12 Weeks Old

Hannah takes a snooze on Mommy
Our 12-week old girl!!

We've tried to settle Hannah into a routine of going upstairs for her 7-8pm feeding and then doing stories, changing into PJ's, and singing lullabies at that time. I put her to bed and then retreat downstairs to listen in with the baby monitor (Jon likens it to having a house that is bugged). Then, Daddy will give her the last feeding of the night from a bottle to he can have some quality time with her (anywhere from 10:30 to midnight). From that point on, it's Mommy's turn -- all night. For the past few weeks, Hannah had been going through a major growth spurt and was up almost every hour, sometimes every 30 minutes, wanting to eat. Nights were VERY long...and the days weren't much better.

But last night Hannah gave me a wonderful gift (other than turning 12 weeks old yesterday)... our little baby let her Mommy sleep from 12:30am until almost 4am! That is the most sleep that I've gotten at one time since she has been home (maybe since she was born). Hannah actually slept a little longer than that, since I had to pump after I gave her the nighttime bottle (I let Jon go to sleep and I took care of bottle duty because he had a rough day at work). Now, things weren't exactly smooth sailing after I went back to bed at 4:45am....Hannah was up again at 5:15 and then again around 6ish...but getting up those two other times was a lot easier with the sleep I'd gotten earlier in the night. By 7am Hannah was up and alert and ready to start the day (can you say morning child?!), but she did settle down for a short mid-morning nap (that I took too).

I'm looking forward to a little more consistency in her sleep schedule, but I have to keep reminding myself that our 12-week old is really only 2 weeks old developmentally...and that makes it a little easier to understand why her sleep doesn't have a schedule and why after all this time she is still getting up every 2 or 3 hours, but at the same time it reminds me that this is an endurance race and there is still more to go even though she is almost 3 months old. I have an extended newborn phase with her -- it makes me EVER SO THANKFUL that I do not have to go back to work after 12 weeks -- it would be like someone else going back to work with a 2-week old baby at home. I can't even fathom going back after only 6 weeks...she would have only been home for 5 days if that were the case (and I would have worked a month before her due date even came around)!

I'm very fortunate that my firm is very understanding (after all, it's already been 4 months since I've worked -- I left the office on December 14th for the hospital and haven't been back yet). When I first went into the hospital everyone told me to not worry about work - even those in management called to remind me of that. I got phone calls in the hospital from a number of partners reminding me to just focus on my health and the baby's health, and few partners visited me in the hospital, and clients even called and sent well-wishes. Once home the same mantra continued (thoroughly impressing my mother who always thought I worked too much - she didn't realize what great people I was working with), and one partner even brought tons of food to the house so we wouldn't have to worry about cooking! When I go back, I think I'll appreciate the supportive firm family that I have even more, since I know that they don't care just about the number of hours that I bill, but they care about me and my family too.

[For those at the firm wondering, I'll be back sometime in early August...]