Cry It Out III

Dear B,

I think that I have underestimated you. I thought this whole cry it out would be terrible for the first week, but you are doing very well. You have fallen asleep with less than 10 minutes of crying for every nap, except for the one you are trying to take now, which has been the only one so far, in two days, that you have protested. For most naps you have cried less than 3 minutes or not at all! The hard part is you don't sleep long enough and the program I am follwing says to let you cry for 25 minutes before getting you up from your nap if you sleep less than an hour, so you are usually crying after your nap and have only cried yourself back to sleep once so far.

Last night you went down with no crying and slept until 230 in the morning. I got up and fed you and then you slept straight through until 6. That is a good night for you, but you woke up still very tired. I wish we could get you to sleep one more hour in the morning and I think you would be much happier. I can't believe how well night 2 went for you.

Overall it has went much better than planned, but it is still breaking my heart listening to you cry. Please fall asleep baby.

Love you,

Mom

Cry It Out Part II

Dear B,

Pretty rough night. That first time you fell asleep it didn't last long. Here is what last night looked like:

6:57 Bed
cried for 35 min
slept for 27 min
cried for 37 min
slept for 12 min
cried for 13 min
slept 1 hour 4 min
cried for 10 min
slept for 13 min
cried for 8 min
slept for 13 min
cried for 24 min
slept for 59 min
up for 21 min (cried for 10 then ate)
slept for 69 min
cried for 11 min (I swaddled you at this point)
slept 4 hours 12 min

Wow! What a rough night for both of us!

After I fed you at 12:30 I gave in a little and swaddled you because you just couldn't hold those hands still and I figured that is what was waking you after you fell asleep each time. And it worked because you slept til 6 with no more wakings, no second feeding, no binki and no swing. Good job, bud!

Now today we are going to do the same thing with naps. Hope you start catching on and I hope I'm not confusing you too bad figuring out the swaddle/binki situation. I am thinking I will swaddle you and binki when you need it.

Good luck today!

Love,
Mom

Crying it Out

Dear B,

We are starting something called 'The Sleep Sense Program' tonight. Unfortunately it is going to include a lot of crying on your part, and most likely mine too. Your dad and I love you so much and we do whatever we can to help you, include helping you fall asleep at night. This includes me feeding and burping you, getting you in your pjs and changing your diaper, then swaddling you, giving you your binki, and rocking you somewhere between 5 and 30 minutes. Then we put you in your crib and pray to the sleeping gods that you will stay asleep. Its about a 50/50 chance that you will stay asleep until you are ready to get up and eat at night. If you do wake up, then we go in there and rock you again. We repeat this anywhere from 1 - 5 times a night and it takes between 20 minutes and an hour and a half to get you to sleep at night. This is very stressful for us and wastes a lot of your sleep time. So, it is time you train yourself to fall asleep. Here we go.

This is what tonight is going to look like: I put you to bed and I am going to go check on you every ten minutes. I will stay in there about one minute each time and try to calm you by talking to you and patting your belly, rubbing your face, etc. Hopefully you won't cry for too long. When you get up at night I will let you cry for 10 minutes before going in there, in hopes that you will be able to put yourself back to sleep. Then I will go in and talk to you and try to calm you down until you go back to sleep. I still plan on feeding you once, which eliminates one feeding a night. I really hope this works.

I put you to bed at 6:57 and you laid quietly for 5 minutes then started to cry. It slowly grew into a scream. My first time "checking" on you I stayed for 9 min instead of 1, but you are much calmer with me in there, so I will probably be in there half the time with you. It's so hard to listen to you cry when I know I can rock you and put you to sleep, but hopefully this is better for both of us in the long run.

It's 7:26 and you stopped crying. Crossing my fingers. Nope. That lasted one minute.7:32 I went in and gave your binki and I think you may fall asleep. You are very tired and your eyes are closed. I can't imagine how this feels for you. Were suppose to take away all sleep props, which for you includes: nursing and/or rocking to sleep, swaddling, and your binki (and your swing, which I eliminated two days ago and you are doing ok without). I dont think I can stick with the no binki part. Lets see how you do using it and as long as I don't have to get up and give it to you at night it will be ok to fall asleep with, I think. Who knows.

I think your asleep. 35 minutes. Not too bad.

Love you!!!!!!!!!!!

Mom

Swimming

Hi B,

Yesterday was your official first time swimming. We went once before but I only put your feet in. Yesterday you went all the way in and did a pretty good job. You didn't love it and cried on and off the whole time but you lived with it. You seemed intrigued by the water yet unhappy about having to be in it. It probably didnt help that you were really tired, but overall you did a good job. You even kicked a lot! Maybe next summer we will start some swimming lessons for you.

Love,

Mom

Happy 4 Month Birthday!

Dear B,

Happy 4 month birthday! So far you have had a great day!

Love,

Mom

4 months

Hi B,

Today we had your 4 month check-up. Here are your stats:
Weight 14lbs 10 oz - 50th percentile.
length 24 1/2 inches - 25th percentile.
Head 41.7 cm - 40th percentile.

Last check-up you were in the 75th percentile so you haven't been growng as much or as fast but you seem to be growing so much every day! We are going to attempt to wean you from your medicines over the next two weeks and I hope you do ok without them. The doc also gave me the ok to have you "cry it out" to teach yourself to go back to sleep and put yourself to sleep. I plan on starting that in a couple weeks when I'm off work again and I am NOT excited for that, but I think it is the best thing for you! And hopefully it will make nap times less stressful for us because you scream and kick and pinch almost every time I try to put you down for a nap and half the time you wake up soon as I put you down or dont sleep more than about 20 minutes. I think it will do wonders for both of us!

I also weaned you from your swaddle the last few days. I think you are doing ok without it but naps have been difficult. You move too much and on Saturday you fell out of your swing. Dad and I were in the other room and heard a "thump" followed by screaming. We instantly knew what had happened. You couldnt move so much with the swaddle but now you can. So now I buckle you in but that usually wakes you up and last night I got up and you were still in your swing but all the way bent over sideways. So, I think the swing is the next soother to break. We can use it during the day when you are awake, but not to sleep in (the way they are meant to be used). My heart dropped when you fell out of your swing. I felt like throwing up the rest of the day and it made me feel soo bad. I'm really sorry I let that happen and I wasn't more careful with you. I wont let it happen again.

I love you!

Love,

Mom

Rolling!

Hi B,

Right now you are sitting on my lap as I type this. You just had a milestone, or so I think. You rolled over! You can only roll from your belly to your back and not from your back to your belly but you did it! I put you on your belly, which you hate so I don't do it nearly as often as we should. Typically babies your age should have at least 15 minutes of tummy time a day and you usually don't have any but sometimes get up to 5 minutes, which is one reason I was so surprised you rolled. Here's what happened. I put you on your tummy on my bed and then went to the side of the bed to put on my lotion. You were grunting and not really very happy but not crying so I let you lay there. About 20 seconds later you stopped grunting so I looked over at you and you were on your back! So noone was looking to whitness your first roll. So sad but I wanted to see it, so I put you back on your belly and after a few minutes of being fussy you rolled again! This time I got it on camera! YAY. Go BRACKEN!! I think you hate your belly so much that you rolled off of it and will probably not learn to roll onto it for a long time, because why would you need to if you hate being on your belly so much? Sounds logical to me, but I am proud of you and love seeing how big you are getting!

Love you, little roller!





Love,
Mom

Time Together

Hi B,

I'm excited to spend the day with you. I haven't seen you much the past two days and really missed you. You are napping now but when you get up we are going to go for a walk and play outside. I can't wait.

Love, Mom

Best Day Ever

Hi B,

Yesterday was the 4th of July - Your first 4th of July. We started our morning with you talking up a storm. You talked and talked all day long! We went up to the park by our house for their flag ceremony and breakfast and you were happy the entire time! You just watched and enjoyed.

Then we came home for a nap, which you barely slept but were still talking and enjoying yourself. We went to Grandpa Johns house and saw all our family there. Then we came home to nap again, which you made up for the lack of naps all day and slept for 2 1/2 hours. I was so suprised that you were so happy and talky all day without your regular naps. I just kept telling dad how surprised I was that you were so happy. You then went to the store with us and stayed up til 9. I got you to sleep and then we went up to the neighbors to enjoy fireworks. They woke you up immediately so I took you out of your stroller to watch. You had no interest in them but just sat on my lap and watched all the people. Then you fell asleep.

Just like that. Such a happy happy day for you. The best day you have ever had and I enjoyed every second of it with you! I was so happy and had such high hopes of happy days to come.

Then you woke up screaming today and have spent a good portion of today with blood curdling screams. So sad. Maybe we can try again tomorrow.

I love you! Happy 4th of July!

Love, Mom

Cuter Everyday!

Hi B,

You are home sleeping right now with dad while I am at work. Today is my last day of work for the summer, so I will get to spend most of my time with you over the next 5 weeks. I am excited. You are getting so big and getting so cute! You have always been cute but I feel like you are cuter and cuter every day!

You are doing new thing all the time. Most recently, you have started putting your right hand in a fist (which you have done all your life) then staring at it intently. You have been doing this the last few days and you do it on and off all day. Then you have been putting your feet up in the air when we lay you on your back. Straight up. It is silly. You have been giggling a lot for dad which I absolutely love hearing! It is the cutest giggle ever!




I got another 150 or so pictures of you developed yesterday. We have close to 400 or so now. I get a little camera happy but I can't help myself. You are always so cute and I want to capture all the precious moments.

I love you!

Mom