Quote to live by :)

“When it comes to sleeping, whatever your baby does is normal. If one thing has damaged parents’ enjoyment of their babies, it’s rigid expectations about how and when the baby should sleep.” James McKenna, Ph.D., Mother Baby Behavioral Sleep Center, University of Notre Dame

Ask me how my baby sleeps. Yesterday, I would have told you she was a terrible sleeper. Up every hour and a half to two hours all night long. I would have told you how tired I was and how I wished she would sleep for just one long stretch. I would have told you how I longed for four or five hours of consecutive sleep for myself.

Ask me how my baby sleeps. Today, and from here on out, I will tell you she sleeps great for Lucy. I will secretly smile to myself, knowing what a HUGE improvement we have made. How two hours is so much better than waking every 45 minutes. Today, I will smile and tell you how happy I am that she sleeps in her crib, holding her pink bunny lovey between her two little hands. How sweet it is when I go in to get her that she grasps the bunny ears and lifts it out of the crib with her. I will think to myself about how lucky I am to have those nighttime nursing sessions with her. How that is OUR time that can't be taken away. How I am secretly pleased that she needs me, and wants me!

Tonight, when I wake up at 12, then 2, then 3:30 and 5, I will happily, albeit sleepily, walk to her room, and quietly lift her from her crib. I will kiss her soft forehead, and let her squeeze my finger as she nurses for five or ten minutes. I will give her another kiss before I put her back down, and pat her little diaper butt and whisper "Night night monkey" as she goes back to sleep. This is our peaceful nighttime routine, and this is what is working for us.

Lucy's sleeping is normal - it is normal for Lucy. Someday, I am going to miss this!

Baby Laughs Can Heal Your Soul

So so true! I love this little girl so much, and the fact that she is starting to laugh and squeal constantly makes me fall in love with her all over again every day. I am having so much fun with her as her little personality develops more every day!

I swear, our weekends are so much fun now that I told Andrew we needed to start having less fun so Mondays wouldn't suck so bad! (totally kidding baby!) Even doing simple things like yard work, which we spent a lot of this weekend doing, are so much more fun now! Lucy had a great time "helping" - she played in her tent on the driveway while we worked outside. She loves being outside so much, and would have happily spent the entire weekend there!

I took this picture with my phone, so it looks kind of rough, but she is having so much fun in her tent playing with her toes! So cute!

Going to Target and grocery shopping and eating at the "same old" places are also so much m

ore fun now that we have a curious little monkey who loves to be out and about! She squeals and screams with delight as we walk through the stores, and I LOVE seeing and hearing people comment on how cute she is (what can I say, I love attention!)!

We made a big purchase this weekend and bought a BOB revolution. Even though you can't really run with a baby until they are a bit older, we will still be able to do some loops around the neighborhood. I took her out today, and she didn't love it, but I didn't really except her to. She hates her other stroller (the City Mini) and much prefers to be carried in the Baby Bjorn. We'll keep working on it, though, and I am confident by this summer she and I will have lots of fun running together and training for my half marathon!

I am trying to get video of Lucy laughing and rolling, but she is such a busy baby that I can never get the Flip out in time! Over night, it seems, she is rolling all over the place and working hard on scooting on her belly! I got overwhelmed tonight because I don't think I'm quite ready to have a mobile baby... but she sure is ready to move! It is so exciting to watch her learn new things!

Roly Poly Giggly Baby

Do you know what I love love love love?? The sound of little tiny baby giggles! Lucy giggled for the first time on Thursday while we were at the doctor for her 4 month check up and shots (before the shots!). It is the sweetest little sound in the entire world! I have spent the last 3 days trying to get her to do it again, but all I've gotten is a tiny little one last night before her bath... and some blank stares as I am sure she is wondering what her crazy mommy is doing!

Lucy has been sleeping in her crib since last Friday night and is doing well! Sleep "training" is hard, but every night gets a little better. She is going down like a champ and usually only has one bout of crying during the night. We are "making" her go three hours between feedings, which she is more than capable of, although sometimes she wakes up after 2 and fusses for a bit before going back to sleep.

She is the cutest little sleeper. She likes to sleep on her side in the fetal position with her hands right by her mouth. The only problem she has is that she keeps rolling to her belly in her sleep and then waking up mad! She has been rolling belly to back for about 6ish weeks now so in theory she shouldn't have a problem getting back to a comfy position - but she does! Hopefully she will start to figure it out, but for now, it is pretty funny!

Lucy's 4 month pediatrician appointment was Thursday and she only got 2 vaccines (and 1 was oral) and she did great! She weights 12 pounds, 5 ounces and is 23 inches long. She is still a tiny little peanut, but hey - somebody has to be small! Lucy has to go for a hip ultrasound in the next 2 weeks because the doctor noticed asymmetrical folds in her little thighs and her right hip is a little clicky (do you like those medical terms?). Hopefully it will be something we can just watch and she will outgrow, but worse case scenario she will need a little brace. Hopefully we will know more soon. Other than that, my giggly roly poly baby is doing great!

Dying Easter eggs!

Sleep Training - Night 1

I hate the term "sleep training." It sounds like something you do to a dog. "Oh, let's train Fido to sleep. Good boy, Fido. Here's a treat. No, no Fido. We don't stay awake all night." Anyway, we bit the bullet. I know that sleep training in a young infant is somewhat controversial, but we made the decision that would work best for our family.

After 4 months of a battle to get Lucy down at night (and not even in her crib - anywhere!) and up to 8 or 9 wakings, we knew we had to do something. Our poor baby was not getting good night time sleep, and neither were we! After a trip to the pediatrician to make sure there was no medical reason why she was having such trouble sleeping (there wasn't, and our pediatrician recommended some form of sleep training), I decided to amp up my arsenal of knowledge and figure out how to help my baby. I read these (which in and of itself is a feat with a 4 month old who fights sleep like no other and a full time job):

Before going into all of this, I was adamant that I was not going to try any method that involved crying. I did NOT want to put my baby through anything where she would "suffer." After reading the books and looking at past blogs and posts about Lucy's sleep, it was clear to me that our main problem was Lucy's sleep associations. We have a GREAT bedtime routine (if I do say so myself): she gets a warm bath, lotion and massage, jammies, a story or a song, and nurses off into dreamland. Daddy turns on her "music" - white noise - and humidifier and turns off the lights, and Mommy rocks and feeds Lucy until she falls asleep. All perfectly peaceful (much more peaceful when we moved bedtime up to between 7 and 8 - she was way too overtired with a later bedtime). The problem came when we would try to move her to her crib or bassinet. If she didn't wake up right away, which she often did, less than an hour later she would be up with blood curdling screams.

Let's use this analogy: if you are asleep in your bed at night, and your pillow falls on the floor, you can quickly replace it without even realizing that you woke to do it. BUT, if you awake to realize someone moved your pillow to another room, you would wake more fully, becoming angry that things were not how you left them when you went to sleep. This is exactly what was happening to Lucy - she was falling asleep very contently in my warm arms, sucking while I rocked her. Then we were moving her to her cold(ish), still bed, with nothing to suck on. She was waking up pissed! :) The cycle continued all.night.long. I could get her back to sleep fairly easily by nursing or rocking her, but each time her sleep cycle ended, she would need me to get back to sleep (instead of being able to automatically shift into a new sleep cycle, which we all do without even realizing it). At almost twelve pounds and four months, there is absolutely no reason why I would need to feed her every hour.

We had to figure out our ultimate goal: for us, it was to get Lucy to sleep easily *in her crib* and to cut down on night-time wakings. After reading and researching and pulling my hair out, we decided a modified Ferber approach would work best for us. Ferber has a bad rap as the "cry it out" guy, and I did NOT want to let my baby cry. However, Pantley's NCSS methods didn't provide me much insight into how to get Lucy down initially at night, and that was/is a huge problem for us. We did spend a few nights at the beginning of this week with the Pick Up/Put Down method, but it was impossible to do that all night long and we were making no progress. Soooo...

Lucy was super sleepy last night after a day of bad naps (which I think correlates directly with poor nighttime sleep) and after a fun dinner and some shopping, we came home and did our bedtime routine. I fed her in our chair and snuggled with her (maybe whispering how sorry I was - I knew what was to come, she didn't!). As soon as she unlatched, I stood up, gave her a kiss and told her I loved her, and we put her in her crib. *Then we walked out of the room.* She was still awake, and she screamed and cried. It was so sad - so sad, in fact, that I put a pillow over my ears and shed a few tears myself. Luckily, the first interval is only 3 minutes, so after 3 minutes of crying, I literally ran down the hall to her room. Ferber doesn't advocate picking up the baby to soothe them, but I had to. I scooped her up, covered her little tear-soaked head in kisses (while Andrew rubbed my back and whispered that it was okay), and told her I loved her. After a minute, we put her back down and left the room again. This time, we had to be gone for five minutes... it felt like hours. After the five minutes passed (and she was still screaming and crying), we ran back to her room again. Again, I picked her up and covered her in kisses and cursed Dr. Ferber. Again, we put her back down and left the room, this time for 10 whole minutes. Also, I should note for my own memory, each of the times we went in to soothe her, she did NOT stop crying or settle down, and according to "the books," that is okay. The point is to let her know that we are there, we didn't go away (and to reassure ourselves that she is still okay, despite the cries!). After 10 more minutes of crying, I almost caved. I wanted so badly to bring her swing to her room (as we have been doing) and let my poor baby get some sleep because I knew she was so exhausted. However, I did not want to undue the 18 minutes we had just done. I didn't want her to have cried like that for nothing, and Andrew did a great job of reminding me that we were helping her. Better sleep would mean a happier baby.

The second 10 minute interval proved to be the winner. We left her room and she cried for maybe 6 more minutes. Then... quiet. We were both afraid to move for fear of waking her up. We sat in our room very, very still for about 10 minutes. Then, curiosity got the better of Andrew and he walked down the hall to her room. He came back with a triumphant look on his face - she was asleep! We were thrilled! 28 minutes in the grand scheme of things didn't seem so bad - I had read that it could take hours! I jumped in the shower and was taking my time... and then I heard her crying on the monitor. Grrr... she had only been asleep for 38 minutes.

Using our approach, at each waking we started back with 3 minute intervals (then 5, then repeating 10s). This time, she fell asleep in the first 10 minute interval. We were bursting with pride! I decided to get some sleep at this point (10:00), knowing it could be a long night. Before I fell asleep, we decided that any time after 12:30 she woke, I would feed her (as our ultimate goal is not to eliminate nighttime feedings, but just to reduce the frequency). She slept until *12:45*! Holy hell - that was almost 3 hours! When I heard her at 12:45, I rushed to her room, kissed her all over, and nursed her in our glider. When she finished eating, I sat her up and burped her, ensuring that she was awake, although drowsy. I placed her in the crib.... and didn't hear a peep!!! She went right to sleep!

We decided that if she woke again before 3:30 (almost 3 hours between feedings - totally doable for her), we would not feed her, but instead start the intervals again. While I was secretly hoping she would do another 3 hour stretch so we could avoid the intervals all together, I knew it wasn't likely. And I was right. :) She woke up about 2:15 and we went in after 3 minutes. Still crying. Went in after 5 minutes. Still crying. Sh!t. This was harder still in the middle of the night. After 10 minutes, she wasn't crying, though still fussing so definitely not asleep. We waited an extra 10 minutes since she wasn't crying, but she started all out wailing again, so we went in to comfort her. I didn't pick her up. Six minutes after we left... asleep! Go Lucy!

She woke again around 4, and I knew at this point she was ready to eat. I followed the same routine as the 1245 feeding, and had the same great success. She ate, burped, and went right back to sleep. We didn't hear her again until 7:00!

I was greeted this morning by that sweet, gummy smile I love so much. My irrational fears that she would hate me were dissipated as she grabbed my hair while I changed her and flirted with me as she nursed. I don't think I have ever had more fun during our morning play time, and my snuggle puppy is now napping sweetly in her swing.

As a parent, this is definitely the hardest thing I have had to do. I want my baby to be happy and well-rested. I want her to feel safe and secure. I know that we are just starting this craziness. Tonights intervals are longer (5, 7, 12) and I know it will suck. However, I know we can do it. I know she can do it... and I will be so proud of her in the morning. By letting her cry (in a controlled, safe place for a reasonable amount of time), I *am* being a good mommy. I am helping her to learn a life skill that she needs to know. I will be waking up to feed her one or two times a night for a few more months (hopefully!), and I think we will cherish those times together - especially since it won't be every hour!

Sweet dreams baby girl... Mommy loves you!

**I want to add that my husband was an absolute rock last night. I know it killed him, too, to hear her be upset, and while he hasn't done the extensive research that I have, he really wants to help Lucy get better nighttime sleep. Every time I was ready to give up, he kept reminding me how we were doing this to help her and how much happier she would be. He also kept telling me how proud he was of me and how much he loved me. I've got a keeper there, folks. :) **

Snuggle Puppy Updates

I know I am biased, but isn't she a cutie?!

Now... what we've been up to:

*Lucy now likes to ride in her Baby Bjorn (after almost 4 months of hating the stroller and the carrier, this is huge). She LOVES to be outside and if 1:00 rolls around and she hasn't been out yet, she starts to scream at us!

*Speaking of, she has recently discovered that her sweet little vocal chords can make a very loud sound at a very high pitch and she loves loves loves to scream. She isn't mad - she is just experimenting (take that lady at B&N who looked at me with judgey eyes!).

*Two weeks ago, Lucy started splashing in the bath tub. She especially likes it when the water gets on her face!

*Lucy has started tripoding! That means she can sit up using her hands to support her. I don't have any pictures of this because I am a nervous nellie and am too afraid to walk away when she is doing it!

*I think I've already mentioned this, but on 3/14 we moved Lucy to her big-girl convertible carseat. While she still doesn't love it, if she is sleepy she will at least fall asleep in it (instead of getting completely over-tired and falling to pieces). The only down side to this is that if she falls asleep on then ten minute car ride home, she thinks that is enough of a nap and fights going back down!

*TOES!! Lucy loves her toes and spends hours every day trying to figure out how to get them into her mouth :) Sometimes I help her!

*Lucy LOVES her exersuacer now! Her feet can just barely reach the bottom and she loves being Miss Independent and playing with the toys. She only lasts about 15 minutes, though, before she has to explore something else!

*Lucy had her first picnic and swinging adventure (3/31) and loved being outside on the blanket, but wasn't a huge fan of the swing. We'll try again soon!

*Sleep. Well... we're still working on it. I am reading some books and doing some research and we will probably start some formal sleep training in the next few weeks. She hates being put down in her crib and still wakes 6-7 times a night - this mama is tired!

Back to Work and Learning New Things

We survived! My first week back to work, that is :) Was it fun? No. Did I cry every night? Maybe. But we did it, and I am sure we can do the next 10 weeks too! Lucy actually fared far better than I did. Our nanny is wonderful and so good with her, and I feel so comfortable knowing that Lucy is at home. We are super lucky too because Andrew is able to check in at lunch every day. Our nanny also sends me texts and pictures throughout the day so I feel very in the loop. I love to see how she dresses Lucy every day!

Our new schedule is EXHAUSTING! I get up at 5, pump, shower and get dressed, feed Lucy and am at the door by 6:30. I get to school by 7 and have half an hour to get set up for the day. Then, I teach from 7:30-2:30, pumping three times in there. There is NO time to do anything and I think my stress level is impacting how much milk I get when I pump. Hopefully I will settle in and be able to produce more this week. I see my kiddos off at by 3:00, leave school by 3:15, home by 3:45. I feed and play with Lucy until between 6:30 and 7 (boo for not a whole lot of time with her!), then we do her bath and bedtime routine. She still is not sleeping well at all, so on a good night it takes until 8 to get her to bed (don't even ask about a bad night!). At 8, I eat dinner, wash bottles and pump parts, prepare bottles for the next day, and pack my lunch for school. THEN, I finally get to prepare my lessons and activities for the next day. I try to be in bed by 10. In theory, I would get 7 hours of sleep, but Lucy is still waking every hour. I am one tired mama! :)

We are actually going to see her pediatrician on Monday to see if we can get to the bottom of this sleep thing. She does well in her swing - it is just when we lay her flat on her back. She screams and screams like she is in pain. She wakes up from a deep sleep screaming. It is almost like she can't transition from one sleep cycle to the next. My poor baby :( Hopefully we can get to the bottom of this soon!

In other news, Lucy has hit this amazing developmental growth spurt! She is learning all kinds of new things and gets so proud of herself! She has been rolling from belly to back for awhile now, but it always required this great production. Now, as soon as she is put on her tummy, she flops right over, and then gets this HUGE grin on her face! She has also learned how to splash in the bath tub! It is the funniest thing. She will wait until the cup of water is being poured over her and then just flail her arms and legs as fast as she can! Silly girl! She entered the phase of "I must taste everything" and now puts everything in her mouth. If we hold a toy up to her face, she grabs it and pulls it in close to "kiss" it! On Friday, she even tried tasting her toes! I don't thinks she liked them too much!

Another big new thing for Lucy is her new carseat! She has hated hated hated her infant seat since day 1, so we finally just bought a convertible to see if she would like it more. We figured we were going to need one anyone, and if it makes riding more pleasant for her, why not? We got the Graco MyRide65, and we love it! Lucy did great her first trip out in it, and although she wasn't a huge fan yesterday, we are hopeful that the angle of this seat makes her much more comfortable.

I need to download newest pictures... stay tuned for those!

Who Needs Sleep?

Well... I do. :) And Daddy and the dogs wouldn't mind it either. So why oh why are we up all night?

Lucy, the love and light of my life, has many good qualities. Her little personality is developing so much. She is so smart and strong and wonderful. However, sleep is not her thing. She is a

terrible sleeper. Pretty much from the beginning, she has had sleep issues. She hated to be on

her back for the first 6 weeks of her life. So she slept in her swing. Then, we tried to get her to sleep in her bassinet. No dice. We tried to get her to sleep in her crib. No dice. Bassinet again. Nope. Finally, we ended up letting her sleep in our bed. Not ideal and none of us were happy with it, but at least she was sleeping. A few weeks ago, we decided we needed to move her back to her crib. In preparing to go back to work, I needed her to be in her crib or else I was afraid she would be 6 months old before we could make the move!

We used to put Lucy down between 9 and 10 - basically around the time we were winding down for the night. Even when sleeping in our bed, she would scream throughout her last nursing session of the night - pulling on and off, fussing, grunting, crying. It really wasn't pleasant for anyone and I felt so bad that the end of my poor baby's day was so traumatic. After doing some reading and internet searching, I decided that we were letting her get overtired. She always always always want(ed) to take a nap between 630 and 7 - and we would wake her up so she would "go to bed." Then the fussing and crankiness would ensue. Light bulb moment - she was ready for bed, not a nap! We started doing her bedtime routine at the first signs of tiredness and she is so much more fun to put to sleep now! No more screaming - just eating and rocking! Love it!

One hurdle crossed - but we still have major problems. Lucy will sleep from 7-10 (actually the past two nights she was woken up half an hour after going down and then we had to do the whole rock/nurse thing again!) but after 10 she has been waking up every.single.hour. Seriously - every hour between 10 and 6. Holy exhausting! Everyone at the T household is running on fumes. We swaddle her, we play white noise, she has a velour crib sheet, her mattress is inclined - what more can we do? It is frustrating, to say the least. She isn't waking up hungry

(she eats maybe two or three of those EIGHT wakings) but she is definitely waking up crying. We try just rubbing her tummy or quietly letting her know we are there, but if we don't pick her up, her cries escalate to all out wails - which increases the amount of time we are all awake.

Poor Lucy :( Last night, Andrew put our sleep position wedge thing in her crib around 130, and that bought us a 3 hour stretch! We will definitely be trying that again tonight in hopes that we can all get more sleep!

Even though our nights are long, our days with Lucy are so much fun. She is smiling at everything and learning new things every day. She still hates her carseat and stroller, so there's a good chance that Lucy is going to get her "big girl" carseat this weekend! We think she might like it better because it sits a little more upright, and our monkey is always trying to sit up! It can be rear facing for up to 40 pounds, too, so I think she will still be perfectly safe!

We are sadly getting ready for the end of my maternity leave, but we still feel very lucky to have found such a great nanny! Do you think she will have fun with this little girl or what? :)