Sleeping

Orion slept NINE HOURS, and then three hours last night. Hurray!!! That's the longest he's ever slept, and in his crib at that. I'm so very proud. We've been a little more relaxed with the napping schedule and technique during the day, but he's doing well- he's been sleeping on the couch for an hour. That's my boy!

We're having a good weekend so far. My roommie becca and Nathan's sisters Allie and Rachel are all here, so the house is nice and lively. Nathan and becca are at a Punkin House Press meeting and Allie and I are working on making buckeyes (SO excited) as well as a birthday Jello cake for Larry. Tonight holds Chick Fil A and shopping. Good day!

OH, and Robin and Larry got Direct TV hooked up last night... I'm way too excited about that.

Buckeye dipping time!! Over and out.

3 Months

Orion is 3 months old today! I weighed him on our scale here at home and it says he weighs 11.4 lbs today. He's still my little string bean!

What he's up to:
-drooling...everywhere...
-sucking on/playing with his hands
-grabbing toys
-tracking movement smoothly with his eyes
-lifting and holding his head up steadily
-not crying during baths!
-outgrown all newborn size clothes


He did pretty well sleeping last night. We're talking about being a little more relaxed with his napping habits during the day since he's never been a big sleeper... during his first nap time today he mostly just laid there... he cried once in a while for a few minutes, but just wasn't into the whole sleeping thing. He took a nap on the couch later. I don't know, we're still trying to figure this thing out, but we think the most important parts are getting him to sleep well in his crib at night and making sure he's eating well. I guess we're just going to have to figure it all out as we go.

Our continuing mission

Nathan dug out a sweet snow cave in one of the piles of snow that was plowed out from the church parking lot. It's huge- we can both fit inside. He and Orion are going to have so much fun in the snow in a few years. Nathan's my polar bear :)

The Baby Wise schedule continues to be a challenge. Once in a while Orion goes right to sleep, but more times than not he does a lot of crying. He was tired all day today because the naps he took were short and didn't make up for the energy he lost crying. Poor little thing. Last night was ok... he fell asleep in the car seat when Nathan ran errands with him last night, so he slept in there until 2:30 am! After he woke up and I fed him he cried for an hour :( Thankfully he went to sleep when I comforted him. No exciting details... I just reeeeally hope this works. I hate leaving him to cry that long and seeing him so tired all day. I'm loving the new feeding schedule, but I prefer my happy, energetic baby. I have to say though, I'm pretty excited that he's sleeping in his crib at night, even if it's not straight through.

I haven't done any running for a couple days because I was getting a pain in my leg that I was paranoid about... I kept thinking it might be a stress fracture and I didn't want to aggravate it. After talking about my dad about his experience with a stress fracture I'm now thinking it's probably just shin splints. I hope so anyway! I did walk a couple miles tonight so at least I'm doing something. Next time I run I'm supposed to go two miles straight (or 20 minutes), and I'm extremely apprehensive about that!! I'm honestly going to be shocked if I make it... I'll be totally happy if I can do one mile!

Here are the stats:
Current weight: 132.8
Goal weight: 115
Weight lost this week: 0.4
Total weight lost: 7.2
Pounds left 'til goal: 17.8

I need to step it back up with my eating and exercise. I've been doing some form of exercise daily, but not as much as I should be doing. And eating well is just hard... haha. I'm getting there. And the good news is that losing weight at the rate I am instead of super fast increases my chances of keeping it off! Hurray!

Tomorrow both Allie and my roomie becca are coming to visit, so I'm very excited :) Wish me a restful night!

Baby Wise Day 1 Recap

We've gotten through a day and a night of the Baby Wise program. Yesterday was pretty hard for me. The first couple times I put Orion down for a nap I went in to comfort him every 20 minutes and picked him up and calmed him down, and that would get him to sleep. But then we realized that defeated the whole purpose of letting him cry it out; he needs to learn to comfort himself and fall asleep without my help. So after that we let him cry without picking him up at all for up to an hour each time. We allow ourselves to go in and rub his tummy, give him his pacifier, and say a soothing "it's alright," then leave. Once it took exactly an hour before he gave up, but the other times it didn't take quite that long.

At bed time we swaddled him and laid him down and it only took 10 minutes of crying for him to fall asleep! He slept for an hour, then woke up to eat, then fell asleep immediately. Then awake at 1:30, ate, fell asleep. 4:30 woke up, ate, fell asleep. He woke up crying at 5ish, and I let him cry for a few minutes then did the rub his tummy, paci, "it's ok," and he fell asleep! He slept until 6:30, woke up crying, and I let him cry until a bit after 7 and then got up with him.

He went down for his first nap today at around 8:15 without a fight! I was surprised. He was sleepy but awake but I didn't hear him until around 9. I let him cry until 9:30 since that was meal time. He's about to go down for nap 2 so we'll see how that goes!

I don't think I mentioned that he's doing all this sleeping in his crib! I really want to get him out of the swing because that's just going to be a hard habit to break if we don't get him out of it soon. Plus I'm sick of buying batteries :P

Weeell... he's a-crying already. Wish us luck!!!

**Update: Wow... it only took him about 10 minutes to go to sleep! Let's hope he's a fast learner and it's going to stick!**

Becoming Baby Wise

So. I just read the book called "Baby Wise." I've heard great things about it and I know one of my former employers used it with great success. It's about establishing good sleeping and eating patterns.

I WISH I would have read it before Orion was born.

As of today I'm attempting to train him to eat every 2 1/2- 3 hours AND fall asleep on his own.

The eating schedule is an attempt to help him gain weight and be more content. He's been eating every hour lately and there's just no good reason for that. The book addresses this issue and suggests he's probably not getting the calorie-rich hind milk and is really just snacking all the time instead of getting full meals. Makes a whole lot of sense to me. Plus I'm really tired of feeding him constantly.

The attempt to get him to fall asleep on his own is proving to be a huge challenge. They say not to rock the baby to sleep or nurse him to sleep, but to put him down when he's sleepy but awake and allow him to cry, comforting him every 15-20 minutes. It's so they can comfort themselves and not rely on a crutch to fall asleep. I did that with my employer's baby, but it's a whole lot different when it's your own baby!! It's so hard to listen to him cry! It's supposed to take a few days to establish a new pattern, but I'm reeeeally hoping it works. I feel really bad about it at the moment (since he's laying in his crib crying as I type this), but if it works it'll be worth it... :(

This all would have been a lot easier if I had started it when he was born instead of almost three months old.

Any of you moms have insight?? Help me out here.