Wherein I Don't Want My Baby To Die

Lois is starting to do things like interact with the world around her, reaching out toward things nearby that she finds interesting.  She's also trying to sit herself up when we lay her down, doing this V-shaped move that I think in yoga is called a "jackknife." I could be wrong.

She's even started tipping herself on her side late at night while she's sleeping, or faking being asleep.

Which, of course, is terrifying.

As you may recall from not long ago, I need to swaddle my baby to help her sleep. Now she is capable of tipping herself onto her side which means that soon she will tip herself over. With SIDS a terrifying reality in this world, the thought of her flipping onto her stomach with no way of flipping herself back and theoretically no way of moving her head if she's face-down and exhausted, we are going to immediately stop swaddling her and get her used to sleeping with her arms free.

We may swaddle her legs so she's not kicking herself awake but her arms will be free. I imagine the evening will go like this:

1. Lay her down to sleep after a feeding. She will probably suck on one of her hands for a while and doze off.
2. Flail as she falls asleep (whether this is because of the Moro reflex or something else I don't know) and rip her own hand out of her mouth.
3. Wake up.
4. Cry because someone took away her soothing sucking hand.
5. Pick up baby and soothe.
6. Repeat. All. Night. Long.

So if I seem a little tired over the next few days it's because I am. If mom seems a little tired? It's because she is. We both expect this to take a while and be rough on both of us but we're both concerned for her and want to do everything we can to make sure she's healthy.

Even if it turns us into zombies.