Sweet Potatoes

We officially started solid foods yesterday. She's had them on a few occasions before, but we are now starting to regularly feed her solids at dinnertime. I've decided to skip the cereal until later, since it seems to upset her tummy, so we started with sweet potatoes. She was a little hesitant at first, but by the time we got to the end of the feeding she was opening wide and trying to grab the spoon.

My new obsession.

Since I'm no longer spending 20-30 minutes rocking E to sleep, I've got a little free time on my hands. I decided to try making a tutu, since it seemed relatively quick to do and there's no sewing required (the one requirement in any project I take on). Plus, I was sooooo excited about all the potential color combinations. I started with red and black because she has a red and black onesie which doesn't go with any of her skirts, and when she wears it with khaki shorts she looks like a boy.

I loved making it, and I'm already working on the second one. If I keep going at this rate, I'm going to need a tutu room in my house.

I love my fluffy new tutu!

Okay, the fluff is starting to invade my space, Mom.

Hello? Anyone? A little help, please?

Ferber- Night Three

-7:23: Down in crib. Set timer for 10 minutes.

-7:32: Went in. Left and set timer for 12 minutes.

-7:46: Went in. Left and set timer for 15 minutes.

-7:48: Asleep.

-11:46: Woke up. I went in and gave her a bottle. She stayed awake the whole time she was eating.

-11:56: I laid her down. She cried when I put her down, but was asleep before I could set the timer.

She took longer to fall asleep on night three than she did on the night before, but after her bottle, she slept through the night! I'm going to stop the nightly updates now, but I'll recap in a few days and report on how she's doing.

Ferber- Day Two

Yesterdays naps:

Nap One

-9:49: Down in crib

-9:55: Went in.

-10:07: Went in.

-10:22: Got her up, since her allotted 30 minutes had passed.

Nap Two

-2:05: Down

-2:21: Went in

-2:32: Went in

-2:44: Still not asleep, so we got her up.

Nap Three

-3:30: She fell asleep during a bottle. I woke her up, and then laid her down. She rolled over and immediately fell asleep.

-4:30: Up

Ferber- Night Two

The first night of Ferber went really well, and napping during the day went great also (despite the failed attempt at a third nap), so we were feeling good about night two. Tonight was a bath night, so we gave her her bottle before the bath to prevent her from falling asleep while she was eating. I was worried that she would get mad about the change in routine, but she did great. After she was bathed and in her jammies, I snuggled her for a few minutes. The intervals for the second night are 5 minutes, 10 minutes, and then every 12 minutes until they fall asleep.

-7:37: I said goodnight and laid her down in her crib. She rolled over and grabbed her burpcloth and her stuffed pig.

-7:40: She started to fuss. I set the timer for 5 minutes.

-7:41: She fell asleep.

Seriously, kid?!?!?! I've been stressing out about this for over a month now, wondering if you were ready, and terrified to begin in case you weren't. We made no plans for this weekend, and prepared to spend most of our time listening to you cry and staring at the timer. And on the second night you take one freaking minute to fall asleep!?!?

I'm beginning to think that the reason she was having trouble falling asleep before was because she just wanted us to back off and leave her the eff alone. I'm sure she will wake up at some point tonight, so I will update again later.

Update: Elliot woke up around 3 am. Matt gave her a bottle and laid her back down while she was still awake. She squeaked twice and fell asleep until 7 am.

Ferber- Day One

Nap One

-8:15: Elliot fell asleep in her stroller on a walk.

-8:25: I moved her from her stroller to her crib, waking her up a little (on purpose) on the way.

-9:35: Up from nap.

Nap Two

-12:35: Laid her down in her crib. She started fussing right away. Set timer for 3 minutes.

-12:38: I went in and patted her back. She kept fussing, and I left and set the timer for 5 minutes.

-12:44: Went in to comfort again. Left and set timer for 10 minutes.

-12:48: Asleep

-2:15: Awake

Nap Three (or lack thereof)

-4:35: Laid her down in the crib. She moved around and talked to herself, but didn't fuss or cry.

-4:55: Started to fuss. Set timer for 3 minutes.

-4:58: Matt went in to comfort her, then left and set the timer for 5 minutes.

-5:05: The timer went off, but by that time she had been trying to nap for 30 minutes. According to Ferber, if the nap hasn't started within 30 minutes you're supposed to get them out of bed and skip the nap, so that's what we did.

Ferber- Night One

Night one of Ferber is currently underway. We had to modify her bedtime routine somewhat, which made me nervous, but it went okay. Every other night she gets a bath, and after that we do lotion, massage, jammies, bottle, and bed. If it's not bath night, we go straight to the lotion and continue from there. She always falls asleep for the night drinking her bottle, and since the whole point of Ferber is to eliminate sleep associations and teach her to fall asleep on her own, we couldn't let her do that tonight. She got a bath yesterday, so tonight we decided to do the bottle first, then lotion and jammies. She actually didn't fall asleep drinking her bottle tonight, although she was definitely sleepy. She got pretty energetic when I changed her diaper and put her pajamas on, so I wasn't too sure she'd be able to settle down on her own. After we got her ready for bed, we gave her some snuggles and put her down.

Here's the timeline for night one:

-7:30: We gave her hugs and kisses, said goodnight, laid her down and left the room.

-7:40: She started to fuss and we set the timer for 3 minutes.

-7:43: We went in the room. She started smiling as soon as she saw us. I rolled her to her tummy, patted her back for a minute, and left again.

-7:45: More fussing. Set timer for 5 minutes.

-7:50: Went in again. Again she started smiling. I patted her back and left again. More fussing.

-7:52: Set timer for 7 minutes. Fussing turned into crying.

-7:59: We went in again. She continued to cry this time, even after she saw us. I patted her back and rubbed her head, and then we left again. She was still crying when we left the room.

-8:01: Set timer for 10 minutes.

-8:04: Crying stopped. She fell asleep!



Our plan for tonight is that I will take the 10-2 shift, and Matt will take the 2-6 shift if she wakes up. This way we will each get at least some sleep tonight. Ferber has a lot of information on eliminating night feedings, but we're just not comfortable doing that. Elliot has always been below the 20th percentile for weight, and my feeling is that if she wants to eat, I will feed her. She does actually drink her bottles at night, so I'm going to keep it up. If she only took an ounce or so, I would think she was just using them to pacify herself, but I'm pretty sure she's actually hungry, so we will continue to feed her on demand.

I think the most difficult part of this process will be getting her to go back down after her night feedings. At bedtime she has always fallen asleep while drinking her bottle, and went down without a problem. At night however, she wakes up during her bottle and will lay awake in our arms for up to an hour. This is the main reason we are doing Ferber. If she would go back down easily after a feeding, we wouldn't have a problem. I have no problem getting up to feed her, but she's becoming increasingly difficult to get back down, and I want her to learn how to put herself to sleep now, since I'm told it only gets harder once babies can pull themselves up and throw things out of their cribs.

All in all, round one went far better than I expected. We were very sad to start Ferber, as it meant the end of rocking our sweet little girl to sleep. We both love holding our little sleeping baby, so we were very emotional about that ending. We actually weren't nervous about the crying at all. We knew she would cry, of course, but we were both certain that it was time for this. There have been a few occasions where she has woken up as we laid her down. If we just leave her, she will sometimes go back to sleep on her own, and when she does that she sleeps great. This really makes us feel that this is the right thing to do for her. As Ferber says, your child might cry if you won't let them play in the street. You wouldn't like hearing them cry, but you probably also wouldn't feel guilty about not giving in to them. We feel the same way about this. I don't enjoy hearing her cry, but I know that this is going to benefit her in the long run, so I'm okay with it. She is an exceptionally quiet crier though, so I'm sure it would be harder if she was really sobbing. I am going to pump and go to bed now, and I will update when she next wakes up.

Update:

-2:55: She woke up. Matt went in and gave her a bottle.

-3:06: She finished her bottle. He gave her a kiss, said goodnight, and laid her down. She started to cry. He set the timer for 3 minutes.

-3:07: Asleep.

-6:45: Woke up for the day.