Part of our nightly bedtime routine has always been to say our prayers. Like a lot of habits, it is easy to go through the motions without really thinking about what you are doing/saying. This was no different. After a few (or more) weeks of doing this, I finally stopped to think about what I was saying. "Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep, if I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take." Um. No offense, God, but that is just creepy! I KNOW where my baby's soul is going, should the unthinkable happen... that doesn't mean I want to think about it every single night!
So, I decided that Lucas needed his own death-free prayer. Feel free to borrow it, I don't think he will mind! (I'll also note that I tried -as best I could with keeping the rhyme- to model it after the Lord's prayer. So there's that.)
Dear God,
Thank you for my family, thank you for this day. Thank you Lord, for loving me, and showing me the Way. I'm sorry for the wrong I've done, help me just do right. Tomorrow I'll start fresh and new. I love you and good night. (then we add in the personal stuff) God bless mama, and daddy, and lucas, and roxy, and tia. Amen.
Wednesday, September 26, 2012
Saturday, August 25, 2012
Ferber Fer-ever!
My son started STTN (That's mom-speak for "sleeping through the night" for those of you not in the know... Read: Daddy!) pretty early on. Motherhood has kind of been a haze, so I don't recall exactly when, but I would guess it was somewhere between 6 and 8 weeks. His version of STTN was going to bed around 10pm, and waking up between 6 and 7am. Sure, we had the occasional 3 am wakeup for a feeding, but those lasted on average less than 10 minutes, and if I positioned myself correctly, I could almost sleep through that. We had it made!!!
Our nighttime ritual was a full feeding, a bath, a baby massage courtesy of Johnson and Johnson's Baby Lotion, swaddle, prayer, and a "top off" as he fell asleep nursing. Once asleep, we'd lay him in his bassinet and then pack n play once he grew, and that was that. I'd heard the warnings to never wait until your baby is asleep to put them down, and the advice to get them just drowsy enough where they were still awake, but not awake enough to fuss. Seemed like good advice, I heard it. It just didn't end up being "our" way. No biggie. Different strokes.
Somewhere around 4 and a half months though, the routine changed. We kept up our end of the deal, but baby was obviously ready to renegotiate and decided it was a better idea to wake up more often through the night. Say 3 or 4 times more. With that, he also thought he should stay awake longer each time. Not my preference, but I thought it must be a phase... perhaps it was due to a "growth spurt", "developmental growth," "teething," or one of the other excuses that parents use to explain things when their babies are being anything but perfect, content, angels. Maybe I was right, because that phase did actually come to an end, and we transitioned to the next.
The new routine started out the same as the previous, but now he had trained us to wait until he was completely asleep, wait 5-10 minutes longer, and THEN put him down. If you put him down too early, he would wake himself up, and make you start over. Once we were able to successfully get him to go down, we had anywhere from 1-3 hours before he would wake up again. Upon this wakeup, you better forget about putting him back down. From that point on, until morning, he would only sleep if he was being held. These were his demands. We complied.
After a few weeks of that, he started getting suspicious that we might be possibly thinking about maybe considering putting him back in his bed after his mid-night wakeups, so he countered that by not fully letting himself get back into a deep sleep once he had his first 1-3 hour crib "nap".
Clearly, this was NOT working! We were used to not getting rest, but now that his own rest, health, and temperament throughout the day was being affected, we knew it was time to do something. Okay, so it was Daddy who knew it was time. Whatever. So we started researching different sleep solutions, talked to other parents of little ones, and decided to go for it.
We chose the Ferber method, also known as "cry it out" by Dr. Ferber. I hated the thought of standing by while my baby cried, knowing I had the power to comfort him. But after reading the first chapter, I practically had whiplash from nodding along in agreement to the scenarios of the cases he presented. We were going to do this. In short, you help your baby learn how to fall asleep on their own, without any parental intervention. You do this by leaving them for increasing increments, coming in to show your presence to prove you have not abandoned them, and then leave again. You keep doing this until they fall asleep during one of your absences.
First night, we left him for 5 minutes, then 10, then 15, and then halfway through that second 15 minutes, he fell asleep! Not even 45 minutes and he was out. Half an hour later, he woke up so we repeated the process. It went about the same as the first, and he was asleep again halfway through the second 15 minute increment. Twice more throughout the night he woke up, and we repeated the same steps. Those times, he was only starting the 1st 15 minutes when he fell asleep. We considered that progress!
His naps the next day were even better! Reports from daycare told me that he was laid down for only a few minutes both times before he was asleep. Incredible!
Last night, our second try, we laid him down, ready to wait 10 minutes before we went back in the first time. He only lasted 7, and 5 of those consisted of nothing more than a few fusses. In one night we went from 45 minutes to 7. Could not believe it!!! We waited for him to wake up. And waited. Hesitantly, we went to bed, video monitor in hand. He woke up a few times in the night, repositioned himself and went back to sleep. Not a single tear! Around 4:30am, we heard movement, so we checked the monitor and he was awake, playing. After 15-20 minutes of play, he laid back down and went to sleep. We were in absolute shock. And to be honest, I still am, as I recount this! Our baby continued to sleep until just after 7, when he woke up. Happy. And rested! Not a single tear in the morning, either!!!
Naps today have been just as successful.
I know there are differing opinions on sleep solutions, and everyone has to do what they are comfortable with. But I can say with absolute certainty that we have no regrets in choosing this method. Granted, we are only two days in, so tonight may be a completely different story, but with the success we saw in less than 24 hours, we have every intention of sticking with it. To us, while uncomfortable, we feel so proud knowing we helped our son learn a new skill. Not to mention, we will all hopefully be feeling more rested and energized. So the motto around here... Ferber Fer-Ever!!!
Our nighttime ritual was a full feeding, a bath, a baby massage courtesy of Johnson and Johnson's Baby Lotion, swaddle, prayer, and a "top off" as he fell asleep nursing. Once asleep, we'd lay him in his bassinet and then pack n play once he grew, and that was that. I'd heard the warnings to never wait until your baby is asleep to put them down, and the advice to get them just drowsy enough where they were still awake, but not awake enough to fuss. Seemed like good advice, I heard it. It just didn't end up being "our" way. No biggie. Different strokes.
Somewhere around 4 and a half months though, the routine changed. We kept up our end of the deal, but baby was obviously ready to renegotiate and decided it was a better idea to wake up more often through the night. Say 3 or 4 times more. With that, he also thought he should stay awake longer each time. Not my preference, but I thought it must be a phase... perhaps it was due to a "growth spurt", "developmental growth," "teething," or one of the other excuses that parents use to explain things when their babies are being anything but perfect, content, angels. Maybe I was right, because that phase did actually come to an end, and we transitioned to the next.
The new routine started out the same as the previous, but now he had trained us to wait until he was completely asleep, wait 5-10 minutes longer, and THEN put him down. If you put him down too early, he would wake himself up, and make you start over. Once we were able to successfully get him to go down, we had anywhere from 1-3 hours before he would wake up again. Upon this wakeup, you better forget about putting him back down. From that point on, until morning, he would only sleep if he was being held. These were his demands. We complied.
After a few weeks of that, he started getting suspicious that we might be possibly thinking about maybe considering putting him back in his bed after his mid-night wakeups, so he countered that by not fully letting himself get back into a deep sleep once he had his first 1-3 hour crib "nap".
Clearly, this was NOT working! We were used to not getting rest, but now that his own rest, health, and temperament throughout the day was being affected, we knew it was time to do something. Okay, so it was Daddy who knew it was time. Whatever. So we started researching different sleep solutions, talked to other parents of little ones, and decided to go for it.
We chose the Ferber method, also known as "cry it out" by Dr. Ferber. I hated the thought of standing by while my baby cried, knowing I had the power to comfort him. But after reading the first chapter, I practically had whiplash from nodding along in agreement to the scenarios of the cases he presented. We were going to do this. In short, you help your baby learn how to fall asleep on their own, without any parental intervention. You do this by leaving them for increasing increments, coming in to show your presence to prove you have not abandoned them, and then leave again. You keep doing this until they fall asleep during one of your absences.
First night, we left him for 5 minutes, then 10, then 15, and then halfway through that second 15 minutes, he fell asleep! Not even 45 minutes and he was out. Half an hour later, he woke up so we repeated the process. It went about the same as the first, and he was asleep again halfway through the second 15 minute increment. Twice more throughout the night he woke up, and we repeated the same steps. Those times, he was only starting the 1st 15 minutes when he fell asleep. We considered that progress!
His naps the next day were even better! Reports from daycare told me that he was laid down for only a few minutes both times before he was asleep. Incredible!
Last night, our second try, we laid him down, ready to wait 10 minutes before we went back in the first time. He only lasted 7, and 5 of those consisted of nothing more than a few fusses. In one night we went from 45 minutes to 7. Could not believe it!!! We waited for him to wake up. And waited. Hesitantly, we went to bed, video monitor in hand. He woke up a few times in the night, repositioned himself and went back to sleep. Not a single tear! Around 4:30am, we heard movement, so we checked the monitor and he was awake, playing. After 15-20 minutes of play, he laid back down and went to sleep. We were in absolute shock. And to be honest, I still am, as I recount this! Our baby continued to sleep until just after 7, when he woke up. Happy. And rested! Not a single tear in the morning, either!!!
Naps today have been just as successful.
I know there are differing opinions on sleep solutions, and everyone has to do what they are comfortable with. But I can say with absolute certainty that we have no regrets in choosing this method. Granted, we are only two days in, so tonight may be a completely different story, but with the success we saw in less than 24 hours, we have every intention of sticking with it. To us, while uncomfortable, we feel so proud knowing we helped our son learn a new skill. Not to mention, we will all hopefully be feeling more rested and energized. So the motto around here... Ferber Fer-Ever!!!
Monday, June 25, 2012
Story time with Daddy!
This weekend we found a great discovery at Half Price Books... a hybrid of two of my most favorite things: books and grab bags! They had three of these mystery boxes for $10 a piece. So, of course we bought all three! We had a great time going through the boxes and came out with some really great books. Score! It warmed my heart to walk into the room to the image of Daddy reading a story to a very captivated, Lucas!
Lucas was loving every minute of the bright colored, pop up book, and daddy doing the different voices. Until they got to the very last page and found THIS:
Lucas decided maybe story time wasn't so much fun after all...
I think we will stick with Pat the Bunny for a little while longer...
Monday, June 18, 2012
Yay is for Yeasley!
I'm not exactly what one would refer to as an "early adopter," case in point- I am still toying with the idea of creating a Myspace page. But, I have decided to finally make the plunge into the world of blogging. Mostly, I will post about the day to day excitement that comes with a new (to us) home, an infant son, and a growing puppy, with the occasional random topic thrown in, just for fun. Basically, I just wanted a way to keep people updated on what is going on in our lives, should they be so inclined to show interest, as well as keep a written record of certain milestones (especially for baby) just so I don't forget. I mean, I would hate to have Lucas be the youngest ever recipient of the Nobel Prize and me not remember just because I didn't write it down, ya know?
But if the only thing that ever comes from this blog, is to educate even ONE person on the correct way to pronounce my name, well then, it will all have been worth it!
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