleep as soon as she was done and I'd laid her in her crib.

Common sense and babies do not mix. I really didn't think she was hungry. Why would you think that, when she'd turned her nose up at food so recently. But, babies are fickle, and it was food she wanted. And now I can sleep soundly for another night.