Blissful Sleep

Ian slept for an entire 10 hour stretch last night, from 7:45 pm until 5:45 am. I feel like a new woman!!! As they say, hindsight is 20-20 and now that I know that Ian has his 2 upper molars, I understand why he was sleeping so poorly over the last few months. Those teeth are HUGE! It must hurt a LOT when they are working their way through the gum. Poor little thing. Anyway, now that those teeth are here, it looks like we may have some sleep relief until the bottom ones decide to come in.

I've now changed my mind about the idea that I could be pregnant. It's preposterous. So I've decided to explain my symptoms as really early PMS symptoms. I shouldn't be getting my period for at least 4 or 5 more days and that's IF I have a 28 day cycle, which I've never had in my life. But I've also never really had periods post-pregnancy and so this is new territory for me. So I've decided the bloating and uterine cramping is just PMS.

I have a breakfast meeting this morning with the General Counsel of the medical device company at which I've been interviewing. Hopefully, it's the last meeting she'll need before she decides to make me an offer. 4 interviews is more than enough! I still have my current job and so I'm trying to hold it together there, but it is an exciting opportunity to take this new job and I hope that it works out.

Things are Looking Up

My mom had surgery yesterday. She had a skin infection in her groin area and they needed to go in there and clean everything out. The doctors don't have a clue as to how she ended up with this misery. The infection appears to be at the site of her earlier surgical incision, but it makes no sense that she would get this infection 9 weeks after her bladder surgery. They usually see this type of thing very soon after surgery, if it's going to happen at all. The good news is that the infection was not in her vagina or bladder and so the prior surgery is still good and she won't need to start all over. I feel so bad for her though. She'll be stuck in the hospital until the end of this week and then will need home care to change the dressings on her wound. The doctor told her that recovery will be slow.

On the sleeping front, I'm not sure I've blogged about it, but Ian has been a HORRENDOUS sleeper lately. He wasn't drinking much during the day and so because I was nervous about dehydration, I started nursing him at night when he woke up. And then he got a fever for 3 days and so we let him nap on us. And then over vacation, in order to get more sleep, we brought him into our bed in the middle of the night when he woke up crying. To sum this all up, the baby started sleeping less and less well in his own crib and Sunday night was sheer misery for all of us. He was screaming for 15 minutes of every hour between midnight and 5 am and all of us were exhausted yesterday. But last night went much better. He slept from 7 pm to 2 am, cried for 10 minutes at 2 am and then went back to sleep until 5. I fed him at 5 and then he slept until 6:15 am. Hopefully, we can get him back on track by being strict with the "cry it out" method. No more night feedings and no more sleeping in mommy and daddy's bed!

22 Weeks

At 22 weeks, Ian weighs 17 pounds, 5.1 ounces. He is sleeping through the night on a regular and consistent basis, which is just wonderful. He goes down for his early morning nap fairly consistently and easily, but the other naps are still a bit of a struggle and he ends up over-tired by 5 pm.

I am getting pretty anxious about returning to work. I don't think I'll be that upset that I have to put Ian in daycare. But it's going to be quite the jolt to my system to go from full-time mom to full-time lawyer with no transition. I've officially requested to work from home 1 to 2 times per week. I will still put Ian in daycare, but this arrangement will allow me to see him at nighttime and I can, perhaps, also get in some exercise. I'm waiting to hear a response. The head of my practice group said that he didn't have a problem with it "in theory" but he's worried about the slippery slope issue - i.e., that other associates will see what I'm doing and want to do it for themselves. I think that's sort of a lame response unless every other associate working at the firm recently had a baby!

21 Week Update

We went back to mommy group/play group yesterday and at 21 weeks, Ian weighed 17 pounds, 1 ounce. My own weight hasn't changed that much. I'm still hovering at 142.0 pounds and except for the still ginormous boobs and the muffin top at my waist, my pre-pregnancy clothes fit me pretty decently. Since it is going to rain today, I plan on packing up my maternity clothes and shifting items in my closet to prepare for going back to work.

On the sleeping front, Ian has been doing quite nicely. He goes to sleep very predictably around 7 pm and wakes up fairly regularly around 6:30 am. Given that he is sleeping so much at night, he doesn't nap very much during the day - maybe a total of 1.5 hours. According to Dr. Ferber, Ian won't nap more during the day until we have him sleeping less at night. But I'm not sure his sleeping habits are problematic since, for the most part, Ian is quite happy during the day. He doesn't act cranky or over-tired until about 5:30 or 6:00 pm. That being said, I'm about to dive into the napping chapter in Ferber's book to learn if it is bad for a young child to allocate most of his sleep to nighttime and not much to daytime naps.

One last note - we started feeding Ian oatmeal when we returned from Florida and he seems to enjoy it. So now his solid food intake includes rice cereal and oatmeal (both mixed with breast milk).

Soft Coos

It is 5:45 am and I'm listening to Ian coo softly in his crib. That is music to my ears! We just had a wonderful night. Ian went to bed at 7:30 pm, woke at 8:30 pm (at which point I went in to soothe him and let him cry it out for a couple of minutes) and then he slept until 5:30 am! Wow. I remember him crying out twice around 12:30 am, but he went right back to sleep before I even got myself out of bed. I was sure I was going to have to do a middle of the night feed, but nope! Ian went 10 hours in between feeds! After feeding him this morning, I thought he might not be ready to get up yet and so I put him back in his crib where he is cooing and talking softly.

Our trip in Florida is almost over. We leave this afternoon to head back to Boston. We had a wonderful time and I'm so happy that Ian got to meet my sister, my brother-in-law and his 2 Florida cousins. And we had lots of firsts down here. First time in pool, first time seeing ocean, first time eating rice cereal, first time napping in crib, first time sleeping without a pacifier and first time SLEEPING THROUGH THE NIGHT!

And as is typical of trips to Florida, we are leaving just a little bit fatter than when we came.

Pacifiers are the Work of the Devil

Here is the update on our sleep training without the pacifier using Ferber's "progressive wait" approach, also known as the cry it out approach (although Ferber dislikes such terminology):

Yesterday's morning nap: a total of 13 minutes of crying --> 40 minute nap
Yesterday's afternoon nap: 7 minutes of crying --> 30 minute nap
Nighttime sleep: 1 minute of crying
8:30 pm and 9:30 pm wakings: 1 minute of crying
10:45 pm feed: 1 minute of crying

And then...and then??? Ian slept until 6:45 am! There was no middle of the night feeding for the very first time in his life. Unreal. And now, this morning, Ian took a 75 minute nap, which is probably the longest nap he has ever taken in his crib and is certainly way better than the 30-40 minutes he has been napping.

THANK GOD WE DITCHED THE EVIL PACIFIER!

I love Dr. Ferber!

I came to Florida with a baby who wouldn't nap in his crib and who was completely addicted to his pacifier. But I also came to Florida with Dr. Richard Ferber's book and I have been soaking up every word and following Ferber's advice in order to help Ian sleep better. Within 1-2 days of "Ferberizing" Ian to sleep on his back in his crib, Ian was sleeping nicely in his crib. Okay, so his naps are super short (30-45 minutes), but he's sleeping in his crib. So I consider that a success. But he is still so addicted to his pacifier. When Ian wakes up in the middle of the night (which Ferber assures me is a completely normal part of a sleep cycle) , he can't soothe himself back to sleep because sometime between falling asleep and waking up, he has lost his pacifier. And then either my husband or I have to get out of bed, search around in the dark for the pacifier, and plug the hole that is my screaming child's mouth. And Ian will instantaneously shut off and go back to sleep. But I don't shut off so easily and I seriously worry about sleep deprivation when I have to go back to work in mid-September. Ferber tells me that Ian won't be able to soothe himself back to sleep in the middle of the night until his environment then is the same as the one in which he fell asleep. Thus, it's time to get rid of the pacifier.

I used this morning's nap as my first experiment. After seeing that Ian was starting to get crabby and after seeing him rub his eyes multiple times, I swaddled him and put him in his crib without his pacifier. He screamed for 7 minutes at which point I went in and patted him and sang him a song. He calmed down pretty quickly (which means he can, in fact, calm down without the pacifier). But when I left, he started screaming again. But this time, he screamed for only 6 minutes and fell asleep! HE IS ASLEEP WITHOUT HIS PACIFIER! I'm so damn excited. And I'm really proud of myself for sticking to my guns (and Ferber's advice) even though my mom was hinting very strongly that I was being cruel to my child by letting him cry.

As an aside, I'm quite proud of myself for handling the baby all by myself for the last 4 nights.

Ferberizing

We have been "Ferberizing" Ian to help him sleep better in his crib. Even after adding back in the swaddle, Ian did NOT want to go to sleep on his back in his crib. I think he really would prefer to be on his side, but not only is that not safe for him because of the risk of SIDS, he just wakes up again when he rolls onto his tummy or back. So we picked up the new edition of Dr. Richard Ferber's book "Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems" and have been using his described methods to help Ian sleep in his crib. So far, it's been successful (although painful to do). The first night, we ended up Ferberizing Ian around midnight after he woke up and we couldn't get him back to sleep. He cried for 40 minutes (with intermittent soothing from us) and finally fell back asleep. The second night, we Ferberized Ian at bedtime and he cried for 30 minutes. The next time it was only 20 minutes and yesterday, when we did it for a nap, he only cried for 9 minutes. I hope that he will go to sleep soon without any crying!

We have been mostly successful at scheduling Ian's naps at 9ish, 12ish and 3ish, but today, when we went out food shopping, we couldn't keep him awake in his car seat and let him fall asleep at 10:45 am. It's 12:15 pm now and he's still sleeping! I wish he slept this well in his crib. We only get 30-45 minutes from him for naps in his crib. As my mom said, "He's not one for sleeping." But maybe he can learn to sleep better!

Cold Turkey on the Swaddle

First, the facts. At 18 weeks, Ian weighed 16.0 pounds.

We have gone cold turkey on the swaddle. I decided that this would be the right move since Ian has broken free of his swaddle for 4 nights straight and he was spending a lot of his sleep time attempting to get loose. The first night was fairly awful because we couldn't get him to fall asleep without the swaddle and then he got overtired. There was a lot of screaming. And even after he fell asleep, he woke up a lot needing the pacifier. But we're determined people and decided to try it again last night. We just needed a new bedtime routine without the swaddle.

My husband was working late and so I did this all myself. I fed Ian around 7 pm and he fell asleep on me. Crap. So I then woke him up by changing his diaper, put him in cotton feety pajamas (something we didn't do the night before) and read him a story twice (also new). I then rocked him in my arms while singing a lullaby to him. He got pretty sleepy and so I put him in his crib where he promptly started crying and flailing his arms. Swear words. I picked him up quickly (to avoid a repeat of the night before) and turned on the mobile and rocked him some more. He got sleepy again and this time, when I put him down, he stayed calm. I rubbed his belly for 1-2 minutes and he fell asleep at 7:30 pm. After this, he needed his pacifier twice before 8:15 pm, but then he slept until 12:30 am when he needed to feed. And then after that? After that? HE SLEPT UNTIL 6 AM!!! He didn't wake to feed. He didn't wake for a pacifier. It was bliss. I hope this happens again, but I know better than to say anything out loud because Ian likes to prove me wrong.

In other news, I've been swimming again and it feels great. The JCC has babysitting hours from 8:30 am to noon and it's only $4 for 1 hour! So I went for a swim this past Friday and Monday and swam 1500 and 1750 yards, respectively. Ian was a good boy for the babysitters and spent most of the time napping. I think the swimming has helped with my weight loss because I was 142.0 on the scale this morning. This is the lowest I've seen in a while. Unfortunately, I don't feel like I LOOK like I'm 142.0, which is my official pre-pregnancy weight. I still have a little bit of a gut and my thighs and ass still seem bigger. I think my shape may have changed permanently. I'm okay with this and it helps that my husband is so supportive. I just wish my clothes fit better. Oh yeah, I'm also a 36D instead of a 36C, which I found out when getting measured for a nursing bra. I hope these babies shrink when I'm done nursing!

The Laugh!

First, let's get the facts out of the way. At 16 weeks, Ian weighed 15 pounds, 7 ounces (gaining 8 ounces this past week). My little boy is...not...little. We go to the doctor on Monday for his 4 month visit and I'll be curious what percentile he is in for height and weight.

Ian has been sleeping a little bit better at night. He goes to sleep very regularly around 7:30 pm now and is, more often than not, waking up only once to feed, usually around 2 am. (Of course, to prove me wrong, last night he woke up at 12 am and 4 am to feed.) The killer is when he wakes up needing his pacifier. We've had only one night since he was born where he didn't wake up at all for his pacifier. In general, he wakes at least 2-3 times per night needing that small piece of silicone stuck back into his screaming mouth. Sigh. He calms down immediately once he is sucking again, but I'm not quite sure what is bothering him enough to wake him up in the first place. We haven't made much progress with daytime naps. He definitely will not sleep in his crib and I'll usually only get 30-45 minutes from him in the bouncy seat. I like getting out of the house with him because he will nap in the car seat or stroller.

The really nice and new development is that we heard Ian laugh out loud for the first time this week. He LOVES being pulled up into a standing position by his arms and he was giggling like crazy. I also got him to giggle tonight right before I swaddled him for bed. I was tickling his tummy and chest and he was really loving it. I would do anything to just keep hearing that little laugh. It is music to my ears.

Today was the first nice day (no rain drops!) we've had in a long time. I took Ian in the stroller down to the center of town and ran an errand and then we sat in the park. Ian sat on my lap and I watched him while he watched everything. He stared at the kids playing and watched as each bird flew near him. He was so aware of everything and it was really cool to watch.