Sleep Training Day 2

On to sleep training day 2. So I started sleep training Matthew yesterday and it was really tough. Here's how yesterday went: morning nap at 9 am, 60 mins of crying, 1 hour nap, afternoon nap at 1 pm, 30 mins of crying, 50 min nap, bedtime at 7:30, 70 mins of crying, woke at 3 am, nursed and put him back, woke up at 6:20. Not too bad. Today is going well so far. This morning's nap I started at 8 am, 45 mins of crying and then I lay down for a little nap. I woke up 2 hours later! Holy cow! Now this is great and all, but it was supposed to only be a 45 min nap. So now our "schedule" is still all screwed up, but maybe it'll even itself out once he learns to fall asleep? We're onto our second nap and I started it at 1:30, he cried for 25 mins and is asleep still. I don't want to jinx anything, but he's been sleeping for 45 mins. A far cry from his usual 30 min dozes. So far, I'm seeing little successes, and I hope it won't take long before we have the schedule down. I haven't cancelled Thursday's or Friday's playdates yet, but I may still have to. They're right in the middle of a nap :( I'll update our progress tomorrow.

Update: The afternoon nap was 1 1/2 hours. Not too shabby! Maybe we're turning a corner?

Sleep? What's That?

Yes, this is another post about my non-sleeping baby. We've ruled out just about everything and tried just about everything. I'm at the end of my rope. My poor sleep deprived brain just can't handle much more of this hourly nightly waking BS. Just thought I'd update you on where we are with this sleep training marathon.

After pushing the issue with our doctor, we have an appointment with a dietitian who will look at his growth chart and my food journal to see if she can suggest any dietary changes that might help my little boy. As that is still over a week away I decided to go gluten free on my own last week. We're one week gluten free and our sleep hasn't gotten much better. This week I'm adding in another factor. I'm eliminating caffeine. I've relied on daily Coke's to get my poor sleepy self through the day, but maybe all this excess caffeine is affecting my poor baby's ability to sleep soundly. So, with one week before the dietitian appointment, I'm going cold turkey on caffeine. Help me!

I'm also trying a little Nanny Robina nap training. I hate letting Matthew cry, but I can't handle the rocking until I'm blue in the face and he wakes up as soon as he's in the crib BS anymore. Today's first attempt took 60 mins of crying going in at increasing intervals and I woke him up after 1 hr of sleep so I can stick to the schedule. Only problem is, now we're an hour off the schedule because it took so long in the first place. Le sigh. It's going to be a long week.

Please cross your fingers that either my experiments work or the dietitian has some ideas. I realize that some babies don't sleep 12 hours until they're 3, but surely waking every hour is NOT normal for a 10 month old.

Y3W ~ Causing a Ruckus

Matthew is crawling ... everywhere. He causes trouble wherever he goes. He loves our cat Mya. He lays on her, grabs her fur and plays with and pulls on her tail. For whatever reason, she just sits there and takes it. I separate the two when she starts meowing, but she just goes back for more. Thank goodness she's a good natured cat or we'd have a whole world of trouble on our hands.

I just love when Matthew gets into something and I ask him "are you causing a ruckus?" He gives me this devilish grin that I love. So here are some photos of Matthew "causing a ruckus".

Catch Up Post

So much for my pact to keep up with this blog. Oops. Since my last post we've had our 9 month appointment, Matthew has gotten much better at crawling, is getting into everything and we reached the final straw with his sleep antics.

First, the 9 month stats. Our big boy is 20 lbs 4 oz and 29 inches (though the nurse always seems to cut him short and I'm convinced he's more like 30 inches). Everything else is well with him. No new teeth, so were still at a count of 8 tiny sharp teeth.

His crawling is very good. We've got the baby gates installed and the outlet covers. Good thing too because he just discovered the outlets yesterday! He loves going into the kitchen and playing with the garbage can for some reason. Ew. So I've resorted to blocking the entrance of with his playpen and exersaucer. We're considering buying pressure gates for this, but hoping to teach him the word "NO". Good luck with a 9 month old right?

Oh the sleep antics. We tried everything. Matthew has been waking up every 1-3 hours every night for the last 3+ months! I AM TIRED! We tried white noise: fan and humidifier. We tried music all night: Rockaby Baby Bob Marley. We tried leaving my t-shirt in with him. We tried a soother (he chews it). We tried giving him a "lovey". We tried graduated extinction but never got past the patting stage because it didn't work. We tried a really early bedtime and scheduled naps. We tried a bottle at bedtime to "top him off." I read a bunch of baby books, scoured the internet and asked all the friends and family I could find. The answer was always the same: let him cry it out. I never wanted to try this. I didn't think I'd reach my breaking point. But after 3+ months with no sleep and a baby with bigger bags under his eyes than me, we decided to give it a go. Getting him to sleep is usually not the issue. It's getting him to STAY asleep.

The first night we put him down and he woke up screaming at 1 am. We went in, laid him down and patted his back for a minute, then walked out and waited for the screaming to begin. We went in 5 mins later, 10 minutes later, 15 minutes later, 20 minutes later. This went on for 2 hours before he fell asleep. Then he was up for good at 5. The next night it was the same 2 hour battle, only at 2 am. Then it was 1 1/2 hours at 1, 1 1/2 hours at 2, 2 hours at 4 which turned into up for the day at 6, 1 1/2 hours at 5 which turned into up for the day, 1 1/2 hours at 3 and finally 40 minutes at 2 and then HURRAY SLEPT THROUGH THE NIGHT!

That takes us all the way up to tonight. It's 1 hour past his bedtime and he's still up. We're trying a bottle to push him over that sleep edge. Here's hoping we've turned a corner and we've solved Matthew's sleep problem. But I'm the pessimist in this family and I think it's going to be another week long fight before we've finally licked this.

Here are some fun photos to finish off this catch up post.

9 months!

Getting into trouble!

Playing with Great Grandpa's feet.

Playing with Great Grandma on her 80th birthday.

Crawling to mommy.

I Have a New Blog!

I was getting tired of my old business blog, and I really wanted something cleaner, neater, and well, prettier. It took me two days and lots of help from my techie brother, but I did it. I made a new blog. Have a look, tell me what you think, and become a follower!

Cup of Tea Blog

He Can CRAWL!

Ruh roh. Matthew has been working on this bum to hands and knees and back again thing for a while now. He didn't seem to be getting anywhere. That is until this morning. He suddenly figured out how to move his legs and now he's EVERYWHERE! We have no gates, cords all over the place, knitting and crocheting and a table full of junk. Time to babyproof! Guess what we'll be spending our weekend doing. I'm excited, but now I'm in for the "real" work. I have to chase my baby around all day now. Guess it's a good way to lose some pounds eh?

Never Say Things Out Loud

I should have known that posting about our sleep success would come back to bite me. We had 2 really really good nights, but it all went downhill from there. Two nights later he was waking up in the middle of the night SCREAMING. I discovered the culprit: really hard, painful poops. Poor baby. He had no idea what was going on, but I suspect that something about peas and apples made for a bad combination. We have since stopped with the apples and substituted apricots. His poops are better, but he still isn't sleeping and he's decided he doesn't really like eating anymore either. Hmph. Last night wasn't TOO bad. He only woke up at 10:30, 3:30 and 4:30 before getting up for the day at 7:30. Hey, I'll take it. It's better than waking up every 2 hours.

As for the eating, I'm trying to change it up for him. I'm starting to give him some finger foods: bits of turkey and smushed peas. He had fun trying to put them in his mouth and was successful a few times, but he gets bored easily and gives up. So not much food is actually getting into his tummy, which I'm sure doesn't help him sleep. Today I tried a whole piece of a banana and some Cheerios. The banana was, well, messy and after a few bites (one of them a bit too big), he gave up. The Cheerios were fun and challenging and I think he ate a few, but again after a while, he was just throwing them around and playing. Still trying to figure out what the best timing is for his meal times. So here's my question to you: when do you feed your child under 1? Before milk? after milk? at the same time? Give me your best tips for getting kiddo to eat.