Month 8 has been crazy! There have been so many new things and firsts – good and bad. Semra is fully crawling, pulling up to standing, teething, making friends at day care, painting, eating all sorts of food (carrots, sweet potato, pears, oatmeal, bananas, apples, chicken, rice, avocado, etc), sitting at her table and chair and focusing on different activities, and making gaga/baba/dada noises.
One thing she isn’t doing is sleeping! I guess going through all of these changes has had an impact on her sleep and she woke up on average about 4 times a night for most of October – that’s about every 2 hours!!!! It wasn’t even this bad during the first month. This is actually the worst her sleep has ever been and it’s been the first time so far that Kerem and I have felt exhausted during this whole parenting adventure. We’ve gotten back to the shift system that we did during the first month (he sleeps in the room with her for 4.5 hours while I sleep on the couch undisturbed, and then we switch). Hopefully this way, we’ll both get some good rest and we can wait out this rough patch.
The other challenge was that she was sick with fever. It might be from day care or from teething (she cut her very first tooth the following morning). But it was so sad. She was so hot and miserable. Luckily it was over a weekend, so we cancelled all our plans (no one wants to hang out with a sick baby!) and gave her some extra love. Then soon after, Kerem got sick, so we were miserable! It is tough parenting when you are sick and sleep deprived! She also had diaper rash for the first time – we think she might have had a bad reaction to cauliflower. That was so sad – her tooshie was so red and raw 😦
But throughout the whole month, while we struggled to keep up and figure things out, Semra kept waking up with a smile (even if she woke up 10 times the night before!). She is still a mellow, curious, and joyful child, and we still love being her parents.
teamenokakerem 