Someone pinch me!!

I never thought this day would come. Ever. I fully anticipated that I would go off to CMU with Hudson and need to rock my 18-year old son to sleep. But now I have hope. For two straight days he has allowed me to rock him for a few minutes then put him into his crib awake and let me walk out of his room. With no tears (for either of us). For both his nap and at bedtime. It's a sleeping miracle!! It has been really cute. I think he's internalizing his big brother status. I tell him how proud I am of him for going to bed on his own and he tells me "Hudson pillow. Hug Birdie. Hadley Grace cry." which translates to "Hudson lays on his pillow, hugging his Big Bird because Mommy has to leave to get Hadley Grace who is crying".

We're so proud of you Hudson James!

Hudson updates

Since my little guy turned 22 months (sniff!) I thought I'd post some updates on what he's getting into these days....

He LOVES to kick. He will just kick a ball for hours. (During which time he'll also usually "Run. Fast!"). He loves to kick it really hard and say "BIIIIIIIG KICK!", while sticking his tongue out:
He's grown found of Sesame Street. He'll just sit on the couch and watch an entire episode:
One of his favorite things to do on the deck is to use chalk. Sometimes, he gets carried away:He has learned to completely milk every boo boo. In his best old lady voice, he'll say "Oooooooooooh........boo boo.......kiss". Sometimes he also says "Fall. Sorry." (He knows that he's supposed to say sorry if he hurts someone, so he says sorry every time he hurts himself too - it's so freakin' cute!). Here's him complaining about a boo boo:

While I don't have a picture, I think this is still deserving of some blog time - Hudson used the potty yesterday! I was changing him and he started to pee a little. I asked him if he wanted to go on the potty and he said "potty". So I took him in the bathroom and sat him down on the big potty and he went! We did alot of cheering and dancing, so I think he was pretty excited too. He went again before bed.

He's OBSESSED with sharing. While that sounds like a good thing, his idea of sharing isn't what you may have had in mind. He'll say "share" and try to give the other kid what ever he has just so that he can get what the kid has. In other words, he means "share...with me!". In addition, he says "share" over and over and over again....

He is becoming a Mama's boy. He constantly says "Mama hold" and wants me to pick him up and cuddle. He's always kissing me and hugging me. His favorite is a "BIIIIIG HUG" (as he calls it), when he comes running at me with open arms.

As for his sleep, well, let's just say that it's old news. Still takes forever to get him down at night and still wakes up throughout the night. We've gotten into the habit of bringing him into our bed since we're just so tired, but that has to stop before baby #2 comes! We used to be able to hold his hand until he fell asleep, but now he stands up and asks "Momma, hold baby" and he wants me to hold him like a baby and rock him. How could I deny that?!?!

A quick update

I know, I know... I'm a slacker blogger. At first I had a good excuse (working on my dissertation), but now my reasons for not blogging are not quite as convincing (watching SYTYCD, reading the Twilight series of book at any free moment, sleeping, etc.). Anyways, since Hudson is upstairs screaming his lungs out with Ryan, I thought I would try to do a quick update. (BTW - the screaming is due to our second round of sleep training. You may have followed our experience with the first round. We made progress, but then plateaued, and ultimately, regressed back to our starting point. This time around Hudson is on to us and REFUSES to go to sleep without us and continues to wake all through the night.)

So, before I get into the update, I just wanted to give another excuse (I know, I'm full of them!) for my lack of blogging. I guess I don't fully understand what the best blogging etiquette is. I know that I enjoy reading blogs when the updates include pictures, but uploading and adding pictures is the time consuming part that I dread. So I end up putting off posts (like Hudson's first airplane trip that was almost a month ago!). If blogging without pictures is appropriate, I'm sure I would do it more often. That said, I have absolutely no idea who reads this blog. My guess is that it is mainly just Hudson's grandparents, a few girls from the Nest with toddlers, and a few friends from high school and/or college. And since our parents and most of my friends receive monthly pictures (which I'm also slacking on...I promise that I'll be better once Edward and Bella are out of my life!), maybe pictures aren't necessary?

Anyways, I wanted to give a quick update about our crazy little monkey. Everyday I am just shocked by the things that he is doing. He pretty much will repeat any word you say to him and most of them sound like they should. I would try to post some the words that he actually knows, but there are just way too many now. There must be at least 100! It seemed to happen overnight! Some of my favorites are "sit" and "ice" which sound JUST like "shit" and "ass". He's obsessed with the color purple - you can point to any color and he'll say it's purple. But yet when he is pointing things out in his books, he'll point to something that's actually purple and say it correctly. So I think he knows his colors, but is just playing with us. Similarly, he's obsessed with the number 8...he treats it the same as purple. But yet if you count and pause between numbers he can sometimes fill in with the correct number. He knows a bunch of animal noises (our favorite is cat because he says "meeee" in a really high pitched voice), but over the last few days everything says "MOOOOOO!" because he knows you'll tickle him and say "nooooo!" He's started saying and signing "please" and "thank you" a bunch. He usually says it when prompting like "How do you ask?" or "What do you say now?", but just today he started to say thank you without a prompt. And, my favorite current trick, if you ask him where the baby is, he picks up my shirt and knocks on my stomach and says "Knock, knock baby".

And here's a runway pose in case posting pictures is a must.....

I'm baa-aack....

Yes, so I took an extended blogging leave. It really wasn't by choice. One of my dissertation committee members agreed to be on my committee only if I could set my proposal meeting before the end of May. So you know what that means? Non-stop dissertating! I worked my butt off and now I'm happy to say that my baby has been handed over to the committee. My presentation was on May 22nd and I could have never anticipated it going so well! YAY!

In addition to dissertation bootcamp, I also was on a wedding marathon. Two weddings in two weeks in Long Island? Sure, no problem! We drove up to NJ on April 24th and then headed up to LI on the 25th for Abhisek and Sujata's wedding (college friends) while Ryan's parents watched Hudson. Our blind faith in technology had us trust the GPS to get us to the wedding. Apparently, Onyx (the car/GPS) decided that we should see the Lincoln Tunnel and midtown Manhattan on that beautiful sunny afternoon. Needless to say, we got to the wedding an hour late and missed the entire ceremony. We did, however, get to catch up with a bunch of Ryan's fratenity brothers (including 3 of his little brothers) which was wonderful. After the wedding, we made the trek back to NJ. Our return trip took less than 2 hours, compared to the 3+ it took us to get there.

Less than a week later, we headed to NJ on Thursday April 30th. We headed to LI on Friday afternoon for Jade and Jerrol's wedding (grad school friends). Since we learned from our mistakes, we took a new route (Oynx was not in control this time). Unfortunately, that didn't help. It took us over 3 hours to get there again thanks to Friday afternoon traffic and rain. Again, we missed the ceremony. Despite of bad luck with driving, we had a wonderful time at the wedding and a much easier return trip that evening.

The following day, May 2, we celebrated Ryan's birthday (which is May 4) in NJ with his family and our good friends, Megan, Jay, and Alex. Meg and Jay brought their adorable little girl, Izabella, too. We had a great time catching up and eating TONS of food (including Ryan's Dad's famous lasagna and sangria and a delicious ice cream cake).

So, two weekends packed with travel and one dissertation proposal have affected my ability to blog. But now I'm back and have updates on Hudson....

• Well, he gets cuter by the minute (seriously).
• He's (finally) starting to grow some hair, albeit more in the back in the form of a curly rat tail.
• He's starting to pick up words. Right now he says: car, cat, ball (although this sometimes means "grapes" if he's also signing grapes), juice, Mom, Da, Pop Pop, on, up, down, shoe, owl, out, puff, banana, and apple. I was SO happy to finally hear MOM!!! For the longest time both Ryan and I were "Da".
  
• His cognitive development has been blowing us away too. He's been doing puzzles for a while now. I still have no idea how he learned that. He also can point out a bunch of things in his books (i.e. if you ask where the butterfly is on a certain page, he'll point to it). Again, I have no idea how he learned some of these random words like bumblebee, owl, and butterfly. Just the other day, Joyce (our nanny) told me that he was pointing out red and blue blocks when she asked. He's our little genius!! CMU, here he comes! :)
• He LOVES to kick his ball around. We're convinced that he's going to take right to soccer, although we'll probably push him to go the Jeff Reed route instead (sans the crazy hair and penchant for hoochie mamas).
  
• One of his favorite games is when Daddy throws him high into the air (much to Mommy's dismay as she prays to Jesus that Daddy catches him and doesn't break his back). As soon as Ryan catches him, he immediately says "UP!!" and is ready to go again.
  
• He's starting to want to do grown up things. I've given him a little responsibility by letting him feed the cats each morning. He LOVES it! He runs to get the scoop, puts some food in their dishes and then runs back for more. If he spills any, he picks them up and puts them in the dish (although sometimes he chooses to put them in the WATER dish). He seems so proud of his little chore.
  
• He's still 100% obsessed with vacuums. Thanks to my Mom, he has two loud play vacuums that he pushes around all day. But as soon as he spots one of the real vacuums he comes running and just wants to push it all over the place. He even knows that our small Dyson is for cleaning the couch, so he grabs it off of the charger and takes it over to the couch. Hopefully his desire to clean lasts through his teenage years!
• He's getting really good at going down the stairs. We tried to teach him to sit on his bum and "scooch" down. As soon as we say "scoochie", he starts to go. Unfortunately, he's getting a little too brave and is starting to go without Mommy or Daddy there to supervise or he tries to walk down. For those of you who have been to our house, you know that there are 50 stairs (literally, we counted), so this gets to be difficult.
• He loves to empty Daddy's wallet (Mommy taught him well!). He'll sit there forever just taking credit cards in and out.
• As for his sleep, I wish I could say it's great, but sadly, it's not. We did make alot of progess with our sleep training (see previous sleep posts), but we kinda plateaued and didn't move forward. In fact, it seems that we're actually regressing at this point :(
• On a better note, he is eating MUCH better. He's finally eating real food and not just crackers! Still not drinking milk, but he LOVES cheerios in milk, so we're getting some in. I think the kid could eat 2 adult sized bowls of cheerios in one sitting!
• He's mildly obsessed with dandelions. If he sees them in the grass, he will stand there and yell and point at them until you pick them. Every. Last. One. Of. Them. He's getting brave and beginning to touch them himself.

• He just had his 18 month doctor visit. He was in the 70th percentile for height, but only 20th for weight. We so glad that the summer is here so that he can wear shorts and stop rocking the floods!

I hope to find some time soon to post more pictures. I just need to download them from the camera. I haven't even sent out his monthly batch....I know, I'm slacking....

It was good while it lasted...

Our one giant leap forward a few weeks ago has been met with a few steps backwards. Those few nights of glorious sleep are just a dream at this point (I'm still not sure if I was actually daydreaming them or if I'm now stuck in a nightmare).

Right after I posted my last sleep message, I hit "Publish Post" and then I heard it. Those shrilling screams of exhaustion that I thought we had conquered. I guess Hudson was going to teach me to brag about his great sleeping skills! Ryan was trying to get him to sleep, but he was hysterical unless Ryan put his hand on him. The screams were heart-wrenching (worse than our first few nights of training), so Ryan obliged. You obviously know where this got us...Hudson wanting us to put our hand on him until he falls asleep. We fell into the trap that the Sleep Lady warned us about: "Don't replace one sleep crutch with another." Hudson outsmarted us at our own game.

Since that dreadful night, he's been pretty difficult to get to sleep (I'm actually typing this while Ryan is sitting with him in his room. It must not be going so well because I'm 2 levels below him with the office door closed and I hear his cries). As if that's not bad enough, he's waking up 3-4 times a night now.

On a positive note....3-4 times is less than 7-8 times each night! Also, it's much easier to get him back to sleep in the middle of the night. I can just lay him down, put on his music, and stand there for a minute or two.

I'm doing lots of complaining here, so I just wanted to end this post with a positive reminder of how Ry and I are getting through these sleep issues....just look at that face!

Sleep update

I know that alot of people have been checking back for sleep updates. The reason that I haven't posted any is because not too much is new. He's still sleeping as well as he was on the last sleep post. We haven't done the last stage of the "shuffle" yet which is putting him in his crib awake and walking out of the room. Right now a typical night looks like this:

*Between 6:30-7:30, I nurse Hudson in his room with the lights on.
*About 10-15 minutes later, Ryan gets Hudson in his bath.
*Between 7-8, Ryan puts him in his crib with the music on and Ryan lays on the floor by the doorway. Hudson walks around the crib for a while, fusses for a minute or two, lays down and goes to sleep. It usually takes 15-45 minutes for him to lay down and go to bed.
*He might wake up once throughout the night (He has woken up twice before, but we were dealing with new teeth and a runny nose). If he does wake up, we just pick him up, hold him for a second to calm him down, put the music back on, and lay him back in his crib. He goes right back to bed.
*The downside to all of this is that his new wake up time is 5am. Even after we changed the clocks! I try to get him back to bed since I think he's still tired (he's crying and not happy), but it never works. So I go down stairs, turn on the lights, and nurse. One of the problems might be that he doesn't eat much at night, so he's waking up due to hunger. But he usually won't eat when I bring him down, just nurses, so I'm not sure.

I'm absolutely amazed at how well the Shuffle method worked for us. My parents and Ryan's parents can attest to how awful Hudson was when it came to sleeping. This has been a miracle!

Night #7

Well, we have another successful night! I'm considering sending Kim West (the Sleep Lady) a diamond necklace or something! We can't begin to thank her and her book enough! As someone who believes in Attachment Parenting, I never thought I would find a sleep "training" that felt right. I'm so glad that this method not only worked with Hudson, but also fit into our parenting philosophy.

Hudson took a nap at a much better time finally. He slept from 12-2p.

Well, the bedtime wasn't as great as last night. I nursed, Ryan bathed him, read to him, and put him in bed. Ryan stayed in the door way again. Although we already did 3 doorway nights, we skipped the 3 nights of moving halfway across the room since his room is small. So we figured it might be a little too soon to move to the hallway.

Hudson walked around and played for a little. But all of a sudden Ryan said he sat in the corner and started to scream and cry. He hugged him and calmed him down. Then he snuggled with his blankets and went to sleep. So it wasn't bad by any means, but he did cry a little.

But the night time was amazing...he didn't even wake up ONCE! So I never heard him cry at all. At 6:15a I did start to panic and wonder if he was still breathing. At 6:40a, we heard him in there talking to him self. So not only did he sleep all night, he also woke up HAPPY!!!

Kim West, I love you! :)

Night #6

Well, we had our best bedtime yet this evening!
I decided to nurse before Hudson's bath. It seemed like nursing afterwards would get him drowsy, but then when I would put him down he was like "Hey, what's going on here???" and would protest. So tonight we did:
Nurse
Bath
Pajamas
Books
Lights out with music box on and Daddy in the doorway on the floor

I was downstairs cleaning up and I didn't hear anything. About 30 minutes later Ryan walked into the kitchen. I was confused...I didn't hear any crying. Well, that's because Hudson didn't cry at all!! Ryan said Hudson was walking around in his crib and he kept putting his head down on his blankets and then would get up and walk again. Finally he just put his head down and went to sleep. We think that he's starting to become comforted by his blankets.

Unfortunately, the night wasn't as great. he woke up a few time (I wrote them down in the dark and can't read them). Ryan had to actually go into his room twice because he was worked up. Ryan just hugged him, put his music back on, and he was back to sleep in about 10 minutes.

He woke up around 5:40a. He was fussing, so he probably needed to sleep more, but it didn't happen.

NIght #5

After the early morning wake-up, Hudson took his nap from 10:15a-12:15p...WAY too early!! The Sleep Lady advises that the child go to bed 4 hours after he wakes from a nap. Since a 4p bedtime wasn't going to happen, I was hoping that he would take another nap...no such luck. Fortunately, he made it through the day and evening and was relatively pleasant. He didn't want the meatloaf that he scarfed down the night before, so he had a dinner of diced apples and some edamame (not sure how this kid didn't inherit mine and Ryan's love of food!). Ryan got him his bath, I nursed and read, Ryan put him down. I came downstairs at 7:01p and he was quiet for a long time. I was shocked to think that he went to bed without a fight! But, lo and behold, he eventually started to cry. Ryan came downstairs at 7:50p. He said that Hudson was playing for a while (when he was quiet). I think the nursing gives him a second wind because he's really drowsy while nursing, but wide awake afterwards. So we're going to have to move that (maybe to before bathtime) until it's cut altogether).

He started to cry at 9:15p. He seemed to be escalating, but we continued to wait. He was back to sleep on his own within 2-3 minutes.

He woke at 3:19p and was pretty upset. Ryan went in. He doesn't remember the specifics, but thinks that Hudson was back to sleep within 30 mins. Ryan just sat in the doorway - he didn't pick him up or anything.

He was crying around 5:40a. I was thinking that he was still tired, so I sent Ryan to put him back to sleep (i.e. sit in the doorway). Ryan ended up bringing him to me. I don't want to begin to bring him into bed again, so I got up with him and came downstairs. He still seemed tired, but we were beyond the point where he would go back down. We're probably in for another early nap today....

Night #4

Last night, we may have had our best bedtime to date. I nursed very briefly and left Hudson with Ryan at 7:17p. Ryan walked him for a few minutes (he worked late and needed some cuddle time with his little monkey man!). He put him down, drowsy but awake then laid on the floor in front of Hudson's doorway (It was the first night of "shuffling" to the door instead of next to the crib. I asked Ryan if he wanted me to bring up a chair since the recliner in Hudson's room is too big to move and he said he wanted to lay down...must be getting tired from all of his great "coaching"!). Hudson cried at first, but again, it wasn't that all out, hysterical cry. It was just a step above a whine. He started to test Ryan again by throwing his music box and one blanket out of the crib. During our first night or two, we would give in and give him his things back. But we realized that we were getting duped for attention so that had to end (thankfully, Ryan's not a softie like me!). So Ryan just ignored it. Hudson laid down pretty much right after that. But everytime Ryan would get up to leave, Hudson would start to cry. So Ryan would sit back down. This happened a few times until Ryan came downstairs at 7:55p. While the actually time may have taken a little longer, Ryan didn't have to go and pat him or hug him at all after he put him down. Another accomplishment!!

As for the rest of the night....it was wonderful! HE SLEPT THROUGH THE NIGHT!!! HALLELUJAH!!!!!!!!!! I never thought this night would come!!

I guess I should clarify...Hudson did wake up at 2:50 and some other time that I can't read since it was scribbled. I heard him cry a little, but we just waited and he fell back to sleep. So, by "sleeping through the night", I mean that we didn't have to get out of bed.

Unfortunately, I was up a few times anyways. Once I heard him cry a little, I waited to see if he went back to sleep. When he did, I was like a kid on Christmas morning...my excitement was keeping me awake!! I can't wait until this loses its novelty and I can sleep again!

Hudson woke up at 5:55a. It was a bit early and I knew that he wouldn't make it through until his 12p nap. But he didn't seem interested in going back to sleep. So, I gladly celebrated this accomplishment with my happy, well-rested little monkey!

Night #3

I started to get a bit ahead of myself in the Night #2 post and mentioned his night #3 bedtime. To recap, he went in at 7:22p and was asleep by 8:11p.

After he was asleep, I read a little more of the Sleep Lady book. I am planning on weaning from nursing once we get through this sleep coaching a bit. In the book, it mentioned that Daddy should take over during the weaning phase. It makes sense - the little one has associated Mommy with nursing and sleep and is going to protest (loudly!) if she sits there and doesn't do anything. I asked Ryan to take over the entire coaching gig and he didn't even bat an eye and said yes (I really, really love my husband!)

He was crying at 9:53p. It didn't sound like a strong cry (moms, you know what I mean!), so I let him go for a minute. He put himself back to sleep very quickly, within a minute or two. So we didn't even have to go in!! Yay!!

He was up at 1:10a. Ryan went in, but came back to bed by 1:13a. So either I wrote that down wrong or it was a really quick visit!! Ryan was a little sleep-deprived this morning and could recall the details.

He was up at 4:27a. As Ryan went in, I realized that my throat was a bit sore. I attributed it to the heat and the dry air and thus needed to drink some water. I thought Hudson might be having the same problem, so I brought him a sippy cup up. When I opened his door, I saw Ryan kneeling next to his crib patting him. I handed him the cup and Hudson saw and got worked up a bit. Therefore it took a little longer to get to sleep. He wasn't back to bed until 5:00a.

He woke up at 6:20a (I think - I forgot to write it down and Ryan and I are now debating whether it was 6:20 or 7:20a). When I got him, he still seemed a bit tired. I tried to lay him back down, but he kept getting up. I figured that it wasn't worth sitting with him for 30 minutes until he went to sleep since he would have to get up shortly thereafter anyways (he had a doctor's appointment this morning).

All in all, it was a good night. Ryan and I have talked about scaling back and making sure that we don't pat him too much and really just sit there (no interaction). The patting must be limited to the times when he's so upset that he's having a hard time breathing. We don't want to just replace nursing/walking with patting!

I was nervous for throwing his nap schedule off since I knew he would fall asleep on the way to and from the doctor's. He "napped" from 9:15a-9:30a and also 11:15a-11:30a. He wasn't pretty unhappy after that second cat nap, but I knew that it would be bad news for him to take him full nap that early. So, we got home and he had lunch. Joyce, our nanny, took over. We talked with her about the method and she was willing to try. She said that he was rubbing his eyes around 1p, so she took him upstairs and he was asleep by 1:15p! I'm not surprised - he's always better behaved for her!

Tonight we "shuffle" our way to the door instead of next to the crib. We're anticipating a spike in the protesting, but hoping it's not too bad.

NIght #2

We went out to dinner with some friends this evening, but we made sure we were back with enough time to get Hudson his bath and get him to bed. Due to his late nap, we figured that he would need to be asleep around 8p.

We gave him his bath, got him ready for bed, and I nursed/read books around 7:45. I handed him over to Ryan at 8p when he put him into the crib. He was asleep by 8:30p!! Amazing!!

He started to cry at 9:45p. I was just getting into bed to read so Ryan came up to get him. I stopped Ryan before he went in Hudson's room because he sounded like he was calming down. Ryan didn't go in and Hudson just went back to sleep on his own! We're definitely making progress!

He woke up at 11:03p. And I honestly don't remember if I went in or if Ryan did, but I wrote down that he was back asleep by 11:29p.

He was crying again at 3:40a. I don't have a "back to sleep" time written so either he went back to sleep without us going in or Ryan went in and I didn't get an update (as you can see, the sleep deprivation is getting to my memory!)

He was up at 5:30a. Ryan went in and realized that Hudson pooped. So changing his diaper made him upset and he was still a bit tired, so he started to get really worked up. I went in around 6:10a with some water because he was crying so hard. He didn't want the water. Since he didn't eat much for dinner, I started to wonder if he was hungry. I sent Ryan back to bed and I nursed Hudson, but didn't allow him to fall asleep at the breast. But when I would put him down he would get REALLY worked up. I think the nursing became somewhat of a tease to him and he was really protesting. It took all of my willpower to sit back and not take him out of the crib and nurse him to sleep. He was obviously still tired and had big tears rolling down his cheeks while he stood in his crib looking at me, his eyes begging me to hold him. It tugged at every one of my heartstrings. I finally picked him up, gave him a hug, and laid him back down. He put his hand on his little duck lovey/silky, and fell asleep within a minute or two. He woke up at 8:50a for the day (and he was actually happy and not crying when he woke up - he hasn't done that in a while!).

Ryan took him swimming this afternoon while I ran errands. They went to the gym a little late, so Hudson fell asleep in the car around 12:15. He slept until about 2p.

He was pretty fussy this evening. We struggled to get any dinner in him once again. He was rubbing his eyes and melting down around 5p. We got him into the bath a little earlier, around 6p. After his bath, we tried some more dinner. Then he played for a while. I nursed and read books around 7p and handed him off to Ryan at 7:22p. He was asleep by 8:11p.

Hoping for another good night....

Night #1

Not only did we survive the first night of sleep coaching (see previous post), we did great! Everyone said that it won't be as bad as you expect it to be. And I was thinking "well, they don't know my kid and his willpower!". But, fortunately, they were right! It wasn't nearly as bad as I expected.

Here's the timeline of what went down:

The Sleep Lady recommends getting good naps in on the first day you're going to sleep coach. So, when Hudson was looking tired at 7:30a (after waking up at 6:15a), I gladly nursed him to sleep. He only takes one nap each day and it's usually from 12-2 or 1-3p, so this morning nap was very unusual. He slept for about 1.5 hours. He then took his afternoon nap from 12:15-2p. Now the problem with this is that the Sleep Lady recommends your child should be asleep 4 hours after he wakes from his afternoon nap (although she says you can stretch it until 5 hours, but doesn't prefer that). So this means that Hudson should be asleep between 6-7p.

Okay, now to the nitty gritty....

At dinner, Hudson wouldn't eat much (not unusual) and started rubbing his eyes. I quickly had Ryan take him up for his bath. In the bath, he started to get fussy (which is a sign he's tired because otherwise he loves his bath). So we quickly got him out, put some lotion on/gave a little massage, and got into pajamas. Instead of Ryan reading to him and then handing him to me to nurse, we decided that I would nurse while Ryan read to him. That way, we could keep him awake while nursing. After a few books, I handed him over to Ryan and went down stairs. That was at 6:50p.

Hudson cried and fussed, but wasn't hysterical. Ryan picked up once or twice when he was really crying and gasping for air, soothed him and asked him to calm down. Then he would lie him back down. Ryan knelt next to the crib and Hudson grabbed him and hugged him. Ryan laid him back down. Hudson cried. Then he came to hug Ryan again, Ryan laid him down, and he just looked up and closed his eyes. This was at 8:01p.

He woke up at 10:48p. I went in the room this time. I told him it was time to go "night-night" and I placed him on his back (he was standing when I walked in). He protested a bit, but wasn't too bad. I just sat in the rocker and pretended to sleep by closing my eyes. A couple of times he got worked up and I would just go over, kneel down, hug him and tell him "night night". He has this music box in his crib (it also has lights that project onto the ceiling):

So he started to push the buttons for the music and lights. Then he laid face down onto his crib with his arm over the music box. And then just fell asleep! I couldn't believe it since that was the first time that I ever got him to sleep without nursing! I waited a few minutes and moved the music box a bit (since it's pretty hard and probably not a good snuggle buddy!). When I got back to bed it was 11:26p.

At 3:41a he woke again. This time Ryan went in. Given the time, I didn't get all of the details on what happened, but I know that he eventually laid down ON TOP of his music box (it was under his belly) and fell asleep like that. Ryan obviously moved him off of it. When Ryan got back to bed it was 4:48a.

Hudson was crying again at 6:11a. I wasn't sure whether I should try to get him back to sleep or if he was up for the day. So I tried to sit in the chair and tell him it was okay, but then he started "talking" and playing, so I took it as a sign that he was up!

We had a great morning. We took him to a playgroup and he usually falls asleep afterwards. When we got home, we gave him a snack and decided that it was nap time. I took him up and nursed until he was drowsy (this was about 11:55a). But once I would put him down, he would get up and start playing. He was just playing and walking back and forth - no fussing or crying. So I just sat there. Then I tried to nurse again to get him drowsy. But once I put him down, he was ready to play again. Finally Ryan came up at 1:11p. Hudson started to cry and was getting tired. Ryan sat with him and he was finally asleep by 1:30p.

He woke up during the nap and was holding his blanket. So Ryan laid him down and covered him and he went back to sleep and is still sleeping now.

UPDATE: He woke up from his nap at 3:45p.

With only 2 awakenings last night (compared to our normal 5-7/night), I would have to say that Day 1 was a success!!

We're in for a looooong night....

Well, tonight begins our first night of sleep coaching. After 15 months of sleep deprivation (and even more if you count all of those late night pee breaks while I was pregnant), I'm desperate for a solution to our sleeping woes. I went to a Sleep Lady seminar this week. The Sleep Lady (aka Kim West) has a method called the Sleep Lady Shuffle. Basically, what this means is that you put your child into his crib drowsy and then sit next to his bed until he's asleep. You can pick him up if he's really throwing a fit, but you don't want him to fall asleep in your arms. You're "coaching" him to fall asleep on his own, while being there in the room with him to let him know that you haven't just abandoned him (which is why I couldn't bring myself to do the Ferber method). You also do this same thing when he wakes up in the middle of the night (which I'm really dreading). You do this for 3-4 nights, then you "shuffle" your chair to the doorway (instead of next to the crib). After a few days, you "shuffle" yourself out to the hallway.

My wonderful husband has agreed to take on the first few nights of coaching. As I began typing this post, I could hear Hudson still upstairs crying. We started at 6:50p and I was expecting him to go for hours (Hudson has a willpower like no one else I've ever met). Well, I heard someone in our living room (I'm in the office on the first floor) so I ran up to see what the sound was. It was Ryan! I looked at the clock and it was 8:01p! After only 71 minutes, Hudson was asleep! Let's hope the rest of the night goes as smoothly!

I'll try to post updates throughout the week. (A little something called a dissertation has been cutting in on my blogging time!)

UPDATE: I was thinking that I'll post an update each night that we do this coaching so that maybe other people thinking about the method can learn from what we've done. I thought it would be most helpful to give some background information on Hudson and his sleep.

Hudson is 15 months old. When he was first born, he was a pretty good sleeper. Up until about 6 months, he would only wake up around 1-2x/night to nurse. Right at 6 months, his sleep went down hill and never recovered. I think sleep regressions and teething are to blame (for great info on sleep regressions, check out askmoxie.org or the book "The Wonder Weeks"). He started waking multiple times each night. Before we started to sleep coach, he was waking up every 1.5-2 hours all night long.

Early on, we fell into the habit of nursing to sleep. I nursed him to bed every single night. I would wait until he was asleep and then put him down. We never did the "drowsy, but awake" thing. If Ryan would try to put him to bed, he would have to walk him up and down our hallway for about an hour while Hudson rested his head on Ryan's shoulder and eventually fell asleep. At every night wakening we had to use one of these methods (nursing or walking). So you can imagine how exhausted we are!!

Every time Hudson would wake up (either in the middle of the night or in the morning), he would be standing in his crib crying. There were many nights where we would try to soothe him back to sleep by just patting him and shushing him (without picking him up) and he would stand up and protest. He could go forever! So we always caved and picked him up. I just want to highlight how ingrained our habits are. These are the reasons that I wasn't hopeful for any type of sleep training - Hudson has more stamina that Ryan or I do! Also, I've never once seen him lay back down after he was standing up, so that wasn't promising.

Part of the reason that I never wanted to "sleep train" was because we try to practice Attachment Parenting. After reading the Dr. Sears Sleep Book, one of his mantras was "Beware of sleep trainers". So I was afraid of breaking the strong bond that we have with Hudson. Dr. Sear's approved of the "No Cry Sleep Solution", but after reading the book, it looked like that method required way too much committment on my part (because it has to do with the nursing piece) and I wouldn't be receiving much help from Ryan. I was too tired to take on this massive task by myself!

So, here's to our attempt at the Shuffle. I'll tag all of these posts with "sleep", so you should be able to follow our progress. If you have any questions, please feel free to leave a comment and I'll get back to you.

Just since I haven't posted anything lately, here are some pictures of my precious baby (who's ASLEEP!!! I still can't believe it!)

"Driving" at the park

Rockin' the Elmer Fudd look

Signing "all done"

Being a ham and giving Mommy "squishy face"

An update on the peanut

Hudson has his 6 month checkup on May 23rd. He's doing great. He weighed in at 17 lbs, 15 ozs (50th percentile) and was 26.5" long (50th percentile). As for his huge head....it's not so huge anymore! His head circumference was also in the 50th percentile. Even though he's measuring as "average", he is far from it in our eyes!

The doctor was really impressed with his sitting ability (not sure why since I thought most babies were sitting by 6 months). Because of this, she gave us the okay to start him on baby food meats (EWWW!). So far, he has had rice cereal (which we started on Mother's Day), bananas (loves), butternut squash (REALLY loves), apples (loves), pears (loves), sweet potatoes (not a fan), oatmeal (loves), and prunes (loves - surprisingly, they are not as gross as I imagined). I guess you can see that he is Ryan's son - he loves to eat as much as Daddy does! I've been making all of his baby food and the thought of pureeing some chicken turns my stomach. It may be a little while before we turn that stone.

Another doctor's appointment also means another round of shots :( He did pretty well - let out a scream as they jabbed him (each of the 4 times), but then nursed with his Mommy and calmed down. He was a bit fussy for the rest of the day and the following day, but I guess that comes with the territory of vaccinating.

Outside of the doctor's appointment, Hudson is becoming quite the little boy, rambunctious as ever! He loves to play with his LeapFrog table and his LeapFrog drum. Lately, instead of sitting to play with his toys, he turns himself onto his hand and knees and starts to hump the floor in an attempt to crawl. He can move his legs and also his arms, but has yet to coordinate these moves. Instead, he has taken to pushing off of his hands and sliding backwards on his belly.

Speaking of his belly, he has also learned that he likes to sleep on it. Every morning we get a kick out of the new position or location in the crib where we find him. Unfortunately for us, he eventually gets frustrated on his belly and just "swims" until we come in and flip him. While we're on the subject of sleep, I should mention that Hudson is waking up about 2x/night. Some nights are better and some are worse. I've read that many breastfed babies don't sleep through the night until they are weaning from the breast. I've already come to terms with it. Thankfully, my wonderful husband gets Hudson in the morning and gives me 45-60 minutes of uninterrupted sleep. And let me tell you - that's some of the best sleep I get!