Rebecca's Habits

Over the last two weeks, we've discovered a lot about Rebecca's habits. Everyone warned us that "no two babies are alike." Well, they're right (at least as far as Kathryn and Rebecca are concerned).

Like Kathryn, Rebecca is generally very well-behaved. But Rebecca moves her arms and legs a lot more than Kathryn did. To this day, Kathryn sleeps on her back, completely still. But Rebecca is rarely completely still.

Of course, Rebecca's main activities are eating and sleeping. I love holding her while she's sleeping, but I can't really do anything with her when she's hungry. Babies have something called a "rooting instinct", which the Wikipedia defines as, "When the baby's cheek is stroked, the baby will move his or her face towards the stroking and open his or her mouth, demonstrating the rooting instinct." And (partly because Rebecca moves so much) she often accidentally brushes her cheek with her sleeve. We've lost count of the number of times we've seen Rebecca lying on the floor, straining with mouth open to latch onto her sleeve. She doesn't have much control over her arms or legs yet, so it's a bit like watching a dog chase its tail!

But once Rebecca decides it's time to eat, my sole contribution is to delay her long enough for Kristin to get ready to feed her. Sometimes it takes a while for Kristin to get ready (especially if she's in the shower, or if I'm just trying to give her some time to sleep before she has to feed Rebecca again). So, in the meantime, Rebecca thrashes her head from side to side, trying to find anything to latch onto. Fortunately, once she finds something to suck on, she stops crying for a short while. Over the last two weeks, I've discovered precisely how long a given item will keep her satisfied:

• Pacifier: varies from three seconds to one minute
  
• My sleeve: two seconds
• My cheek: three seconds (our version of a "kiss")
• My arm (sans sleeve): ten seconds
• Her own thumb/finger/hand/fist: fifteen seconds
  
• The tip of my pinky finger: twenty seconds
• The knuckle of my pinky finger: five minutes!

So as you can see, if Kristin is ever more than six minutes away, there's nothing I can do if Rebecca is really hungry. But most of the time, she just wants a cuddle. That's another difference between Kathryn and Rebecca. Kathryn was content to stay on the floor on her back between feedings. Rebecca demands a bit more "cuddle-time".