We got a beautiful, 9 foot, pre-lit Christmas tree from someone we don't even know! Our realtor called us up and said she knew someone who was looking for a home for their Christmas tree and she thought of us.
Allen and I started doing family history work and got so excited as we found pictures of his ancestors' gravestones, names on census records, etc. We have been able to discover so many different relatives and some fun stories about them too! Last Saturday we spent over 6 hours doing it and had to force ourselves to go to bed by 1:30 am, but when I got up to feed Caleb at 3:30 am, I found myself still looking up names and dates to find more family!
And on to this week, week nine:
Last Monday was Caleb's two month appointment and here are his stats:
He also had to get vaccinations at his doctor's appointment: three shots and one oral vaccine. He chugged the oral vaccination - he loves anything with sugar (his vitamin D drops and Tylenol are the only other sugary things he's had). He only cried for a few seconds after the shots but for the next couple of hours he would cry if I bumped his thighs while I was holding him. That night, when Allen got home from work, he was holding Caleb and his legs were still sore. Caleb was smiling and he would get excited and start kicking his legs, only to stop and get a confused/pained look on his face like he was wondering what the new sensation was.
Last Monday was Caleb's two month appointment and here are his stats:
Height: 23.75" (85%)
Weight: 11 lb 2 oz (34%)
Head circumference: 16.5" (93%)
= long and skinny with a big head
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| Our adorable Dopey baby |
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| BEFORE: Cute baby in a cute outfit |
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| AFTER: Cute baby in a leotard over his sweats (Oops! Dad changed Caleb and forgot to snap the onesie before putting the pants on) |
Earlier this week, I thought I was going to just have to have a stinky kid . . . I was ready to throw in the towel on giving Caleb baths! (haha) He loves, loves, loves baths. He splashes water all over the floor and mirror because he gets so excited when I squeeze water over his head or wash his face with the washcloth. He will happily sit in the bath until the water has gotten so cold that he is shivering. The second I take him out he starts crying. He arches his back and cries for 30+ minutes, unless I feed him to calm him down. At first I thought it was because he was cold, but after buying a space heater, I realized that was not the issue . . . he just wants to be in the bath. He is slowly getting a little bit better so now I guess I won't make him be the stinky kid. : )
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| Loving bath time! (Thanks rubber ducky for the censoring) |
This week we also had a church Christmas party. We were asked to help at the last minute and it was fun! It turned out really well and we got to know some people better. AND, instead of Santa visiting, Rudolph visited!
Caleb loves Christmas songs . . . or just any song probably. It's just that recently I've been playing Christmas music and he smiles and laughs whenever I sing and dance (and make faces at him while I'm singing). You can kind of see him enjoying my singing in the pictures below.
He is still as fascinated as ever with his hands! Now he just doesn't go cross-eyed as often when he stares at them. Sometimes he intertwines his fingers. It's funny when he's smiling at us and then he gets excited and starts waving his hands around, then he gets distracted by his hands and stares at them instead of at us.
Saturday was a very productive day! We helped clean the church in the morning and there were some cute little girls there that watched Caleb for me. They loved it and he was smiling the whole time, even when he was surrounded by 10 kids all touching him (there was a Christmas party going on at the same time we were cleaning the church). That's when I came over and asked them to only touch his toes and not his face and hands. :)
After that, we went to Lowe's to get some supplies . . . then Allen pulled weeds, put new weatherstripping around our door (makes a HUGE difference), swept, mopped, we unpacked more boxes, organized, vacuumed, cleaned our garage out, WHEW! Allen did most of it and I helped between feedings.
Sunday I taught 5 year-olds at church, for some reason the lesson I was supposed to teach was about Easter and the Resurrection . . . the kids were as confused as I was that I was teaching about Easter at Christmas-time. Then in the evening we got to visit some family friends (the Garns) who were visiting Houston. It was fun to catch up with them in the "living room" of their motel room. I think they borrowed chairs from nearby rooms to have four chairs to sit in.
Last but not least . . . sleep training (that's all that is left, so if that does not interest you, stop reading here)
At Caleb's doctor's appointment, his doctor also suggested we start getting Caleb to sleep through the night (7-8 hours). He said that when Caleb wakes up at night to check on him, give him his pacifier and then leave him to cry. Go back after he finishes crying and make sure he's okay. The doctor said it would only take three nights and Caleb would have figured it out. So Wednesday we started the sleep training . . . and I started to feel like a terrible mother!
Wednesday night: Caleb woke up around 1 am. It broke my heart to go up to his room, have him look at me expecting me to pick him up and hold him, stick a pacifier in his mouth and walk out as he started to cry again. I sat and watched Caleb crying on our video baby monitor all night and cried with him. When he cries, he turns his head back and forth and rubbed a bald spot on the back of his head. I found a patch of hair on the sheets when I got him out of the crib in the morning : (
Thursday night: He woke up at 12:45 and by 2:45 am I caved in and got him out of his crib. I felt terrible letting him cry for two hours! While crying this night, he kept kicking and arching his back. He scooted himself to the top of the crib and must have a stronger right than left leg because he turned himself sideways at the top of the crib.
Friday night: Allen told me to close Caleb's door and our door and turn off the monitor because Caleb was going to cry whether or not I was awake and listening. He fell asleep at 11 pm and I put him in the crib and I went to bed. I set my alarm for 5 am to feed Caleb again if he was awake. Good thing I set my alarm! I could not hear Caleb at all and when I turned on the monitor at 5, he was sobbing. I don't know how long he had been crying for but based on how much he slept on Saturday, I think he may have been up crying all night long! He had kicked his way up to the top of the crib and with each kick was bumping his head into the crib bars : (
Saturday night: Closed doors again. I woke up at 4 am and Caleb wasn't crying. He would lay in his crib and doze off, his arm would twitch or he'd get the falling sensation and wake himself up. Then he would fuss until he dozed off again.
Sunday night: Closed doors again. I woke up at 3 am, he was crying. I went and comforted him, he settled down for a little while before starting to cry again. He didn't stop until I got him out to feed him at 5:30 am. This morning he had turned a full 180 in his crib.
I don't think this is working. He cries all night and is tired all day. Time to try something else.
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| What a great bishop! |
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| You can see our new Christmas tree in the background... at least you can see the lights on the tree |
After that, we went to Lowe's to get some supplies . . . then Allen pulled weeds, put new weatherstripping around our door (makes a HUGE difference), swept, mopped, we unpacked more boxes, organized, vacuumed, cleaned our garage out, WHEW! Allen did most of it and I helped between feedings.
Sunday I taught 5 year-olds at church, for some reason the lesson I was supposed to teach was about Easter and the Resurrection . . . the kids were as confused as I was that I was teaching about Easter at Christmas-time. Then in the evening we got to visit some family friends (the Garns) who were visiting Houston. It was fun to catch up with them in the "living room" of their motel room. I think they borrowed chairs from nearby rooms to have four chairs to sit in.
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| Caleb's cute Sunday outfit given to him by Aunt Stephanie - Thanks Steph! |
At Caleb's doctor's appointment, his doctor also suggested we start getting Caleb to sleep through the night (7-8 hours). He said that when Caleb wakes up at night to check on him, give him his pacifier and then leave him to cry. Go back after he finishes crying and make sure he's okay. The doctor said it would only take three nights and Caleb would have figured it out. So Wednesday we started the sleep training . . . and I started to feel like a terrible mother!
Wednesday night: Caleb woke up around 1 am. It broke my heart to go up to his room, have him look at me expecting me to pick him up and hold him, stick a pacifier in his mouth and walk out as he started to cry again. I sat and watched Caleb crying on our video baby monitor all night and cried with him. When he cries, he turns his head back and forth and rubbed a bald spot on the back of his head. I found a patch of hair on the sheets when I got him out of the crib in the morning : (
Thursday night: He woke up at 12:45 and by 2:45 am I caved in and got him out of his crib. I felt terrible letting him cry for two hours! While crying this night, he kept kicking and arching his back. He scooted himself to the top of the crib and must have a stronger right than left leg because he turned himself sideways at the top of the crib.
Friday night: Allen told me to close Caleb's door and our door and turn off the monitor because Caleb was going to cry whether or not I was awake and listening. He fell asleep at 11 pm and I put him in the crib and I went to bed. I set my alarm for 5 am to feed Caleb again if he was awake. Good thing I set my alarm! I could not hear Caleb at all and when I turned on the monitor at 5, he was sobbing. I don't know how long he had been crying for but based on how much he slept on Saturday, I think he may have been up crying all night long! He had kicked his way up to the top of the crib and with each kick was bumping his head into the crib bars : (
Saturday night: Closed doors again. I woke up at 4 am and Caleb wasn't crying. He would lay in his crib and doze off, his arm would twitch or he'd get the falling sensation and wake himself up. Then he would fuss until he dozed off again.
Sunday night: Closed doors again. I woke up at 3 am, he was crying. I went and comforted him, he settled down for a little while before starting to cry again. He didn't stop until I got him out to feed him at 5:30 am. This morning he had turned a full 180 in his crib.
I don't think this is working. He cries all night and is tired all day. Time to try something else.
Nikki, I love how fascinated he is with his hands! And I love the picture of him with his "leotard." ha! And it's so great that you guys are on a family history kick! We go in waves... right now we aren't researching much, but we are doing temple work for family members we found previously. So rewarding!
ReplyDeleteSleep training. Oh Nikki, I am so sorry. Those nights sound horrendous. I can't even imagine. Being a stay at home mom has made me a little neurotic about some things, and one thing I obsess about is my kids sleep. Most pediatricians don't know beans about sleep. Here's what I've learned:
Most experts recommend starting sleep training between 4-6 months. Earlier generally isn't recommended because most babies don't have any ability to self soothe before then. 6 months is generally recommended for colicky babies. And extinction method (what your doctor recommended for you) isn't usually recommended until at least 6 months.
There are acceptable times to sleep train earlier... one is when you are in a dire situation, like you are going back to work soon, or you have other children to care for and can't spend all day helping the baby sleep. The other is when your old methods no longer work. Once the baby stops being able to get to sleep quickly or easily with whatever you usually do. Once you are spending hours bouncing him to sleep every night... then it is time to change course.
Here is a link to a document on how to maximize a baby's sleep from 0-4 months, before sleep training: http://community.babycenter.com/post/a525805/how_to_maximize_a_babys_sleep_0-4mths
ReplyDeleteOnce you decide you need to sleep train, it helps to come up with a plan. You should either do nights or naps all at once, or just nights, but not just naps... naps are hardest to train for. Usually you only do naps if they are terrible and can't get much worse, because overall sleep gets worse when you sleep train before it gets better. It's also often recommended to try a gentler method first and then try extinction as a last resort. I started with cry it out with checks with both of my kids. This works for most babies. If the baby calms when you pick him up, then the checks are worth keeping. If the baby continues to cry hysterically even when you are holding him, then dropping the checks might be more beneficial. Here is a link to the sleep training plan I used with Dakota. Dozens of other people have used the same exact plan with success: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1E5voCBRA3LjWXpIMSGsAZcJAAKEA2DqMySpzrSjzFqc/edit?hl=en_US&pli=1
I sleep trained both of my kids at 3.5-4 months, which is considered early. With Hannah, she just stopped napping. She would stay up for hours at a time, take 30 minute catnaps, etc. The real problem was once she was waking every hour at night. It couldn't continue, and we had to do something about it. Our old methods of soothing her were no longer working. We started with cry it out with checks. She didn't calm at the checks. We dropped them. The first time I think she cried 40 minutes, then 25, then 10, then not at all. It worked for her. She found her thumb while sleep training and it saved us.
With Kota, I was using the methods in that post about how to maximize sleep and it was going well... we were swaddling, he was in an elevated bed to help with his reflux, he had the paci, we often ended up co-sleeping at some point in the night, etc. Then around 3.5 months he started only giving me 45 minute naps and waking up every 45 minutes at night for the paci. I was going crazy and it wasn't working with Hannah... she was getting neglected. So I did the plan I posted above, using the checks. For him, it took 24 hours until he found his thumb and then we were golden. But he has a super easy temperament. And again, they were both 3.5-4 months... and that's considered early to sleep train. And we tried with checks first for both of them.
My plan is written up with the sleep needs of a 3 month old in mind. Here is a link to a chart that has sleep needs by age. It isn't perfect, but it's been pretty accurate for my kids: https://docs.google.com/document/d/11GHo4keUb2TVJUlSL1kD6HQcEgaNFBmzoQoOzcpcyas/edit?authkey=CPXE1bsO&hl=en_US&authkey=CPXE1bsO
If I were you, I'd use those tips to maximize his sleep for now. Once your old methods stop working, or once he's 4-6 months, I'd start sleep training, but I'd use a gentler method to start, and if the checks don't calm him, then try dropping them. By 6 months, you can use extinction for sure if you want, and as long as you are consistent with your plan, you will get results. But at two months, they have no ability to self soothe and it's just torture for you and them! Only super super easy babies can sleep train this early, especially with extinction cry it out.
Okay, I'll get off my soap box. I just feel for you so bad. I tried letting Hannah cry it out at just a couple weeks old per my mom's advice, and it was torture. A two week old can't cry it out. But once the timing is right, it can work like a charm. Good luck!!!!