Crying It Out

Hubby is traveling. Don't know how long he'll be gone for work, but so far we're 60 hours in. And so far so good! I was afraid I'd be exhausted already, and I'm not. So far I've been pretty good about going to bed at 10p. (In that I did it once out of two nights, but hey, I'm counting that as "pretty good"!)

Saturday and Sunday night, Jack SLEPT THROUGH THE NIGHT. (For future reference, he is 7 months and a week old as of Saturday.) He basically slept from 6p-7a. Last night was a different story. He woke up at 2:17a. I'd already talked to one of the pediatrician's nurses about the "cry it out" method. Jack sometimes wakes up and doesn't cry out with his "I'm hungry" cry -- it's different. A bottle will solve things and send him right to dreamland. But while it gets him back to sleep, hunger isn't what wakes him up.

Rewind to last night. At 2:17a it was more of an off-and-on whimper. With Hubby away and only one person's sleep disturbed, I'm going to try letting him CIO. One day in and I'm feeling good about it. He never hit his full-blown cry, and he got softer and more intermittent as minutes wore on. At a half hour, at the nurse's suggestion, I went into his room and rubbed his back, not saying a word. I offered him his pacifier. He took it, rejected it, took it, rejected it. I soothed him a bit more then left his room. I told myself I'd give him until 3:17a at which point I'd feed him. After about 2:50a he was going a minute or two in silence... would whimper/cry for a minute... then more silence. He and I were both out cold by 3:17a.

The next time he woke up and cried I was going to feed him. But that didn't happen until 7! And he woke me up by cooing and playing, not crying. He smiled when I came in to get him and was giggling. He needed his bottle a little quicker than he did the previous two nights (when he slept through the night without waking up and crying for more than a few seconds)... but I consider it a success. Had he woken up at 3:30a or 4a I'd have considered it a failure. I feel like that would have shown that he really was hungry and all I'd done was torture him for a few hours. That did NOT happen and so I feel good about letting him CIO last night. Ideally he'll sleep through the night without interruption. But if he wakes up (and isn't hungry), hopefully it will take less and less time for him to soothe himself back to sleep.

But I definitely prefer the nights when he sleeps through the night nice and soundly. :)

Naps

Naps remarkable things for me, for so many reasons. Sometimes I put Jack down and he goes right to sleep. Other times he sits right up (a new trick!) and plays and shrieks and sings... and then cries before falling asleep. Other times he fights it tooth and nail and it's a #napfail. This morning I put him down when I "felt" like it should be nap time. He woke up at 7, had a 5oz bottle and later ate some squash and zucchini (new today) and then a smaller 3.5oz bottle. Then it was 9:45, so I changed his diaper and put him down. He wasn't exhausted, his eyes weren't puffy. But he rolled over and by the time I came back a few minutes later to check on him after putting a load of laundry in... he was out cold. (As an aside -- he's really effing cute sleeping in just a diaper. Less cute when he spits up some squash on his shirt... but maybe it's because he knows he'll out-cute the situation by sleeping nekkid.)

And the fact our babies fight naps. It's so funny that most adults will nap any time they're allowed, but children treat them like punishments! I was chatting with another mom the other day, saying, "Don't they know they'll be so much happier after their nap? Just go to sleep! You'll be happier for it!!"

Someone is up from naptime... :)

6.5 Months

Jack is learning new things every day! He popped out his two bottom teeth on his 6 month birthday. He sits, and the other day he even got himself from a laying position to sitting up. He's rocking and thinking about crawling but we're not there yet. We're investigating solids. So far we've tried pureed apples, butternut squash, rice cereal and sweet potatoes. All have been hits and misses. Yesterday he ate like a champ and SLEPT like a champ -- 11p-6a. Today he refused to eat anything. He did this once before, the exact same pattern. Ate great, slept great, then the next day refused to eat. You can imagine how well he slept. Not great. I'm already dreading hearing him hungry at 2am! It feels like we're so close... but so far at the same time.

Luckily he's a cutie pie. He giggles a lot and smiles all day. I love watching him grow!

Grace Nails

Word to the wise: if you find yourself thinking "Well you know what, I'll walk into town and Jack is tired so he'll fall asleep and I'll be able to get a manicure before he wakes up!"... pinch yourself cause you're dreaming. I could do that when Jack was a few weeks old, but not anymore.

Grace Nails is where I like to go for manicures and pedicures. I think they do a great job, give great service and awesome massages. Today they went above and beyond... even walking Jack around the shop when he woke up and started to fuss. I'll be honest -- it made me a wee bit nervous. But they were great. Jack didn't really calm down that much, haha, but I was able to wrap up the manicure without them giving me the stink eye. They were awesome. I don't go too often, but I'll definitely be back. Sans the bub.

5 Months Old

I can't believe Jack is 5 months old! Crazytown.

He's rolling over (and he still hasn't remembered he already knows how to roll belly-to-back). He sleeps on his belly. He's drinking 5oz at a time... usually. His sleep is all over the place. He's a ridiculously happy kid who is enjoying finding his voice. And he's found his feet. And he's in love.

And I'm in love. He's awesome. And a badass.

We didn't get those sunglasses. But he let them be on his face without flipping out... which makes me feel pretty good about buying him some sunglasses that will actually protect his eyes from UV rays. We're really looking forward to the weather warming up and spending more time outdoors. We just need to get him ready with a good sunhat and some sunglasses. He'll be old enough for sunscreen in another month. I have super sun-sensitive skin, so we will have to watch him very closely. Hopefully it'll turn out he has hubby's skin, but regardless we'll have to protect that so-soft-snuggly-squeezalishiss (yes) skin safe.

4 Months, 3 Weeks

Wow I'm not good at this posting thing.

We're still in the sleep battle. Every night is different. Every morning is different. Yesterday he was awake at 6:45 and we all suffered because of it. This morning he ate at 6:45 and -- while he was awake when I put him back down -- he slept until 9! NINE! I needed to write that out just to be able to put it in all caps.

My new thing is trying to do better with his naps. New thing as in... I've been focusing on them for the last two days. We'll see how long it sticks. Part of me is thinking that if we could get a nap routine going, maybe his nighttime sleep would be more solid? Hard to tell. When I read all of the Google results for "4-month-old sleep regression," we aren't having those problems. Jack isn't attached to being rocked to sleep at night, he doesn't wake up without his pacifier (he barely sleeps with it at night). He takes a full feeding everytime he wakes up. It's just that sometimes it's 7p bedtime, then 10p, 1a, 4a, 7a feedings. Other times it's down at 7p, eats at 11p, 4a, 6:45a. The 11p feeding is no problem. Hubby and I are going to bed at that point so we aren't waking up for that feeding. If we could nix the 4a feeding that would be awesome. He's starting to just take 3oz at that feeding, so maybe he's starting to wean himself of it? Oh please oh please oh please.

In other news, Jack is rolling over! Back-to-belly! He does it all the time and now there's rarely a time when he's on his back for long. He's forgotten he knows how to roll belly-to-back. He'll get there. He did log roll with two full rolls a few days ago... so maybe he'll get there sooner rather than later.

He's waking up from a nap... gtg.

4 Months

Jack is 4 months old! I can't believe it. He's really grown in the last month. It's amazing to see him stretching out, his face and chest filling out and his hands starting to get a little chunky. I love it!

I did jinx myself with the sleeping. It's a crapshoot. He slept the best he has in a long time last night -- seven hours, from midnight to 7am. It's a late start, but I'll take that as opposed to the feeding in the wee hours of the morning. I'd much rather stay up and he eat right before I put myself to bed. I think he knows when I go to bed, too. Last night I'd just slipped under the covers and started to wiggle myself into a comfortable position when the baby monitor peeped to life.

Jack is doing well at daycare. I work almost every day he's there, and that works out well. It's nothing like my pre-baby full-time days, but for now it's a good balance of mama and writer/producer.

I just realized a salad dressing I've been using for the last two weeks has diary in it. I wonder if that means my days of no-dairy are... over? Jack has been fine. We'll see! His 4-month visit is in a few days. Hopefully his doctor doesn't panic.

He has rolled over from belly to back. Two different days! So he's not consistent. But he knows he can do it. Now I do too. :)