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  • Bloggity Blog Blog

    Another thirty-something mama writing about my three and a half year old daughter, my one year old daughter, breastfeeding, birth, car seat safety, motherhood, photography and family. Come see what's going on.

Baby Merlin’s Magic Sleepsuit – Week 1

After I posted this photo on Instagram I got a lot of questions about T’s Baby Merlin’s Magic Sleepsuit.

Little T has been a swaddle buster since day one. The girl has broken out of every swaddle she’s ever been placed in, starting with her first swaddle at the hospital at two hours old. That being said, she still really enjoyed the confined, secure feeling of being swaddled and for the first three months it was one of the only ways to calm her down enough to fall asleep. She loved her swaddle but was also great at escaping. Our solution to this problem in the beginning was to use the Miracle Blanket. The rule at our house was to always make sure there was a clean Miracle Blanket because without one, we were screwed.

In addition to the swaddle, the Fisher Price Rock n’ Play Sleeper was an integral part of our sleep arsenal. If she fussed, it would start rocking, and then she’d fall back to sleep. Little T slept in our kitchen most nights, since there wasn’t room for the RNP in our bedroom. Swaddle + RNP = pretty good sleep for a new baby.

A few weeks ago she started moving around so much that it wasn’t safe for her to stay in the RNP. She scooted herself down too far. So she started sleeping in her crib, which is sidecarred to our bed. The transition wasn’t as bad as I was expecting. She was sleeping the same good stretches in the crib as she was in the RNP. Next, we needed to wean her off the swaddle. I remember weaning Q from the swaddle and it was a nightmare. I didn’t really feel ready to wean T but she wasn’t staying swaddled so it was necessary. She was consistently sleeping 5-6hr stretches at night and I didn’t want to lose that.

I started asking other moms what they did to transition from the swaddle and learned about the Baby Merlin’s Magic Sleepsuit. Moms were swearing by this contraption that makes your baby look like a little astronaut. The suit works by muffling the baby’s startle reflex enough to help them stay asleep. It also functions similarly to a sleep sack, eliminating the need for blankets to keep warm. The baby can still move freely. T can still get her hands into her mouth and she kicks around in the suit.

Our Experience – Week 1

We got the Sleepsuit on Monday night and she slept similarly to how she slept in the swaddle. A 2 hour stretch, a 4 hour stretch, and a one hour stretch.

Tuesday we spent the day away from home helping a friend and then attending a memorial service so we were gone from 8:30am to 9:30pm. T was very tired from being out all day and she slept for 9 hours straight, (OMG!!) ate, then slept for 2 more hours. I was amazed and so excited. She kept napping for most of the day Wednesday and it became apparent that she was starting a growth spurt.

I had high hopes for Weds night. She went down at 7:45 and when she woke at 8:30 she ate and went back to sleep instead of getting up for a few more hours like she had been. The night she had a 4.5 hour stretch, the one hour, then two hours. Definitely not as exciting as that 9 hour stretch on Tuesday night.

The rest of the week she slept 2-3 hour chunks over night and has been eating a LOT. I’m hoping it’s all the same growth spurt and she’ll go back to sleeping longer stretches. I’m worried that it’s the start of the dreaded four month wakeful period and it’s just going to get worse. Only time will tell.

I was hoping for more “magical” results from the Sleepsuit but I’m not totally disappointed. We are successfully out of the swaddle and she is still sleeping reasonably well. We have accomplished the transition and it was MUCH less painful than it was with Q. Also, T has a positive sleep association with the suit now. She knows that when she puts it on, it’s time for sleep and that is helpful too.

We will keep using it for sure, and I’m hoping very hard that she’ll go back to sleeping 5-6hr stretches like she was in the swaddle. I’ll update again next week!

 

 

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What am I waiting for?

I feel like I have a million blog posts in my head and yet I never come here to write. There's always something holding me back and the biggest culprits are lack of time, lack of photos and wanting everything to look perfect before I publish it.

 

Well, my life isn't perfect. It's jumbled, it's full of stolen moments and making do on limited resources so I'm just going to go for it. I have the Blogsy App on my iPad, I have enough photos on Instagram and Facebook to populate posts and I can even (gasp!) blog without photos sometimes!

Here's some recent cuteness to tide you over while I organize my thoughts for future posts!

 

I'm planning a post on cloth diapers so watch out for that! This is T in her first pair of wool longies. Such a happy girl!

I'll also be posting about this contraption once I determine whether the positive sleep change we have experienced is due to the magic of this suit or just a developmental thing!

I'm off to brainstorm blog ideas. 🙂

 

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Dear Q, 2 1/2!

Dear Q,

Hi big sister!! Your baby is here and you are so excited! You are such a great big sister to her and you were from the moment you met!

Meeting her in the hospital was such a special experience for all of us. It took you a little while to figure out that Baby T was the SAME baby that had been in Mommy’s belly for all that time. For a while after she was born you’d still try to talk to the “baby” in my belly, so funny.

You spent a lot of time at Papa & N’s house around the time that T was born and you have so much fun there! Then Mimi stayed with us for a little while, and then with Thanksgiving you were able to see even MORE family and you ate up the spotlight. You have so much fun when we all get together and everyone fawns over you. You deserve it though, you’re a pretty awesome kid. We got to see everyone again when Baby M came along a month early and then again at Christmas. It was a great season for family time. We are going to really miss having the families together so often. You can’t get enough of your cousins. You talk about them constantly when they aren’t around. Every time we say we are going somewhere you ask if your cousins will be there.

You love to run and run, you love tickles and going upside down, you love cuddling on the couch and in the big bed. You ADORE your sister and babies in general. You are gentle and caring. We’re working on the concept of personal space and volume control but hey, you’re two! You are still super into balls and we made you a ball pit for Christmas using our pack n play. You love it.

I admit that we’ve had a lot of TV watching going on in the past few months and you love the Wonder Pets and Ni-Hao Kai Lan on Netflix. You’re getting to the point where you’re playing pretend and the characters in these shows keep coming up in your made up dialogue. I love listening to you chatter. You also use some Chinese words that you’ve learned on Kai Lan, which is hilarious. You walk around saying “Ni Hao” to the cats.

You’re into singing, big time, now. We are starting music class again next week and I CANNOT WAIT to see you learn all of these new songs. You’re just starting to dance now too. I love seeing you get so excited about music. You know it’s my thing.

Here are some recent pictures. This is such a fantastic age. I love it so much. You make us so happy.

Can’t believe you’re already two and a half. Where does the time go???? Keep being awesome. We love you so much.

 

Forever yours,

Mommy

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Dear TT, 8 Weeks Old

Dear TT,

Wow. 8 weeks have flown by and it's hard to imagine our lives before you were here. You're starting to have longer stretches of time where you are awake and I swear, baby girl, I melt every time you smile at me. Like, I'm a completely melted, goopy, puddle of a mommy. I can barely function.

 

I mean, seriously!!

You are such a beautiful baby. I know everyone thinks that about their babies but I don't care, you are gorgeous. Your eyes are still an icey blue and it's no secret that I REALLY hope they stay light. I love your Daddy's dark brown eyes and your sister's light brown/hazel eyes but I really love my blue/green/grey eyes and who doesn't want their babies to look like them? I have no shame in wanting my baby's eyes to look like mine. 🙂

When you're not smiling and melting Mommy into puddles you are putting us through our paces around here. You require constant motion when you're awake and trying to fall asleep so we spend a LOT of time walking the hallway with you and bouncing on the yoga ball. We sing, we pat your back, we sway, we walk, we walk, we walk. Sometimes it takes just a few minutes, sometimes it takes an hour. Sometimes we out you down and you stay asleep but usually you either wakeup as we set you down or a few minutes later. So, it's a process. The word on the street is that you will grow out of this in another month or so. We have our fingers crossed!

For now, I'm enjoying the feeling of you snuggled up under my chin. All 12+ pounds of you, chunky girl. You relax almost immediately when I sing to you, and that makes me feel so special. Your sister wasn't like that. She couldn't have cared less about my singing, haha. She also didn't make me work as hard. I knew going into this that you were going to be a completely different person than Q so it's fun to see your personality emerge, even when certain traits are making my life more difficult. 🙂

Hello tangent! Anyhow, what I've learned about you is that you are a bit more sensitive of a child than Q was, and that's ok. The great news for you is that this isn't my first rodeo and I know exactly what to do to help you. I've thought a lot about what it would have been like to have had you first and to have had unlimited amounts of time to spend on you. But you know what? I think that you really were meant to come when you did. You need the experience, calm and patient mommy that Q created. You need the perfect swaddle and the perfect sway and my ability to stay calm when you've been screaming for 45 minutes straight. So, I'm glad we have each other and glad that we are such a good fit.

 

I can't get enough of these snuggles.

So, thanks for bearing with me and my rambling. I don't want to forget these days. Things change so fast and I'm going to wake up one day and you're going to be a kid and these days will be long gone. You were a missing piece of this family, and maybe the final piece. That remains to be seen. But for now, I'm so happy to have you here with us every day. We couldn't love you any more.

Here are some photos from the last few weeks.

Happy 8 weeks, TT. We love you the mostest.

 

Forever yours,

Mommy

 

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Dear T – 3 weeks old

Dear T-

It’s the middle of the night and you are three weeks old. I’ve been staring at your sleeping face for the past 15 minutes by the light of the Christmas tree and memorizing your beautiful baby face. Days are so busy around here. I just want to hold and snuggle you all say but I can’t. So I stay up when I should be sleeping and I drink you in. You are perfection and I’m so glad you have joined our family. We waited so long to meet you and I imagined you for so long and now you’re here in the flesh and I couldn’t love you more.

I can’t believe it’s already been three weeks.

You’ve gained a few pounds and added more delicious rolls to your chunky thighs. You have beautiful blue eyes, light brown, downy hair and little elfin ears that stick out just at the top. You’ve been a pretty cross eyed newbie so far but that’s starting to go away too. It’s really funny to look at though. Over all you are SUCH good baby. I’m so thankful for that. You love to sleep, you’re a good eater and, since we figured out how to get you to deeply latch, nursing has been a breeze (for the most part). You’re very good at expressing yourself when you’re just DONE being awake and you like to be swaddled up and walked around with your head nestled under my chin until you fall asleep. Sometimes that takes a few minutes, other times it takes an hour or more.

I knew from the time when I first felt you move inside me that you were a mover and a shaker. You want to be in motion all the time and you sleep best either in the Rock ‘n Play or the swing. Well, actually you sleep BEST best on Mommy but your longest naps away from me are in those devices. Sleeping on your back in your crib has not been successful. It’s too flat and too stationary for your tastes. Luckily for you, your crib is side carred to  our bed so I just scoot you over next to me and usually you’re good to go. We are starting to get the hang of side-lying nursing too. It’s hard with big boobs and a tiny newborn mouth to find. Haha. It’s also killer on my back if I’m not in the right position so, like I said, we’re working on it. Practice makes perfect. Before I know it you’ll be able to find my nipple in the dark from across the room. Time goes so quickly.

You will not take a pacifier, which is good in theory but not so good in practice since you LOVE to suck and when you try to comfort nurse when you’re upset you get even more angry when milk comes out. So, we’re working on it. It’s not usually a big issue but then when it’s 3:00am and nothing will calm you down I find myself REALLY wishing you’d suck on a darn paci. 🙂

We have so much to look forward to but right now I’m just trying to soak in this newborn goodness while it’s here. I can’t wait for you to start smiling and laughing and making eye contact but I know I’m going to miss this time so much when it’s gone. You might be my last baby so I’m trying to take in every moment like it could be the last time I get to do this. (cue tears!) Obviously by the time you read this you will know whether or not you were the last baby but right now, that all remains to be seen.

I’m so glad you have joined our family. I love you more and more each passing minute. Welcome to this world, sweet girl.

Love,

Mommy

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