Rolling

Lilah is such a delightful little baby right now. She's sleeping well, is happy and content when she's awake, and has a very go-with-the-flow personality. I'm relishing this joyous time! All she needs is a bit of eye contact, or even just the sound of foot steps approaching, and her little face lights up into a big grin.

She's beginning to 'talk' a lot and happily blows rasberries to anyone who pays her attention. Some other things that are so wonderful about the four month age, besides the happy faces, is that they're not on solid food, and they're not too mobile yet. Lilah is starting to roll onto her tummy frequently though, so this not too mobile age is slipping quickly from my fingers!

Lilah went from the above position, to the below position while I was in the kitchen the other day. She may be requiring closer supervision in the near future :)

More photos

Here is a link for photos of Eliana at 18-24 months.

And here is a link to see photos of Lilah's first 4 months.

Medicine for the heart

Lilah 4 months

Lilah made it to four months last week! Here are some facts for her:

Weight: 13lb, 15.5 oz (25th-50th %)

Height: 26" (95th - 98th %)!

Head Circ: 16.25" (75th- 90th %)

She is 3lb's heavier than Eliana was at this age, and 1lb heavier than Eliana was at 6 months!

• Eating: She was still having 7-8 feeds a day, with a middle of the night and a 5am feed right up until she turned 4 months. She recently dropped to about 6 feeds a day though. I kept up as many feeds as she would take in order to help my struggling milk supply. I was told about an excellent spice that helped me amazingly though, Shatavari.
• Sleeping: Lilah was not a great napper until I started feeding her every 3.5 hrs, a week before she turned 4 months (as opposed to every 3 hours). She went from 1 hr naps to over 2 hour naps instantly! She now happily goes down for naps and sucks her thumb to settle herself if she stirs.

• Physical: She rolls from her tummy to her back and has rolled from her back to her tummy once or twice. She loves her play gym and grabbing the toys dangling above her. She loves to suck her thumb or fingers, or her whole hand!
• Personality: Lilah can still be quite feisty, although she's gone from being screamy baby to dreamy baby :) She has definitely mellowed out a lot since she got close to 4 months. At the same time, she is a lovely, happy baby who goes with the flow. She lights up at any eye contact and giggles when we play with her arms or legs or when she gets tickles.

• Relationships: Eliana is a beautiful big sister. She is (mostly!) very gentle with Lilah and likes to lie next to her, cuddling her with her arm. Lilah watches Eliana a little bit, but mostly her eyes are for her mama. She loves her Daddy too, and when she's nursing while Daddy's home, she is very distracted and tries to look around to see where that deep voice is coming from, especially while he and Eliana are playing!

We are abundantly thankful for Lilah's little life. May the Lord direct her heart towards him from a young age!

Eliana turned two

Eliana turned 2 last week. Here she is on her birthday:

And below is a photo of her on her last day as a one year old. What a blessing these two years have been!

The last 4 weeks at church, different nursery workers have stopped me to tell me how good Eliana was in the nursery. What a dream! I think all of them used the word "sweet" to describe her. This is a gift from God. May He keep the sweetness of her personality all her days, to glorify and honour and serve Jesus. Happy Birthday, my sweet angel!

A tip on potty training

A couple of weeks ago I blogged that Eliana was officially potty trained. Here is a bit of the process...

Nate and I decided to do the "potty training in a day" method (although it really takes a week). We used Toddlerwise*, by Ezzo and Bucknam for advice on potty training (don't buy it, borrow it from the library). You basically stay at home for a week, put your child in undies (Summer is the best season), feed your child lots of drink and salty snacks (so that they drink more), and use a doll to help explain the potty process to your child. Every time they have an accident, you bring out the doll to go through the potty process with your child again. Any successes are rewarded.

Eliana showed signs of readiness and we wanted to do it before Nate went back to work (it would have been impossible with just me, Eliana and Lilah) so we cleared our schedule. Day one saw about 15 accidents with a few successes, day two had about 10 very small accidents but by the afternoon Eliana seemed to be getting it. Then came day 3. Eliana didn't want to have an accident, but she became too scared to go on the potty. This meant she would hold on for ages, yet she seemed very uncomfortable. This went on for 2 days. It. Was. Tough. I was ready to give up. Nate persevered, but he says it's possibly the hardest thing he has had to do in parenting so far. We prayed A LOT, we made the bathroom a fun place to be, and we eventually started dancing and singing the song "poo poo in the potty" (from the movie, Look Who's Talking II) whenever Eliana said she needed to go. At the end of day 4, Eliana made some progress and on day 5, there were no more accidents and Eliana was happily going on the potty.

The next week was great. Then Nate went back to work. I don't know if it's connected, but the day Nate went back to work, Eliana seemed to regress. She began fearing doing poos on the potty. We looked on the internet and saw that a lot of children experienced the same fear, but we could only find one success story. So now it comes to my tip. This is what seems to be working for us so far. After a lot of distress, I decided to bring our laptop into the bathroom so that Eliana could watch kids music clips on You Tube while sitting on the potty. She loves this. It's her only 'screen time' of the day, so maybe that helps. We usually only do it once a day, after breakfast, which has always been her 'regular' time. The first couple of times trying this saw us in the bathroom for about 40-50 minutes. There were still a few tears when 'it came down to it' and I had to encourage her to stay on the potty when it looked like it was really time to go. After a week of this, she has gradually been taking less time and producing less tears. For the last few days she has been going without tears, and before I can even get a music clip up. She still enjoys her "speshtal tweat" afterwards too :)

So for now, I say that Eliana is imperfectly potty trained. It's 1000 times nicer than nappies! :)

* I wouldn't recommend Toddlerwise for anything other than the potty training and some practical advice. The rest seems to have an empty focus, centering on the child's behaviour rather than their heart. Jesus said "Out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks" (Luke 6:45) and "Every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit." (Matthew 7:17) My children's hearts need to know Jesus and submit to Him if I want them to truly produce 'good fruit' all of their days.

I would recommend, Shepherding a Child's Heart, by Tedd Trip, and Gospel Centred Family, by Moll and Chester. I haven't read Give Them Grace, by Elyse Fitzpatrick and her daughter, Jessica Thompson, but I've heard it is also an excellent book on parenting and it's on my "to read" book list.

A birth story (2)

I'm a bit slow with posting birth stories, as Lilah is now 3 months! But I didn't post Eliana's birth story until she was 7 months old, so I guess 3 months late is not so bad...

I spare you the details, but birth stories are not for everyone. If you do enjoy reading them, read on!

Friday, May 27th 2011

I was four days past my due date. Contractions started at 2pm. They came every hour or so and weren't so bad. I didn't get Braxton Hicks contractions in either pregnancies, so this was a good sign. I slept well that night but woke for each contraction that came every hour or less.

Saturday, May 28th

On Saturday I wanted to stay active to try and bring on labour. I vacuumed the house and then after a bacon and eggs brekky, Nate, Eliana and I went to the Dubbo Zoo park for a coffee, morning tea and walk. Contractions came every hour or so.

At 2pm I had a spicy vindaloo lunch, made by my Dad, and we added extra fresh chillies. After that, contractions started coming every 5-8 minutes and were approximately 30 seconds long. They started stopping me in my tracks. It's funny to see the difference in how I handled labour. At this stage with Eliana (or before) I was on all fours breathing through contractions. During this stage with Lilah, I played with Eliana and we ran up and down the driveway! :)

At 4pm contractions were anywhere between 2-6 minutes apart, and 30 seconds long. I rang the hospital at 4:45 and they told me to have a hot shower and come in when contractions were 2-3 minutes apart and 60 seconds long. After the shower contractions started coming every 2-3 minutes and were quickly growing in intensity. I cried after 1 contraction.

At 5pm we decided to make our way to the hospital, so after packing last minute hospital needs we arrived at the hospital around 5:30. (I was in the room next door to where I was born 30 years ago.) I was 8cm dilated.

The midwife asked if I minded a student nurse observing. We had no problem with this and it turned out to be quite a blessing. As the midwife talked through the labour process with the student, she was full of praise and encouragement for how I was coping. The affirmation was amazing in how much it helped me through.

Nate started recording contractions but by 6:20 they were too long and close together for him to record, as he was constantly at my back massaging me. I had a hot shower and bath after this for about 30 minutes. Contractions hurt and I moaned a lot. My lovely, gentle mother was able to be calm and quiet through the labour of all four of her children. I did not inherit this gift!

Earlier, I had asked the midwife if I needed my waters broken, because I did with Eliana. She said that she could break them if I wanted, and that the baby would come about 10 minutes after that, but she encouraged me to hold off and let them break naturally, as I was "coping so well." It was tempting to have them broken, but once again her encouragement kept me going. About 15 minutes after the bath I prayed that God would let my waters break naturally because I didn't think I could last much longer. They broke within 5 minutes. God is so very kind.

About 10 minutes after this I was on all fours on the bed, shrieking and screaming through the last transition. Nate later told me that he thought I went a little insane. My excellent midwife, Judi, told me to hold it together.

At 7:40pm I was ready to push. One big push brought the baby's head in view. Judi told me to slow down and coached me through pushing without having any tearing. It was soooo hard at the time to go slowly, but in hind site, a milllion times worth it!

At 7:49 our baby was born. "It's a girl!" Nate said. Beautiful Lilah Belle. Nate cut the cord and handed me our precious 8lb, 15oz. girl. She started nursing straight away.

It was a much smoother birth process, and praise the Lord, Lilah was healthy. According to Judi, labour started when contractions were 2-3 minutes apart, which put it at about 3.5 hours. For me, the shorter labour was 10 times more intense than my long labour with Eliana. Not long after giving birth, Nate asked me which kind of labour I would prefer. At the time, "neither" was all I could say, but now that the labour pains have been forgotten because of the joy it brought forth, I would definitely opt for Lilah's labour.

I thank the Lord for our little Lilah, and for the many answered prayers that came with her, and again I thank the Lord for my most attentive, serving, amazing husband, who is the best daddy to his girls.