Yeah, I’m still reeling.
Night one: 45 minutes of crying, 1 wakeup w/ 60 minutes of crying
Night two: 30 minutes of crying, 1 wakeup (put himself back to sleep)
Night three: NO CRYING AT ALL!!! Number and quality of wakeups remains to be seen.
And oh my god, his mood has been *so* *much* *better*. It’s like night and day - the cranky little demon we’ve been living with for the past month is gone and my sweet wonderful baby has returned. I hereby apologize for every smug skeptical comment I have ever made about sleep training. Sleep training ROCKS.
]]>Our downstairs neighbors haven’t left us any nasty notes, so either they prefer the sound of a crying baby to the sound of our rocking chair or they’ve simply decided never to speak with us again. Ah well, c’est la vie.
Fingers are crossed that tonight will involve shorter periods of crying and continue the trend of waking only once (or not at all!) and sleeping until at least 6:30 and waking up happy. Hm. I think I need more fingers.
For posterity, here is the sleep training method we’re using (a modified Ferber based on babycenter.com’s outline):
1- Bedtime routine as normal (bath, story + bottle), then we put him down in the crib with a pacifier, say goodnight, and leave.
2- After 3 minutes of crying, go in and soothe without picking him up (except as necessary to lay him back down if he’s standing up). Leave once he’s calmed down after no more than 2-3 minutes.
3- Repeat as necessary increasing the lag time with each interval using a schedule of 3,3,5,5,8,8,10,10,12,12,15+
4- After 3 nights, if the training seems to be working, increase the first interval to 5 minutes and gradually work up to teaching him to fall asleep completely on his own.
Last night (the first night using this method) he fell asleep after the second 8-minute interval. When he woke up at 1, he fell asleep after the first 10-minute one. As I said above, fingers are crossed that tonight will be easier.
One thing I think we will *definitely* need to do is get some breathable crib bumpers to stop him dropping the paci over the side - if he can reach it, he can put it back in his mouth, but if it’s on the floor he’s out of luck. Eventually we’ll wean him of the paci altogether, but I’m not going to rush that, at least not at night.
Philosophically, I had been pretty opposed to sleep training until very recently. I felt that the concept of “self-soothing” was bullshit and that leaving a baby to cry only teaches him that if he cries you won’t come. Now having been through a night of it, I feel differently. One big difference is that at 10 months old, Pickle understands that when we leave the room, we’re just out in the hallway. If we’d tried this method before he understood object permanence, we’d be dealing with a baby who thinks that when we leave the room, we cease to exist, and that still strikes me as a pretty horrible scenario. Currently when we leave and he cries, it’s because he’s confused and pissed off, and not because he’s terrified that he’s alone in the world forever - *much* easier to deal with when you’re standing outside the door waiting for the clock to hit that three-minute mark!
Ultimately, I still think kids will sleep how they sleep, but I’m willing to admit now that using that as an excuse for complacency is not a healthy attitude. If this sleep-training works, it will be because Pickle was ready for it, and we were observant enough to take advantage of an opportunity to teach him better sleep habits. It’s been obvious that he’s been sleeping as poorly as we have the past few weeks - rocking him to sleep has been getting increasingly unwieldy as he’s grown taller, and he obviously *wants* to sleep better, but can’t quite get comfortable and relax into it. It’s clear that he’s more comfortable in his own bed where he can stretch out and roll around and fall asleep in whatever position he wants. So all we’re doing now is getting him past that hurdle where he needs both to have us there holding him *and* to be in his crib stretched out because it’s not physically possible to do both. I feel really good about this. I hope I still do by Friday.
]]>Anti-vaccination fervor on my local parenting list has reached panic levels, and so far there have been a grand total of TWO posts begging people to not drink the Kool-Aid. And one of them was written by me.
Vaccines save lives. End of story. To everyone who says that it’s “a complicated issue,” I would like to ask you - do you want your kid to die of polio? If the answer is NO, then get them vaccinated. There, I just uncomplicated it for you. Now go read what Science-Based Medicine has to say on the issue, because those guys are smart.
]]>Category A: Things Which Fall On The Floor When You Drop Them
Category B: Things Which Do Not Fall On The Floor When Dropped
Clearly, further investigation is warranted…
I haven’t added anything else because I already have all his pictures up on Flickr and videos on Youtube and milestone “diary entries” here. But if I ever need to look at his growth curve online, I am *all* *set*.
]]>Now, this isn’t the first time he’s pulled himself up to standing, or even the first time he’s done it in the crib. But it’s the first time he’s done it (a) at bedtime, (b) from lying down, and (c) wearing a sleepsack.
He’s napping now. As soon as he wakes up, we are going to Babies R Us and cleaning out their babyproofing section. Gates are going up EVERYWHERE. Padding will be afixed to the edges of EVERYTHING. (Meanwhile a part of me is thinking, wouldn’t it just be easier to cushion the baby?)
]]>Sigh. Babies.
]]>I’d estimate about half of his daily milk intake is formula at this point, and I’ve been strongly toying with the idea of giving up pumping once he hits 8 months. (Arguments in favor include (1) I HATE PUMPING and (2) my supply is less than great these days anyway. Arguments against include (3) some breastmilk is better than none! and (4) ZOMGWTFFLOUROSIS????)
The easiest fix would be to switch from powdered formula to premixed, which is prepared with unflouridated water. The major downsides to that are premixed formula doesn’t keep nearly as long as the powdered stuff, and is REALLY FUCKING EXPENSIVE. But probably still cheaper than investing in a reverse osmosis filter.
And it’s a short-term problem because in another 4 months he’ll be switching to cow’s milk anyway (or goat’s milk, or soy, if he suddenly develops a dairy sensitivity), so maybe we should just suck it up and do it. I can probably find somewhere online to buy in bulk and save, right?
Gah. One more thing to ask my ped about at our next well-baby visit, I guess. Or maybe I’ll just email Dr Mike.
]]>1. Head injury. Pickle can now pull himself up from a sitting position to standing…almost. He’s done it exactly twice and his balance, to put it mildly, sucks. One wobble and BOOM! He’s back down on the ground, and pissed about it. Meaning that Mom’s job is to hover around him and cushion the fall, except when he’s too fast for me. Oops.
(On a side note - any moms of older kids reading this whose kids pulled up sitting–>standing before they mastered lying down–>sitting? Because the Pickle has never once pulled himself into a sitting position. I’m not worried, just curious. How many babies actually go through all the stages of mobility in the “correct” order?)
2. Poison. Pickle likes to play with paper. And by play with I mean chew on. And by chew on I mean eat. And because I’m mean, I try my best not to let him actually swallow any because lord knows what kind of toxic chemicals go into newsprint. The key word being “try.”
3. Electrical fire. Did you know that if you over-microwave a chunk of butternut squash, it will turn into a toxic-smelling black lump that sticks to the bottom of the whatever you had it sitting in? Okay, maybe that one was my fault. But it was supposed to be for his dinner. (He had some pureed peas instead. Gotta get those veggies in somehow! Otherwise, dinner was a teething biscuit, a piece of banana, half an apricot, and some yogurt.)
4. Drowning. My dear darling boy, pulling up in the bathtub is such a bad idea I don’t even know where to begin. Looks like the end of the baby bath for us, which means I need to buy a big squishy bathmat this weekend.
]]>