crying it out, climbing, and brady

crying it out.  it's worth it... every time.

sunday i wrote...

This was Brady's third night of crying it out. I've procrastinated a long time (and it deserves a post of its own) letting Brady cry it out so he can get back to falling asleep on his own instead of needing me to hold his hand. It's one of those things where it's great and it just works until it just doesn't anymore. So after almost two months... We're attempting to break the habit. Night one, I think he cried for an hour and a half. The second night was 1h10. And tonight was about 30 minutes. Writing it out, those lengths seem super long, but, thankfully, his crying hasn't been bad. It's like a semi-cry of "daddy" over and over. Hopefully it won't take long for him to be confident again in his ability to fall asleep without my assistance. 

but then i didn't ever write anything after that.  i'll try to remember what's happened since then.

the next night of crying was only 4 or 5 minutes.  the night after that was maybe 10 seconds.  i think the night after that was like 30-45 seconds.  and then maybe a night or two of 5 seconds.  and the rest of the nights have been just a huff or whimper as i kiss him goodnight but then zero crying.  every night i would give him a binky and put him in his crib as usual, lying down next to the crib and holding his hand.  but instead of laying there forever until he fell asleep, it was only for 5 or 10 minutes and then i would kiss him and tell him goodnight and shut the door behind me.  i didn't want to do cry it out for naptime because naps are typically more difficult for a number of reasons like not being as tired and knowing that everyone else is still awake and playing.  so i just chose not to do cry it out for naptime.  i only ditched him for naptime once the nighttime crying was consistently down to a few seconds.  so for the last few days, i have laid next to the crib for 10 minutes and then left.  and he's been totally fine.  tonight was the first time that i didn't lay down with him at all.  i just put him in his crib, kissed him and told him goodnight and then left.  he let out a "mommy" as i was telling him goodnight, but no crying.  i'll consider this 100% done when he shows no anxiety at all about me leaving the room.  in the mean time though, i'm kicking myself for taking so long to do cry it out... just like i anticipated being the case.  i'll probably occasionally hold his hand for a few minutes before i leave (i won't lie... i've become really attached to that quiet time when we hold hands)... probably on really difficult days where i just need that positive kid interaction, but other than that, i'm looking forward to having some extra time now that i won't be spending 2+ hours of my day laying on brady's floor.  and nap time is longer now.  because before, i would be staying 5 or 10 minutes into brady's nap and he would only sleep for maybe an hour and a half.  now, he plays for a long time before going to sleep (like an hour or so) and then sleeps for longer (at least two hours) and plays for a bit after he wakes up.  on thursday, he was in his crib for nap time for four hours... it was amazing how much i got done!  ...and i do like brady being well adjusted enough to fall asleep independently.  that part is also nice.

for the record... he's still teething.  so far, it's been 2 months and 1 week and while the top teeth have broken the skin... the bottom ones are still just hanging out... as far up as they can without breaking through.  i literally did not know that i could be physically possible for a child to take multiple months for teeth to poke through.

also, since we're already talking about brady... the kid won't stop climbing.  i mean, he's always been more of a climber than abigail when it comes to climbing on chairs and sofas and whatever.  but within the last few days, he's started climbing on my kitchen counter tops and i can't keep him away!  at first it was pretty innocent and he would push a chair over to watch me cook or to get some sippy cups to play with.  and wednesday night he pushed a chair over and started shoving cantaloupe into his mouth (i was dishing up the kids' plates for dinner and i guess he didn't want to wait) and yesterday he was climbing up to check out what there was on the counter, just scavenging for food.  today has by far been the worst though.  this morning i was getting dressed when he walked in my room with a fistful of brownie in his hand (i had a friend drop off a plate of brownies for me yesterday and i'd just left them on the counter near the microwave).  and then he did it again less than 30 minutes later.  so brady had two large brownies for breakfast.  at that point, i had him watch a youtube video of dogs on my laptop while i put the brownies in a tight fastening tupperware and hid them in a cabinet.  but then later i found him with a cookie he'd gotten out of a ziploc bag that was on top of the microwave.  the kid has a super intense sweet tooth.  this evening, chris and i could not keep him off the counter tops or out of the cabinets.  we were both busy doing other things so we only had half an eye on him... but he moves the chair and climbs up so fast it's crazy!  and he's after sweets.  he knows just how to find the skittles and sweet tarts and swedish fish.

does anyone have any suggestions for preventing this?  i know i can move all the sweets to a different location but he even climbed on the counter tonight and was all "heeeeelllllllpppppppp" and i was like "brady... what are you doing up there?!" and he's all "i want a banana."  i really just don't have anywhere else in the kitchen where i can relocate our fruit bowl.  so give me your best ideas.  preferably ones that don't involve tying our chairs to the kitchen table because i'd like to avoid that inconvenience if at all possible.  but this is spiraling out of control at an alarming speed. 

seriously. 

Kids' eating analysis and food progression photos

aka: "more than you would ever wish to know about the eating habits of any child that is not your own"

every night, i ask for forgiveness for my infinite parenting fails and i pray for the ability to be a better mother to my children and know the best way that i should parent them.

my biggest struggle right now with abigail is her eating (i'm happy to report that the potty chart is still working wonders in that area of our lives) and specifically, the amount of food that she eats... or doesn't eat.  today was a really great day with the kids and i really wanted for us to end on a positive note.  i feel like the last few hours of the day are often my most difficult because i've run out of patience and energy and i really want to just "finish strong" since that's the phrase that's always in my head when i feel like i'm about to lose my temper ten minutes before bedtime.  basically, my honey is out of town and i knew i was doing dinner and cleanup and bedtime by myself and if dinner took the last of my patience, there would be none left for bedtime.

so lately i've been making mental notes of my childrens' eating habits.  brady, i've noticed, prefers bland foods above flavorful foods.  he strongly prefers banana and avocado above strawberries and tomatoes.  also, i think he doesn't like the texture of cheese.  he can eat cheesy scrambled eggs or cheesy pasta noodles or grilled cheese sandwiches, but he doesn't like shredded cheese or sliced cheese when it's offered to him.  also, oatmeal is by far his very favorite food and he will eat indefinite amounts of it.  hot, cold, fresh, old, dried and crusted on his highchair... he loves it all.  the boy could live off of oatmeal.  and he's got a crazy intense sweet tooth.  concerning brady's eating habits, these things i know to be true.

abigail has been harder to read.  i'm still trying to decipher her eating habits, but one thing i've noticed is that she doesn't like to eat a large amount of any one food.  she will ask for a lot.  i hear cries of "but i want A LOOOOOOTTTTTT!!!!!" a million times a day, but really, plan to bet all your money on "won't finish" because she'll lose steam about three or four bites in.  occasionally she'll shock me and eat more or even finish what's on her plate but the typical scene is that i'll constantly remind her to "take a bite" while she'll spend an hour playing on her chair while chewing her fork or anything else inedible, and the food on her plate will just get colder and staler and soggier until she insists "I'M DONE!!!" a million times over.

ten minutes later, she wants a snack because her belly is hungry.

it's frustrating when she throws a fit because she wants "A LOT" of food because i have two options.  i can give her a lot of food and throw away basically all of it after she decides she's done.  or i can just give her a small amount of food and have her be angry and annoying the whole meal and not even finish the tiny amount i've given her.  i frequently try both and nothing works (although we have dubbed brady the "human garbage disposal" because i just dump the rest of abigail's plate onto his tray and he finishes it off) so it's a pretty no win situation.  the idea kept coming to my head "maybe she only will eat three bites of a particular food before needing to move on to a different food."  so for breakfast i'll give her a small bowl of oatmeal, a little bit of eggs, a little bit of toast... it's working better than just one food... aside from her throwing a fit about only getting small amounts of things.

randomly, tonight i decided to break out that pinterest muffin tin idea.  i was pulling a million things out of the fridge for dinner anyways because i was having taco leftovers and brady was being picky and throwing everything off of his tray.  why not put a little sampler plate for abigail?  sometimes i try to create the muffin tin concept on a plate with a bunch of different items, but typically i get lazy after four things and they all blend together.  having twelve spots stretched me to fill them all and i knew abigail would think it looked cool.  and it would look like " A LOT!"

i told her i was making her a surprise dinner and that she couldn't look and had to go away.  i started to tell her to go play in the great room but got smart and instead, asked her to clean up all of the toys.  it was a disaster since my visiting teacher had been over and i'd pulled out alllll of the toys to the center of the room so her daughter could play with them.  there was stuff everywhere and it was all mixed together.  but my all star cleaning kid had it spotless in no time.  i really like when i come home after being out and christopher has cleaned up all the toys... but i can always tell because it's kinda lazy a little bit and he doesn't really know/care where things really go.  with abigail... that girl does it right.  i mean truly exactly as i would.  for all of the power struggles i have with her about eating or going potty... i'm thankful she's awesome about cleaning everything (i mean, if i leave her clean laundry on the stairs, she'll see it and put it away without being asked) and is really good at it.  anyways, that bought me time and actually probably saved me time in the whole course of the night.

i created this masterpiece.  it could have been cooler but i only used food that i already had out of the fridge for myself and/or brady.  we prayed and then she dug in.

after a few minutes i was curious to see what she'd chosen to eat first.  corn.  she completely wiped out her corn.  then, spinach.  both spots of spinach.  then a little bit of cheese and some strawberries.  what kid eats the corn and spinach first?  i totally thought she would go for the tortilla first.

next... tortillas, then avocados, then carrots.

and then when she declared herself done and asked to be excused...  left behind was one chunk of roast beef, half of the shredded cheese, and half of the strawberries.  and trace amounts of corn and tortilla.

overall, totally not what i was expecting.  in order or amounts.  i honestly expected her to eat all of her tortilla and all of her cheese.  likely most all of her avocado and strawberries and maybe corn.  and then none of the spinach or roast beef or carrots.  it's a good thing i don't bet.

it was a happy night for me.  it really helped my mood and was a great break from preparing food for one kid that i'm in yelling matches with trying to force feed her into eating something and another kid that throws everything on the floor the second he sees something more appealing.  sometimes i can handle that but sometimes i can't.  tonight i didn't have to and it was great.  

also, in case you were wondering, natural light is important to quality photography.  because did anyone else notice that progression?  you can tell how far we were into the meal in relation to the sun setting based on how yellow our food looks from the yellow lighting above our kitchen table.  amazing huh?

does anyone have experience with doing this on a more long term basis?  how soon does the novelty fade?  and how much variety do you have from meal to meal?  nurse amanda... i'm lookin' at you.

"high needs" in vs out

tonight, i was talking to a friend about how brady is about 8.5 months old and he's at the point where he's been out about as long as he was in.  i said something like "the strange thing though is that pregnancy was such a breeze and it just flew by and these last eight and a half months have felt like ffffffffoooorrrreeeevvvvvveeeeeerrrrrr."  don't get me wrong, i love my kid, but holy cow, it's been a really, really long 8.5 months."  my friend has a difficult baby like brady so we can relate.  but tonight i just keep thinking about that.  so i finally did the math.  turns out, today exactly, brady is as old as the number of days i was pregnant (well, kinda... the first two weeks of pregnancy are a freebie because the moment you conceive, you're already considered two weeks along... but whatever).  let's be honest here that being pregnant was way easier than actually taking care of a baby.  and i really loved being pregnant so we can also be honest that being pregnant was also frequently more enjoyable than taking care of a baby.  but, still in complete honesty, i anticipate the next 8.5 months to be way more awesome than the previous 17 months... so there.

brady has not been an easy baby at all.  in fact, according to this article about the 12 features of a high needs baby*, brady is as "high needs" as they come.  apparently "high needs" is the politically correct term for that kind of baby.  i read this article and it was as if someone wrote that article specifically about brady.

like this...

Along with their unpredictability, these children show extremes of mood swings. When happy, they are a joy to be around; they are master charmers and people pleasers. When angry, they let everyone around them feel the heat.  

"When he is happy, he is the happiest baby around, but when he is angry he is the worst baby around. He is still that way, sunshine and smiles, anger and daggers. He has no middle emotion." 

The child's unpredictability makes your day unpredictable. Do you take him shopping and risk a mega tantrum when his first grocery grabs are thwarted, or will this be a day when he is the model shopping cart baby, charming everyone at the checkout counter?

i mean seriously!  how many times have i called him bipolar?!  that's why!  he only knows the two extremes of emotion.  i've always said "he's never just quiet, he's only laughing or crying.  thankfully, this is not the case anymore.  well... not as much.  he's still very much bipolar (although thankfully the percentages have shifted and he's now happy and laughing far more than he's fussy and crying) but he's really evened out into a pretty well adjusted kid!

but that article describes his newborn days so perfectly.
1. "intense" - like how he screamed for the first three hours after he was born and every nurse that came in commented on how loud and angry he was.  and they sent us home with five or six of those green pacifiers.  with abigail, we were sent home with zero pacifiers.  brady, they just kept throwing those our way.
2. "hyperactive" - basically, his body didn't have the ability to relax.  his whole body was always flexed and tense, back arched, squirming and wiggling.  i know now that it was from the pain of reflux but holy cow was it exhausting to try to hold him.  and my whole body would ache after trying to feed him because i was trying to contort myself to keep him latched.  i remember sprawling out after nursing him, my whole body completely spent.
3. "draining" - i think of this more like everyday he would completely suck the life out of me.  he took everything i had to offer, and still wanted more.  sucked me dry until i literally had nothing left to give.
4. "feeds frequently" - with abigail, she refused to nurse more frequently than every four hours and it was hard for me to imagine when other people told me their newborn liked to eat every two hours.  with brady, it was like he hated nursing but wanted to do it all the time.  at the height of his difficulty (thankfully for me, while my mom was in town) brady was two weeks old and would nurse so frequently than in a single hour, i couldn't tell you how many times he'd eaten.  even now, i nurse him about every 2.5 hours (when he wakes and before he goes to sleep), plus give him solids.  and he puts down a TON of food.  lunch today was almost an entire avocado, almost an entire pear (abigail got a few bites of each), and oatmeal cereal with a hard boiled egg yolk mixed in.  for a kid barely on the charts.  i'm realizing now that he just requires more food, and more frequently.  thankfully, feeding him tons during the day has directly correlated to longer stretches of sleep at night.  i think the kid was just hungry.  really really hungry.
5. "demanding" - like the article says, it was never a request to be held or be fed, it was positively demanded.  if i had a dollar for every time i said "i feel like a slave to my child."  he was truly a slave driver.  constantly cracking a bull whip.  and he sometimes (wait for the "unpredictable" bullet point) still is.  when he wakes during the night with a dirty diaper and i try to change his diaper before i nurse him, you better believe he is going to scream bloody murder during that entire diaper change... right into that baby monitor.... which i'm sure christopher appreciates.  so now i nurse him on one side, change his diaper, and then nurse on the other side before putting him back in his crib.
6. "awakens frequently" - i actually don't have that many memories of this because i could never get him to sleep in the first place.  but i do know that even the very slightest thing would wake him up and that he wouldn't transfer from my arms to a crib or anywhere else and that his naps were super short and his night time sleep stretches were frequently only an hour.  so umm, i guess i do remember this part after all.  but really, before i started him on zantac... he never slept.  awake for hours and hours and hours on end during the day.  and i remember so many sleep deprived nights where brady "slept" in the moses basket next to our bed and i could go three hours straight just putting a binky back in his mouth after he'd spit it out and cry.  i was doing that about every 15-30 seconds... FOR HOURS.  all. night. long.  then maybe we would sleep for 30 minutes.  but then it was the binky game for a few more hours.  and then back to day time when i was just up and bouncing his crying self all day.  i remember finally looking at the clock one afternoon and thinking, "how could it be?!  it can't be this late in the day!  he most recently woke up before noon!  that was four or five hours ago!"  if he does poorly in school, i am going to attribute it to his severe lack of sleep during those formative newborn days.  i couldn't figure out how to follow an eat play sleep routine when he would constantly eat, never play, and absolutely downright refuse to sleep.
7. "unsatisfied" - how many times did i cry (with brady) in frustration that nothing i did was working?!  i could try every trick in the book and it was just not enough.  no matter how swaddled, bounced, binkied, nursed, etc. that baby was... it just wasn't enough.
8. "unpredictable" - go back and read blog posts from the early days if you want examples but basically, the only thing constant... was change.  the same thing never worked twice and my mom frequently referred to this challenge as brady's "secret combinations."  trying to figure out which combination of things and in which order... next to impossible.  next to "bipolar," "unpredictable" is actually the word i used most to describe him.  brady's like a box of chocolates; you just never know what you're gonna get.
9. "super sensitive" - brady always noticed even the slightest change in lighting or temperature or sound or the way i was holding him.  he was definitely easily bothered and being around him was like walking on eggshells.  i remember my mother in law coming over and, seeing me holding him, saying "well, he doesn't look too fussy right now!" as she smiled at him.  just that she made eye contact with him and smiled at him sent him in full hysterics.  unpredictable and very sensitive.  the times that i took brady to therapy for his arm, the therapist always noticed how perceptive he was to sounds.  she would comment on it that he obviously noticed a sound from the hallway... normally something i didn't ever hear or notice but the therapist caught a ton of those at every appointment.  also, if i was holding him, i couldn't speak in anything above a whisper or he would start screaming.  you wouldn't really think so, but this was hiiiiiiiighly inconvenient.
10. "can't put baby down" - it wasn't just that he needed to be held.  but he needed to be held by a human, that was standing up, and in motion, that would offer a variety of bouncing, rocking, etc changing on a dime, depending on what brady was in the mood for.  a swing wasn't enough, and neither was a bouncer.  and a sling wasn't either.  none of those things can change every ten seconds.  so even though i had one of the most gorgeous newborns to ever grace this planet, i have so few pictures of it because i could never put the kid down.  although the few times it happened, i took a million pictures.  my mom really got in on it too.  "quick!  he's not crying!  take a picture!"  if he could be put down for 15 to 30 SECONDS without crying, my mom and i celebrated.  that meant that he wasn't crying in my arms, and that the crying didn't start even when he was out of my arms.  though neither of those things really happened more than three times a week.  but ohhh, he was so gorgeous.  he still is, but it's pretty rare for a new baby to be as beautiful as he was.
11. "not a self-soother" - i remember the doctor asking me how brady was sleeping and i said something like "i can sometimes get him to sleep if i double swaddle him (in this very particular way with certain blankets and certain pj's) and have it be really dark and hold a binky in his mouth while cradling him in my arms and bouncing in this very particular way while it's absolutely silent except for me making really loud shhhh-ing noises but then i can't put him down or stop doing any of those things or he'll instantly be awake and screaming again.  and i remember being so proud of that until my doctor made a comment about him being picky about his sleep environment.  ha.  this goes back to him not wanting a swing or a bouncer or anything else (although he did do very well with a carseat when it was in motion)... he needed a human... and about fifty other things, all part of the secret combination, to be happy not miserable.
12. "separation sensitive" - if by some miracle, i could get brady to be content in my arms, he would immediately go into full blown panic mode with even the slightest change (walking on eggshells much?) occurring that might indicate that i was about to leave him in any way.  if my body tensed in a different way, he would sense that i was about to place him in his crib/carseat/swing/bouncer/someone else's arms and he also learned to recognize his bedroom and dark rooms in general to the point that if i had him quiet and content in my arms and i walked upstairs, he would start crying as i stepped over the threshold into his dark bedroom because he sensed that i was about to place him in his crib.  even now, he's really great playing independently, but does best when i'm either always in sight or never in sight.  if i have him playing in the great room and i'm putting laundry away or cleaning around the house or doing anything that requires me to go from room to room, frequently coming and going from his sight, he's going to freak out and fuss the whole time.  it's like every time i leave he thinks i'm never coming back.  DUDE!  I ALWAYS COME BACK!

so as difficult as a brady was as a baby, i am grateful it has made me so appreciative for the kid he is today.  he's got his fair share of fussiness but he smiles so so much and it is so easy to get tons of those real deep belly laughs out of him.  people always comment on what a happy baby he is and i typically just smile and say "he's come a long way."  i know people don't think twice about it when i say that, but for me, it's special.  he really has come such a long way.  as a mother of just abigail, i would have looked at my current self with pity like "your child nurses how often?!  and still doesn't sleep 12 hours at night?!  and needs a binky 24/7?!"  but my experience with brady makes me grateful that even though he still nurses frequently, it is enjoyable for both of us.  and even though he doesn't sleep 12 hours straight at night, he's only waking up once and often has an 8 or 9 hour stretch in there... getting over 12 hours total.  and even though he has a binky in his mouth more often than not... he is happy!  forget the secret combinations... binky = independent, happy baby.  it's straight forward and we love it.

i really love this kid.  he has taught me so much and really, he is the most gorgeous, laughy kid everrrrrr.  raising him is like continually unwrapping a present and he's only getting better with age.  i'm so excited for all the days we have ahead of us.

*i found this article through this blog post... which really could have been written by me, it soooo perfectly described my own experience.  like word for word. almost... there are some minor exceptions.

i'm an optimist

and an idiot.

an optimistic idiot.

last night brady went to sleep just great without his swaddle and i was loving life.  but of course he woke up at midnight or something (his night time sleep has been sucking even worse than usual since we got back from atlanta and lately he's been waking probably every 2-3 hours during the night.  seriously, what is up with this kid?!?!) and instead of all out crying, he was just fussing a bit.  so i thought to myself, "i wonder if he would be able to cry it out/go to sleep without nursing alright without a swaddle because he'd be able to move more and get his binky if it fell out" and so i let him keep fussing.  but then it turned to an on/off cry that lasted for 30 minutes and then stopped.  score!  he fell back asleep!  that was easy!

not the case.  he hadn't fallen back asleep.  i know this because he started crying again like three or four minutes later.  anyways, i let him cry off and on until something like 1:30 (going in to give him a binky a time or two) when i was a tired, guilty mess and i nursed him and got him back to sleep (with one arm swaddled).  the other night feedings were pretty typical although he seemed more awake than usual and had some anxiety about going back in his crib each time.  this morning he refused to take a nap.  just would scream in his crib... even fully swaddled with a binky.  he would even start crying just if i walked in his room with him (that used to be the case when he was younger and was a nightmare to get to sleep) and even just stepping over the threshold of his room, i could feel his breathing accelerate before he went into full panic mode. 

so at 12:45... FOUR WHOLE HOURS after he'd woken up for the day, i finally got him to sleep by swaddling his one arm, rocking and nursing him, and then keeping my hand on his belly while he fell asleep in his crib.  and then he woke up a whopping hour and fifteen minutes later.  an entire hour shorter than his typical naps.  his morning wake times the past two weeks have been 30 minutes or less... almost just like a night feeding.  before that they were at least an hour and a half but i think lately he's just been in a growth spurt or needing more sleep or something so i've just been rolling with it.  anyways, four hours in an insanely long time to be awake.  and the fact that it was followed by a short nap didn't help anything.  after 2.5 hours i put him down for another nap.  same as before, swaddled one arm and rocked and nursed him in the glider before putting him in his crib.  i stood in the room (with my back to him) for a minute or two before i left and he fell asleep without crying.  but it was only 45 minutes long.  and so now it's 5:30 and my kid has only slept for 2 hours today.

which brings me to my next issue that he's crazy fussy and needy even when he's awake.  i think it's probably a mix of exhaustion from sleep deprivation and fear that i'm going to abandon him again.  at this point, those are both very legitimate reasons to be crabby and anxious.  i know... it could be a complete coincidence that his terrible day is following the night i let him cry (i mean, his monday was pretty terrible too) but i'm inclined to think it's more cause and effect.  i mean, he's fussing or grunting or crying if i'm not holding him (standing up) and even with a binky in his mouth, it's just not always enough.  after hours on end of grunting and crying and yelling from this boy, i've got a serious headache and am wondering how i ever survived his formative months because it used to be worse than this.  all day, every day.  and night actually.

the problem that comes from this?  i'm tired from not getting to sleep until 2am, i'm worn out from only having so little time to myself today, i'm dealing with this awful headache from the constant crying, and i'm taking it out on abigail.  twice today i've yelled and made her cry.  probably a half hour after i apologized when i was still heavily wracked with guilt (still am), i asked her if i made her happy.  "yeah, but sometimes you make me sad."

my heart is broken.

so today goes down as a serious parenting fail.  i'm just trying to rip off the bandaid so to speak, and teach my kid sleeping habits that will make us both happy.  instead, i'm making them cry and giving them major attachment issues.  lose, lose, lose for everyone involved.  who entrusted me with these kids anyways?!

tomorrow will be better, right?

i swear it can't possibly be any worse.

Kicking the swaddle addiction

i've gotten my kid addicted to so many things that lately, i've been stressing and strategizing about how to work all these things out.  ideally, before he goes to college, i would like him to be able to sleep through the night, without a binky, and without a swaddle.  those are the three nighttime addictions.  he's almost 8 months old.  i am not proud of this aspect of my parenting him.

when abigail was about this age, i knew it was time to wean her from the swaddle.  it wasn't a problem though because she was already a great sleeper and didn't need a binky so really, it was just the swaddle.  with brady, there are just so many factors in there!  if i'm going to wean him from the binky, is it better to do that when he still has the comfort of the swaddle?  or if i'm going to let him cry it out at night, do i need to ditch the swaddle first because the crying would lead to him busting out of the swaddle and then not being able to fall back asleep?  or if i wean him from the swaddle and he has free arms, maybe the binky won't really be an issue because he can put it back in if it falls out or just gum his fingers for comfort?  there are more scenarios than i would have anticipated.

well, the swaddle will be the first to go.  because i really don't have too much against the binky.  it's working for now.  it's not broken so i won't fix it.  and sleeping through the night?  unless it's a crazy night like last night where i was so tired i wanted to die, i'm pretty happy to run upstairs for a few minutes to nurse brady.  i use the baby app on my phone so i can sleep exactly how long it takes me and it's literally 5-8 minutes from the time he wakes up until i'm back in bed.  but the swaddle?  the swaddle is a pain.  it takes time to do, and only i can do it (meaning, my honey can't put brady to bed) tight enough and even then, if he wiggles enough, he can get out, and all the layers (since he's double swaddled with a swaddleme and a miracle blanket that wraps around a million times) get really hot.  AND the ultimate swaddle deal breaker?  he keeps rolling over.  abigail always rolled over in her swaddle but it wasn't a concern because she was perfectly happy being the little beached whale baby that slept swaddled on her belly.  brady rolls over and he's ticked.  and it sounds like he's going to suffocate in his crib bumper.

i've tried the one armed swaddle before and it didn't go well... so i didn't have high hopes for it this time around.  but i guess brady has matured in the last two months because it's going much smoother than anticipated (knock on wood).  the first time was for his afternoon nap and he fell asleep just great with zero fussing!  he only slept 1h15 but that could have been a coincidence since his sleep was sooooo off from yesterday (sunday and family get together stuff for my niece's baby blessing) which definitely affected his night time sleep and morning nap as well.  his evening nap was in the carseat while we were out.  so the second time with the one arm swaddle was tonight for bed.  went to sleep with zero fussing!  we will have to see how tonight goes and tomorrow's naps!  i'm strangely excited about this.

first nap with one arm out.  practically sleeping on his twisted side belly.

don't look at this picture too long or you'll get a headache.  so blurry because it was taken in a pitch black room.  this was going to sleep for the night... second time with one arm out..

i reread the "swaddle saga" post i wrote when abigail was about this age and dropping the swaddle with her.  i remember it being difficult and dramatic but rereading it, it seems super quick and easy like the transition only lasted a day or two.  i can't imagine that i left out major details because i'm always so longwinded.  i honestly think she was just so easy that this was probably just a huge hurdle to jump [because nothing else was] and so it was difficult at the time and i remember it as being super challenging.  also, i'm semi laughing that i wrote in there...

"anyways, she went down at 9 and the night was not anywhere as bad as i was anticipating although i know it wasn't christopher's idea of fun.  up at 11:45.  up at 2:15.  up at 6:30.  up at 10:45.  i let her sleep in since we were up for about an hour each time.  but really, i was very pleased with it all." 

it's only funny because that insanely rough no swaddle night for abigail is still better than what a lot of brady's nights now are.  i think he woke up at least four times last night.  maybe five.  seriously, how can his daytime sleep be so awesome and his nighttime sleep hasn't improved at all?!  such different kids.  like how abigail had such a terrible awkward bald spot on the back of her head (the pictures in that post show that it's even more obvious than how i had remembered it!) from thrashing her head back and forth in her carseat and while she slept and brady has nice even hair all over.  

also, it's a good thing i don't often go back to reread old abigail blog posts to compare her to brady because it is depressing with how crazy easy she was.  except that it's awesome i even had a baby like that at all (she was one in a billion).  i just had to look back about swaddling to see if my 2011 self had any insightful advice for my 2013 self.  it's fun to see how accurate or skewed my memory is. like in this link... i remembered that she was still happy when she rolled onto her belly but didn't remember that she would sleep like that for her whole nap... and i remember that she was an insanely good sleeper but i had forgotten about the time i put her down for an evening nap and she never woke up.  that post says that i put her down at 5:30 and that she never woke up so i had to wake her at midnight to feed her and change her diaper and then she slept another 8 hours until morning.  ask me the last time brady slept 8 hours.  

i have no clue.

two very different babies.  so wish me luck helping brady drop the swaddle.  and if you want to pray that dropping the swaddle will actually make him so much happier more comfortable that he will miraculously sleep 12 hours straight and be so happy and self soothing that he doesn't need a binky... well, i won't stop you.

also: in somewhat related news.  today was the first time brady rolled from back to belly... well, without his swaddle.  obviously, he's done that before.

video monitors are priceless

well, the day finally came.  baby girl finally climbed out of her crib.  physically, she's been capable of it for a long time.  and i know that at least for a while, she's mentally known she has that option.  but yet, she's never done it.  she semi climbed out of her pack n play while we were on our utah trip so i knew she knew she had that option... but yet, she happily went to sleep in there and always waited for me to come get her out.  it deserves a whole post of it's own but i'll just summarize things a whole bunch and say that baby girl has turned into a naughty little devil and is insanely rude and extremely disobedient and has been throwing fits about anything and everything.  sooo of course this is an optimal time for the mini shawshank to happen.

it first happened today at naptime.  baby girl has been fighting naptime and bedtime more and more saying stuff like "i don't need to sleep!" "i want to go downstairs!" and "i don't want to nap!"  normally though, with a little explaining, i can get her to lay down just fine with the promise that we'll play when she wakes up.  this afternoon i was trying to get her ready for nap and she was being a terror as usual.  i just picked her up, threw her in her crib, grabbed brady, and closed the door on my way out while she continued the screaming and crying.  i took brady to his room, gave him his medicine, and went right back to abigail's room.  when i opened the door, she was about to put her feet on the floor, having climbed over the railing of her crib.  i just calmly got her and acted like nothing had happened.  "are you ready to be sweet now?  let's pick out a book and we can read it together before nap."  and i told her if she was a good listener and took a good nap, she could watch thomas after she woke up (since she hasn't watched any tv for two weeks since i took her movies away).  so she went right to sleep and all was well.

then tonight when bedtime came around, she was stalling and throwing fits as usual but we were going about it like we do every night.  i was just about to leave the room when she was insisting "daddy say night night good night!" and wasn't having it when i told her he was already asleep and had already told her goodnight.  normally we would just battle this topic for a while and then she'd go to sleep but it wasn't happening and i got so frustrated i just shut the door and left her screaming.  all of that woke up chris who had fallen asleep on the sofa downstairs and he went up while i brushed my teeth.  i semi watched on the monitor and he wasn't having luck and it looked like she was climbing out of her crib again.  so we traded places.  after trying to reason with her and help her want to sleep in her room (she kept saying she wanted to sleep in my bed and go downstairs), i gave up and told her she could go downstairs but i wouldn't help her, she had to do it herself.  she didn't like that.  i went downstairs, made sure all the lights were off and doors were locked and then i went to my room and locked the door because i knew she'd try to come in.

sure enough, watching on the video monitor, i saw her climb out of her crib. then i heard her walking down the stairs (because of course, she's still crying) and try to open the doors to our bedroom while crying "mommy!" in a voice that would have been sad to hear had she not been so absolutely terribly miserably misbehaved today.  chris and i were completely quiet and the lights in our room were off and... after about a minute or two, she stopped shaking the doors and her crying got more distant and until it picked up on the monitor again.  and then i couldn't stop laughing.

because she went back to her room, climbed back in her crib, and went to sleep. 

On the wrong side of the crib

baby girl woke up crying this morning.  that doesn't happen often, and when it does, it means we're in for a rough day.  a normal day is when she wakes up and happily plays and sings in her crib for an hour or so.  bad day is when she's crying about who knows what before her eyelids have even popped open to let in the light of day.  brady, on the other hand, is one happy kid.

laughing, smiling, cooing?  check, check, check.

not laughing, smiling, or cooing.

"it's a raccoon horse!"  as a mother, that's my sign to break out the animal flash cards a little more often.

instead, we broke out the pool.  which has been sitting, fully inflated, in our basement since last summer.  talk about a quick and easy setup.

bumbo and sophie and this kid was content to just hang out and watch the action.

we saw a mowing tractor drive by and baby girl went to check it out.  i told her to be careful and not fall over the fence like last time.

coppertone baby?  this swimsuit was huge on her last year but fit great when i put it on her this year.  i did not take into account that the swimsuit wouldn't always be dry.  whoops.

this is the guy on the tractor.  i'm used to privacy in our back yard so the close proximity kinda  left me feeling a little violated.

need a closeup?  you're welcome.  he went back and forth about six or seven times before i finally decided we should just go inside.

that's a face that has recently been crying.  and a naked body that is wearing a fitted crib sheet.  she was crying because she decided she wanted that sheet on her crib for nap time instead of the one already on the mattress.

i thought i loved the free kindle app on my phone.  but i had no idea until i put a little P&P on there!  i have a testimony that everyone needs the scriptures on their phone... and P&P as well.

don't you want to just jump into that picture?!

oh, you're still crying?  of course!

this hat keeps disappearing and then resurfacing at the oddest of times.  after nap, she put on her swimsuit, this hat (inside out) and insisted on sunscreen (which was totally unnecessary because it was 6:00 and the pool is on our covered patio (best place ever to put a pool... no sunscreen required!  unless your kid throws a fit about it.

you're still laughing!  he really has transformed into the most delightful little bundle.  we love him so much.

and since i taught her how to open and close the screen door (to not let bugs in) my child has one more thing to be ocd about.

still crying?  great.

just two loving siblings... hanging out with some pistachios.  and as long as i give her the easy ones, abigail can open and eat her own!  now that is a milestone to celebrate!  "child can open and eat pistachios without assistance."  bonus points that she puts her shells in the designated bowl.

sometimes i get her hair wet like this just for kicks.

have i mentioned that she also has started refusing to eat anything [that resembles a meal - requires sitting down or contains anything of nutritional value] and so that's just a lot of fun too.

so she cried when i had her eat these two bites of avocado.  and then of course she cried that it was all gone and actually we didn't have anymore.  always a win win for everyone involved.  she's really precious.

cry it out

it's no secret that brady has been a difficult baby.  he is as opposite as humanly possible from the baby that abigail was.  that includes sleep.  even though i've done everything the same with them (y'know... following the sleep, eat, play pattern and putting them to sleep awake and all that sort of stuff), one never slept less than a minimum of 7-8 hours and was sleeping 12-13 every. single. night. when she was a mere nine weeks old... and the other one... well, there's no rhyme or reason and the only thing consistent is that the sleep will suck.

it would take far too long to try to get up to speed from the very beginning* but 99% of the time, brady wakes up at least twice a night.  and twice a night is a GOOD night.  several weeks ago he was showing signs of improvement and every other night would have a long stretch (between 6.5 and 8.5 hours). that lasted for about a week and then he was back to waking a million times a night.  a little over a week ago, he had a night or two of longer stretches and i thought he was on the right track again.  until we spent a week straight in a sleepy state of hades (which was just awesome since christopher was out of town that entire week and it was crazy busy with my calling and a million other things).  my day job was caring for two kids... and it was challenging.  but the night shift was worse.  it involved spending 1-3 hours average getting brady to sleep (normally between 9 and midnight) and then getting up with him about every two hours (sometimes more, sometimes less) until we were up for the day at 8 or 8:30.  and sometimes he wouldn't go back to sleep.  and sometimes i'd nurse him on one side, go downstairs, be juuuust falling asleep, and then hear him crying again.  so we'd do the same thing on the other side.  and it wouldn't work.  so then i'd be rocking him to sleep with a binky.  and then if he woke up when i put him in his crib then i'd be rocking him with his binky again.  and sometimes he would just decide that he was wide awake but would like to be held for hours on end.  and so that wasn't fun.  and my days were getting tricky because i felt like i'd been drugged.  literally i felt like i was living on nyquil... saying stuff that didn't make sense, forgetting even the most basic things, and on and on with stuff i can't even explain.  i'm sure a number of people think i'm a complete idiot now with some of the stuff i've been saying/doing lately.  the long term sleep deprivation is soooo much worse than just pulling an all nighter or two.  it's not getting a decent night's sleep in five months.  i spent considerable time contemplating cry it out.  as i told my friend, i think heavenly father was letting me hit rock bottom and giving me that final push.

my original plan was basically to do cry it out from the very beginning like i did with abigail (except that she never actually cried) and always put my sleepy newborn to bed awake and let him fuss a bit, if needed, to learn to self soothe and fall asleep.  that was great for the first two weeks until reflux happened and brady wouldn't stop crying... evvveeeerrrrrrr.  but then finally he was medicated and eventually moved to his crib but by that point we had sleep props... like a binky and just nursing him to sleep if he was having a rough time.  i was always afraid to let him cry because they say that crying really aggravates their reflux and makes it feel even worse and what kind of a terrible mother would i be to do that to my child?!  and then brady would show signs of improvement and i'd think "it's okay... i can wake up twice a night with my child... that's no big deal."  but then he would get worse and i'd be up with him five times during the night and be like "this kid neeeeds to cry it out!" but i wouldn't because i know major sleep regressions happen at four months and i didn't want to have to re-cry it out... i'd rather just wait and do it one time.  so then on saturday he turned five months exactly and i thought... "now is the time!  except that we're going to utah in a week an a half and then we'll be home for a few weeks before we go to atlanta and the beach for three weeks."  maybe traveling would undo our sleep training progress.  but maybe travel would be better because of our sleep training progress.

so sunday night i was talking to my christopher about this.  he was totally on board.  not that brady's crappy sleep habits affect him so much, but he happens to be extremely supportive of my decisions for our child and really trusts my judgement as a mother that does a lot of research on this stuff.  i am really grateful for this.  so while i was telling him this, it was about 9pm and brady was crying in his crib upstairs.  then i asked him if he would go upstairs to help brady.  "i thought we were letting him cry it out?"  "oh, we will but not tonight... he's got his big appointment tomorrow morning and i don't want him to be tired for it."  and then my honey went upstairs and spent twenty minutes rocking that kid to sleep.  and then as i was falling asleep at 11, brady woke up and started crying.  after nursing him on both sides and trekking up and down those stairs three or four times, i just shut his bedroom door, i shut my bedroom door, i turned our baby monitor on silent, i put my head under a pillow... and i went to sleep.  sometimes i work best when i "just do it."  anyways, we will never know how long he cried.  and at first i felt guilty about that but now i feel A-OK about that.  i woke up at 4:15 to the sound of him crying... my first thought being "crap!  has he been crying for five hours?!?!"  i listened to him cry for 15 minutes before going up to his room.  i took him out of his crib, burped him and held him for a minute while i patted his back and calmed him down (he calmed down easily so i'm preeeeetty sure he'd just recently started crying because he wasn't too worked up) and put him back in his crib.  and then i laid in my bed and read cry it out stories on my phone while i listened to his distant crying.  he was asleep by 5:15.  he woke up crying again at 6:50 and honey got him up since he was already awake doing work in his office.  there was no point putting him back to bed because we had to leave early for his appointment at the hospital up in aurora.

so that was night one.

and holy crap was that kid tired on monday.  he slept sooo deeply all day long and i had to keep waking him up from his naps (one i forgot and didn't wake him up until it had been 3.5 hours... whoops) and during his awake time he wasn't terribly fussy but he was sooooo tired.  so luckily it didn't screw up his appointment (which went amazingly well) and he still laughed and smiled tons during the day and loved me just the same.

night two i decided to continue on.  we put brady to bed at 8:30 and surprisingly, he went right to sleep without a fuss (although that is the norm for daytime naps, he ALWAYS puts up a fuss in the evenings/night - like anytime after 5pm).  i was so so so sure he would wake up within 45 minutes or at least before midnight because that always always always happens.  i still shut his door and mine but kept the monitor on so i would know when/how many times during the night he woke but could easily turn the sound off and go back to sleep.  well, i woke a million times that night and brady NEVER DID.  i was awake at 11 and midnight and 1 and 1:30 to 2:30 (honey couldn't sleep and i had to get out of bed eventually to go look for him and see where he went... by the time i finally found him outside i was wide awake), 3:30 (that's when my christopher finally got ready for the day and left for the airport for his daytrip to st. george), 5:30 (when the sun rises), and finally at 7:50 when i heard my brady waking up for the day.  WHAT?!?!  11.5 hours of sleep?!  even if it was a fluke, i'll take it!  that's almost 3 hours more than his previous record!  and then his tuesday daytime naps were awesome as usual.

night three - same plan.  we put him to bed at 8:45 and he went right to sleep without a peep.  i heard him at 11 but turned down the monitor and went back to sleep so i'm not sure how long he cried or if he woke up anymore after that.  then i woke up at 5:30 with the sun (so did my honey, he has zero ability to sleep in) and turned the sound on the monitor back up.  i heard brady at 5:45 (that's a pretty typical wakeup time for him... but then again, what isn't?!) and listened to him cry off and on for less than ten minutes before he was out.  i heard him crying off and on again just after 8 but he was back asleep before i even could go up to get him.  he let out a cry at 9 and maybe stirred for less than a minute but that was it.  at 10am, i finally went up to his room and woke him up for the day.  over 13 hours... i think that is a record for the longest time i've gone without seeing his face.  and i love my kid but it was glorious.  i'm so proud of him learning to self soothe and sleep more independently.  once again, naps today have been flawless.  like if he doesn't wake up in the next ten minutes, i'm going to have to wake him from this nap he's enjoying right now.

so praise be to "cry it out" because hallelujah, there may be hope** for this little devil angel!

*can you believe this is the "short version" because i really can't begin to imagine how long it would take to type out the full length feature presentation.

**but let's all cross our fingers and say a prayer just to be on the safe side...

b for brady, v for vendetta

*this post is a prime example of how i write without intending for anyone to actually read it.  i wouldn't recommend this post to anyone.  it is winy and confusing and just plain boring.

"v is for vendetta"  that's the phrase that kept running through my mind last night.  i know it's actually "v for vendetta" and not "v IS for vendetta" but i'm a mom and i read a lot of "a is for apple" and "b is for book."  except around here it's thomas style.  "c is for coaches, annie and clarabel."  "d is for diesel" "e is for engines" "f is for freight cars" "g is for gordon" "h is for henry" annnnnd it's time to stop.

anyways, my honey left town again.  this is happening with increased frequency i feel like.  i don't know what it is but brady always has a hard time when i'm single parenting it.  like when my honey was gone over valentines day and brady had run out of his reflux medicine and he spent that week crying all day long when he wasn't being held and frequently even if he was.  or he'll go through a growth spurt or teething or something that makes him super cranky or a bad sleeper like when honey was in california weekend before last and it was saturday night and i was attempting to get him to sleep and it was 3am and i hadn't been to bed yet and i needed to finish my fast sunday lesson that i was teaching in yw and he wouldn't eat and no matter what i tried he would not go to sleep and he wouldn't take a bottle which was stressful because my second counselor was coming over at 7am to watch my kids while i went to a special two hour ward council before church and on and on.  that sunday turned out awesome (it was the day john got set apart to be a missionary!) but ohhhh the stress and anxiety leading up to it and during it.  so the short of it is that when my honey leaves down, my baby goes from high maintenance to ummm... i can't think of a nice way to sugar coat it.

well, sometime early monday morning my lovely honey kissed me goodbye (it's very "sleeping beauty" although i'm positive those are not the words that he would use to describe my grogginess) and i rolled over to enjoy a few more hours of sleep.  when i woke up i checked out the baby app on my phone and was pleasantly shocked to see that brady had slept for over 8.5 hours... a new personal best for him!  and he was happy, though still very sleepy, for the hour and a half he was awake and then he went down for his first nap without a single peep.  and he slept and slept and slept and his nap was an epic 3 hours and 40 minutes long!  i was kinda thinking he wasn't feeling well so that's why i let him keep sleeping instead of waking him up to eat.  and my morning with abigail was a glorious girls morning of eating chocolate and treats for breakfast and painting our toes and playing the piano and doing all those things that girls like to do together.  so then brady woke up right as abigail went down for her nap and i got some awesome one on one time with him while i got some stuff done around the house.  and then after an hour and a half of that i put him down for another nap and... once again, he went right to sleep without a problem.  after two hours, i actually had to wake him up because we were going out to dinner with my mother in law, brother in law, and sister in law.  he was great all during dinner and stayed awake in the car on the way home.  sweet!  now i can just put him down for the night and go to sleep myself!  or not.  he's got an adverse reaction to the night.  as soon as that sun sets, and the lights go out, BAM!  jekyll turns to hyde and this kid fights sleep like rocky fought the russian.  so last night i finally got him to sleep and then i did a few things and wrote a few emails and was wrapping things up when i heard brady fussing.  he'd woken up after less than 2.5 hours... whatever, i'll just feed him and get ready for bed and go to sleep.  it took a few tries but it happened.  and then i got to sleep.  and then 40 minutes later, that kid's crying woke me up.  i was so tired i couldn't think straight.  it was 2:15 and as annoying as it was, i was pretty sure i could just feed him and be back asleep within 15 minutes.  not the case... because brady doesn't abide by those rules when i'm husbandless.  noooo, he spent the next hour happily refusing to go to sleep.  and then he spent the next two hours screaming.  some crying, but a lot of screaming.  that high pitched piercing scream that irritates the headache you were hoping would go away with a night of sleep.  he was crying so hard he had trouble catching his breath and he would. not. eat.  i tried every trick i knew.  changing clothes, changing swaddles, changing diaper, giving drugs (reflux medicine, orajel, gripe water, and finally tylenol) and a million other things.  it was like he hated me.  i was so congested i could barely breathe, so tired i could barely see straight, and i had a headache that was threatening to detach my head from the rest of my body.  he felt warm and had a temp of 100.5 so i did feel compassion for this poor uncomfortable soul.  but really?!  just go to sleeeeeep.

so at 5:15am, as the morning sun was rising... i finally got to sleep.  for another 40 minutes.  because he woke up again at 6am.  and then i got him to bed again and we both slept for two whole glorious hours.

and then it was crazy difficult to get him to sleep for his first nap.  he was so sensitive that even readjusting the way i was holding him would send him into a screaming fit.  he would fall asleep in my arms so fast (i'm sure he had to be just as exhausted as i was!) but the second i moved to put him in his crib it was screaming for dear life.  finally rigged a plan that outsmarted him and he slept a nice full 2.5 hour nap but woke up super sensitive again.  once again, not eating well, and crying if you even look at him the wrong way.  but then he went down for his next nap without a peep, slept for a full 2.5 hours, and was happy for all of his awake time and went down again without a peep.  and then tonight when i got home from yw (my awesome mother in law watched the kids for me) he woke up but then went back to sleep after a quick feed, diaper change, reswaddle.  maybe he's feeling better (he wasn't so hot tonight) or maybe that tylenol brought his fever down enough that he wasn't so miserable.

y'know that talk where president uchtdorf talks about how nothing is more consistent than change?  well i always think of that when i think of brady... "nothing is more consistent than inconsistency."  maybe he'll sleep for 8.5 hours that night, or maybe he'll wake every two hours, or maybe he'll only sleep for two hours and then be awake for three and then wake every hour.  or maybe he'll go right to sleep when you put him in his crib, or maybe you'll walk up and down your stairs fourteen times over the next three hours.  maybe he'll be super happy and smiley and laugh like crazy while he hangs out on the floor, or maybe he'll fuss and cry and scream no matter if he's being held, rocked, fed, burped, or anything else you could possibly imagine.

not a day goes by that i don't think to myself "i birthed jekyll and hyde in the body of my sweet baby brady." hopefully soon we'll start seeing a little more jekyll and a little less hyde.

on a happy note, baby girl's prayers are so cute and hilarious and the highlight of my day.

brady's like a box of chocolates.  really sweet, but you never know what you're gonna get.