All of my news these days seems to be related to baby Will. This may be a testament to how a new baby really does manage to take over your life.
- Who do I look like?
After a terrible week of sleep and perhaps a growth spurt around week 7, I made it a goal to get Will on a better schedule so that he wasn’t completely running our lives. I think we’d gotten in a bad habit of giving him food every time he squeaked so that he wasn’t really eating full meals any more, but instead snacking. It was really messing up his sleep. We also were so concerned with minimizing his crying, that we were feeding him to sleep and to soothe him and he didn’t know how to soothe himself any other way. I was starting to feel exasperated, so I finally read a book recommended by a coworker called “On Becoming Baby Wise”. Say what you will about different sleeping guides, but in the first 5 days of focusing on Will’s daytime feeding and napping schedule he slept 8 hours 4 of those nights, and only woke up once between 9:30pm and 6:30am the other night. He has become better at self-soothing and we can now put him in his crib sleepy but awake and he will generally settle in. It does help some that he has continued to figure out his thumb and the eye-stabbing is starting to become less. This has allowed us a little more freedom to take him out to run our errands since we have a better idea of when he’ll be hungry or sleepy again. It has also made bedtime MUCH better, as Jason is not standing crib-side with a bottle handy to calm every little squeak. Overall there hasn’t been much crying as we’ve adjusted to this schedule, and I’ve discovered that I’m not the type of parent who can take the cry it out methods to extremes…I’m good for 5-10 minutes tops and then we’re going to fix the problem (thankfully Will rarely cries for more than 5 minutes). I think this new schedule is going to make Will, and both of his parents, much happier in the long run.
We got the play mat out for the first time this week and for short periods of time, if in the right mood, Will can lay and entertain himself. (Woot!). So excited for what is to come in the next couple weeks. I swear he was checking himself out in the mirror on the play mat yesterday. He’s such a handsome guy, can you blame him? 😉
Our WI trip is quickly approaching. Thanks to everyone who has given us travel advice. I am feeling a bit more confident that we’ll all get there in one piece. I’m a bit worried about having enough time to nurse during our layover in the Twin Cities, but we will make the best of it. I’m hoping our gate is right next to the lactation room they have and we can pop in there and quickly nurse or pump.
This month I celebrated my first Mother’s Day. Will was a happy baby all day for me and slept super-well at night. We also had dinner with family and he did marvelously even with all the people and noise. I didn’t realize until this year how close our anniversary is to Mother’s Day (lucky Jason). Yesterday was our 3rd wedding anniversary. It is funny to think that I’ve been in Utah almost 7 years, and have known Jason for all but 2 months of that time. Since moving here I’ve gotten a job, gotten married, and now have a house and a new baby. Life has been good to us. After Jason got home from work we took Will on a dinner-date to Culver’s where we met up with my old boss Kristin and her little girl who is 13 months old. Will was content to sit in his carrier and was very awake but well-behaved. Kristin pointed out that we’re still in the ‘easy’ phase and watching her chase her 13 month old (who has been walking since 9 1/2 months) I tended to agree.
Our garden is growing nicely, however due to temps in the 80’s and no rain in sight, watering season has officially begun. I am hoping Ashley can keep it alive while we are away. Perhaps we will finally get some rain during our vacation, but you can never count on that kind of thing here in Utah.
That’s all for now. It’s about time for another feeding and some playtime. Take Care!
S.~