My date is FAST approaching for completing my 101 items in 1001 days! My deadline is Friday 11/16/2012, so a little under 6 months left. You can view my list by clicking on the 101 in 1001 tab at the top of my page. It seemed like it was SO far off when I made the list and I thought I'd realistically get through about 90 of my items. Well, as of today I have only completed 44 items, so not what you could call "on pace" to meet my goal....and with a young baby, is only harder now to complete some of these items! It will be interesting to see what happens and how many more of these I can accomplish.
I really like doing this and think I'll do something similar after this expires. I find for me it is important to set goals in writing cause I'm much more likely to stick with them. And it's a good way to sit and think about items that are important to you and to ensure that you try to make time for those.
5.30.2012
5.16.2012
Mother's Day
I had originally asked for the Saturdaybefore mother's day to do something special-- nothing big, but just wanted to do something fun that day rather than our usual weekend chores. However, we've been waiting months to get a water softener installed and Saturday was the day the guy could do it. So Dustin spent most of Saturday helping the guy install this thing while I attempted to entertain Lachlan who was NONSTOP fussing. We finally called the doctor cause thought he must be teething even though I couldn't feel anything coming through. So we started giving him tylenol every 4 hours and I bought some teething rings for the fridge-- none seemed to help. Unfortunately it was just not the weekend I had imagined and how my first mothers day would be...but hey, guess that's what happens sometimes!
So on Sunday I decided we'd make some waffles for breakfast since it is very rare we ever cook anything for breakfast anymore. So that was really my big mothers day treat, which I made mostly myself and then had to chow down in 2 minutes so then could entertain the little fusser. Fortunately he seemed to feel better as the day went on.
Here's a pic from later in the day when he was in a perfect mood (always does that when we are around other people so they think we are crazy) :
I love his daycare and they were so sweet to make a little mothers day project. It was funny cause I noticed last Wednesday night that his pinky toenail was green and was so confused...however, now it all makes sense!
So in the end, nothing really went as planned, but at the end of the day couldn't imagine having a more perfect (in his own way) or cute little son!!
So on Sunday I decided we'd make some waffles for breakfast since it is very rare we ever cook anything for breakfast anymore. So that was really my big mothers day treat, which I made mostly myself and then had to chow down in 2 minutes so then could entertain the little fusser. Fortunately he seemed to feel better as the day went on.
Here's a pic from later in the day when he was in a perfect mood (always does that when we are around other people so they think we are crazy) :
I love his daycare and they were so sweet to make a little mothers day project. It was funny cause I noticed last Wednesday night that his pinky toenail was green and was so confused...however, now it all makes sense!
5.13.2012
Lachlan - 5 months!
Today Lachlan turns 5 months old and is extra special day cause it's Mothers Day! Unfortunately he has been SUPER cranks this weekend and we are thinking/hoping it is due to him teething. There is just nothing we can do to console him- we've been giving him tylenol and teething rings and gum massagers. When he is sleeping is about the only peaceful time we've had this weekend though! Somehow we managed to get some smiles and cute looks for his 5 month photos though...
Stats? Based on our scale he weighs about 18 lbs. He wears 6 and 9 month clothes- he's kinda in between so they both fit.
Eating
Habits? Finally it is pretty routine that he drinks 6 6-oz bottles each day, so 36 oz total. He does usually 3 of breastmilk and 3 of formula. I've cut out my middle of the night pumping session, so am down to about 5 sessions/day. I'd like to get another session cut out in the next few weeks too. We did some oatmeal for like a week, but then backed off. His appetite had been huge, which was why we had started doing that early, but then he backed off requiring so many bottles. He seemed to figure out the eating and swallowing after a bit, so I don't think he'll have much issue when we start foods. We plan to wait to around 6 months to start anything.
Sleeping
Habits? See previous post!
Milestones
Stats? Based on our scale he weighs about 18 lbs. He wears 6 and 9 month clothes- he's kinda in between so they both fit.
Favorite Toys? We still use a lot of his usual favorites, but he also now loves his activity gym. He will lay in that thing and pull on the hanging objects and roll all over in there. And Wheels on the Bus is still his favorite song, but we are mixing in some others he really likes such as Down by the Bay, The Itsy Bitsy Spider, and any hand-clapping game that girls played in the 80's.
Milestones
- Held his own bottle
- Gave himself his own bottle start to finish
- Rolled over front to back and back to front on the same day...and from that point on was just a rolling fool all over the place!
- Noticed his feet and began playing with them
- Began putting feet in his mouth
- Really laughs hard when dad plays the "stinky neck"game with him
- PAT visit on 4/21 (4 months and 1 week old): Did well with the evaluation and was exceeding past the 4 month stage in all categories except 1. The one he didn’t pass was that he could pivot on his tummy- he still is not a huge fan of the tummy time. Excelling very well still in the verbal category. Things to be watching for before our next visit- pivoting on stomach, rolling over, turning his head to where mom/dad’s voice is in the room (think he may do this, but weren't 100% sure), respond to his name- closer to 6 months, if object goes away then is looking for it, purposefully transfer objects between hands (does this now but not sure if intentional), try to get feet to bat at objects.
- Eczema seems to be getting so much better by putting the vaseline on nightly.
- The flat spot on his head appears to be getting a little better, but had to cancel the dr. appt cause I wasn't feeling well...so we go next week.
- Bath nightly around 7:15-7:30. I usually give him his bottle then in his room and am done around 8:00.
- For the last week and half he will sleep until about 5-5:30 and fuss for just a couple minutes, but then goes back to sleep. He'll then wake for good any time around 6:15-6:30 usually. He'll chill in the bathroom while we finish getting ready and then take him to daycare- usually leave the house around 7.
- His naps are all over the place, but the only thing consistent is that he always goes down for some sort of nap between 8-8:30. He usually has 5 bottles at daycare-- sometimes only 4 if we get there early enough.
- Once we are home in the evenings, we usually eat a quick dinner and then just play on the floor with the activity gym or in the bouncy seat. If the weather is nice, we usually try for a 30-minute walk. Before you know it, it's bath time!
5.09.2012
Ahhhh, Sleep at last!
This is going to be WAY more info than the average person wants to read, so you've been warned now and can stop reading! (Although I’ve actually found a lot of what I’ve learned very interesting!) So, we were so lucky the first couple months to get a baby that was an awesome sleeper, so for that I’m thankful. As I’ve mentioned lightly on here, since about 3 months we’ve had some issues with getting him to sleep through the night. He always goes to bed initially wonderfully, but some nights would wake 5 times throughout the night. Luckily it doesn’t happen every night, but often enough that it was completely wearing us out. At first we made excuses like “Oh he has such a bad cold and cough” or “this is just a phase a lot of babies go through and it will pass.” I’ve recently read Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Baby and Solve Your Child’s Sleep Problems. Both were good, but I HIGHLY recommend Solve Your Child’s Sleep Problems by Dr. Ferber- it was a quick read for me and really put things into a good perspective and convinced me we needed to take action and that this was the right approach. Below is my summary of our issues and how I applied the books:
Going to Bed Routine
So our putting to bed routine had been shaping up as:
1) Take bath (usually takes about 20 minutes)
2) Have bottle in family room (usually takes another 20 minutes)
3) Go to nursery and swaddle him
4) Put him in crib, white noise is playing, also play his seahorse lullaby music (the last week of April we were successful getting him sleeping without the Nap Nanny and just using towels to elevate the mattress)
After reading the book, we are doing mostly everything correct. He has the same routine every night so knows what to expect. He is almost always awake when we put him in the crib, so he knows where he is going to sleep at and there are no surprises in the middle of the night when he wakes. Only a handful of times has he cried after putting him down and we always let him cry it out (CIO) and is usually just a few minutes. He most likely has sleep associations developed with the swaddling, white noise, and possibly needing the bottle. These can be okay cause they signal sleep to him, but can be bad if he 100% MUST have them in order to sleep and they become a pain for you.
For us, the only things we are changing with our putting to bed routine is to stop the swaddle and give him his bottle in the nursery rather than the family room. The reason to change where we give the bottle is possibly more geared towards older babies, but it’s so he will associate going to his room for bedtime as more pleasant since he gets the bottle in there. When we give it in the family room and he’s upset cause it’s all done, then we go to the bedroom and it can feel like a negative. We debated up until the final seconds if we were going to stop the swaddle or continue. The book convinced us to stop the swaddle now by saying that babies can adapt very quickly to change and it is better to make all the changes at once rather than slowly. So if we go through several nights of this CIO program with him swaddled….then a few weeks later when we stop the swaddling, we will probably have to go through all this again.
So now our putting to bed routine looks like:
1) Take bath (usually takes about 20 minutes)
2) Have bottle in nursery (usually takes another 20 minutes)
3) Put him in crib, white noise is playing, also play his seahorse lullaby music
Middle of Night Wakings
When he fusses during the night we usually go into his room within the first minute of crying and give him his pacifier—lately, he immediately takes it and will suck on it…but then he’ll no doubt lose it and start crying, so then I gotta be on standby to replace it. So I’ll usually be in his room for 20 minutes until I know he’s asleep or not going to lose it anymore. Then we have some nights where he just won’t take the pacifier and it is close to morning, so we move him to the swing. This way he stops crying and we can get a couple hours more sleep.
For the middle of the night waking, we are doing everything wrong! First, we should not be rushing in during the first minute- this is not even giving him a chance to go back to sleep. And he obviously knows how to put himself to sleep cause he does it initially when going to bed. Secondly, we give him the pacifier. So now he knows that when he wakes during the night and cries that we’ll come soothe him by bringing him the pacifier and helping him back to sleep…there is really nothing wrong with this, except we want our sleep! So our goal is that when he wakes, he no longer will cry, but just comfort himself and return to sleep.
So, Dr. Ferber claims that by following some simple steps that in just a few nights you can teach your child to self-soothe and go back to sleep on his own.
For the middle of the night wakings, we will no longer giving him the pacifier at all and are using a progressive waiting technique. With progressive waiting, each night you let him cry for a set number of minutes- then you enter the room and just talk to him a little to assure him that you did not abandon him. You do NOT pick him up though or try to get him to go to sleep or soothe him…it’s solely to reassure him that you are still around. And expect that they will in fact cry HARDER when you leave the room each time. In no more than a minute, you leave the room. You now let him cry for another set number of minutes, but slightly lengthen it from the first interval. This continues until he stops crying. So our plan for night one looked like: Wait 3 minutes when first starts crying, go reassure him, let him cry 5 minutes, go reassure him, now let him cry 10 minutes, reassure him...and just continue doing this every 10 minutes. Then night 2 we would move to: Wait 5 minutes when first starts crying, go reassure him, let him cry 10 minutes, go reassure him, now let him cry 12 minutes. The same parent should continue to go in for each interval until he goes back to sleep and wakes again- then it is okay to change. Also, it recommends NOT going into the room at the interval if the child has started to calm down himself- seeing and hearing you will probably just make him more upset and cause more harm than good.
So we've been doing this for 1 week and here are the results! Night one we were expecting it to be HORRIBLE and that we'd take shifts. Lachlan woke at 11pm and started wailing at 11:15. I went in 3 minutes later to reassure him, which I really think did NO good cause he was crying so hard I don't think he could hear my meek voice saying, "honey, it's okay....i'm right here....just go back to sleep." I then laid in the guest room across the hall watching him on the video monitor waiting for 5 minutes to pass, which felt more like 50 minutes. So I go back in and do the same routine and force myself to leave after like 30 seconds. Now I have to wait 10 whole minutes before going back in! At this point he starts getting super angry and seems to be the first time I've seen him throw a tantrum of sorts- he takes both legs and just starts smacking them down as hard as he can on the mattress. I've never seen him so worked up (and this kid has cried A LOT)! I'm thinking there is no way he will just stop crying and I'm probably going to have to wake Dustin up at some point cause I won't know what to do. The book says nearly all kids will stop within an hour, but there are a few select who can make it past that hour mark....and I just know Lachlan is probably one of those "select" few! Anyways, about 8 minutes into the waiting, he starts to wind down to more whimpers and settling down a bit. So I get to 10 minutes and decide not to go in there since he isn't crying so hard anymore. Then at the 11 minute mark he just stops crying and goes to sleep. Just like someone flipped a switch!
The rest of the night there was NO crying. He woke at 6am and did not cry- just laid happily in his crib until we came and got him 15 minutes later. So we think either that one crying it out session really did the trick OR this was just some fluke that he was so good after that. Well, 6 nights later, we have yet to have any more crying episodes during the night. This was completely amazing and worked a million times better than I had thought- I feel like we are all so much happier with getting good sleep. I still will wake during the night cause I hear him rustling about, but he won't cry and he'll just figure it out himself how to go back to sleep-- the one night he was up for 30 minutes at 3am just trying to get comfy and go back to sleep...but no crying!
The book says this method will usually work in about 3-4 nights to get them sleeping all on their own, but I was not expecting it to take less than 1 night of work! I can't recommend this method enough and we'll definitely be using this on any future kids!!!
Going to Bed Routine
So our putting to bed routine had been shaping up as:
1) Take bath (usually takes about 20 minutes)
2) Have bottle in family room (usually takes another 20 minutes)
3) Go to nursery and swaddle him
4) Put him in crib, white noise is playing, also play his seahorse lullaby music (the last week of April we were successful getting him sleeping without the Nap Nanny and just using towels to elevate the mattress)
After reading the book, we are doing mostly everything correct. He has the same routine every night so knows what to expect. He is almost always awake when we put him in the crib, so he knows where he is going to sleep at and there are no surprises in the middle of the night when he wakes. Only a handful of times has he cried after putting him down and we always let him cry it out (CIO) and is usually just a few minutes. He most likely has sleep associations developed with the swaddling, white noise, and possibly needing the bottle. These can be okay cause they signal sleep to him, but can be bad if he 100% MUST have them in order to sleep and they become a pain for you.
For us, the only things we are changing with our putting to bed routine is to stop the swaddle and give him his bottle in the nursery rather than the family room. The reason to change where we give the bottle is possibly more geared towards older babies, but it’s so he will associate going to his room for bedtime as more pleasant since he gets the bottle in there. When we give it in the family room and he’s upset cause it’s all done, then we go to the bedroom and it can feel like a negative. We debated up until the final seconds if we were going to stop the swaddle or continue. The book convinced us to stop the swaddle now by saying that babies can adapt very quickly to change and it is better to make all the changes at once rather than slowly. So if we go through several nights of this CIO program with him swaddled….then a few weeks later when we stop the swaddling, we will probably have to go through all this again.
So now our putting to bed routine looks like:
1) Take bath (usually takes about 20 minutes)
2) Have bottle in nursery (usually takes another 20 minutes)
3) Put him in crib, white noise is playing, also play his seahorse lullaby music
Middle of Night Wakings
When he fusses during the night we usually go into his room within the first minute of crying and give him his pacifier—lately, he immediately takes it and will suck on it…but then he’ll no doubt lose it and start crying, so then I gotta be on standby to replace it. So I’ll usually be in his room for 20 minutes until I know he’s asleep or not going to lose it anymore. Then we have some nights where he just won’t take the pacifier and it is close to morning, so we move him to the swing. This way he stops crying and we can get a couple hours more sleep.
For the middle of the night waking, we are doing everything wrong! First, we should not be rushing in during the first minute- this is not even giving him a chance to go back to sleep. And he obviously knows how to put himself to sleep cause he does it initially when going to bed. Secondly, we give him the pacifier. So now he knows that when he wakes during the night and cries that we’ll come soothe him by bringing him the pacifier and helping him back to sleep…there is really nothing wrong with this, except we want our sleep! So our goal is that when he wakes, he no longer will cry, but just comfort himself and return to sleep.
So, Dr. Ferber claims that by following some simple steps that in just a few nights you can teach your child to self-soothe and go back to sleep on his own.
For the middle of the night wakings, we will no longer giving him the pacifier at all and are using a progressive waiting technique. With progressive waiting, each night you let him cry for a set number of minutes- then you enter the room and just talk to him a little to assure him that you did not abandon him. You do NOT pick him up though or try to get him to go to sleep or soothe him…it’s solely to reassure him that you are still around. And expect that they will in fact cry HARDER when you leave the room each time. In no more than a minute, you leave the room. You now let him cry for another set number of minutes, but slightly lengthen it from the first interval. This continues until he stops crying. So our plan for night one looked like: Wait 3 minutes when first starts crying, go reassure him, let him cry 5 minutes, go reassure him, now let him cry 10 minutes, reassure him...and just continue doing this every 10 minutes. Then night 2 we would move to: Wait 5 minutes when first starts crying, go reassure him, let him cry 10 minutes, go reassure him, now let him cry 12 minutes. The same parent should continue to go in for each interval until he goes back to sleep and wakes again- then it is okay to change. Also, it recommends NOT going into the room at the interval if the child has started to calm down himself- seeing and hearing you will probably just make him more upset and cause more harm than good.
So we've been doing this for 1 week and here are the results! Night one we were expecting it to be HORRIBLE and that we'd take shifts. Lachlan woke at 11pm and started wailing at 11:15. I went in 3 minutes later to reassure him, which I really think did NO good cause he was crying so hard I don't think he could hear my meek voice saying, "honey, it's okay....i'm right here....just go back to sleep." I then laid in the guest room across the hall watching him on the video monitor waiting for 5 minutes to pass, which felt more like 50 minutes. So I go back in and do the same routine and force myself to leave after like 30 seconds. Now I have to wait 10 whole minutes before going back in! At this point he starts getting super angry and seems to be the first time I've seen him throw a tantrum of sorts- he takes both legs and just starts smacking them down as hard as he can on the mattress. I've never seen him so worked up (and this kid has cried A LOT)! I'm thinking there is no way he will just stop crying and I'm probably going to have to wake Dustin up at some point cause I won't know what to do. The book says nearly all kids will stop within an hour, but there are a few select who can make it past that hour mark....and I just know Lachlan is probably one of those "select" few! Anyways, about 8 minutes into the waiting, he starts to wind down to more whimpers and settling down a bit. So I get to 10 minutes and decide not to go in there since he isn't crying so hard anymore. Then at the 11 minute mark he just stops crying and goes to sleep. Just like someone flipped a switch!
The rest of the night there was NO crying. He woke at 6am and did not cry- just laid happily in his crib until we came and got him 15 minutes later. So we think either that one crying it out session really did the trick OR this was just some fluke that he was so good after that. Well, 6 nights later, we have yet to have any more crying episodes during the night. This was completely amazing and worked a million times better than I had thought- I feel like we are all so much happier with getting good sleep. I still will wake during the night cause I hear him rustling about, but he won't cry and he'll just figure it out himself how to go back to sleep-- the one night he was up for 30 minutes at 3am just trying to get comfy and go back to sleep...but no crying!
The book says this method will usually work in about 3-4 nights to get them sleeping all on their own, but I was not expecting it to take less than 1 night of work! I can't recommend this method enough and we'll definitely be using this on any future kids!!!
5.06.2012
Mmmmmmmm....feets!
Last week Lachlan had discovered just playing with his feet. This week he has now mastered getting them to his mouth. Sometimes he just samples them by giving the toes a few licks...other times he gets half his foot in there and is really sucking and chewing on them! This is currently much more fascinating than any toys!
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