Tuesday, June 8, 2010
Friday Tradition
Every Friday of the summer Tony and his family golf at the local course and we meet up with our neighbors for dinner at Los Dos Amigos, our local Mexican place. Nothing has changed this summer... we just added two more to the table!
Heat Wave
We had a mini heat wave this weekend and the kids were so funny in their little tank tops. They loved being outside with us.
We have hands!
The babies discovered their hands this week. They have noticed them in very different ways. Laney has always been pretty good at holding onto something if we put it in her hand for her, but this week I walked into the room when she was on the playmat and found her holding onto the ring by herself! She now grabs on to everything! She grabs and pulls her burp cloth while she's eating, and if she has on a shirt or dress she pulls it up all day long (not something Daddy is encouraging!). She also thinks it is all kinds of fun to grab my hair every time I hold her. I didn't think this would be a problem so soon, but ponytails solve the problem. I will have to order her a little blankie soon.
Dellan is obsessed with sucking his hands! He has them in his mouth all the time. He prefers his right hand, but usually has both up at the same time. He is not coordinated enough to get suction on a thumb, so the whole side and 2-3 fingers do the job. I was excited and hoping he would suck his hand instead of a binkie because he can give it to himself, but he can't sleep without a swaddle yet. Let's hope that is in the future. The one negative of this new trend is that he drools all over this hand and clothes now, but it is so cute to watch him go to town on his hand. He gets frantic over it.
Dellan is obsessed with sucking his hands! He has them in his mouth all the time. He prefers his right hand, but usually has both up at the same time. He is not coordinated enough to get suction on a thumb, so the whole side and 2-3 fingers do the job. I was excited and hoping he would suck his hand instead of a binkie because he can give it to himself, but he can't sleep without a swaddle yet. Let's hope that is in the future. The one negative of this new trend is that he drools all over this hand and clothes now, but it is so cute to watch him go to town on his hand. He gets frantic over it.
Sleep!
We have had so much success with nap and nighttime sleep lately! The babies automatically moved their middle of the night feed to 4-5am last week. Dellan woke up at 445 one night so I decided to go ahead and feed him and see how long Laney would sleep. She didn't wake up until 7am! After this I knew that they could make it through the night without eating, so I decided to eliminate the mid-night feeding all together. I just knew I was asking for a week full of crying and little sleep, but so far the babies have exceeded my expectations. The first night Laney slept right through and Dmo had a rough hour, but he slept through the next two nights while Laney screamed for an hour. I have gotten Laney to stop crying the last two nights by giving her some water. I am hoping we won't need to do this long! The babies wake up between 6-7am. By next week I should be sleeping from 1030-630. That is so exciting! Thank you Babywise. Here are the munchkins asleep in their cribs.
Woombie
My babies have been swaddled since the day they were born. They love it. Although Laney likes to spread out when she is awake, she sleeps much better when bundled. And Dellan has a huge startle reflex (yes, still...) and cannot calm himself, whether asleep or awake, unless his arms are bound. We were using the Gymboree rectangular blankets because they had some stretch to them and stayed great using the Happiest Baby on the Block swaddle method. About 2-3 weeks ago the babies started breaking out of their swaddles because they were getting too big for the blankets to wrap all the way around them. Every time they would "break free" they would wake themselves up. In a desperate attempt at sleep I read through reviews and ordered 3 different swaddle blankets (a total of 6!) to try. The first to come in the mail were the Woombies. Not a blanket at all, the Woombie is a baby pod that stretches and zips around the baby. They come in different colors and styles... I ordered the "Lil Houdini" which supposedly is impossible to get a hand out of. After I had a good laugh at the babies in them I put them down for a nap to see what would happen. They slept great! Not only do the babies like them, they have never gotten so much as a finger out of them and they are SO EASY to put on. They have a two way zipper, so I have been leaving their legs out on hot days. If you know someone having a baby pass on the Woombie website (www.thewoombie.com). I know I can't swaddles these guys forever, but I can't get them to sleep more than 10 minutes without it. We are currently in the "Big Baby" size and they go up to "Mega Baby" so I have awhile longer :0)
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
CIO
I read babywise when the kids were 4 weeks old and implemented the eat/wake/sleep time schedule, however the babies were not in their cribs at that time. I could not bring myself to let them cry it out and didn't feel the need for scheduled "naps" yet. I am now paying for my late start! Although the eating schedule and wake/sleep time are working great, the babies have never slept through the night, which Babywise promises to happen by 9 weeks. That is if you follow the whole program. I do not have bad sleepers by any means, but the babies always woke up at about 2am and I hold them off until 3am for a feeding, and again at 6. The problem was not the feeding itself, but that one of the two always woke up an hour before feeding time, so I would lose 2 hours sleep on top of feeding time. The day I got home from Oakdale I decided it was the perfect time to transition the babies into their own room and own cribs since they hadn't been in our room or their normal Pack N Play for a week anyway. I reread Babywise and at least 50 posts on a Babywise blog the day I returned home and was ready to get to work.
I put the kids down in their own cribs for every nap Monday and they screamed for every nap. not just cried themselves to sleep, but screamed through almost the entire hour-hour and a half nap. Poor little things were exhausted that night and crashed. I could hardly get them to even suck to eat their dreamfeed at 10pm. Tuesday was the polar opposite of Monday. They had shots that morning which must have wiped them out because they went down without tears for every nap that day. The rest of the week got significantly better. It has been one week since the Cry it out process started and I think the babies have the new routine down. I am like a hawk watching them for "nap ques." If I catch them at the right time they go down with little to no tears. There are sporadic naps where they still scream (especially if they wake up 30-45 minutes into the nap), but they are learning to stop and put themselves back to sleep. Right now my struggle is that Laney seems to take significantly shorter naps than her brother. It seems to be working to put her in the swing when she wakes up until it's time to eat. The naps really are making the waketimes so much more fun and the babies are generally happier and in better moods!
Although the naps are great, the real reason for all of this is nighttime sleep. The book says that babies should drop the middle of the night feeding on their own. Before I started this last week there was no sign of this ever happening. Now I am hopeful. The past 3 nights the babies have slept until 430am without so much as a peep before. I feed them within 15 minutes and they go right back down until 730. I will give them another week or so to try to move the 430 feeding to at least 6, which I would consider a full nights sleep. If they don't stretch it the extra hour or so on their own I will have to let them CIO for a few weeks since waking up is more out of habit at this point than because they are hungry. Listening to them cry breaks my heart and is so much harder than anyone prepares you for, but the progress in their moods, their schedule, and their sleep in just one week has been amazing! Thank you Babywise.
I put the kids down in their own cribs for every nap Monday and they screamed for every nap. not just cried themselves to sleep, but screamed through almost the entire hour-hour and a half nap. Poor little things were exhausted that night and crashed. I could hardly get them to even suck to eat their dreamfeed at 10pm. Tuesday was the polar opposite of Monday. They had shots that morning which must have wiped them out because they went down without tears for every nap that day. The rest of the week got significantly better. It has been one week since the Cry it out process started and I think the babies have the new routine down. I am like a hawk watching them for "nap ques." If I catch them at the right time they go down with little to no tears. There are sporadic naps where they still scream (especially if they wake up 30-45 minutes into the nap), but they are learning to stop and put themselves back to sleep. Right now my struggle is that Laney seems to take significantly shorter naps than her brother. It seems to be working to put her in the swing when she wakes up until it's time to eat. The naps really are making the waketimes so much more fun and the babies are generally happier and in better moods!
Although the naps are great, the real reason for all of this is nighttime sleep. The book says that babies should drop the middle of the night feeding on their own. Before I started this last week there was no sign of this ever happening. Now I am hopeful. The past 3 nights the babies have slept until 430am without so much as a peep before. I feed them within 15 minutes and they go right back down until 730. I will give them another week or so to try to move the 430 feeding to at least 6, which I would consider a full nights sleep. If they don't stretch it the extra hour or so on their own I will have to let them CIO for a few weeks since waking up is more out of habit at this point than because they are hungry. Listening to them cry breaks my heart and is so much harder than anyone prepares you for, but the progress in their moods, their schedule, and their sleep in just one week has been amazing! Thank you Babywise.
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