Movement and Sleep

Movement has become very fun and entertaining for our soon to be 9 month old. I think Ruthie just might enjoy roller coasters in the future since she smiles and laughs when Daddy plays "Super Baby" by holding her trunk with his hands and moving her around the room like Superman does in the movies. When music is playing, I'll hold Ruth in my arms like "we're dancing" and we'll sway and twirl around the room together. The movement makes the little girl smile and giggle. She may be slightly dizzy by the time we're finished spinning slowly in our living room. She loves it when daddy tosses her slightly out of his reach in the air. In addition, instead of carefully turning around to examine each play station on her exersaucer, Ruthie loves jumping up and down using her feet to pop up and make the little plastic balls inside of the station containers shake with noise.

Sleep has been interrupted every night by Ruthie waking herself up. By utilizing her sheer "baby strength," Ruthie manages to escape from the blanket around her lower body and roll over the sleep positioner wedges only to get one of her legs trapped between two slats of the crib. I hear her cry softly to begin with and then a very audible scream is heard that increases in intensity by the time I hurry across the house to reach her. I carefully remove her trapped leg and roll the little girl back into place, directly center of the crib mattress. What is infuriating for me is that Ruthie continually wakes up in a crawling position and being "half asleep," cannot return to her sleeping position independently. So I dutifully help her out with a smile on my face. She looks so cute with her eyes shut, crying piteously, helpless and not a baby for long.

I looked online last night at one in the morning for a solution to Ruthie's waking up problem. By perusing parent's posts on various sites, I discovered that if I wrap Ruthie's bottom and legs together tightly with a light blanket, it will eliminate Ruthie's ability to utilize her legs to roll over. In a last ditch attempt after the third wake up last night, I wrapped Ruthie's legs and went to bed praying for Ruth to sleep until at least 6am. The wrapping of the leg thing worked. Ruthie is still asleep and it is 8:30am. I have checked on her at least four times throughout the night and early morning hours due to my worry and fear that "something must have happened to her" since she was miraculously still sleeping. Now excuse me, I am going to wake up our daughter to begin our day. We have to make it to the Winn's house by 10am this morning. So much to do in so little time.