The Update of all Updates!

Okay, so here I am on a beautiful Sunday morning sitting in Dad's man-chair watching my sweet baby boy babble "dadadadadada" in his excersaucer in between chewing on a blue toy and spinning this cylinder full of beads and also spitting with his tongue out and blowing bubbles! Busy boy! I had a wonderful sleep last night...Braden was only up once, as seems to be the norm lately, very late in the morning then he'll go back down for an hour or two...or even three! For some reason, "SleepEasy" isn't really working for us anymore. I do my checks when he starts to fuss and now that he's older he gets more and more and more worked up and eventually is wide awake. So I can deal with him waking up 8-10 hours into his sleep, eating quickly and going back down without a fuss. The best thing to come out of his sleep training was that he can put himself down for a nap and bedtime without a fuss 9.5/10 times. That 0.5 times that he doesn't...I just pop in, plop the soother back in his mouth, give him his taggie blanket and off he goes to sleep. But I will take that over up every hour ANY day! I am not getting obsessed with him sleeping through the night or not anymore, up only once and back down quickly is just fine by me! PLUS, there's always going to be sleep disturbances like teething, tummy aches, growth spurts...! Anywho, here's some new pics of the little man...

 Braden bonded so much with and loves his Uncle Ben!

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Still absolutely LOVES his Jolly Jumper!

Token baby with a beer picture....I was handing Jay a cold one, Braden was in his lap and he HAD to have it to suck on!

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Solids have been going great! We started meats this week (first being beef, of course!) and if I mix it with a veggie he just gobbles it up! I have also started giving him big hunks of meat, like pork in this picture, and he gnaws and sucks on it!

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This is probably my new favorite pic of him. He will do almost ANYTHING to get to our remote! I'm pretty sure I'll get him crawling by putting it in front of him!

He loves to stand now, his legs are so strong...note the remote again!

Also...we are SITTING NOW!!! Yay for Braden! This piano toy was a great thing getting him to want to sit for longer periods of time. He also loves pulling at his socks, probably trying to get his toes free as he loves to suck on them! Took him for his 6 months shots last week and low and behold, they changed the vaccination schedule and he only had to have 1 shot - yay! BUT, this means a potential of 4 shots for his 12 month appointment unless they add the varicella vaccine to the DPTP shot like they have in the States. He now weighs 15 lbs 3.5 oz but he's still on his growth curve, so that's all I could ask for. He's in the 25%ile for his weight and height combination. The nurse told me once he started on meat and got all that protein he'll start gaining weight, so I'll be interested to see what 2 weeks of meat does to his weight!

Our flooring is done and it's FABULOUS! It only took them 2.5 days and I am so thrilled. The hardwood looks great, I don't think we could've picked better stuff!

Braden's room has carpet! The only thing left is his closet....time to decorate!

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Hardwood in the great room...now it is completely done.

So remember our to do list on the house I had? It was from July 18...let's update that...

• walk through with our cabinet guy to make sure we are happy with everything, then he will do the finishing
• sign our granite/countertop quote this week, then within 2 days they will come and do templates and in 14-16 days do installs!
• Jay and Gerry will do the tongue and groove on the great room ceiling together
• Gerry will finish drywalling/taping/mudding the staircase
• finish painting the great room
• our tile guy came on Saturday to take a look, he's started the prep for our shower, and will begin tiling this week
• we are STILL waiting on our damn front DOOR from JayWest, that was supposed to come with the house GRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!! Why do they ALWAYS manage to hold us up? The tile can't be done in the entry until the door is in as the temporary door leaks.
• the siding STILL isn't done from JayWest, but we really don't care, all the essential work is done and the faster they finish, the faster we have to pay them!
• then there's all the finishing....the window jams/trim have to be done in the great room while we have the scaffolding, before our hardwood can be installed...Ben is coming to help us the weekend of August 6th, so that is VERY much appreciated by his big sister!
• flooring is to be installed 1 week later than I originally booked, which will be not this Monday, but next. They can do all the carpet in the bedrooms and the hardwood in the living room/dining room....and hopefully will be able to get to the great room while they're there if all the aforementioned stuff gets done!

 Not too bad, eh? The north side of the garage and the front of the house need to be sided, finishing stuff like doors, closets, crown, and the rest of the baseboards...countertop installation and then the plumbing hookups and the last of the electrical! We're going to start moving in though. I can set up Braden's room and we can get our mattress over there, and we're waiting on delivery for our bedroom set, couch, and 2 chairs. Phew....that's a lot, isn't it!

Braden News

It feels like I haven't blogged forever! Sometimes I feel like I just can't keep up to the fast pace our life is set at right now. How is it June 14th already? The month is almost half gone. Braden is developing so fast. He's definitely slowed down on the physical growing part...he shot up the growth charts so fast at 1 month, but now he's at a plateau, and I imagine he will just slowly gain until we start solids at 6 months. So lately we have been...

Hanging out naked! And by "we", I mean just him! I give him a little nudey bum time before his bath every night now. And sucking his thumb TONS lately. He's getting really, really good hand-eye coordination. When he is in his car seat, I have this:

And he is getting so good at batting the little bugs with his hands. Jay says we should find a little plush volleyball so he can practice his spiking! P.S. I highly recommend this toy to add to your bucket car seat handle, it keeps him VERY entertained! It's $20 at Babies R Us but I scored it for $4 from a consignment sale! He has also enjoyed a lot of drooling:

And even more tummy time lately...and tolerating it much, much more!

So that's a new diaper I've tried on him. I feel like I'm cheating on my FuzziBunz! This is a Goodmama "One" all-in-one diaper. I love my FB's, but they have so few prints that I have to seek elsewhere. Check out this gallery for all of Goodmama's prints...they are adorable. I've got a couple more coming in the mail. If I don't end up liking them much, then I'll just sell them on DiaperSwappers.com which I've already sold one of my non-FB's!

We are now in a consistent schedule which I am so thankful for!! Bedtime is 8-8:30 and wake-time is usually 8 or shortly after, but I will let him get up if he is up at 7. First morning nap is 2 hours after wake-time and has consistently been 1.5 - 1.75 hrs! No more morning 45 minute nap, which is great. Second nap I really try and make him stay awake at least 2 hours in between, but sometimes it's hard...and this nap still is always 45 minutes. I'm hoping that magically one day it will be longer. Another 2ish hours later and then the third nap varies in length from 45 mins to about 1.5 hours. So three naps a day and 12 hours of sleep time at night.

Sleep training was on hiatus for 2 nights because he was congested, but he's over that now. The last 2 nights we've been getting back on track and he's only woken up once after 8 hrs the first night and 9 hrs last night. Since he's waking up between 5 & 6...he feels very rested and has a hard time self-soothing. So I'm modifying the training, letting him fuss for about 20-30 minutes and then making sure he's calm, I'll feed him, and he'll go back to sleep for another 2.5-3 hours. I think that with time this last wake-up will just extend until it really is his wake-time.

I miiiiiiiiiiiiight have to start solids earlier than I intended! I couldn't believe him last night at his Grandpa Schultz's birthday party! We were all eating cake for dessert, he was in the high chair, and he was literally smacking his lips! He was also following Carol's fork from her plate up to her mouth as she held him later. It's unbelievable! I really do want to hold off until 6 months, it's only 1.5 months to go...but we'll see how it goes in the next while, maybe I'll start him at 5.5 months or something!

Night #5 of Sleep Training

SUCCESS!!! Braden finally slept through the night again!! Being at the lake all afternoon probably helped a lot (I'll post about that later!) AND he even had a really good 1.5 hour nap on the way home! Put him down at about 8:50, he was unsettled a bit, but put himself to sleep around 9:15. I was so tired that I didn't do the usual dreamfeed before I went to bed, I figured I'd take my chances and just do the feeds 4 hours apart. So I fed him after midnight and after 4 and then he slept right until 6:30ish...fussed a bit until 7:30 and we're up! So he slept about 9 or 10 hours with that nap before! YAY BRADEN!! Now the next step is to keep increasing the length between his feeds and then I will wean him from those feeds. I am just so utterly happy with how this has worked for us. I am getting so much more sleep, it will be nice to have this "system" to fall back on!

Night #4 of Sleep Training

Was the best night yet! Put him down the earliest that I ever have at 8PM. I hung a black sheet over his doorway (yes, my son doesn't have any doors in his room right now!) to make it extra dark, especially because the sun is still out at 10PM these days...and up at about 4:45AM (trust me, I know!). But he still cried out at around that 45 minute mark! At least he knows how to go back to sleep easily now...but man oh man, why that darn 45 minutes! Then before his dreamfeed at 11PM he started to fuss a bit. Only for a few minutes, then I went in and fed him and went to sleep. Then, right on cue, he woke up 1 minute before I set my alarm to dream feed him at 2:30. Only fussed for 7 minutes and then I went and fed him. Woke up shortly after 6:30, fussed for 6 minutes, then I fed him and he woke up shortly after 8, happy as can be!

So last night (with a bit of fussing before) he slept 6.5 hours, 4 hrs, 1.5 hours! I'm very happy with how things are going and I think in a little while he won't even make noise when he wakes up and he'll just settle himself. I sure feel more well rested, and tonight I extend his feeds to 4 hours. Thanks for following, I'll blog about our progress for one more night and then just give periodic updates!

Night #3 of Sleep Training

YAY!!! Night #3 totally makes up for night #2! Last night was so great, I hope we continue on this trend. I put him down for bed at 8:30PM without a peep. We were finishing watching a movie...at at the 50 minute mark, we heard one cry. We both looked at each other, and I said "oh no! Not this again!" But it was just that one cry...and then blissful silence. So I did a dreamfeed before we went to bed at 10:30 and then set my alarm for 3 hours later at 1:30. What time did Braden start crying? 1:30 on the dot when my alarm went off! How does he do that? So I got up, charted that when he woke up...and let him go. He actually wasn't even "crying" it was more of a fussing. I didn't even go do a check-in at 5 minutes as it seems to tick him off even more. I thought I'd go check him at the 10 minute mark...but he stopped fussing at 1:36! Only 6 minutes this time! What a huge difference to the previous night. So I gave him 10 minutes, did a dreamfeed and went back to sleep. Set my alarm for 3 hours later and fed him again without a peep.

Next came him stirring at about 6:30. It only took about 10 minutes and back to sleep he went. He then stirred at 7:30 for one cry and then I got him up at 8! He wasn't as happy as he usually was, but he had a pretty decent scratch on his left cheek and his night diaper leaked a little bit. The way he's been soothing himself back to sleep is either by sucking his thumb or by smushing his taggie blanket on his face, which probably resulted in the scratch. I trimmed his nails AGAIN this morning so hopefully that won't happen anymore. The book suggests giving them a blanket or a "mommy bear" stuffed animal as a comfort object, so I bought him a homemade taggie off of Etsy, It's only 9x9 and breathable. He loves it!

So Braden slept 5 hrs, 5 hrs, and 1.5 hrs! What an improvement. I just have a really good feeling that this sleep training, or sleep learning as I should be calling it will really work for us. Braden was able to self-soothe at 8 weeks on, but seemed to have forgotten it when he turned 3 months so I know that he'll get the hang of it again. Tonight I'll do dreamfeeds every 3.5 hours...thanks for that 1/2 hour increment suggestion, Kathleen...if I ended up doing the 15 mins like I originally planned...I'd be doing this until he was 5! ;) Eventually I want to get to a dreamfeed before bed, then one feed at the half-way mark at about 4:30 and do that for awhile and then I'll wean those feeds, or just cut them out completely depending on how he's doing.

Thanks for reading, your support, and your positivity and encouragement!

Night #2 of Sleep Training

I've read in many places of reviewing this book that night 2 can be hard. Boy was it ever. I wish I could report that it went even better than the first night, but then I'd be lying. Firstly, he woke up not even 45 minutes into his sleep...which was very odd and he NEVER does that when I put him down. That resulted in almost 40 minutes of crying to start out the night! Jay did the check-ins and got a HUGE smile every time he went to talk to Braden - which proves right there that all Braden wants is to see us!

So the book recommends weaning night feedings by cutting the feed back by 2 minutes every night. Since I never know when Braden is going to eat, the first night I fed him every 2 hours and that worked well - he only beat me to the punch twice. Well, last night instead of decreasing the feeds by 2 minutes, I let him eat however long he wanted (when he was asleep), but I increased the time between feeds to every 2.5 hours. That's where it seems to have gone wrong :( He beat me to the punch EVERY time, except for the last feed. I had my alarm set to feed him every 2.5 hours and he'd beat me by 10-15 minutes every darn time, which resulted in crying of 50 minutes each time. It was so hard. I was doubting myself every 5 minutes. Why is he crying so long? Isn't this supposed to get better? But, CONSISTENCY is the key to this. It wouldn't be fair to let him cry for "no reason" by me going to console him and erasing everything he's been learning. I'm giving this sleep training 1 week and if I don't see results...then I guess I go back to the old way of doing things and pray that he just turns himself around?!

But, like I said at the beginning, everywhere I've read I've heard horrible things about night 2. So all I can do is hope night 3 goes better. I guess I have to keep thinking that Braden is NOT that hungry, it's not why he's waking up, and he is still getting 4 feeds per night! Yeesh! So tonight I increase the time between feeds to 3 hours. Wish me luck, pray for us, send us good sleep vibes...anything!! (If it gives you peace of mind...which it does for me, Braden STILL wakes up with a huuuuuuuuuuuge smile on his face and seems to not be mad at us for all this business we're putting him through!)

Night #1 of Sleep Training

Well, night 1 of sleep training is done. It actually went really well. And just for the record, I'm not looking to be judged, so if you have negative comments...please keep them to yourself :)

So I prolonged our bedtime routine and I fed him before his bath, had a nice long relaxing bath, then a baby massage, then I put him down on a nice soft blanket on the floor while he chewed on Sophie and I read him a few stories. Then I sang to him (poor fella!) and decided that he should have some snuggles with me because I wouldn't get to console him during the night. Sigh. He started getting a little restless so I decided to top him up. I had to talk to him the whole time he nursed to keep him awake (very important) and then he had a good burp. I gave him a pacifier (not ready to give this up yet) snuggled with him and sang him our sleep song Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. I put him down drowsy but awake at 8:40PM...and his first 5 minute check-in he was asleep!

The next step is to do a dreamfeed 1 hour before he usually eats. Since he's unpredictable, they say feed him at the earliest he's ever woken up. It was kind of a gamble, but he usually gives me a 2.5-3 hour stretch so I gently picked him up out of his pack and play (PNP), he had a good, long feed and I put him back down without a peep. I went to bed and he woke up shortly after midnight, so a 3.5 hour stretch. I had my alarm set to dreamfeed him at 1AM, so according to the training I had to let Braden cry. It actually wasn't bad at all, he did very well and only cried for 18 minutes. I did my check at 5 minutes and 10 minutes, then 3 minutes later he was asleep! I did another dreamfeed which was only 2 minutes and he went back down. So my goal was to do dreamfeeds every 2 hours, as that's what he's been used to and poor Braden woke up 5 minutes before my alarm was to go off to feed him! This was the worst part of the night as he cried and whimpered off and on for 1 hour exactly. Then I waited 15 minutes and he had a really good dreamfeed.

Next thing was to dreamfeed him one more time at 6AM and I was so tired that I slept through my alarm, but only by 10 minutes. Fed him successfully again (these dreamfeeds are AMAZING!) and he started stirring at about 7:30. As part of the training they HAVE to stay in their bed for 11 hours, which would be 7:40. So he fussed and cried just a little until 7:40 and Jay went to get him up and praised him with big smiles and cuddles for doing so well with his sleep training. So, really, he only woke up twice last night! A huge improvement from being up every hour and half or two!

He slept 3.5 hours, 2.5 hours, and 3.5 hours. The goal is 11 or 12 hours of uninterrupted sleep, so we have a ways to go, but I'm pleased with how it's gone so far. Now I have to be consistent and keep this going with his naps. He was actually rested enough to stay awake the recommended 2 hours until his morning nap, so I did the sameish routine again and he went down for his nap drowsy but awake without a fuss. For naps he has to stay in his PNP for 1 hour from when I put him down, and if he sleeps longer - great!

I just wanted to say that when Braden cries at night, it is an extremely tired cry and he is not in "tantrum" mode. I know his cries well enough that he is not in pain, not hungry, he's just crying for mommy to come and comfort him back to sleep because that's what he's used to. It's very tough to hear my baby cry, but in the long run, and even immediately, it's better. When Braden has been up so much crying all these nights, it frustrates me in my sleep deprived state and I have my moments when I want to "throw him out the proverbial window". I would never harm him, but I also know that my stress isn't helping him to relax and get the sleep he needs. This way, he is learning to self-soothe and he doesn't have to be put-off with my frustrations and I can be by myself, take deep breaths and send him positive sleep vibes!

Thanks for reading, more updates to come!

Something's Gotta Give...

We had the worst night ever last night. Poor Braden is soooooooo tired, he literally cannot sleep, no matter what we do. I am almost certain he's getting up out of habit now, not that he is hungry or needs anything. He's not in pain, he's not teething, he's had well over a week to practice his milestone of rolling over. Oi. I'm not going to cut night feedings cold turkey, I will be weaning him...and sleep training starting tonight. We'd sure appreciate your positive thoughts and prayers, it's going to be tough, but hopefully well worth it in the end. I'll keep you posted, but wish us luck.

Tales of a Sleep Deprived Mom

No, it's really not THAT bad. But my poor little man is sooooo inconsistent with his sleep. I imagine I'm driving my blog readers away with all my sleep rant, but really it's all I have....is to rant! Last night Braden was bathed, changed into a fresh, clean diaper and jammies, fed and burped. I sang to him and snuggled and he was drowsy so I put him down. And then came the crying. I decided to try out a night of the sleep training program to see what it was like, because I felt like I had nothing to lose. It involved letting him cry, but checking in on him at intervals and reassuring but not touching him. He cried for 36 minutes in total and drifted off into sleep. I hated hearing him cry, but I had tried everything else. I then dreamfed him, which involves slightly rousing him just enough to feed and then putting him back down to sleep in hopes of avoiding him waking up for the purpose of feeding. In doing this I did get a 4 hour stretch out of him. He woke up on his own, and according to the training I did let him cry some more. Another 34 torturous minutes. He settled and I dreamfed him two more times in the night and he woke up again at 6:30. I'd had enough of the crying, and even though I know I "erased" all of what I was teaching him in the night, I picked him up, cuddled and fed him and he slept until 9AM.

BUT...

I will not be continuing on with the training until at least a couple of weeks for a few reasons. Firstly, he doesn't weigh enough surprisingly. He needs to weigh 14 lbs and he's not quite there. Secondly, he just got his 4 month vaccinations today and I'm not going to put him through a crying night when I know he's sore and will need me. Thirdly, we're going to Edmonton this weekend and I'm just not going to trying something new on top of traveling. Lastly, he did just learn to roll over and I'm not supposed to start this training within 10 days of a new milestone! I'm glad I did it last night, and actually...I felt more rested getting up on my own schedule (I set my alarm for dreamfeeding). I know it will work for Braden, but the timing is just not right.

Naps suck too. The 45 minute napper has decreased to the 30 minute napper today. I'm really hoping it's because of his shots...because I really don't want to deal with 30 minute naps now...but what other choice do I have, really!? Hmmmmmmph. Oh well, the guys are almost done seeding, we're heading to Edmonton, and the drywalling is going well at our house. That's all!

Braden James, Go To Bed!

Braden James, Go To Bed! :)
Originally uploaded by NurseLovesFarmer

This afternoon I put Braden down for a nap and he was awake and content as can be. He was cooing and laughing to himself for over a half hour! I figured he probably wasn't tired afterall and went to go get him up!

This is much, MUCH improved from the last 2 weeks. He went through this really weird phase where he fussed and cried and we'd have to rock and sing him to sleep. I'm very glad that is done (although it will probably return at some time!) and would much rather take this happy content little guy! I can put him down for his naps awake and he'll settle himself right to sleep. The nighttime sleeping is pretty inconsistent still. Some nights (like 2 nights ago) he will wake up literally every hour for some unexplained reason, but last night was more "normal" as of late and he have 3+ hour stretches all night. What a difference even that makes. Mom is coming tomorrow for the long weekend and I'm looking very forward to having her here again, it's so nice to have the help when Jay is so busy with seeding. Speaking of seeding, they are allllllllmost 50% done!

Beginning in June when Braden is 4 months old, more than likely weighs 14+ lbs and Jay is done seeding, we are going to implement the SleepEasy sleep training for Braden. He is already putting himself to sleep, but he needs to learn how to soothe himself. He used to be able to do it with thumb sucking, but for some reason it's like he's forgotten how to do that! It will be involve a bit of crying, which will no doubt be hard, but supposedly we'll have him sleeping better, hopefully through the night, within a week. I'll be sure to keep you updated on that!