Monday, July 9, 2012

Baby Babbles


Most of today was pretty rough for Ayden.

Think we are outgrowing the bouncy??  Don't worry, he was buckled and I was close...
He slept okay last night (woke every 3 hours) but was up for the day an hour earlier than usual. Still a little off kilter from the weekend I suppose. Again, him waking at 6 or 6:30 is great for David, since he gets a few smiles to hold onto for the day; but not so great for the baby and mommy who woke up too much throughout the night.

His naps were too short, only 30-40 minutes each, and he even requested two extra feedings (which is not a bad thing, just an indicator that something's up). He woke from his early afternoon nap very upset, which is a clear indication that it ended too early. If he wakes happy from a cat nap, I don't worry too much about it. If he wakes crying and stays fussy/grumpy I usually try to get him to go back to sleep if I can. Today we needed to take Little Miss to her Mom's store so even though he was grumpy, I got him up, changed his diaper and headed out the door. On the way home from dropping her off, Ayden had a king of meltdowns. I pulled over to give him some kisses, teething tablets and a pacifier which must have helped because he was asleep again by the time we got home. I transferred him to his crib and then attempted to get a couple of things done but he woke up crying, huge tears and all, so I brought him to our bed and nursed him to help him calm down. He ended up falling to sleep and had his first nap longer than 40 minutes in probably a week!

Polly and I made an Ayden sandwich :)
He slept for about and hour and a half and woke up so happy when David got home.


He has started babbling like crazy!


The rest of the evening was amazing! He played independently without getting "the screams," sat happily with us in his booster seat during dinner and sucked on an ice cube in his mesh feeder. He even was content to stay in his booster and splash in a little water on his tray while I cleaned up the kitchen.

I've been doing more reading in The Baby Whisperer Solves All Your Problems and have added a few more of her tricks to my mommy bag. They seem to be working! My current focuses are lengthening nap times, getting him to fall asleep independently (mainly by using her wind down ritual) and, of course, lengthening night sleep sessions. We are taking it slow and steady, and even take a step backwards every now and then; which is okay because he is just a baby after all. Even so, I think we are making progress!
We did still have a few happy moments throughout the day!!
I had a feeling the shorter naps were going to catch up to us.  It was so great to see that his recent moodiness wasn't a new "thing" and that it really was just the result of being over-tired or over-stimulated like I thought.  It just gives me that much more motivation to keep working on teaching him to nap longer.  A little easier said than done but that's okay... A mommy's work is never done!

~Sarah

4 comments:

  1. Hi Sarah, Just wondering will you start posting paleo-related posts here? Would love the recipes you like on youtube to be here so we can easily find them rather than youtube - search for the video - go through the recipe... if that makes sense!! Thanks!!

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  2. Sarah,
    Do you worry at all about overusing the teething tablets? I've been using them for my guy, but the bottle says not to use them for more than seven days in a row. I have to admit I'm glad when we get through a day without using them, but there are days when he's cranky and I'm not 100% sure it's teething related but we turn to the tablets anyway as a possible solution.

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  3. That picture of Ayden and Polly is so cute! :) Did Polly always like babies/kids? My cats run in fear of them so I'm wondering how that will go when there's a full-time baby in the house.

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  4. Hey Sarah! I remember having that issue with my children at that age too. What worked for me was starting them on a little bit of solids at lunchtime. It worked like a charm! After some solids they would nurse and sleep great. It even improved their nighttime sleep. Just a thought!

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