Raising Baby K: 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!