Sleep Training

As we all know Abigail and Sleeping do not go together, She has never really took a long nap, 30 minutes and she is up and ready, which is nice when you want to go some where, but you cant do anything in the house, i have to do everything separate. shower, then get ready, or dishes or laundry, never two tings at once. She use to sleep really well I would get her ready for bed, and by about 7 p.m she was asleep and at 4 am she would wake up to eat, then go back to sleep until 7 or 8 a.m Then the beginning of June hit and her schedule went off, it got worse and not better, I figured it was due to all the moves, a new place, not seeing all the people she was use to reconnecting to her dad, so when she woke up I comforted her, then after a month of that I figured well maybe she needs to eat maybe she is growing, but then I paid attention and realized she was not eating she was just pacifying.

I knew I needed to do something but I didn't know what or when, well on July 29th, I went into her room at 9,10,11, and 12, when she woke up at 1, that's when I said, it is not going to get easier later so do it now, so then she laid there crying while I rubbed her head her belly her legs, she screamed at me,asking why I was not holding her, rocking her, nursing her like I do every night, she was mad she was awake, and tired and I was doing nothing to help get her to sleep.

I told dustun to go sleep on the pull out bed, so he could get some sleep, it was going to be a long night, well after an hour of her screaming at me, and my head saying just put her to bed do this another night and my other half saying another night you'll be just as tired. She finally passed out, she slept until 7:00, I was awake at 5:00 my body was so use to her all night and then she went a night with nothing I was in pain.

Here comes, putting her to bed with out her bad habit rituals, I will do everything I can to comfort her with out removing her from her bed.

July.30th & 31st 3 or 4 naps today, and all had some tears but she slept with in about 30 minutes, Dustun put her to bed, I told him she was going to see if he was weak and let her out of her crib I told him she was going to throw a huge fit, she did, it took almost on hour of her crying before she passed out, she slept all night again, I was in pain again.
Aug. 1st & 2nd: went smoothly, she fussed again but it was only taking her about 10/20 min to fall asleep, and mostly she would just talk to her bear, or touch the sides of her bed, and a few cry's here and there.

we begun the phase out, were I rarely touch her head or her tummy,

Aug. 3rd: I would get her ready for bed, and rock her for a bit then give her a kiss tell her good night, I love you, and to take a nap, in the morning she fussed for about 40 min, and Dustun had lunch duty, she fussed for about 40 min again, now the 3rd nap, she and I fell asleep while she ate, (oops)

Aug. 4th Today was good, she was able to go to sleep with out me, I just laid in bed, and wait for her to start to fuss, then i would give her binkie back and reassure her that I was there still, then i would back off again.

Aug 5th Today was pretty much the same as yesterday, it is only taking her about 10 min to fall asleep with minimal fussing and basically no crying, tomorrow we start the next phase.

Now we begin to just put her down and leave the room completely. only to come back if needed.

Aug 6th for her first nap today, I made her a bottle and laid her down and gave it to her, then I went in after a few minutes and replaced it with her binkies, she did noticed but didn't care, she went to bed with out me being in the room, Amazing! but the best part she slept for an hour and forty minutes! so awesome! her second nap we were at the movies, so she fell asleep in my arms, she slept for almost an hour, even through all then nose of the movie (transformers) When I put her down I did all the normal night time things, and laid her down it did take about a half hour for her to fall asleep ,and I did have to go in about 4 times to reassure her I was still her, but she did fall asleep with out throwing a huge fit.

Aug. 7th the first nap, she fell asleep in the stroller while we were out for our walk, second nap, took about on hour for her to go to sleep, some playing, some fussing and some crying, I finally went back to touching her, she finally passed out, third nap i was strong, I put her down, and she cryed for about 15 minutes total, I went in every 5 min to reassure her and giver her binkie and have her snuggle up to her bear, she finally passed out. For her bed time she fussed for a bit, but was able to go to bed on her own

Aug 8th today was pretty much the same, we were at the zoo for her morning nap so she slept in the stroller, but her second nap and bedtime, she did cry for a few minutes, but she did finally pass out asleep.

Aug 9th. This morning I left the house and told dustun what chores to do and how to take care of Abby, I told him not to give in to her when she cries, well he put her down for her morning and afternoon nap he layed her down and she cried for about 5 min then he went in there gave her binkie and her snuggles and left the room she was asleep before he left the room. well bedtime came and it was awful I think she was overtired, it took almost an hour her screaming/crying and us going in every 5 min, before she fell asleep.

Aug 10th, I put her down for her morning nap, and she did not fuss, cry or scream, she fell asleep! so exciting, I am hopping it will stay this way, I know there will be times I have to go in there, but I know that she can fall asleep by her self no more of me holding her for ever, or me nursing, rocking, touching or whatever else I had to do before.



My main goal of all this, is to be able to get her ready for bed, and put her down in her crib, and walk out, and for her to talk to her bear, fuss, then just go to bed,I know that once she master's that then if she wakes up in the middle of the night she can put herself back to sleep, or maybe just maybe if she wakes up after her 30 min nap she can put herself back to bed for a bit longer, or maybe she will be able to fall asleep in the car. I know this is a life long skill that I can only teach and not do for her. This is one of many.

Falling and staying asleep help

I need help, i would like your advice your are some facts:

*she sleeps great at night,she always has, she usually only wakes up around 4:00 a.m, sometimes she wakes up more often but that is rarely.
*she was on a schedule of 7 to 7, but now she has pushed it back to be more like 9 to 9. which is fine as long as she is getting a big chunk of sleep i don't mind what hours they are between.
* she has a night time routine of, eat, bath, books, rock, then i nurse her to sleep.
*nap routine is basically the same with the bath.
Her naps are 30 minutes on the dot, sometimes and I mean very rarely does she sleep for over an hour.
* if she falls asleep in my arms with out nursing forget about putting her down, she knows that she is put down and goes into insanity screaming and the only way to get her back to sleep in to nurse her
*i have tried the CIO method,i do fill bad she is crying but i know she needs sleep, that method has not worked yet she just crys and crys until i nurse her to sleep, she has even made herself so mad she has thrown up.
* when i put her down, i know she is full, clean diaper and has some play time, and then her wind down routine, but she doesn't want ot sleep.
* i know her sleep ques and i start to put her down as soon as i see them, or if i don't catch the ques then i know i need to put her down with in a hour and half to two hours from when she wakes up, or else she hits the overtired mode and watch out.

So my big questions are, how do i get her to take longer naps? how do i get her to self sooth? how does she learn to fall asleep on her own?
I'm i asking to much? should i just be grateful that she sleeps at night and that i can nurse her to sleep with out fussing and just deal with it? or what?

I want her do do these things on her own cause there are times when i leave the house without her and no one else can put her to sleep easily, because for obvious reason they don't have the correct "equipment" also she doesn't even fall asleep in the car, i have to rush home, or if i am not close to home i have to stop in a parking lot to nurse her to sleep.

I think the reason she is so hard to deal with is cause she is not getting enough sleep in the day, i feel if i fix that then i can say that she a happy "easy" baby.

please give me your thoughts, ideas, or suggestions, thanks so much

Breastfeeding

* Disclaimer, I will be talking about nursing, my thoughts and options of it, so if you don't want to read that's fine just skip this post and wait for the next one to read.

I have been debating weather or not to write anything but every time i nurse Abby, i think of things i would like to get out in the open, so i am sorry if this offends anyone but these are my thoughts and options so if they hurt your feelings then you can deal with them the way i have.

If any of you have every meet my daughter you will notice she is long and skinny, and she has a temper, and doesn't like to nap, but sleeps great at night. So some of you might think that because i breastfeed her something is wrong with my milk, not rich enough, not nutritious enough, not enough, or whatever. But before i left Texas I was in close contact with her ped's doctor, and a lactation consultant, they all monitored her weigh gain, they watch my feed her, gave me any pointers and suggestions but after every visit, they said she is doing great is was a slow weight gainer at first but she is gaining weight normally, and that my breastfeeding positions were great, they told me not worry about it, but if i was ever concerned that i could go upstairs and weigh her. I did do that once to see how much she was getting so i took everything off Abby, weighed her, feed her on my left side when she was done i re-weighed her then i feed her on my right side after she was done i reweighed her, she was perfect, i cant recall how much she ate but i remember thinking ok she is eating great.
Then I get here to Utah and i have some people that are close to me say some things, i reassured them that all was fine and that the doctors said she is doing great, but for about 3 days and straight i keep getting talked to about different things, so i make an appointment for her to get weighed, and what does the doctor say? "she is long and skinny but she is doing great, come in on Monday and we will reweigh her to see how much she is gaining", so i come in on Monday, she has gained the correct about of "average" ounces so he re assure me she is great. I would think that would make every one happy, but then i hear from some other close people, maybe she not sleeping, maybe she is crying, maybe your milk is runny, ext ext form some other people well at this point i just loose it, i am so tired of having no support the only two people that have never said anything but encouraging things, are in Texas, I feel so alone, and picked on. So i start to wean Abby of the breast to bottle so now i can i can pump her full of artificial food that way everyone will know how much, whats in it, they can feed her the positions they want or feel is correct or feed her long enough.
I after about a day i get super depressed , but for about 2 weeks I have only nurse Abby 4 times twice in the morning, afternoon and evening, (I figure i will nurse her when nobody is around that way i cant get judged or questioned) the other times i feed her i give her a bottle. Well you wanna know something after that and after a weekend of no breast milk just formula she gained the same amount of weight she does when i nurse her, so maybe she is just long and skinny, maybe she is fussy, maybe she doesn't nap and so on because that's her personality that's Abby, Long and skinny and fussy, I mean really have you not meet dustun or I she is just like us.
So after these few weeks of trying to wean her off the breast to bottle to make everyone else happy and me being depressed and wanting to cry whenever some one asks how is the breast feeding going, i have decide i am going back to breastfeeding, i know it will be hard i need to re build my supply that was lost, and Abby will be fussy cause she is use to just laying there having food flow down her throat she will have to re learn how to nurse again. Now i am not against giving her a bottle but why should i give her a bottle of artificial food when i have the two most natural untouched food and "bottels" that God gave me.
So like i have said before to other people, if you have any questions, comments or concern you are more then welcome to talk to me but if i assure you that all is great then please back off.

My house

Well our house is up on the market, I am so scared of it not selling, but I know it eventually will, but the waiting and hopping and not knowing is a bit scary. We have out first open house scheduled for February 8th (happy birthday dustun) my mom will be here so she can help me fluff, and not stress, after all Abigail will only be a few weeks (hopefully not days!) old.

My somewhat plans are if the house sells around March 16th, then I will go back to Utah while Dustun is in phase one of school, that will save a bunch of money on renting an apartment, then after we either will move on base if there is an open house, or in an apartment here in Texas, or we might be moving to a new place in a new state altogether, (To be determined at a later time by the military)

Our life is so uncertain and we have so many big things happing, next year in 2010 when I look back in 2009 I know I will be like wow how did we do all that?

Here is a link of our virtual tour of our house, (if the link doesn't work let me know) Also any tips/ ideas on how to sell the house?!

Enjoy
http://www.exite-listings.com/etour.html/TOURID/20508

Date night at home

Last night Dustun and I had date night at home. We went to the comic book store and got his weekly comics, then we went to party city so I could buy some things for my baby shower, then we went to McDonald's for ice cream. Dustun got a m&m shake I got a pralines and cream blue bell ice cream cone. Then we went to Chipolets to get a huge burrito for us to share.

We came home and watch Grey's anatomy, we played the Wii, I kicked his butt bowling (and who is on the bowling team? not me! lol)and the we played Mario Kart in one race I got first place, in all my years of every playing I have never gotten first, I was so excited, but man I can't drive I way over correct the wheal, good thing I don't drive like that in real life, or else we wold have some serious problems.

We also watched the movie Fractured, which is pretty good, but I do have to say it makes much more seance if you watch it twice.

We also made caramel apples, I have never done this, I had a blast. I think we will be making this another fall tradition.





I enjoy spending time with Dustun, with him working nights it is hard to hang out and do things but we always are making time to be with each other, every time we watch a movie I think once Abigail comes we will have a harder time getting through the whole movie, so I am enjoying the the alone us time and looking forward to the us time!

I have been slaking on posting my challenge updates but here are the ones I can remember: I picked up trash and put it in the trash can, I smiled and said Hello to someone I don't know in the grocery store they look upset so I hope that they felt a little love and had a moment of goodness, I asked Dustun to clean the hamster cage, but I did it for him just cause I know how much he hated cleaning it. I am trying to help my friend who is going through a rough patch in there relationship. Every thing I do is really small but I hope that through my kindness or helpfulness someone will benefit somehow from it.

Painting pumpkins!

This weekend dustun and I painted pumpkins, it was so much fun. The one year we lived here we carved pumpkins and the next day they were starting to wilt, then the following day they were mush with goo running from them it was gross and a huge mess to clean up.

12, 13 and 14 of challenge:
well I cant remember what I did on day 12, but on day 13 I made some yummy sugar cookies that I brought over to some peoples house, they are from the ward and they invited us over for dinner, which was so good. And today I picked up my neighbors newspapers and put all of them on the front porch, just in case it rains again.

11 of 29

Tonight I "Booed" my neighbors, I gave them there little goodies bag full of candy and a note and a ghost to hang up on the door! Happy Halloween Neighbors!

9 and 10 of 29

Yesterday I made some new freinds with my neighbors at my "second" house. I took the kids out side to play, and soon some more kids and more parents came out, so I decided well I can sit here and be afraid to talk to others or I can go and be nice and friendly so I sat at the picnic table introduced my self and we all talked about different things, it was nice, plus that now the kids have some other kids to play with. I felt so bad when they moved because Dillon had to leave all his freinds then he is cooped up in the apartment.

For today's nice thing that I did was, I drove. I know not a big deal but when Dustun and I are together I never drive, but I figured he was probably tired. So I drove to the hospital for my ultrasound then I drove to the comic book store so dustun could get his new ones for this week,then I took him home so he could go back to bed, then I went and got my cars oil change, I really hate going by myself I feal like they are going to rip me off.

Tonight I am making homemade bread, so far it smells way good, and I want to make so many other things right now but I guess I'll do those another night when it's not so late.

Hope all my readers are having a great night and have a better weekend!

8 of 29

So today's challenge, Cody (3 years old) and I made little Halloween treat bags, and we gave them to two of there neighbors. So hopefully that made there day a little more cheerful and bought the spirit of fall to there house! I should have taken pictures of the bags he helped me decorate, very cute!

7 of 29

Yesterday, Dustun was having a bad day, So I called him while I was at work to let him know that I love him and to make sure that he was doing better. When I got home I decided we should go out, so that way we could end the night better then the way it started out.
The chocolate molten cake at chilies is so good!

6 of 29

Today as I was sitting here, watching General Conference on the internet and making the cuteness bows you have ever seen, I get a Call from my friend, she has been in a car accident and she needs me to come get her and her baby, as her car will be towed away. So I quickly unplug my hot glue gun, pause the current speaker and run upstairs to wash my face and throw some decent looking clothes on. I get to the accident, she is ok, the car is still drivable but was making a bad noise so she decided to have it towed. I load up Connors base for is car seat and put him in and turn on the AC the poor baby was warm from the wonderful 93 degrees of fall weather we have here. (sarcasm) I took them home asked if their was anything else I could do for her, she said no, I told her if she needed anything else to give me a call.
I am very grateful that this was not a serous accident and every one was fine.
Maybe the lady who hit her will think twice when deciding on to run a red light, while the person in front of them has already stopped. (DUH)

5 of 29

Today I gave 2 hours of my time, to my friend, her husband is deployed and she moved backed to AZ while he is gone so she hired some cleaners to come clean her house so I stayed there until they were all done.

3 and 4 of 29

So yesterdays good moment was I said Hi to my neighbor. Really not a big deal other then the fact I usually ignore them or stay in my car until there in the house, I don't care for her or her life style choices, and I don't like the fact they have a million cars, parked in the driveway, and the sidewalk, in front of there house and parked in front of other neighbors houses. So for me I smiled gave them a Hello. And i was off on my merry way.

Today I hung out with my friend I made time to be with her, even though I really was not feeling up to getting ready and leaving the house, I did have fun and it cheered both of us up, we needed the moral booster!

Any ideas on what I can do for the weekend? What are you going to do?

2 of 29

Well today my gift was going to work, even though it was my day off. Teresa had a doctors appointment for her back and I figured why take the kids with her, I'll watch them and help get Dilan's home work done and make them dinner, that way she can relax when she comes back from the doctor.
Ok Dilan is only in the 4th grade and I am helping him with Algerbra, oh boy I am so in for it when it becomes harder math.
What have you done today?

29 gifts, in 29 days

1 of 29
Well tonight I was blog surfing and came across a woman's blog where she is trying to get at least 2000 people to try and give 29 gifts in 29 days, to make this world a better place. So I decided I would challenge myself and you others to do the same thing. The website is www.29gifts.org check it out and sign up.
So today as my first gift on day one is to help better this world by challenging all my readers to sign up and help make this challenge possible.

I will post everyday what I have done and if I have received anything in return!