Sleep Training

After two months of bad sleep and then two days of horrible, awful, TERRIBLE 30 minute increments of sleep we finally caved and started sleep training and I am SO glad we did. Now a little bit about Waylen before training… he loved being swaddled but we just transitioned him into a sleep sac, he still had night feedings, and he would sometimes take a paci from Chappy in the middle of the night if he was cranky. Plus he was pretty much always nursed to sleep. So for this training our goal was to get rid of the paci, eliminate night feedings, and get him to actually sleep more than a few minutes at a time!

Now personally I am not a fan of cry it out so we decided to go with Sleep Sense. In this method you can stay in the room, pick up put down, comfort them by rubbing their tummies, talking to them, etc. and can do as many check ins as you want. Now before trying sleep training Waylen had probably only cried an hour TOTAL in his entire life so when my none cry it out method ended up involving a lot of crying I panicked. (Obviously!)

Pretty much everything we were allowed to do to comfort Waylen actually made him cry more. Pick up pick down?? Yeah, NO. Staying in the room? Didn’t work for us. Cried loader, got redder, and was much much angrier. (And would just give me an evil death stare the entire time.) So we ended up doing the check in method and it actually started to work! The first night took a whole hour for him to finally fall asleep but the next day it only took 20 and then 15 and now he’s out in under 5. (And just FYI that hour was not constant crying.. it was crying, then whining, then silence on repeat.) We ended up checking in about every 3-5 minutes of crying. The first night he woke up 4 times but was able to put him back to sleep every time with only one time taking more than 5 minutes. The second night was about the same and the third night he only woke up twice and was back asleep in under 2 minutes!

And naps? On just the second day he took under 5 minutes to fall asleep every time and under 2 minutes the next day.

Now 1 week in and I’ve never slept better!! We temporarily moved out of our master when we initially started sleep training (since we still room share with Waylen) and now we’re heading back in so wish us luck! But seriously … we decided to drop the night feeds so I now get a solid 11 hours freedom from my little babe. I haven’t slept this well in many many MANY months!

If you’re on the fence about sleep training, do it! Like run and do it now. My baby is happy, well rested, and on a pretty predictable schedule which makes planning my day super easy. Also now I can put him down in his crib and just watch as he rolls around, plays, and soothes himself to sleep. Much easier than all that rocking and nursing but don’t get me wrong, I still sneak in some baby cuddles during his last little cat nap of the day. I mean come on, he’s not going to be this little forever!!

Now just one last little fun fact Waylen taught us this week is that he apparently is now a tummy sleeper. Almost as soon as that swaddle came off he learned how to roll himself over in his crib and has been sleeping on his stomach ever since. Of course the “back is best” mommy in me panicked at first and was constantly rolling him back over but it literally did no good since he’d be back on his stomach almost immediately. Ha Plus our pediatrician said once he can get their on its own it’s safe. Still. My anxiety is a little higher with my new tummy sleeper but I guess at least he’s found a way to get through the night comfortably!

And sometimes he even does crazy stuff like this …

Apparently I did the same this as a kid soo he must take after me!

Baby Led Weaning: Week 1

We are officially one week into Baby Led Weaning and let me tell you it has been so much fun (and messy!) We still started out slow with our introduction of different foods so this is what our first week looked like:

Days 1-3: broccoli
Days 3-6: broccoli and sweet potato
Day 7: sweet potato, broccoli, avocado

To prepare the food for Waylen’s little hands and toothless mouth we steamed the broccoli, roasted slices of sweet potato in olive oil, and sliced the avocado with a little skin left so it would be easier to grasp. Overall the experience has been great! Right now he definitely gets more food on his hands, face, highchair, floor, hair, mom… (etc. ha) then he actually swallows but he’s learning and seems to love chewing on all the different textures! His facial expressions are UNREAL and are seriously hilarious to watch.

Now I’m not going to lie, BLW is not for everyone! Your baby is going to gag/cough at some point. The first time is a little scary but both you and your baby will get through it and quickly learn what is manageable. Waylen gagged a little the first day and has barely gagged since but he is still learning how big of bites to take. He usually is fine but every once and a while he’ll chomp off a mouth full and will give me this look of confusion and disgust ha. Something along the lines of “what the hell is this mom?!?.” Then he’ll just spit out what he doesn’t want and keep going.

His favorite thing so far is gnawing on a broccoli stem. I swear no matter what why I lay the broccoli he loves to pick it up by the head and chew away on the stem. Not exactly what I had in mind but oh well!

Next up on the menu is zucchini, carrots, mushrooms, eggs… and like 100 more things ha so I’ll keep you posted on how it goes!

Waylen: 6 Months

How is it even possible that I am a mother of a 6 month old baby?!? I remember thinking it was going to be FOREVER until we got to feed him real food but I blinked and here we are! We are going with baby let weaning so it may get messy. Wish us luck!

This past month Waylen has really made some big leaps. He essentially can sit up on his own (as long as he doesn’t get too excited) and practices chewing on pretty much everything. He LOVES reaching for his toes, his crinkly bear block, holding books during story time, his teeth flash card (literally cracks up at this for some reason,) and is obsessed with any cup but especially Chappy’s water bottle. He will do anything to get a hold of it and honestly knows exactly how to use it.

Also his giggles have got out of control and I will never get tired of hearing them! They have graduated from Sheldon’s laugh to actual giggles and for the most part he laughs when you mess something up. Dropping a toy, getting hit in the head… etc… all those things are almost guaranteed to get some giggles!

A few weeks ago we took our first big family trip and Waylen did amazing! We drove 8+ hours down to Florida at night and Waylen slept the entire way except for a quick feeding. Even with a change in schedule he was still our happy baby and was great at taking his naps whenever we were. Next up we will be testing his abilities on a flight to California … Now that I am still worried about.

Sleep still hasn’t been great but we are getting through it. He now is mostly sleeping in a sleep sac which is easy for us but also allows him to startle awake more. I’ve also been better about nursing him in a quiet room during the day to help with the distractions which has cut down on some of the night feedings but we are still not back to those glorious 7+ hour stretches. Eventually we’ll get there though! We also did have a little hiccup when Waylen came down with his first fever! Nothing a little skin to skin and extra cuddles couldn’t solve though and of course Waylen never stopped being his happy little self throughout the whole thing. I think I was more uncomfortable than he actually was and now that I have mastitis I KNOW I am. Mastitis is NO JOKE!

The most important change that happened this month though is Waylen saying mom!! Okay so it typically sounds more like “Ma” or “Mum” and he mostly says it when he’ll fussing BUT I’ll take it!

Well I guess that’s it! We start steamed broccoli shortly so I’ll keep you posted on how it goes! I don’t have many other baby friends so if anyone has any advice for BLW I’d love to here from you!