On The Move

Yesterday Baby Jett decided he's had enough of this baby business and that it was high time he made the move from being immobile to mobile.

At just past 6.5 months Baby Jett started to crawl.

One minute he couldn't crawl and the next he could...it was that simple and that quick.

We now have a mobile baby.

Gone are the days of sitting him down and leaving the room, knowing he can't move himself into a dangerous situation.

Gone are the days of sitting him down in the hallway outside the bathroom while I take a quick shower.

Gone gone gone.

My days are now being spent chasing after him as he hightails it around the room to chew on cords, run into corners and pull books and other heavy objects down onto himself.

Even though he has been on the verge of crawling for the last month and a half somehow I still thought I had more time.

More time to consider what will and will not need babyproofing.

More time to take long showers while the baby hangs out in the hallway.

More time to do other things during the day besides chase after a busy baby.

But what's done is done, we now have a crawler.

In other news, not only did Baby Jett decide to start crawling yesterday but...

Wait for it...

....a little bit more.....

HE SLEPT THROUGH THE NIGHT!!!

I can't tell you for sure that there's a correlation between the crawling ie. expenditure of energy and the sleeping...but I AM CONVINCED that one is directly related to the other.

He went down at 7ish.

I fed him at 11ish.

Already that's 4 hours if you do the math!  Already I was proud of him for sleeping such a long stretch.

Then I went to bed...

AND HE SLEPT UNTIL JUST AFTER 5AM!!!

That's 6 hours guys, SIX WHOLE HOURS of uninterrupted sleep!

Ok, that last part is a little bit of a lie, I did not sleep the whole 6 hours all the way through.  I woke once at 3am because DUH, THE BABY SHOULD HAVE BEEN AWAKE BY THEN, but as I lay there thinking the baby was going to wake up ANY SECOND NOW I fell back asleep and didn't wake up until 5am.

Both times I woke up and decided the baby was obviously dead because MY BABY DOESN'T SLEEP THAT LONG.  Thankfully I was wrong (it took a few minutes of staring at the monitor to determine if he was breathing or not for me to actually believe I was wrong) and he was just SO TIRED from all the crawling that he needed to SLEEP!

I have my fingers and my toes crossed that this is the new trend and he will continue sleeping better now that he's mobile.

Hopefully this concludes my sleep saga...I will update you tomorrow and let you know if he repeated this AWESOME new sleep pattern.

Everyone cross your fingers for us because MAMA IS TIRED AND SHE NEEDS HER REST NOW!

How We're Doing

We're doing alright...now.

Remember when I mentioned Jett going through his 26 week developmental milestone?

Yeah, so that happened, there was lots of crying in the middle of the night, not a lot of sleeping...

...and I was so rundown I ended up with shingles.

That's right guys, SHINGLES!  Like what OLD PEOPLE get!

I thought for sure Baby Jett was going to end up with Chicken pox, but SOMEHOW we avoided that disaster and he stayed healthy.

Shingles + Bad Sleeper = Fun Times

Luckily the hubs was here to help out and I am now on the mend.

And Baby Jett FINALLY settled into a bit of a sleep schedule.

It took 3 weeks of training (Yes, that's 3 WEEKS, not 3 days) and we are nowhere near sleeping through the night but it's better than it was and IT'S PREDICTABLE.

Our new nighttime schedule looks like this:

7-8pm - Baby goes down with minimal crying/fussing (Yay!)

10-11pm - Baby wakes and I feed him and then I go to bed.

2-3am - Baby awake again, I feed him again.

5-6am - Baby awake one more time and we bring him to bed where he nurses and sleeps in the bed with us until he's up sometime between 7:30-8:30am.

It's not ideal.

It's essentially still 3 feeds in the night.

And he doesn't go longer than 3.5 hours EVER.

Didn't you all imagine that after finally giving in to CIO that my baby would be sleeping through the night?

Baby Jett had other plans.  My willful willful baby was having none of that.

But I only have to get up for the 2am feed and Dom only has to get up and get the baby to bring him to bed for the 5am snuggles.

So I'm getting 3-3.5 hour stretches of sleep and I'm getting more than one stretch.

Can you believe it took 3 weeks to land THERE at THAT?!  Up 3x a night!!!

Our next step is to try to eliminate the 2am feed so that he feeds at 10-11pm and then not again until 5-6am...god knows how long that's gonna take.

But the positives to where we are at now are that:

a) He goes down at 7pm.
b) I don't have to go to bed when he goes to bed.
c) He no longer pops awake in the middle of the night and stays awake for an hour...this was the last bit of training that was taking the longest, most nights he was awake for at least an hour in the middle of the night.
d) He still sleeps in until 7-8am (sometimes longer!) even though he's going to bed so much earlier.  I was very nervous about putting baby to bed earlier and him getting up earlier.

In case any of you were wondering, this is NOT the norm for sleep training, for ANY version of CIO.  Baby Jett just happens to be in the 5% of babies that it takes longer than a week to "train"...yay for us!

So that's us...still not sleeping great.

And don't even get me started on naps...no improvement there either unless you count the 2.5 hours he'll sleep with my boob in his mouth...which worked out great when I was trying to nap and heal from the shingles, but is not desirable in the long run.

In the meantime we're THIS CLOSE to crawling...and spending a lot of time doing baby yoga.

Downward Facing Dog

And with one leg extended.

Not sure what to call this one!


And one with Mommy!

Half a Year Already

For the first time since Baby Jett was born I'm like OMG MY BABY IS GROWING UP SO FAST!  There's something about 6 months that's like WOW, TIME IS FLYING.

But I'm loving it!  No sad face.  No tears.  I love this kid more the older he gets =)

Yay for 6 months!

• Weight approx 16 lbs. we don't have our real ped appt until next month.
• Still has pretty blue eyes though I think they're turning a bit grey...like daddy's.
• His hair is light brown and is FINALLY growing in up at the top so he doesn't look like he has a receding hairline.
• His eyelashes have turned dark...no more blonde eyelashes.
• Though he has been teething for 3 months he still has no teeth...not even any buds.
• While we sort out sleep we put solids on hold, so he's still an exclusively breastfed baby.
• He's still a Craptastic sleeper.
• Wears 6-9 month clothes, pants he wears 9-12 month.
• Loves the cats and I mean LOVES the cats.  Squeals with delight when they lay down on his mat with him, he "pets" them by gently touching the fur and then squeezing really hard until the cats run away...yet they keep coming back for more.
• Changing diapers and putting clothes on this kid is now a workout and takes half an hour because HE WILL NOT STAY ON HIS BACK.  He rolls over the moment he's placed on his back...I've become an expert at putting a diaper on him while he's on his hands and knees in the crawl position.
• Sleeps in his crib.  BIGGEST CHANGE THIS MONTH.  I'm happy with this.  I thought he would stay in the big bed for a whole year...but 6 months will have to do!
• Sits unassisted but when he gets too excited by a toy in his mouth he has a tendency to topple over.
• Loves his jumperoo and will happily play in it by himself for half an hour.
• Thinks us singing to him is the funniest thing in the world...I try not to be offended but I'm pretty sure he's laughing AT me not with me.
• Is still enthralled with watching us eat and drink...as soon as nap training is over we're starting him on solids.
• Will put absolutely anything in his mouth, most amusingly at baby group he sucks on the other younger babies hands and feet.
• He can mimic other babies.  He has learned how to rock in the crawling position from another baby and is attempting a crab crawl that he learned from another older baby.
• Tries to climb on everything.  If you're holding him and he sees something he'd like to climb on he will practically dive out of your arms...he appears to be more of a rough and tumble kind of kid than a watch and observe one!
 

 

How he'd prefer to have his picture taken...

 

Is only sitting here nicely because daddy is making funny faces above my head.

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

I want to tell you guys that my baby is sleeping like a pro now.

I really want to tell you that.  REALLY want to tell you that.

But I can't tell you that because that would be a BIG FAT lie.

That's right...10 Days into Operation Let's See Just How Stubborn My Baby Really Is and things are still really rocky.

We'll see some progress and then have a bit of a regression and then progress again...

But so far we still have lots of crying in the beginning...19 minutes last night...and we still have at least 3 wake ups and we're still topping out at 3 hours for the longest he'll sleep.

Sleep lady attributes the regression to mommy taking over while daddy was away...those were rough nights...and the fact that we've now entered Wonder Week 26.

Fan-fucking-tastic.

Raise your hands if you thought CIO versions of sleep training were supposed to be quick.

Yeah...me too.

My kid is a Leo...and he has two really stubborn parents...we knew he was bound to be stubborn but COME ON!

We're powering through in hopes that after he gets past this Wonder Week craziness he'll start to go down more readily and will stay asleep a bit easier (or at least put himself back to sleep without waking everybody up!).   

By the way he's still a craptastic half hour napper as well...just in case anyone thought maybe this night sleep training would somehow carry over into his day sleeping...it hasn't

It's awesome. 

There's a lot of this going on for naps these days.

 

And the sleep saga continues...