big boy bed

for as worried as i was about transitioning hendrix from his crib to his big boy bed, it was really super uneventful.  

it had been sitting in our garage for a few weeks (thanks to the donation from one of one good friends), and daddy decided to get it out while mommy was gone for an afternoon last weekend.  

when i got home hendrix was so excited to show it to me and call it his "bed" that i couldn't say no, so we decided to give it a shot.

he ended up going down for bed that night and everytime after that just as normally and easily as when we put him in his crib.  we still follow our routine of a couple stories and a couple songs, and then we tuck him in and say goodnight.  

and he stays there.  

all night.

well, i guess he has been getting up earlier than usual (like 5 am pretty consistently) but then we bring him into our room to snuggle with us while we are still waking up.

he hasn't figured out how to get his bedroom door open yet, so each morning we are awakened to the sound of a few pitter-patter feet, and then the shaking of the doorknob.

i don't imagine it will be long though and he will get that mastered......

i can't get over how grown up he looks in his bed.

he doesn't understand the covers thing yet though, and just kicks them off.  he loves to sleep with his blankie (he has since he was born), but he uses it to snuggle more than to cover himself up.

and just in case you are curious about how the crib and the bed fit into the little bitty nursery, here is a shot where you can see both. ;)  blaire and hendrix are going to have to learn to deal with each other's sleep patterns, as that is just the way of it in this old house.  it really isn't as cramped as i thought it was going to be, and i think it will work fine.

i love this big boy!  

new house tour {blaire's room}

Are you ready for a little peak inside my new house??  Come check out the nursery! 

I am really happy with the way my little Blaire's room turned out!  I was wanting something sweet and girly as I had a shared, gender neutral nursery before; but I didn't want to get too crazy with the budget since she is growing like a weed and won't most likely be in her crib all that much longer.  Something that would easily grow into her big girl bedroom was a must!

My mom crafted these adorable wooden letters to help her old nursery seem a bit more girly, and I love how well they work in her new room as well!

Fortunately, the previous owners of our home had really good taste, along with both a daughter and a son like us, so the paint colors in the entire upstairs have stayed the way they left them! Blaire's walls are mostly an aqua blue color with one accent wall a lime green.  This worked perfectly as my previous color scheme was green and I had all white furniture.  I brought that along and found ways to add pink for a girly pop!

Do you remember that pinterest project I made to hold Blaire's bows?  I think it makes a fantastic fashion statement as a piece of wall art in her room.....if only it came close to holding half her bows..... ;)

This aqua mirror is something I picked up at a thrift shop long ago (before I even had Blaire) to use in a photoshoot and I thought it worked perfectly with her color scheme.  My hubby convinced me to hang it low, at a toddler level so she can actually use it.  Someday I think it would work well above a little dresser to be an eclectic vanity.

To give myself a ton of flexibility, I ordered simple pink sheer curtains, and bought paper lanterns from hobby lobby to hang above her crib for three dimensional interest. Yes, I did want a sweet crystal chandelier (the $200 one from pottery barn), but that isn't in my current budget. I think the lanterns will do for now ;)

Some simple bedding accessories may have been my biggest splurge for the room, but this sweet personalized pillowcase from pottery barn kids will be a great accent piece for whatever bed she grows into, and since she is past the need for bumpers, I thought a really trendy patterned fitted sheet was a great way to spruce up the corner of the room her crib is in ;). Not sure how much longer chevron will be all the rage, but I think it is stinkin adorable!!

This whole carpet thing is pretty new to me as our old house was exclusively wood floors.  I try to protect patches with area rugs, but it seems impossible to keep such light colored carpet clean with a messy eating, crawling babe. Solutions??!

Lastly, my good friend, sarah dorn of mama peacock, created this awesome decorative piece that goes just perfectly in her room.  It is made from an old window and I adore the rustic, shabby chic feel it adds to her room!  There is something very feminine about it to me ;)

That's all for now!  Very girly and very pink.  I'm kind of jealous of her room, folks! Lol

A Swaddle Story

Here is Hendrix at 5 days old.  In his first swaddle.  The nurse wrapped him up like this right after they took him out of the phototherapy booth and he calmly went fast asleep.  

At 8 days old, here we were introducing him to his crib for the first time.  This swaddle blanket was rather large on him then and I think that it was practically double wrapped around his whole body.  Hendrix was an amazing sleeper from the beginning.  We would just lay him down and swaddle him up and he would go to sleep.  We were waking him up every three hours to feed him that whole first two months since he had such an early start to the world. 

I continued the swaddling when I took him to work with me at 3 weeks old.  He transitioned well to the interruption in his schedule, and has since become a very easygoing little fella. 

In November, after his 2 month check-up we received the okay to let him sleep until he woke up and was hungry.  At this point he started going to bed around 10pm or so and would wake up once in the night to eat, and then go back to sleep until 6am or so.  This was an amazing change of pace for this Momma since I had been religiously feeding him every three hours up until that point.  I didn't know what it was like to sleep for more than little catnaps!  We were still swaddling him, and we actually started using more of a fuzzy blanket in his crib because he was really soothed by the soft feel around his face.  

In December he stopped being interested in soothing himself to sleep.  I thought this probably had to do with being around family during the holidays and holding him so much, so we started letting him fall asleep in our arms and then putting him down to sleep.  We could get him to fall asleep on his own sometimes, but if we did have to "rock" him to sleep, it was something that could happen in like 5 minutes or less.  As long as he had his blankets, he was fine with going to sleep.  He started going to bed earlier - like 7 pm and would sleep without the middle of the night feeding, waking up for the day around 5 or 6 am.  This is when I got spoiled!  :)

When he would wake up, it was usually with cooing and giggles, and I would go in his room to unwrap him from his swaddle.  He would just stretch his arms out and give a huge grin.  I started to love mornings just so that I could see this sweet face!

Just as we were settling into this routine, he turned 4 months old in early January and we went to the doctor for his well baby visit.  I would first like to say that I love his doctor.  She is really great.  But she did give me some news I did not love.  She said no more swaddling.  Just like that.  Like it wasn't going to be a big deal to take away the biggest constant in my son's life or at least in his sleeping habits.   She said that he would maybe have a tough time with the transition at first, but it shouldn't take long and he would adapt.  He is just too big and strong that she said the swaddle is a danger to him if he were to roll over and get tangled up in it and suffocate.  

We left the office.

And then we started the hardest, longest nights I have experienced since we brought him home.

Night One-

We didn't get him to settle down to sleep until about 10pm.  He laid in his bed pretty peacefully at first, but since he wasn't swaddled up, he thought it was just play time and he kicked and waved his arms and did lots of talking and cooing (we heard him downstairs through the monitor).  When he realized that we weren't going to come and get him the tears started and they escalated quickly.  I am not very good at letting my baby cry.  I admit it.  It breaks my heart.  But I tried, for a while, until he got so worked up that I knew there was no way he was going to fall asleep like that.  I picked him up and soothed him, calmed him down and then tried again.  After several unsuccessful routines of that (both daddy and I taking turns), I tried getting him to fall asleep in my arms first and then transporting him to his crib.  As soon as I would lay him down he would start flailing his arms around and wake himself up.  So I stayed in his room and  held his arms down by his side while he settled down and fell asleep.  As soon as I would take my hands away though, he would wake back up.  It was a disaster.  I was a disaster.  And finally after all that effort to get him to finally stay asleep - it would only last for about 20-40 minutes on average.  We did finally make it through the night, but everyone woke up exhausted and grumpy.      

Night Two-

In some ways I think this night was harder than the first night.....it was like Hendrix knew what was coming and he dreaded it all evening long.  And his little voice was hoarse from the crying the night before.  And I was so tired that I had less energy to pour into this endeavor, I even suggested to my hubby that maybe he wasn't ready for this yet and we should wait a bit.  My hubby was a strong rock for me during these nights as he kept reminding me that this was all out of love and it was simply because we want to keep our little peanut safe. It was pretty much the same routine as the night before, but everything took just a tiny bit longer.  At some point in the night I just held him for a bit when he fell asleep in my arms, because at least I knew he would get some rest.  Poor Hendrix was exhausted.

I was ready to give up.  I talked to my Mom about it and she encouraged me to do what we thought was best, but said that she had used blankets with all of us when we were little.  I heard from a lot of friends who swaddled their babies much longer than four months.  I heard from friends who even sleep their babies on their tummies.  I had told my hubby that I thought we should just swaddle him for night three so he can get a good nights rest and then we can try again another time.  And then, I spoke with a friend from our small group who told me that she had read with sleeping habits that usually night three is the breakthrough night.   I wanted to be consistent and not ruin all the "progress", if you can even call it that at this point, that we had made.  So I looked for a compromise.

Night Three-

We swaddled Hendrix from the chest down leaving his arms free.  This made him all snuggled up and warm (which I wondered if this could be a big part of why he was missing the swaddle.....I had been putting more layers on him but our old house gets pretty chilly upstairs at night) but because it was further down on his body it made it safer if he were to roll over (which he hasn't mastered rolling from his back to his tummy yet) since the blanket wouldn't be anywhere near his face.  It seemed like a fairly manageable compromise.  Another friend had suggested that it was easier to wean them off of a swaddle gradually than going 'cold turkey'.  Well we had tried 'cold turkey' and that was unproductive.  

He went to bed at 7:30pm and other than waking up a couple times because he had lost his paci, which simply requires a visit to his room to help him relocate it, he didn't get up until 5am when he was ready to eat.  

 I consider that our success story!  While I am not convinced that the journey is completely over yet, I am more optimistic that in time we will be able to remove the blankets entirely and still have a successful sleeper. 

Many thanks go out to everyone who encouraged me and gave me words of advice....and to anyone who is trying a difficult transition with their baby - don't be afraid to just take baby steps.  Sometimes that is just the right choice.

The next item on my mommy checklist is to take the bumpers out of his crib....... 

goodbye morning nap

our little peanut has crossed yet another milestone that pushes him farther and farther away from baby-hood and closer and closer to toddler-hood.  

actually, the other day while i watched him sitting on the couch, holding onto his elmo movie case, totally engrossed in his show; i thought i almost saw a glimpse of the toddler-hood slipping into boy-hood.  

he is growing up.

very. 

quickly.

despite my attempts to keep his schedule sacred, he has officially given up his morning nap.  for four days in a row nowhe has only had an afternoon nap.  

while there are moments (a few of them even extreme) during the morning when i know he is grumpy just because he is tired, this whole schedule shift is reinforcing a longer afternoon nap and seems to be giving him the energy to enjoy his evenings right up until bedtime.  this is so important since those are the few precious hours that daddy gets to see him during the week.

he is still really attached to this blankie......and he needs his paci to sleep too.  we have started keeping those two items sacred for sleeping time only; leaving them in the crib when he wakes up.  this seems to be fine with him, and seems to help solidify the sleep routine as he is excited to go get his blankie and paci at night-night time. 

i can't believe how much he fills up his crib in comparison to how tiny he used to look in there. 

September 2010 - 2 weeks old

and i really can't believe that for as much of a monkey-boy as he is everywhere else in the house, he hasn't attempted to climb out of it yet.  (knock on wood)

but i love how sweet and angelic and even baby-like he looks when he sleeps.

he is still my sweet baby boy.

he always will be. ;)

sleep, sweet, sleep

This is what my son looks like when he wakes up from a well rested nap.  I should have flipped the camera around and taking a picture of what I look like when I go to get him after a nice long restful nap.  It mirrors the joy on this little guy's face. ;)

Our journey through parenting definitely took a few hard bumps and turns when it came to dealing with sleep issues with our little guy.  

I am pleased to say that we have now gone through a successful month of him sleeping all. through. the. night. In his own bed.  It is amazing.

We owe a big part of this accomplishment to the helpful tips in the book, Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child and another big part to the encouragement and reinforcement of several respected friends.  

I never thought that I would be the kind of mom who would let her child "cry-it-out" at night, but then again I also never thought that I would be the kind of mom that would let her baby boy sleep wedged in between her and her hubby night after night; and that was exactly what was happening before we decided to take some drastic measures and instill a "sleep training" in our home.

Let me start this by saying, I loved rocking my baby boy to sleep.  

Especially after he stopped nursing I really cherished that time.

The problem was that he was so used to that routine that when mommy was gone at bedtime, daddy would spend hours trying to get him to sleep.

The other problem with that was that if he woke up in the middle of the night he wanted mommy to rock him back to sleep.  When he was 8 and 9 months old I was okay with this.  It seemed pretty normal for babies to wake up and want their mommies.

  

Then gradually it seemed like the rocking him back to sleep didn't work very well anymore, and he wanted to lay in bed with me to fall asleep.  At first we would move him back to his crib after he did, but then after a while we were too tired to care, and just let him stay there.

And then we would cut him some more slack when he was teething and didn't feel well....

and then we went on vacation and the whole sort-of-routine flew out the window.

Before we knew it, we were tiptoeing around, going to bed at 8 pm just so our kid would sleep, and waking up with aches in our necks because our lumpy kiddo was forcing us to contort our bodies around his.

So we did some research and decided to try letting our baby 'soothe himself to sleep'.  The basic premise here is that if you let him put himself to sleep in the first place, he will be able to put himself back to sleep if he wakes up in the middle of the night.  Sounds simple enough.

We worked on a bedtime routine that included bath, snuggles, reading books, songs and then a smootch and that's it.  Goodnight baby boy.  See you in the morning.  We laid him down in the crib while he was still awake but sleepy with his blanket and paci, and let him do the work of getting to sleep.

It was hard work.

Both for him and us.

It is really hard to listen to your child cry.  I don't care how many times I read that it would not hurt him, it still hurt me to listen to him.  His little voice was hoarse the next morning, and I was dreading starting this all over again the next night.  I also wanted to "cheat" and rock him to sleep at naptime - sort of as an apology, crazy as that sounds.   

But from everything I had read, consistency was really the most important step, so we tried to follow through with what we had started.  Those first three nights were hard.  Really hard.

BUT....

there was light at the end of the tunnel.

On the fourth night we did our routine and after we left his bedroom he only fussed for the amount of time it took us to walk out of his room and down the stairs.  And then. silence.   I even replaced the batteries in the monitor because I was certain that we couldn't possibly be that lucky.  But we were.  He had put himself to sleep. 

We poked our heads into his bedroom that night before we went to bed to see him sleeping on his tummy snuggled up with his blankie and it was sooooo adorable!  I had never seen him sleep on his tummy before that, so it was amazing to see that he just had to work harder to find what made himself comfortable and feel cozy.

Now our little dude is going to bed at 7 pm and sleeping until 6:30 am or until we have to wake him up to get ready for our day.   He recognizes the bedtime routine and actually goes to find his blankie when we start singing one of the sleepy-time songs.  He is napping without a fit both in the morning and afternoon, even when he is at the baby-sitter's house.  

And most importantly both he and his parents are well rested and able to function during the day.   ;)

I am really thankful for this new bend in our sleeping journey and would advocate to anyone that working towards a sleep routine is most definitely worth it!

Disclaimer:  I think that each and every child is different and I would recommend doing your own research about what would work for your family.  I just wanted to share about our personal journey. 

lazy weekend mornings

i absolutely love lazy weekend mornings......the kind where we all end up piled in my bed for a while in the morning - snuggling, singing, shaking rattles for blaire, and watching shows for hendrix on the iPad.

i also love busy weekends - packed to the brim with family time, road trips, delicious meals, and lots of shutter snaps on my camera.

this weekend is going to be one of the busy ones.

before it gets started, i wanted to take a deep breathe and reflect on some of the lazy ones!  it seems to energize me ;)

love his fascination with her.  he is so sweet.

yesterday morning while i was in the bathroom, blaire woke up and it wasn't two seconds later before i heard a huge thump and a proud cheer.

hendrix had climbed up into her crib and was sprawled out practically on top of her shouting, 'good morning blaire, you has a good sleep?'

then when he saw me, he announced, 'mommy, i super super climbed, i is spiderman, a super baby spiderman.'

it was so sweet. 

(and a little bit scary, since they share a room.....)

hendrix has gymnastics class with daddy on saturday mornings, so blaire and i get to spend a little solo mommy and me time together.  i love getting to focus on her, and have used that time to snap some photos on occasion. 

i want to be sure and document these chubby little legs as much as possible....because i adore them.  i think they are so sweet.  i love to pinch them, and tickle them, and watch her giggle and giggle!  she is at the most perfectly fun stage right now....interacting, face lighting up, babbling back to you when you talk to her.

and constantly chewing on those fingers......

one would think that she has been teething for the past 6 weeks.  

nothing yet.

just an ear to ear gummy smile!  ;)

happy weekend to you, be it lazy or busy!  

new ride

We upgraded Hendrix to his big boy carseat and he has been quite the happy camper when we go places in the car.  I think he likes having more space, as his legs were starting to get kind of cramped in the carrier.  I also think it lets him sit up more and he likes seeing everything around him (don't worry, he is still rear-facing).

It is really nice to not haul around the extra bulk and weight of the carrier carseat, though it does make juggling everything else in my arms just a bit more complicated.

Then there is the napping issue.

I didn't realize how much I relied on him falling asleep while I am just out running errands, and then staying asleep because I can leave him in his carrier with a blanket over it for the next hour or so.  While I have tried to very carefully transport him from the seat to his crib/stroller/playpen, it has been mostly unsuccessful.  This makes for a tired little fella.  

I hope we can get this ironed out with either a better routine, or a more sound sleeper.  ;)  The latter would be easier on momma.......

fluffy laundry times two

you might remember that we cloth diaper.  

we have used fuzzibunz diapers since hendrix was big enough to fit in them, and have never looked back.  

yes, it means a lot of laundry; and yes, they were kind of an expensive initial investment; but when i think about how much money we saved on disposables over the last two years, i am sold.  

not to mention that now we get to use them for baby #2.  

awesome

after blaire lost her umbilical cord stump, we have been able to put her in the smaller sized cloth diapers (we have two sets, which works out perfectly since hendrix is now still wearing the bigger size, and blaire gets the smaller size) and i think she looks super adorable in them!

  they go up practically to her armpits, and they really pad her little bum, but i love them.  

and she seems to also ;)

  

you know there are some things that you just forget about having a newborn around. as your child transitions into toddlerhood these changes seem to happen gradually....

quantity of daily diaper changes is one of those things.  

hendrix might go through 4 diapers a day right now.  

blaire about 12-14.

that has us doing diaper laundry nearly everyday.  

(not to mention regular laundry.....how can one little girl dirty so many burp cloths, blankets, towels, crib sheets, onesies, jammies, etc..?!?)

if you stop by my house unannounced, you will most likely see some stage of diaper folding happening on my couch.  

oh well.

at least they are clean!