May 2015 – On An Even Kiel

Another late one… I really miss my laptop! 😦 Unfortunately, fixing it is not high on the priority list right now following an international move and buying a new home. Sad mommy.

Age: 6 months on 27 April 2015
Weight: 19.5 lbs
Height: 27 inches
Teeth: none
Clothing Size: a few 6-9 months & 9 months
Diaper Size: size 3
Milestones: sitting up unassisted, regularly rolling over (mostly from back to tummy), baths in the big tub, sleeping in his own room, discovering his tongue (spitting)

Sleeping: After enduring Wonder Week 19 (seriously not funny… it lasts 5 weeks!), things definitely improved with Gerrit’s sleep! Just a few days after Gerrit turned 5 months old, we moved into our new house and also moved him into his own room. We still are nowhere near him sleeping through the night, but his stretches of sleep are not as short as they had been. His longest stretch by 6 months was just over 4 hours, and he was spending almost the whole night in his own bed. Right before he turned 6 months, I was bringing him to bed with me between 4:30 & 5:00 in the morning to get about 2 more hours of sleep. Halfway through the month, Gerrit started falling asleep on his own again once in awhile too! If I nursed him back to sleep and he woke up when I put him down in his crib, he almost always put himself back to sleep on his own. Yay!

I was shocked to see our anti-tummy time baby sleeping on his belly one night!

Naps are starting to get better. After Gerrit turned 5 months, he was still taking 4 naps a day sometimes, but over the course of the month, that went down to 3 naps. I still nap with him at least once a day (usually the morning nap). His long nap of the day is about 2 hours long, and his short ones are 30-45 minutes long. By mid-April, Gerrit was occasionally falling asleep on his own again for some naps too!

20150415_151620 — The first time he ever fell asleep on his own for a nap!

I finally started to see a pattern emerge too! Once we moved Gerrit into his own room, bedtime started getting easier. And when he dropped that fourth nap, bedtime moved earlier, which meant FREEDOM! for this mommy! 🙂 We started out the month with bedtime in the 8:00 hour, but by the end of the month it was usually in the 7:00 hour.

Eating: Gerrit is still eating frequently at night, although on good nights it’s only 4 times. He also still does his best eating during the day before naps. It’s hard to get a decent feeding in him when he’s on and off the breast so much during the day, so I think he keeps the same eating schedule every 24 hours regardless of it being night or day! He has also started “biting” me when he eats. It’s not so much when he’s actively nursing but more after he’s done and just comfort nursing. Thank goodness there are no teeth in there, because when he clamps down with his gums it HURTS! I usually firmly tell him, “We don’t bite. That hurts Mommy.” and he will give me this shocked look. But I don’t think he really understands what’s going on yet.

Mommy Update: The start of the month was rough. I was trying to sleep train Gerrit, and it really stressed me out and upset me. Needless to say, I didn’t continue with it for very long. Once I stopped obsessing over the sleep so much, I started feeling a lot happier.

The first week or so of the month was rough because we were in our new house… with no furniture! So once that got delivered, we started settling in, and I started to feel better about life. I think it was hard on me moving Gerrit to his own room too. That separation that I thought I wanted was harder to deal with than I thought it would be! If he unexpectedly slept longer than usual, I worried he had stopped breathing. And I hated crossing the house in the middle of the night for feedings at first. But it made it easier not to bring him to bed with me since I wasn’t nursing in the warm, cozy bed anymore!

Settling into our house and getting our household goods meant I started getting back into regularly cooking meals again! I think having good meals (versus processed meals and eating out) probably helped my mood.

Best Moments: Buying and moving into our first house! Everything was finalized on my 30th birthday, and we moved in that day as well (just a few days after Gerrit turned 5 months old).

I think our other best moment was getting Gerrit into his own room. It meant more one-on-one time for Andrew & me and better sleep for me as well.

20150414_133553 — Doesn’t he look tiny in there?!

Likes & Dislikes: Gerrit still likes standing on us a lot. He also likes sitting now that he’s able to! I think it makes it easier on both of us during playtime now that he can sit on his own.

Gerrit likes bath time too! We moved him into the big tub right around when he turned 5 months. It took him awhile to realize he had more room, I think, but once he learned to splash and move around a bit, he started having fun.

While I still don’t think Gerrit likes to go to sleep, he doesn’t hate it as much as he used to. He still doesn’t like tummy time, but I often find that he has rolled onto his tummy in his crib to sleep. Go figure.

Memorable Events: The big one that I already mentioned was moving into our house! Most of the month of April was spent unpacking and settling in.

Learning to drive:

Just kidding… this is when we went to get the Hyundai (which was shipped over from England). We stopped for Gerrit to eat, and he sat with Andrew and played with the steering wheel for a bit.

Gerrit also celebrated his first Easter!

Wearing his "Chicks Dig Me" shirt Easter weekend — Wearing his “Chicks Dig Me” shirt Easter weekend

20150405_173319 — All dressed up for Easter dinner!

Gerrit discovered his tongue:

He started sticking out his tongue all the time and learned how to blow bubbles/spit. Sometimes it’s cute and funny… not so much when he does it while nursing. I’ve gotten sprayed with a mouthful of milk more than once.

Gerrit made his first piece of artwork the day he turned 6 month! I started it taped to the floor, but he wasn’t loving tummy time.

Then I tried taping it to the window so he could stand up and paint.
And in the end, he just crumpled it up and tried to eat it!

But here’s the finished product:

Overall Gerrit’s 6th month was pretty good. It started out a little rough, but it definitely improved as it went on. It seems crazy to think that my little baby is already 6 months old! In some ways, time has dragged: dealing with the move and living out of suitcases while trying to maintain normalcy for Gerrit was stressful and exhausting. But I also can’t believe we’re already through the first half of his first year. I love my little guy so much!

Toward the end of March (right before Gerrit turned 5 months), I decided that I was sick of our sleeping arrangement. I hated how our evenings were going, and I was really getting scared that Gerrit was going to sleep in bed with us for the rest of his life (just kidding… a little). So I started tracking his sleep patterns with the plan to start sleep training after we moved into our new house.

While tracking Gerrit’s sleep, I discovered a few things. 1) His sleep “pattern” is all over the place. He really wasn’t all that consistent with times. 2) He wakes up and needs to nurse back to sleep at least 5 times a night. Yikes. 3) This kid hates to nap. Here’s one day as an example:

7:45 AM – wake up
8:50-9:35 – first nap
11:00-11:45 – second nap
1:15-2:00 – third nap
3:45-5:00 – fourth nap
8:15 – bedtime
10:15 – wake to eat
11:35 – wake to eat
2:15 – wake to eat
2:45 – wake to eat
3:00 – came to bed with me (2 more feedings in there)
7:30 AM – wake up

I did the math, and he was napping about 3.5 hours a day and sleeping about 10 hours at night (if you subtract all the time he was awake). Honestly, he was doing pretty well in terms of daytime sleep hours. But all those night wakings? It was rough.

So after tracking his sleep for a little over a week, I decided that we were going to start sleep training on the 1st of April. A new month, and a fresh start with sleep! We were also in our new house, so we decided to put Gerrit in his own bedroom too. My plan was pretty much the pick-up-put-down method. First, I tried to put him down to sleep drowsy but awake with the goal of him putting himself to sleep. And if he woke up, I would go in and pat him to soothe him. If he got upset, I’d pick him up, calm him down, then put him back down and go back to patting him. I would keep doing this until he fell asleep. I was only tackling nighttime sleep to start with, because I was afraid taking on naps too would be too overwhelming for both of us.

Night #1 was a little rough, but I was determined to see it through. I put him down to sleep at 7:20 PM and he woke up after only 15 minutes. Ugh. Thankfully, he went back to sleep fairly quickly and slept for an hour and a half. Then it took nearly an hour to get him back to sleep. That was tiring. But the next night it took a little less than half an hour to get him back to sleep after that first waking. I was feeling hopeful! But then night #3 it took him nearly two hours to fall back to sleep after that first waking. I was in tears; it was so hard not to just pick him up and nurse him. I knew he was frustrated with me not picking him up, and I was getting more tense the longer it took for him to settle. This lasted about 5 days.

And that’s when I failed sleep training. I went right back to picking him up right away when he cried and nursing him back to sleep. Maybe I just don’t have a backbone when it comes to listening to Gerrit cry and fuss, but I just couldn’t handle it. My goal with my brief attempt at sleep training was to keep Gerrit in his bed until 3 AM before bringing him to bed with me. I think that happened a few nights, but that was it.

But then something happened. Halfway through the month, Gerrit put himself to sleep for the first time since early March! And it was for a nap! I was beyond shocked!

That night he put himself to sleep 3 times! It took him awhile (30 minutes max), but he was doing it on his own. I was so excited!

Since then, he has put himself to sleep a few times each day. Normally, he will making noises and move around in his crib as his pre-sleep routine. Sometimes he gets pretty loud! Not crying, just making crazy noises. But I never push it; as soon as he starts sounding upset, I go in and offer the boob. If he falls asleep nursing, that’s fine. He has gotten to the point that if he wakes up when I set him down after nursing, he will usually put himself back to sleep quickly. When he doesn’t (usually between 3-5 in the morning), that’s when I take him to bed with me for his last few hours of sleep.

Two days after he put himself to sleep for that nap, he beat his “record” for sleep. I had thought it was so crazy that he would never sleep more than 2.75 hours at a time. Yes, I tracked his sleep for the whole month of April and figured out exactly how long he was sleeping at a time. Those who know me well know that I am crazy enough to do this. 🙂 So 2.75 hours was his record since he was about 3 months old. Well, then he did 3.5 hours one night! I was ecstatic! Sure, 3.5 hours seems pretty short, but it was a huge improvement to me. About a week later he made it 4.25 hours in one stretch of sleep. Progress!

So here I am, typing this up the night before he turns 6 months old. Gerrit is currently taking his morning nap with me, and I encourage him to put himself to sleep for his other 2-3 naps. If he doesn’t, no big deal. But he does take those other naps in his own bed. At night, he sometimes puts himself to sleep and sometimes he falls asleep nursing. He is getting much better at going right back to sleep after nighttime feedings, and he will sometimes put himself back to sleep all on his own. He still wake up 3-4 times a night and usually nurses back to sleep for those. Gerrit usually comes to bed with me between 3 and 5 in the morning, although lately it’s much closer to 5 AM.

Yes, we failed at sleep training. But we’ve also made so much progress this month! I don’t know if it was just Gerrit maturing or if some of my sleep training actually worked, but I can honestly say that his sleep has become much less stressful for me. I’m learning to go with the flow a bit more and let Gerrit have more opportunities to fall asleep on his own. Maybe down the road we will look at sleep training again, but I’m so glad we decided to quit this time!

Month: May 2015

Gerrit: 6 Months

Failing Sleep Training