A little chat....

Today I had a chat with Hannah before nap time (well actually we chatted yesterday after nap time and several times throughout the day today about this) about what she should do when she wakes up from a nap.  For those that don't know, my child is not a sleeper!  She has been a horrible napper since the beginning and I've basically just learned to deal with it.  I started with the one hour rule, where I would leave her for one hour, no matter what.  She would normally sleep for just 30-45 minutes and then scream the remaining 15-30 minutes.  Oh the joy.  She finally started stretching her nap out to closer to one hour, so I extended the time I left her in her crib to one and a half hours.  I know that this extra 30 minutes will be crucial once Emma arrives.  So now I leave her for a full hour and a half, no matter what.  For the first month or so of doing this, things were GREAT!  She slept for 1.5-2 hours everyday....unheard of for Hannah!  But in the last week, things have changed.  She is starting to go back to the 45 minute naps (1 hour tops) and then screaming bloody murder for the rest of the time.  So frustrating!  The hardest part was knowing that if she would just sleep for the full hour and a half, she would wake up happy and well rested, instead of cranky and screaming!  What was the deal?  So I knew it was time to have a chat.  Have you ever tried having a civilized conversation with a two year old?  Not the easiest thing!  I have no idea what she understood of our conversation, but I tried to use the simplest language I could to explain to her that mommy always comes and never forgets her.  She doesn't need to scream or cry, but can instead play quietly with her toys until mommy comes.  She said "ok mommy" as if this idea had never occurred to her and said, "night night mommy" as I put her down for her nap.  Hmmm....we'll see.

It's been just over an hour now since I put her down and she just started fussing a few minutes ago....at almost exactly the one hour mark.  BUT....she stopped!  It is now silent in her room and I am praying that our chat worked.  I will listen even more closely in another 30 minutes to see if she is awake and if so I will get her up, feeling very successful!  Ultimately, I don't care if she sleeps, I just want her to rest her body and give herself (and ME!) a break. 

Thank you Lord for a few extra moments of silence today!  May this continue for many months to come! :-)

New York, New York

We survived...barely.  We made the big trip to NYC with Hannah last week and it was quite an adventure.  We flew out on Tuesday afternoon and came home on Sunday.  Hannah seemed to have a lot of fun (LOTS of smiles!) but I came home exhausted.  I need a vacation from my vacation! 

For the first 3 nights we stayed in a hotel in the city (The Hilton Manhattan East, which I highly recommend!)  The 3 of us were in one room (a small room!) and Hannah did not sleep well.  She woke several times each night (several nights it was every hour).  I couldn't let her cry it out because we were in a hotel with people all around us, and I swear she knew it!  So the only thing that would calm her down and put her back to sleep was to feed her.  UGH!  After spending weeks weaning her off the night feedings at home, we were back to square one.  There was even one night where I fed her 4 times...FOUR!  Needless to say, I was tired!  And don't even get me started on the napping situation.  We were lucky if she would even take one nap per day.  But despite the lack of sleep, she was surprisingly happy and loved the big city!  It was very cold and she wasn't a fan of getting all bundled up before heading out, but once we were moving, she loved it.  We were amazed at how much we didn't do while in the city.  We knew we wouldn't be able to do all the things we normally do, but we had no idea just how hard it would be to do anything.  Literally all we saw while we were there was Toys R Us, FAO, and Times Square....that's it!  We didn't see the window displays at Macy's or even the big tree at Rockefeller!  Awful, I know, but there really wasn't any time with Hannah.  By the time we got her ready to go out into the cold, took the train down to Rockefeller (the subway is definitely NOT baby friendly) and started heading toward all the sights, it was time to feed her and then head back to the hotel for a nap.  Yikes. 

For the last 2 nights of our trip we stayed in White Plains in a two bedroom suite with Brian's dad.  It was so much better!  Hannah still slept horribly, but at least we didn't have to hide out in the bathroom while she fell asleep.  We actually had a living room to watch tv in and didn't have to go to bed at 9pm.  However, I will say that one of the highlights of the trip was eating dessert in the hallway of the NYC hotel and playing cards while Hannah slept.  On the last day of vacation Hannah got to meet her Great Grandma Vaccaro, which was definitely the best part of the trip.  It was so wonderful to see Brian's family and made all the sleepless nights worth it.  But by this point in the trip you could tell that the lack of sleep was catching up with Hannah and she wasn't quite as happy as she normally is. 

We were all thrilled to head home on Sunday and sleep in our own beds!  Funny that when we arrived in Atlanta there were snow flurries, while that morning in NY they were having a warm front.  Go figure.

Traveling always makes me appreciate being home even more. 

Every 2 Weeks

I have decided that parenthood's ups and downs happen in two week cycles.  For two weeks things will go great and then it's like a switch flips and then for the next two weeks you are pulling your hair out.  Then things go back to being great.  This may not prove true for everyone, but it does for us.  Some of you are blessed with an "angel" baby and things have been relatively great since the beginning while others have a bit of a challenge on their hands.  It is so easy to become overwhelmed and frustrated when baby doesn't sleep or eat well, but if I continue to remind myself that this is just a phase and things will get better, it makes it easier to deal with.

For example,  when we switched Hannah's schedule to more of a 'Babywise' approach, things were great right away!  She started sleeping 10-12 hours through the night and napping 3 times per day for at least an hour each time.  I kept a very detailed log of our entire day so I could see the patterns and what worked and what didn't.  For about 2 weeks, things were going GREAT!  I spoke the praises of 'Babywise' and told everyone I knew that 'Babywise' was exactly what we needed.  Well, then things changed.  I didn't change anything with our schedule or routine, yet she stopped sleeping through the night and her naps became almost non-existent!  UGH!  What happened to our 'Babywise' cure all??  I had several break-downs and tried to figure out what was happening.  What was I do differently?  Was she sick?  What she teething?  What she going through a growth spurt?  Nothing I did seemed to solve the sleep problems.  So we are just dealing with it.  I continue to stick to the routine (as much as possible) and hope that things will click again.  I assume that by next week, she will be back to "normal" and things will be great again.  But in the meantime, we push on.  Today has been especially tough.  Hannah woke up two hours early, ate, and thankfully went right back to sleep for 2 more hours.  But then the rest of the day was completely off!  She didn't take her morning nap at all (after letting her cry it out for an hour, I gave up).  Then she only took a 30 minute afternoon nap (again, I let her cry it out for an hour when she woke up early...no luck).  Now she is down for her final nap of the day and thankfully has been sleeping for the last 20 minutes, but I'm sure it won't be long before I hear her crying again.  Oh the joys of parenthood! haha

So, what's my advice for those days and nights that are just completely crazy?  Keep trying!  Just chalk it up to a bad day (or week, or month) and move on.  Yes, you will be frustrated.  And yes, you will shed some tears.  But things will get better (eventually) and when they do, you will be that much more thankful.  Times like this remind me so much of our struggle with infertility!  While we tried to conceive for 2 years, deep down inside I knew it would eventually happen, but the waiting sure did stink!  I pleaded to the Lord and cried out to Him for strength.  It was the hardest thing I had ever gone through.  But the Lord was faithful!  He heard my cries and He blessed us with our sweet little peanut.  The same was true with my horrible morning sickness during pregnancy and my extremely painful labor.  And it's still true today!  God is always faithful!  He will always bring you out of the darkness and show you His mercy!  But sometimes we have to endure the tough times to get there.  And when we do, the good times are that much sweeter!

So press on.  Don't get completely obsessed with the "little" things that go wrong every day.  Focus on the good times and the many blessings in your life.  And know that God will be faithful and will bring you brighter days!

That's my sermon for the day! ;-)  I needed to hear that more than anyone!

Need Help!!

Okay everyone, I need some suggestions!  As you know (if you have been reading this blog for any length of time), Hannah is definitely not consistent with her schedule and/or sleeping.  However, I am determined to keep trying and being the type-A person that I am, I must have a plan!  ;-)  Right now I am nursing Hannah 5 times in a 24 hour period (well, at least 5 scheduled times...anything else is just extra).  I also feed her solids at 3 of those feedings.  My goal is to drop one of her nursing sessions and be down to 4 feedings with 3 of them having solids in addition to the nursing.  I also would like to try to align her feeding schedule more with a "breakfast", "lunch", and "dinner" time.  I am also trying to figure out how her nap(s) will work into the schedule.  So this is where I need help!  Please look at our current schedule and offer any suggestions you have!!! 

• Somewhere between 4-6am: Hannah wakes up crying...I try giving her the paci if it is before 5am because I really don't won't to feed her that early, but sometimes that doesn't work, so I end up feeding her.  My goal would be to drop this early morning feeding, if possible, but I don't know how to do that if she is the one waking up this early and won't go back to sleep.  After this feeding I put her right back down and she goes back to sleep.
• Somewhere between 8-10am: Hannah wakes up crying...I try to give her the paci again if it is before 8:30am, but if that won't work I get her up, but don't usually feed her til closer to 10am.  This nursing session is not usually a very good one.  She doesn't seem very interested.  My guess is that she isn't very hungry since she got such a good feeding a few hours earlier.  Ideally I would combine these two feedings somehow and have her first feeding be somewhere between 8-9am ("Breakfast").  I also feed her solids after this nursing.  After this feeding we run errands, have playgroup, and don't have a schedule nap, although she does cat nap sometimes.  But I really need this time to be able to get out of the house and not have to be home for a nap, that is why I have always down the afternoon nap.
• Usually about 1:30pm: I feed Hannah again.  This nursing session is also not very good (she is generally not nursing well anymore except in the early morning....she is so easily distracted and is fussy while nursing...I am a little worried that my supply is dropping)  I feed her solids after this nursing as well.  Then I put her right down for her afternoon nap (I hope for 3 hours, but lately it has only been a 2 hour nap).  She usually goes down pretty well for this nap.
• Somewhere between 3-5pm: Hannah wakes up from her nap (My goal has been for her nap to be from 2-5pm, but things are changing around here!).  I try to put off her next feeding to closer to 5pm no matter when she wakes up from the nap.  I nurse her and give her solids at 5pm.
• 7:30pm: Bedtime routine (bath, pjs, nursing, storytime, prayers)  I nurse her again (even though she just ate a couple hours ago) and she sometimes eats well, but most of the time does not.  But she is again very fussy while nursing, as if she is hungry but can't get anything out.  This is a very challenging time of day for me because it can get pretty stressful.  I have given her formula on occasion at this feeding and she usually will gulp it down, which then makes me worry about my supply again! :-(  However, she is 17lbs right now, so I really don't think she is lacking in the food department!
• 8pm: In bed...this is where the fun begins.  Sometimes (most of the time) she goes down okay, but then after 30-40 minutes she is awake again, crying.  We try to let her cry for 10 minutes before going in the room, in hopes that she will fall back to sleep, but that usually doesn't happen.  So we end up going in after 10 minutes and giving her the paci, which usually (though no always) puts her back to sleep.  Then the schedule starts all over again....

HELP!  Suggestions are VERY welcome!!

Thanks so much!!

Sleep...or lack there of!

Oh sleep, where art thou?  Hannah's sleeping habits have taken a nose dive over the last 2 months or so.  I realize now just how lucky we were to have such a great sleeper for the first 3 months.  Hannah slept through the night (7 hours) at 5 days old and never looked back (well a few days here and there, but nothing notable).  Then at 3 months (almost to the day), she started waking up in the middle of the night.  For the first week or so I treated it like a growth spurt and would feed her and she would usually go right back down.  Well, when her night waking continued, I realized that it was no longer a growth spurt and most likely a habit she had formed.  So we started trying a few different things....mainly giving her a pacifier before she woke herself up completely.  This has worked well for the middle of the night wakings (usually just once or twice), but the latest problem is when she first goes down for the night.  We are just never sure how it will go.  Sometimes she falls right to sleep with barely any fussing, while other nights she screams for 45 minutes or more (with us going in and out a couple times to check on her and comfort her).  Then there are the nights (most nights lately) where she wakes up after having been asleep for about an hour.  Sometimes the pacifier will work during this waking as well, and sometimes it won't.  Sometimes the only thing that works is another feeding (even though she just ate an hour ago).  This night time inconsistency is really starting to wear me out.  After letting her cry it out for over 3 months, it is just exhausting that she still doesn't get it.  Doesn't she understand that we aren't going to get her up and play with her...it's bedtime!

Well, after talking to some friends and trying to figure out why she is not falling asleep well and/or waking up in the middle of the night and/or an hour after falling asleep, I decided to try something new.  Our typical night time routine looks like this:
7:10pm - Bath time (every other night)
7:20pm - Pjs, massage with lotion, a few minutes of quite play in her room with mom and dad
7:45pm - Feed (lately our goal is for her to nurse on each side for at least 7 minutes, but sometimes she won't even go that long)
8pm - Story from her children's bible, prayers, and bed
I decided that since she doesn't always have a great feeding at this time, maybe my milk supply is down too much and she isn't getting enough.  So tonight I decided to supplement with 2 oz. of formula after she nursed.  She was a little hesitant at first, but then she ate it all.  In addition to the extra food, I used the Johnson & Johnson Bedtime lotion for her massage tonight.  And I gave her the prevacid her doctor had prescribed for her a while back (we hadn't give it consistently because we really don't like giving her medications....more on that in another post).  So with all of those different things, I am praying that she sleeps very well tonight!  So far, so good!  She went down with no crying at all (a little fussing and complaining, but only for a minute and never any real crying) and has been asleep for about 20 minutes now.  We'll see what happens when she hits the 1 hour mark! 

Any suggestions anyone has would be HIGHLY appreciated.  It is so hard to hear her cry and equally as hard to get up in the middle of the night to pop the pacifier in her mouth or feed her.  It is just hard because I know she can sleep through the night (she did it for 3 months!) and I really don't want to create bad habits with her.  I am really not a fan of giving her the pacifier at night (a habit I don't want to have to break down the road), but that is all we have come up with so far and it really is magic for her.  The second we put it in, she plops her head right back down and falls asleep (not always, but typically). 

Praying that tonight she will prove me wrong and sleep wonderfully!