Turning a Corner

It's no secret that me and Baby Jett struggled to survive the first few months...especially after my husband went back to work traveling and Baby Jett developed my worst nightmare...colic.

Nighttime sleep notwithstanding, sometime in the last month things got easier.

We've turned a corner.

I can't pinpoint the week it happened exactly, but I think it might have been in London when we were finally able to get him down for naps consistently and Baby Jett started to develop a sleep routine.

Mornings are so predictable now that I can actually PLAN a bit of my day around baby naps.

Before now it's been very very unpredictable when baby would go down for a nap and if I would have to hold him for the duration of the nap or if he would let me set him down, so it was hard to figure out when I would:

Clean the kitchen

Make Breakfast/Lunch/Dinner

Do the Laundry

Pick up my bedroom

Take a shower
Get Dressed
Pee

Put makeup on...

And the list goes on and on.

Basically I was just winging it every day, hoping to get at least something done, but planning on a day of baby holding and little else.

But now...now I can do it all, even with only half hour baby naps I can get shit done...as long as I don't plan too much into my day.

Certain things I do while baby is sleeping like laundry (SO many stairs involved with laundry) and cleaning up the kitchen.

Other things I've figured out are easier to do while baby is awake...he "helps" =)

Like cooking, baby helps cook.  I just keep a running monologue of what I'm doing and make sure he always has his "green beans" handy to shove in his mouth.  If he gets bored here, there's a mat nearby and a vibrating chair, as long as I rotate him every 15-20 minutes he's happy.

Also things like taking a shower is easier when he's awake.  I just plop a blanket down in the hallway outside the bathroom, put baby on the blanket, leave the door open and hop in the shower.  Baby happily plays on the blanket while I take a shower, popping my head out every now and again to make faces and talk to baby so he doesn't get bored.  I also feel like I can take a longer shower when he's awake and I can see him because if he's sleeping in another room I get paranoid that he's woken up and is screaming and I just can't hear him because of the shower.

And then we move on into the bedroom and he goes down on another blanket or the swing and he happily amuses himself while I get myself ready for the day.

I know this will only last another month or two until baby is mobile, so I'm taking advantage now while I can.  Because of course I will have to completely change everything up again when he can roll and crawl.

But for now, at 4 months old, things are easier.

Even now as I type, Baby Jett is hovering nearby happily amusing himself on his play mat.

Dom is even gone...all week...and when I got the news that baby and I would be spending the week on our own there was no dread, no sense of doom, no fear, because I GOT THIS.  I might have taken 4 months but finally, finally I got this motherhood thing down...

At least until the next developmental milestone throws another curveball at me.

The Half Hour Napper

Finding time to blog has been nearly impossible lately.

Because we're still having some sleep issues.

The good:

Baby goes down for naps.

And I can kind of get him down at night without going to bed myself.

The bad:

NAPS ARE ONLY HALF AN HOUR.

I feel like I've tried everything to keep him asleep for longer but nothing is really working.  The best I've managed is after a half hour nap in the afternoon, he starts crying and I go up there nurse him for a bit and he goes back down...for another half an hour.

I can do this 2-3 times so that he's taking a 2 hour nap...but I'm still tending to him every half hour.

It's hard to get anything done when you only have a half hour window.

And bedtime?  Same thing.  He will go down at 7-7:30pm...for half an hour!  So, once again I'm up there every half hour nursing him back to sleep until I'm ready for bed about 9pm.

I'm frustrated.

We've tried:

Tummy sleeping

Swaddling

White Noise

Crib

Bed

Swing

Vibrating Cot

Nothing keeps him down by himself for more than half hour. 

Once I go to bed with him HE'S DOWN FOR 3 HOURS.

WHAT THE HELL, KID?

I'm sure this is all because we co-sleep and he sleeps better when mama is next to him.  And I'm still not ready to give up on the co-sleeping because for the most part it means I get more sleep at night, but I would love to be able to have this kid napping for longer and going to bed before me and without me.

Anyone else dealing with something similar?  Any suggestions?  How long do your babies nap??? 

Baby Jett Does London

A post in pictures.

These 2 were due 4 days apart and ended up with birthdays 3 days apart...and Jett discovered his hands in London...we think he's teething as his hands are ALWAYS in his mouth now.

Babies with their mamas!

It was bloody cold in London!

 To prove to Baby Jett that he was in fact in London when he was 3 months old =)

Baby Jett in his first pub. 

Having his first shandy ;-) 

First ride on the Tube.

And the best thing to come out of London...we've finally figured out how to get baby to sleep on his own.  He looks like he's passed out drunk doesn't he?

We're coming home today.  One more 10 hour flight and we will have successfully completed our first international trip with a baby!  Who says having children means you have to change how you live?

What Do You Mean Your Baby Sleeps Through the Night!?

I could also title this post Pros and Cons of Co-Sleeping.

The biggest con?

My baby at 14 weeks is nowhere near sleeping through the night.

P.S. Sleeping through the night is defined as 5 straight hours.  Yeah, I know!  We're not even talking 8 hours here people, just 5 hours!

My jaw drops to the floor when I read that some of your 2 and 3 month olds are sleeping 8 hours at night.  

THAT IS BEYOND AMAZING TO ME.

I'm lucky if I get 3 hours in a row these days...baby thinks he is ALWAYS hungry at night.

I know I'm not getting great long stretches of sleep because the baby is next to me and can smell my milk and sometimes just wants to SNACK every 2 hours...

But I'm not a zombie.

Because...

The biggest pro to co-sleeping is that me and baby stay laying in bed all night long.  Sidelying nursing is my savior as I don't get up at all unless it's to pee or we have a massive blowout that needs tending to.  This is HUGE to me and means the difference between a well rested mama and a sleep deprived crazy lady. 

In the midst of the fallout from the dairy allergy before we knew we had a dairy allergy an extra side effect was that sidelying wasn't working for us anymore because EVERY single time I would try to feed him in bed he would spitup HUGE amounts all over both of us and we'd end up having to change both our clothes.  This means that before we uncovered the dairy thing we were physically getting up and into a seated position EVERY 2 HOURS ALL NIGHT LONG.

It added to the hell that was my life a few weeks ago.

But now, even though baby doesn't sleep for long stretches, I still feel like I'm getting a pretty good amount of sleep.

Our nights look something like this:

I Moby the baby when he looks tired until bedtime, so he's usually sleeping from about 7-8pm onward.  Then between 9-10pm we go to bed (just me and baby usually, hubs comes to bed later) sleep great, amazing and wonderful AND STILL until 1-2am...and then it's feeding every 1.5-2 hours for snacks the rest of the night.  I hardly even wake up for these, just make sure the boob is out and that baby can get to it and back to sleep I go.  THEN THE GRUNTING AND KICKING AT 4:30am starts...oh yes...there's still grunting.  He continues the grunting and kicking and wiggling until he finally wakes up between 7-8am and the husband takes him downstairs for the morning baby shift and I sleep in for an extra hour.

I know I'm not getting great long stretches of sleep because the baby is next to me and can smell my milk...

But the fact that I barely have to wake up to feed him means I'm not a zombie during the day and don't even feel the need to nap most days.

For now this is working for us.  And while I long for a full night of sleep, the fact of the matter is that I've been sleeping like this for more than a year now as while pregnant I was up at least every 2-3 hours to pee.  The amount of wakefulness required to feed the baby while lying in bed is about the same amount required to get up and pee and it means it's very easy to fall back to sleep after the middle of the night feedings...mostly because I don't actually get up!

Ideally I would like to put baby in his crib at 7pm, go get him at 9-10pm whenever I go to bed, keep him in bed with me until he starts grunting at 4am and then put him back in his crib until he gets up at 7-8am.  But honestly I still can't figure out how to get the baby down without me laying next to him for any length of time. 

Sad but true...baby only sleeps alone for morning naps...the rest of the time he's on or next to me.

All our other sleeping issues aside the other huge pro to the co-sleeping and the frequent feeds continuing through the night is that I can expect my period and ovulation to stay away for longer.  I've heard many of you out there complaining about your periods making unexpected early appearances as soon as baby begins sleeping through the night...I shudder at the thought! 

The fact is that I NEED any ovulation that may happen to continue to be suppressed for as long as possible because otherwise WE HAVE TO START TTC AGAIN.  I have no idea how long I will ovulate if ovulation starts again on it's own and if we didn't TTC and then ovulation stopped again like last time I WOULD NEVER FORGIVE MYSELF FOR THE WASTED OPPORTUNITY.

Bottom line is I am in no position to be thinking about #2 and thus frequent nursing sessions all day AND all night help keep me suppressed which means we will continue to co-sleep for as long as I'm happy with the quality of sleep and the suppressed ovulation.

It's entirely possible that I am creating a terrible situation in which my baby will never learn to sleep in his crib but for now it works and I'm not messing with it.

I still have hope that one day baby will sleep longer than 4 hours but I'm learning that it's rare for a baby that co-sleeps to sleep through the night because of the aforementioned smell of milk.  Anyone out there co-sleeping AND have a baby that sleeps through the night?

It's So Much Cuter When It's Your Own Baby

Remember when I found my newborn photographer here?  Well...

It's so much cuter when it's your own baby!

I present the best of Jett's photo session at 5 days old.

All photos are property of Sarka Trager Photography.

Happy Halloween from the UK

I'm a day late, but we're in the UK and I spent yesterday in a jetlagged haze so...

Happy Halloween Everyone!