Cry It Over

For now, we're done. We decided we're not ready, he's too young right now, and maybe we don't need it. He's been doing great, going down easy with just a little patting, a little rocking, and a few paci reinserts. Nothing I am not willing to do right now. He'll only be my baby once. No new pictures to post. I'll get some good ones tomorrow.

CIO Day2

Well it didn't go so well yesterday... mom is a weenie. I must have reinserted the paci about 42 times and then ended up cuddling him when he woke up after only napping 40 minutes. Oh well. I'm not quite sure we're ready for this. I am feeling like he's too young for the Cry It Out method. I know millions probably start earlier, but for us it might be too soon. We may come back to it when he's 3 mos, but I'm not sure.

Last night he slept from 8:30-2:30 ish and then ate again at 6:00. That means I got like 4 1/2 hours of sleep in a row!

Here are some funny pictures of Will's morning hair today. He gets it from his mama.

CIO Day 1

Well it wasn't terrible at all! I'm sure it was probably a complete fluke, but Will only fought the first nap. Nap 1 took 45 minutes of crying before he went down finally. I folded laundry in the living room and turned off the monitor so I could only hear loud crying if it came to that. I realized a big mistake on my part though that probably could have saved all that crying- I put the kid down on his back when usually he sleeps on his side. I will save that adjustment for later, one thing at a time.

And that was it! Both naps 2 &3 had 0 minutes of crying! He went down right away and slept for 2 hours each time. There was no fourth nap today b/c we were at Danny and Christina's and he just would not go to sleep. I figured I'd spare them a cry it out session.

Here are some pics from yesterday's naps (I know only the grandparents will be interested!). Also, I know babies are not supposed to have any stuffed animals near them, but I learned that if I put the bear between his arms then he can't knock the paci out. I keep a very close eye on him and take it away once he's more settled and the arms are thrashing around.

Notice the arms in motion... we've been doing lots of batting practice!
Look who's learning to suck his thumb! Not sure if I'm going to encourage this or not.
Not quite asleep yet. Look at that rooster tail hair!

Crying It Out

"This hurts me more than it hurts you." - What a parenting cliche- and what a true statement. Today is our first day of letting the baby "cry it out" or CIO. I have taken much appreciated advice from dear friends, talked it over with Steven, and prayed. I will give it a shot, hoping I'm tougher than I think I am. We have a very good baby. He is happy and such a joy to Steven and I. Most of the time he goes to bed at night with no fuss and is put back down extremely easy after each night feeding. However, during the day I am spending all of my time patting and reinserting the paci at nap time. That has left me with the decision to try this approach.

I'll post at the end of each day with a summary of how I do and how he does. I will admit I cried just laying him down a minute ago... and yes, he is crying his little red eyes out right now. Please pray for my heart and determination, and pray for sweet Will. Pray he knows I love him and doesn't feel abandoned.

Ok... going in for the 10 min pat.

One month photo shoot

When Will was born we wanted to get some photos taken of him. Unfortunately one of our photographer friends was getting ready for her own baby and the other one was in Singapore, so we had to wait about a month to get his pictures taken. When our friend Danny Clark got back from Singapore, we had him come over and take Will's pictures. He hadn't shot a newborn before, but he did such a great job! I am so pleased that I have these to remember the little guy. He has changed so much already. (Side note: Will spit up twice, pooped once, and peed three times during the shoot- one of the pee streams even got Danny!) Here are some of the pictures Danny took:

so beautiful

Chunky Monkey

Last Friday Will had his two month check up. Our behemoth child weighed in at 15 pounds! He has already about doubled his birth weight! His weight is over the 100 percentile, height 75th%, and head measured 50th%. I'm going to get some big muscles carrying this big boy around. He has really started to take in the world now, noticing everything. It's so cute to see how gigantic his eyes get every time we walk into a new room. He still loves the headboard and ceiling fan, but is giving his Mama and Daddy more smiles now too, so that makes us happy!

I am still trying to figure out this whole schedule thing and how we can get him to sleep longer at night. He was doing well last week and had some 6 hour stretches at night, until his vaccines on Friday morning. The rest of that day and most of the next he had a fever, was very fussy, and super tired. So there was no way of keeping to the newly accomplished schedule. Then on Sunday he still seemed tired so I committed to get back to it on Monday. We are doing ok, but are back to waking every 3-3.5 hours at night to eat.

Anyway, here are few pictures of the last couple days... and yes, maybe someday I'll blog about something other than the baby again!

Trying to get a pose for his two month shot.

Getting tired of taking pictures...

...giving up.

Breaking the scales at Dr. Senevey's office.
Father's Day present to Steven.

Lately...

Why didn't anyone tell us that babies are a lot of work?!  -Please know I'm kidding-  We have been so busy, but having so much fun getting to know this little boy.  He is definitely his own person and is starting to let us know what he likes and absolutely does not.  We are starting to try and figure out his schedule.  His sleeping is getting better- we haven't had anymore 1 hour stretches lately- thank goodness!  On Sunday he was 8 weeks old.  He is beginning to smile more, but not consistently and then most times is smiling at the oddest things.  For instance, he just loves looking at our headboard and will just smile so big at it.  I never thought I'd be saying I'm jealous of a headboard!  Of course, I can't compete with the window or ceiling fan either, but I'm working on it.  

He is getting so big.  I can't believe he's already 8 weeks and at the same time I can't believe he's only 8 weeks!  He has outgrown most of his clothes and I just know he's like 13 or 14 pounds by now.  We'll see on Friday.  He is so strong and really fights to stand on his legs. ( I hope there's not any truth to that old wives' tale about that making babies bow-legged.)  His neck is very strong, but he won't lift it much at tummy time.  He only wants to focus on pushing legs.  Basically he drives his face into the ground and grunts as he pushes those little fat legs.  I'm trying to help him push up, but he doesn't really want to.  Hopefully that will get better.  I started letting him sit in the Bumbo a bit, but know he's probably still too little.

Anyway, here are a few pictures from the past few days:

Playing on his activity mat.
Thinking about smiling at Mama's crazy faces.
I think he's smiling at me, but it's probably the fan.
This smile was really at me!  So amazing!

I wanted a picture with him in his cute little shorts b/c he outgrew them before even getting to wear them. So sad.
"What is this thing you put me in?"

Propped on pillows with his fluffy hair- looks like he's doing the twist!

Sleeping with Daddy again.  Will's favorite!