That Whole Sleep Thing

As I mentioned in my last post...Baby Jett has started sleeping better.

We didn't change anything, we didn't do anything different, we just kept doing what we had been doing since we started this whole sleep training business and one day it just clicked.

He stubbornly refused to sleep longer than 3 hours at a time for almost 2 months.  I had completely given up on him ever sleeping for longer than 3 hours, passed sleep training off as a big fat fail for Baby Jett and just decided to make the best of it ie. quit obsessing.

Our method went like this, if baby slept for longer than 3 hours then I would go in and nurse, if it had been less than 3 hours, one of us went in to soothe him with some shushing and patting, no nursing.

The only time we cheated and soothed him back to sleep with nursing was if he had woken up inside the 3 hour window and stayed awake crying for an hour and a half even with us going in and out of there at intervals to soothe...and yes that happened several times.  After an hour and a half at 3 in the morning all bets are off and you do what you gotta do to get everyone some sleep, so I would nurse him back to sleep.

We kept on like this for 2 months, with him never going longer than 3 hours and most nights waking up at least one "extra" time within a 3 hour range.  That means we were up nursing 3-4x a night every. single. night. and many nights up one more time not nursing but shushing/patting him back to sleep.

This sounds miserable but once I quit obsessing about it, quit trying to change it and just sort of accepted it as the way things were, that this was just how my kid was, I felt better about it. More relaxed if not better rested.

Then one night without warning he slept 7 hours, then again the next night and the next...for 3 nights he slept for 7 hours...I was in shock, but just like everything with babies I assumed it was just a phase.

Then he promptly went back to every 3 hours.  But it was enough for me to have hope.  Hope that one day this could be the norm.

Just a week or two later...he slept for 7 hours straight...again.

And since then he does it almost every night.

The new norm is for him to sleep 6-8 hours, nurse once at 2:00-3:00am followed by another 3-4 hour stretch of sleep and then up for the day around 6:30-7:00am.

It is now the rare night that I'm in there at 10:30pm and even if that happens he'll sleep for 5-6 hours after I nurse him at 10:30pm (almost better that way as I can actually get to bed and sleep for that 5-6 hours!)

Only downside to this new sleeping pattern is that he's a bit of an early riser now.  6-6:30 is the normal wake up time and 7:00 or 7:30 is sleeping in =)

I have no idea what changed.

But obviously Baby Jett was not ready to sleep in long stretches when we first started sleep training...and now he is.  I think it's that simple.

They say you can't force your child to eat, sleep or poop...so true.

You can't force them to sleep longer if they're not ready. 

As to the naps, I had completely given up on nap training because sleep training had been so hard and honestly hadn't worked very well.  I was basically laying down with him twice a day for naps, not the end of the world as I wasn't getting great sleep at night and it helped me at least have some down time and the baby would sleep longer if I was with him (boob in mouth!)

But one day while we were both sick and the hubs was traveling I NEEDED to lay down when his morning nap was supposed to be and he was refusing to lay down with me.  So I sang a little song, read a little story and I put him in his crib, awake.  Then I went to go lie down assuming I'd be in there at 5 min, 10 min, etc etc but at least I could lay down while he screamed and refused to nap.

To my utter shock, he cried for a minute or two AND THEN WENT TO SLEEP.  He slept for an hour, woke up briefly to cry a bit more AND THEN PUT HIMSELF BACK TO SLEEP for another 40 minutes.

What, what?!

With absolutely zero nap training Baby Jett started napping better.

Every morning he has a nap in his crib now, some days it's still only 30 minutes, some days it's an hour and 15 minutes, sometimes he wakes up and puts himself back to sleep, sometimes he doesn't.  

But we've quit fighting at the beginning of the nap which was what I was struggling with.  I found it so unbelievably demoralizing when you'd fight to get the baby to sleep for an hour and then he'd only sleep for 30 minutes.  HUGE WASTE OF TIME FOR EVERYONE.

Now if he only sleeps for 30 minutes it doesn't really matter as I wasted no time to get him to sleep.  We sing a little song, read a little story, nurse for 5 minutes and baby goes in the crib.  SO SIMPLE.

Afternoon naps I still like to lay down with him, but that's my choice and something I still really enjoy and it works for us.  The day it quits working I'll try putting him in the crib in the afternoons as well and see what happens.

So for all you mamas struggling out there with baby sleep problems, IT DOES GET BETTER!  Even the shittiest of sleepers start sleeping more at some point.

Motherhood is nothing if not a giant lesson in patience.

Baby Jett - 8 Months

I seem to have fallen off of the edge of blogging planet...I guess I've run out of things to talk about as of late!

I realize it's been a whole month since I posted anything but lately Baby Jett's been sleeping better and apparently I don't have anything to write about when sleeping isn't an issue.

So let's do Baby Jett's 8 month update.

He's still skinny, with all his clothes on at the pediatrician's office he weighs 17 lbs. 11 oz.  That's the 25th percentile...with his clothes on.  Not sure what to do about that as we're eating solids 3x a day now.

As to the solids he's eating like a champ and he's got the poop to prove it!  Ugh, I hate the new poop! Cloth diapers with solid food poop = yuck!

He will still try anything that you put in front of him but he definitely has some preferences.  He loves pears, strawberries, asparagus and carrots and he's not a huge fan of meat or eggs.  Who really needs protein?  Oh right, the baby does!  I've been giving him almond butter to try to get some protein and healthy fats into him.

We've tried most of the most common food allergens and so far so good, no allergies as of yet...you know other than the milk protein thing, which I STILL have not tested.  I just can't bring myself to do it, I don't want my baby's belly to hurt!

His personality is really coming through, he is...ahem...determined.  Some might say stubborn, we're putting a positive spin on it and using words like determined and persistent.  But holy shit this kid is PERSISTENT.

When he wants something he NEEDS it and puts in A LOT of effort to get it.  He's actually becoming quite the accomplished climber this way.

I put stools and laundry baskets and whatever else is in the room in the walkway in front of the cat food to keep him away from it but NO OBSTACLE WILL KEEP HIM FROM THE CAT FOOD.  He goes up, over, around or just pushes the damn thing out of the way to get there.  I am both proud and annoyed that he JUST WON'T GIVE UP.

He has 2 very stubborn parents...I see many fights in the future for all of us...sigh.

He "talks" to the cats.  One day I noticed he seemed to be whimpering a lot, I thought he was FINALLY going to cut a tooth as he was just generally really fussy, a few days later he wasn't fussy anymore but he was still whimpering.  Then I noticed WHEN he was whimpering...when the cats are around!  He whimpers at the cats, he's mimicking their meows!  CUTEST THING I'VE EVER SEEN.

AND

Sleeping is getting better!

Sometime in the last month he just started sleeping more.  I think he just wasn't ready before and now he is.  He's done 7 hour stretches several times and when he doesn't do 7 he still does 5 or 6 most nights.  It's not perfect and there are still nights where he's up every 3 hours, BUT IT'S GETTING BETTER.   We're down to only doing 2 feeds at night MAXIMUM, which means that some nights we only have one middle of the night feeding and that I've actually slept for longer than 3 hours in a row!

Truth be told I don't necessarily feel more rested.  Sleeping in longer stretches is overrated.

Boo.

He's also started napping better.  Again, it's like he just wasn't ready before and now he is.  I've put him down awake in the crib for morning naps and he puts himself to sleep for an hour or more.  IT'S CRAZY AWESOME.

He got his first cold this week.  He made it 8 months without being sick and luckily even this was pretty mild, with just a slight fever and a runny nose, but he gave it to me!  First time I've been sick since he was born too!

And then there's the standing.  Standing, standing and more standing.  His favorite thing in the world is to pull himself up, find something to pick up, bend down pick it up, stand back up then bend down and set it back down and stand back up and REPEAT SEVEN MILLION TIMES with different objects.

He's also a huge fan of pulling everything he can reach off the pantry shelves, just so it's on the ground and he can bend down and pick things up and put them down again.

He also does this with the tupperware shelf.

Ok, he does it with ANY shelf he can reach.

He also opens and closes drawers and cupboards and anything with a handle!

And last but not least he STILL HAS NO TEETH.

I'll leave you with these piccies.

 Right after taking this picture I turned to set the camera down and he basically dove head first off the chair.  Luckily I was there to catch him, but this kid is fearless!

 Enjoying a plum in the park.  I brought cut up pears for him to eat, the plum was for me but once I took a bite he wanted it for himself and he basically devoured the whole plum!

 First time in the swing!

Watchin some Baby Mozart.

 Just grabbing a cold beer out of the fridge after a long hard day of standing...and squatting...and standing some more.

Baby Jett - 7 Months

Ok, 7 months, we're 7 months already!

This has been an active active month for Baby Jett.

• He started crawling...
• ...and climbing...
• ...and pulling to standing.  This baby is on the move! 
• He also sits up completely unsupported now which seems unremarkable with the crawling...but it happened at almost the same time as the crawling and is still new this month. He literally one day was a wobbly little baby and the next day was a moving, climbing, trying to walk almost toddler.  It's been non-stop every since!
• He slept through the night, if 6 hours counts as through the night, exactly once.

Little update on the sleeping, as of Jett turning 7 months yes he only slept 6 hours once, BUT THEN, this week he slept 7 hours in a row for 3 NIGHTS IN A ROW!!!!  And is now back on his every 3 hour schedule, BUT IT HAPPENED and I have hope that he will do it again now.

• He continues to sleep in 3-4 hour stretches...sleep training did not work as well as I had hoped.
• He continues to suck at napping, though every once in awhile he'll sleep for an hour or an hour and a half in his crib.
• He started solids.  He loves food, give him anything he'll eat it.  We've gone the Baby Led Weaning approach and so we just give him french fry size pieces of food and he goes to town!
• Weighs 16 lbs. 6 oz...that's the 10-25th percentile...he's kind of skinny, the pediatrician recommended feeding solids more than once a day so we've bumped it up to at least twice a day that he gets real food now.
• Height 27.75" which puts him in the 75th percentile.  Tall and skinny.
• Is one busy little baby, we now have toy boxes set up in each room and we just plop him down in front of his box and he happily sits there pulling toys out, putting toys back in, crawling away from the toy box as soon as he sees a cord, or a cat, or the cat food, or anything dangerous or heavy or sharp or something to pull himself up on and we just pick him up and sit him back in front of the toy box and he starts all over.  GOOD TIMES!
• Still loves his baths.
• Is chatty, he blows raspberries and babbles incoherently.  But says 'mamamamama' when he's upset, SUPER CUTE.
• Is in 6-9 month clothes, except pants he's in 9-12 month.
• Is such a social butterfly!  He loves other people and other babies and is so content when he's around others.  He is such a showoff when we take him to hang out with friends or have people come around.  Over and over again I hear "what a good baby you have!  He's so happy and content!"  Of course he's upset as soon as we leave and he's overtired from all the showing off he's been doing, but it makes me happy that he's so content and unafraid of others!
• Still has blue eyes, they haven't turned gray like I suspect they will yet.
• His hair is half light brown and half blonde.  All the original baby hair is light brown and everything new growing in is blonde, it's like a patchwork quilt of brown and blonde.  I'm very curious to see what happens with his hair in the coming months! 
• He "waves" with both hands...I don't think he knows what he's doing, but it's super cute, he looks like he's a bird trying to fly.
• And he still has NO TEETH.  I'm perplexed by the lack of teeth, surely they should be coming in soon, no?!  He doesn't seem to be teething any more than normal, no extra drool or fussiness...who knows when those bad boys are gonna show up!

 

 

A comparison of 1 month to 7 months.  Such long legs!

 And a demonstration of our standing.  The crib has been lowered ALL THE WAY to the bottom to keep him safe because the moment he wakes up be it after naps or in the middle of the night he assumes this position.

And this one just because it's cute! 

And what Baby Jett is doing right now as I type this:

 

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...