favorites friday . . . website July 26, 2013
Ok, so I got busy with a project I am working on and totally forgot about posting today. But I just checked my email and there was a fun link inside. The email was from Mom365.com and it contained an Affirmation Generator link.
http://www.mom365.com/yougomom
This is especially handy for those days when you feel like you just can’t seem to get ahead or you worry that you aren’t a good enough Mom. I have been there (those days when I was severely lacking in sleep).
Keep clicking! Enjoy!
Thanks for reading!
favorites friday . . . wonder bumpers July 19, 2013
Ok, so I am all about saving money. And I always try to find the best deal on whatever I buy and if something is just too expensive I can usually do without.
The reason I am prefacing this is because the product I am going to talk about was a bit pricey, but already it has proved it’s worth.
I am actually writing this post Thursday night. We just received the Wonder Bumpers, I got them washed and installed. Little guy’s bedtime was delayed about 30 minutes, but I do believe it was worth it!
Before I explain, I need to give a little background. About a year or so after hubby and I got married, one of our neighbors moved to Florida. He gave us a set of wireless security/baby cameras for free. We actually set up the cameras to use to monitor the rose-bush out front. Someone decided they were going to cut the roses off the bush before they could bloom. I had an idea who it was, but we never seemed to have an issue after the camera was placed. This was what we were hoping, so it was a success. Well, the neighbor that I thought was doing it has moved. Actually his house was foreclosed on and he had to move. So we felt comfortable finally taking the camera down. We decided to move it into the baby’s room. Since we were going to do the CIO, I thought this would be great to be able to check on him. The first few nights of CIO we did not have the camera installed, so I would go in and try to look at him by the light of the night-light and lightly put my hand on his back to make sure he was breathing (New mom paranoia). Anyway, we installed the camera and I LOVE IT! It has night vision, so it as clear as if the sun was shining. We have it hooked up to the TV in our room and we can hop over from watching TV to watching him.
So we started to notice that even though we would put him down in the middle of his bed, he would usually end up like the photo I posted on Wednesday, perpendicular. Or he would work his way down to the end of the bed. All the while he would bang his head into the slats of the crib. We weren’t sure how hard he was hitting it and the only “protection” was one of the breathable mesh bumpers. So Tuesday night we set out to find a solution and I found the Wonder Bumpers on Amazon.
I did not want to get a regular bumper as I was still concerned with SIDS. So when I saw this I was happy as it seemed to solve the problem. After washing them and getting them all on (they come in 38, 24 and 2 per package, there are 40 slats on our crib, so we chose to leave 2 empty toward the other side where he doesn’t seem to go) I can say that I am very happy! It took about 30 minutes to get them all on and right now I do not have the mesh bumper up and I will probably put that back up tomorrow as it will help prevent him from sticking his legs and arms through the slats. (UPDATE: I did put the mesh bumper back on this morning and so he is set!)
We put him to bed and we watched on the TV as he moved around and bumped his head several times against the slats. He only cried for a couple of minutes, the rest he just fussed a bit. Such a big difference from the night before without the cushions.
They are very well made and reversible. The brown and cream match some bins I have on the changing table, so it worked out great! The other colors that were offered were more expensive, some almost double what we paid. For what we paid, I would say it is worth it. If he bangs his head, we know it doesn’t hurt like before.
Thanks for reading!
tell all tuesday . . . sleep July 16, 2013
Ok, so I have been wanting to blog about this for a long time. I have been trying to think of what I was going to say. This post has evolved in my head over time and I am finally ready to talk about it.
Our little guy has never been a great sleeper. He was good for maybe the first couple of weeks, but then that stopped. Maybe he felt like he would miss out on things if he slept, who knows? But I think the past 5 days we have started to finally turn a corner.
When we had him I think my hubby and I were both on the same page. We wanted to do whatever we could do to help him so that he did not cry. This evolved into me nursing him to sleep at night and every time he woke up in the middle of the night, no matter how many times, I was there to nurse him back to sleep. I also nursed him to naps. I let him nap as long as he could, which was not very long at times and then we would try again a couple of hours after he woke up. This was the way I handled things for months.
As you can imagine, I got very little sleep. And the sleep I did get was not a good sleep. Getting an hour at a time with 10-30 minutes in between was not allowing me to rest the way I needed to rest ( sometimes he would remain awake for 2 hours overnight). I was fast approaching my breaking point. All I wanted was junk food (comfort food). I didn’t feel like doing anything because I was exhausted all day and this was not the type of mother I wanted to be. If I worked outside of the home, I would have probably been fired by now. I just could not seem to function to get anything done around the house. I knew we were going to have to try crying it out (CIO).
I never wanted to do this. I thought I would be able to “train” him using gentler approaches. I wanted to. I felt I needed to, to be a good Mom. If I let him cry I was failing him. But in reality I was failing myself AND him by not doing what was best for our situation. So we met with his pediatrician on July 5th for his 6 month checkup and again talked about sleep training. We told him that we tried CIO with checks about 2 months ago and that it did not go well. He cried for 3 hours and at that point we decided to go back to what we were doing, that maybe he just wasn’t ready.
I knew going into the appointment the doctor would tell us to try again. This time I was ready. Like I said, I was at my end. I needed sleep and I needed it months ago. I was even more convinced that our little guy would do better this time. A week before our appointment he slept for almost 6 hours straight. I knew he could do it. AND, he managed to sleep through all of the 4th of July fireworks the night before.
We were going out-of-town, so the doctor told us to wait until we got back before we tried anything. So we decided to try the night we got back. Hubby was working and would not be home until after I put him down. I dreaded this, but had to be strong. I did his normal bedtime routine and made sure he was awake and not too groggy before putting him down. I put him down at 8pm and immediately he started to cry. I told him he was ok and walked out of the room and shut the door behind me (not closed all the way but just a small crack). Of course I shed a few tears as well. It was a LONG 10 minutes before hubby got home and he said “let’s go downstairs.” I took the monitor with me, but did not turn it on, as we could still hear him. We watched TV and to our amazement he stopped crying at 8:55pm. We went up to check on him and yes he was asleep! Less than an hour! I was so happy, we both were. He briefly woke up at 9:45pm, we let him settle himself and he was back out in 10 minutes. Then he woke at 12:15am. I fed him. Then we heard him stir at 2am or so and once more at 3:55am. This time I fed him again and I think he may have woken up once more after that, but I did not get him until morning time. He was up maybe 5 or so times in total, but it was a success nonetheless, since prior nights he would get up anywhere between 5-10 times.
The next night, to bed at 7:55pm and asleep at 8:45pm. One more night like this and then Sunday night he was asleep within 20 minutes! He woke briefly at 9:05 and again at 11:15. Both times we let him cry and within 10 minutes he was back out. Then he did not wake until 5:45am!!! My breasts felt a little full at this time, but I gladly fed him then and after that he slept for another 2+hours. Last night he was asleep within 10 minutes. He was up a few more times, but I only fed him twice.
It is a work in progress, but we have already see so much progress. I know it will get better.
Now as far as naps. . .
Every thing I have read, from books, to blogs, to babycenter tells you if you are going to sleep train, do either bedtime OR naps, not both. I had every intention of doing this. After all the doctor told us to only work on the going to bed part. He told me I could do what I always did when he woke up during the night. So I was already ahead of the game by not doing that each time he woke up. I wanted to try naps to see how he would do. If he cried for an hour with his nap, I would not continue to do the CIO for naps.
So Friday I tried it. Within 25 minutes he was asleep. YAY! He slept for 30 minutes. The next nap that day he was asleep after 5 minutes. Again he slept for 30 minutes. I was so happy! But of course now I was starting to see a pattern I did not like. 30 minutes was not a great nap, especially when it was only 2 a day. (Sometimes I could get 3). This continued through yesterday. Like clockwork, his naps were 30 minutes. I posted a question on Babycenter and got some responses.
What I had been doing is keeping his awake times to 2 hours. So by the time he was asleep with his first nap he had been awake for almost 2.5 hours. I thought this was ok at his age. But it was suggested to try a shorter awake time.
So today I decided to put him down after an hour and a half of being awake. He was asleep within 10 minutes and slept for . . . drum-roll please . . . 1.5 hours!!!!!!
I could not believe it! I actually got a lot done, including this post. I am actually just feeding him now after he woke up.
So like I said, I feel like we have turned a corner with his sleep. He isn’t sleeping through the night yet, but I have hope that this will happen soon. I already feel more rested than I have felt for the last almost 7 months. And now if I can get his naps like the one he had this morning, I will finally feel like I can accomplish more and more each day and finally work on getting the last of the baby weight and beyond off.
Choosing to do the CIO was NOT an easy decision. It still is hard to hear him cry at night. I have had hubby put him to bed when he is home, so that our little guy gets used to both of us doing it. I know there are a lot of people who are against it and all forms of it. All I ask is that I hope that you don’t judge. I know topics like sleep training and breast-feeding can elicit a LOT of debate and hurt feelings. Ultimately we do what is best for our own child. That is what matters.
I know what we are doing is best for us. I know that because when I get him out of bed in the morning I am greeted with the largest, toothless smile I have ever seen and it melts my heart and give me peace.
Thanks for reading.
shine on . . . July 13, 2013
Thank you to Samantha for nominating me for the Shine On Award! She has a precious little boy a couple of weeks younger than mine and I really enjoy reading her blog, you should check it out!
Rules
1: Display the award logo on your blog.
2: Link back to the person who nominated you.
3: State 7 things about yourself.
4: Nominate 15 other bloggers for this award and link to them.
7 things about myself…..
- I LOVE watching Seinfeld reruns.
- I have colored my hair since college.
- I got to usher at a Willie Nelson concert about 14 years ago.
- I met my husband on match.com.
- I have 2 older brothers.
- Wizard of Oz is my all time favorite movie.
- I love drinking Dr. Pepper, but seriously need to stop!
Here are some of the blogs I follow. Sorry I don’t have 15. I haven’t had the time to follow more. One day!
http://notsofertilegirl.wordpress.com/
http://waitingforarosebud.wordpress.com/
http://wannabeayummymommy.wordpress.com/
http://theinfertilehousewife.com/
http://afewgoodeggyolks.blogspot.com/
http://thehardenblog.blogspot.com/
http://babydesignofmine.wordpress.com/
http://ttcwithazoospermia.blogspot.com/
Thanks for reading!
catching up . . .
This has been an eventful week. Sorry for the lack of posts. I am hoping to get back to my regular postings this coming week.
We had our son’s 6 month check up at the doctor’s office on July 5. He weighed in at 17 pounds, 8.5 ounces. That was a 5 pound weight gain in 2 months! He was also 28 inches long. He is getting so big. The doctor was pleased with his weight gain and said to keep up the great work! At the end of the appointment he got another round of shots. Poor little guy. I was hoping that since his legs have bulked up, the shots would not hurt as much. No such luck. But we comforted him and he fell asleep on the way home.
We also talked to the doctor again about his sleep, or lack of good sleep. He told us to try the Cry It Out (CIO) method. We mentioned that we attempted this 2 months ago, but that it did not go well after 3 hours with several checks during that time and he said to do straight CIO with no checks. He said to give it a week and that if there was no improvement he would send us to a sleep specialist. As much as I did not want to do CIO I knew this was something we had to do. I will get into this more with my “Tell All Tuesday” post coming this week.
The Monday after the doctor appointment we took a little trip out-of-town to visit my parents and got back home Thursday late afternoon. It was a nice visit. Hubby and I got a chance to go and see a movie while the grandparents watched the little guy. It was nice to have some time for just the 2 of us. We don’t get a lot of that these days. On Tuesday evening our little guy rolled over from his back to his belly! It was so great that we all got to see this. He did it twice! He had mastered the front to back, but struggled with back to front, but no more! We also put him in the swing at my parents and he seemed to really enjoy that.
We decided to attempt the CIO on Thursday night. I was not looking forward to this, but knew it had to be done! It hasn’t been as bad a I thought. Again, more to come in a couple of days.
Yesterday, perhaps as retaliation for the CIO, Lil’ guy head butted me right in the nose. He has done this a couple of times; in the nose, the head, etc. But this time he got me squarely on the nose and I almost saw stars! My eyes started to water and I held myself from crying, half expecting him to start bawling! He did not. Then I felt my nose start to run. At least that is what I thought. To my surprise, it was a blood. In all of my 41 years, I have NEVER had a bloody nose. Now I can mark that off of my list. LOL! The right side of my nose swelled a little bit yesterday and is still sore today, but I think I am on the mend. This will certainly be a funny story to share with him when he is older.
I think that about catches you up on what has been going on here. I will write more about the sleeping situation in the next couple of days for Tuesday’s post. Until then here are a couple of photos for your enjoyment! 🙂
Thanks for reading!
favorites friday . . .steals.com & Keeki Pure & Simple July 5, 2013
Today’s installment includes 2 favorites!
1. Steals.com I am a fan on their FaceBook page and get postings about the daily deals. Typically I don’t see anything I am too interested in, as I am trying not to spend a lot of money. They offer products each day at deep discounts.
2. The other day I saw a listing for Keeki Pure & Simple Nail Polish on Steals.com. I always love to have my toe nails polished and occasionally my finger nails. I have not had a lot of time to spend on my toes and I have not done my finger nails because the nail polish I use always has a strong odor and with our little guy chewing on my fingers I certainly don’t want him sticking that in his mouth. So when I saw this, I was intrigued. Steals was offering them for 50% off. I looked at the Keeki site and read about the product. They are free of these chemicals:
- Parabens
- Pthalates
- Toluene
- Formaldehyde
- Acetone
- Synthetic Fragrance
- Sodium Laureth Sulfate, Sodium Lauryl Sulfate
- Nanoparticles
- Gluten
I was so happy to have found this! It is a bit pricey. I probably would not have bought it, had it not been offered at the discount. I checked their site and also my go to, Amazon and the Steals price was well, a steal! So I got 2 colors and a small kit that included Nail Polish remover, base coat and top coat. I did manage to paint my toes the other day and so far so good. It was so nice not smelling that awful nail polish smell. I am going to try to paint my finger nails in the next day or so. I can’t wait.
Thanks for reading!
now and ever more 