A Rough 3 Months


      I know it has been a while since I posted. I will make this one short as I need to catch up on Thanksgiving and Christmas posts.
  Amber is 3 months old now. It has gone by much slower than with Nathan. She has horrible colic and has had it since about week 3 of life. I'm not going to lie, it has been awful. She cries all the time and not just a normal cry but a "your amputating both my legs with no anesthesia" type of cry. She also still gets up every 3-4 hours to eat each night. For the first 9 weeks the crying was anytime of day however it seemed worse at night. She was either awake and crying or asleep. She would calm down when you held her but that would only last so long. We tried her on Reglan (in case it was reflux), colic calm, gripe water, simthicone drops, Bio gaia (a probiotic), switched formula's, tried a friends breast milk and none of it seemed ot help. She has spent alot of time in the baby sling because that seems ot work the best for her colic. We figure she spent less than an hour a day (during the first 2 months) that she was not crying or sleeping. Yea.....rough.
         2 weeks ago I thought we had turned a corner with her constant crying. She started interacting and smiling more. She would have bouts of crying in the evening but it was much more manageable. However the past 3 days she has relapsed back to crying alot however she is more interactive and gives me about 3 blocks a day of about 15 minutes each where she is happy and "playing".
I know you are not supposed to compare your children but she is a very fussy and miserable baby compared to Nathan. We keep thinking each day has to be the day she is going to be better.

I forgot a 2 month post so here is a catch up.
2 Months
She weighed 10pounds 8oz at her 2 month appt. 40th percentile
Her height was in the 70th percentile
Head Circ was 35th percentile
she had bad infant acne form weeks 7-11, but that has faded.

3 Months
11 pounds on home scale

She does not really have a schedule. I hate this because I was so good about getting Nathan on a schedule right from the beginning. She still gets up every 3-4 hours at night to feed. We had 2 nights were she slept 5 hours but she has not done it in awhile. I never had to work to get Nathan to sleep through the night, he just did it on his own, so I am not sure what I should do. I have tried the crying it out method (during the day) and it does not work. She cried for 45minutes straight before I gave in and picked her up. I have tried the patting method, when I hear her cry at night I go in, pat her until she falls back asleep or starts screaming at which point I pick her up and rock her. The problem with the patting method is that she falls back asleep just long enough for me to get back downstairs and into bed before she starts crying again. I read somewhere you are supposed ot keep repeating the cycle of patting until you stretch out their feedings, however I am usually to tired to do it past 2 rounds each night.
  I put her to bed, in her crib,  at 9pm each night after her bath and bottle. She usually wakes up an hour later but I can pat her back asleep. Then she wakes up crying around 1am to eat. Sometimes I pat her other times I just feed her. She then wakes up around 3:30 or 4am at which point I put her in her swing. She sleeps great in her swing, but I am trying to get her to sleep in her crib, especially since I go back to work soon. She then gets up at 5 or so to eat then falls back asleep in her swing. She will sleep till 8am but Nathan is up at 7ish. the lack of consistent sleep is killing me. I am able to function well most days but I am tired ALL THE TIME. I get very grouchy without got quality sleep.
Dan and I trade off taking care of her on the nights her doesn't work.
She naps on and off during the day. I kinda have them both on the same nap schedule. Nathan naps form 1-4 and she usually will nap during that time too! That is my saving grace!
I keep her awake from 6p-9p in hopes to tire her out. I guess I need a new strategy. Any ideas are welcome!!

As angry or upset as we get when she just screams and screams it is hard to be mad at her when she smiles like this!!