Thursday, January 31, 2013

Quinn and My Tea


This morning I was sitting on the couch enjoying some tea when Quinn came up to check it out. I told him "hot!" so he blew on it a little for me. He watched me drink a bit, then decided I needed help. Every time the cup had been away from my lips for too long--according to Quinn, of course--he gently pushed the cup up to my mouth for me.

After a little bit of this, he decided he wanted to try some, but he normally just spits it back out when I let him drink out of the cup directly. I instead dipped a finger in and gave him a drop right on his tongue. He loved that and kept asking for more that way, drop by drop. I finally went and hid in the kitchen so that I didn't have to keep dipping my finger in my tea! What a silly kid.

~Regina

Friday, January 25, 2013

Aurora is FOUR!!!

Aurora's 4th birthday was today. Can you believe it? Here's what we did today...

We tried letting Aurora open one present (I was planning to spread them out throughout the day) but when Quinn saw that Aurora got a present and he didn't, he threw a tantrum. Whoops, I didn't think to give him something.... So we opened the rest of Aurora's presents during Quinn's nap time. Here she is, very excited about the presents.
Trains!!
And princesses!


After lunch, Aurora went to her quiet rest time to play with some of her toys. While she was in her room, we taped some garbage bags across her door and filled the gap with balloons....



Her cautious reaction to the surprise is fairly typical of her reaction to surprises. She really doesn't seem to enjoy surprises unless she knows one is coming. She and Quinn had lots of fun playing with the balloons once we moved them out of her bedroom....


After quiet rest time, we went out and had some fun, including getting some yummy frozen yogurt.
After dinner, it was time for her cake!!
She was SOOOOO excited about the cake!
Candles...
Blowing!!

Mmmmm! Yummy cake!
Quinn agreed.
And her special day ended with a glow bath all to herself (which Quinn was really ticked off about, too).

~Regina

Wednesday, January 16, 2013

The No-Cry Sleep Solution Log: Day 100--Rage against the Molars

Well, it's been 50 days since I last updated you on the No-Cry Sleep Solution journey. During that time, Quinn has cut two upper molars, cut two lower front teeth, almost cut the two lower molars, and has white pressure spots from two more upper teeth (and maybe from two more lower teeth--I'm not as certain about that). Poor kiddo. That's at least 8 different teeth that have been bothering him. No wonder we're having sleep trouble!


Our night last night went like this...

Day 100 Sleep Log Summary

Nap: 1 hour, 30 minutes
Last time: 2 hour, 45 minutes
Night time sleep: I have no idea, I'm going to guess between 7-8 hours
Last time: 7 hours, 40 minutes
Wakings: too many to count
Last time:
too many to count
Total sleep per day: 9 hours, 55 minutes at best
Last time: 10 hours, 25 minutes 
Recommended amount of sleep: 13-14 hours

Yeah, not good. At one point, he was awake for 1.5 hrs just whining and crying, despite us giving him painkiller and some natural pain remedies. He finally fell back asleep, but was very restless and woke frequently to nurse for a short time before falling back asleep. It was a very bad night. I actually have no idea when he woke up for the day and I stopped recording wakings after he woke up 3 times in the space of 20 minutes at about 3am.


We've had a few good nights, too, but mostly we've had bad nights. However, even in all of this teething trouble, there has been some good stuff.

Successes!

1. Quinn is now consistently putting himself to sleep for naps and bedtime (all accomplished without crying!!). However, it absolutely has to be Mommy (me) who puts him to bed. Daddy is not an acceptable substitute. We'll have to work on that, but I'm guessing it might ease once the teething is past.

2. Quinn is not consistently nursing before sleep times anymore. Most naps, he refuses to nurse beforehand (I do offer). Bedtimes are hit and miss in that area, but he nurses before bed probably 60-70% of the time. This is a good start for breaking that nursing-sleepytime connection. In fact, he actually isn't nursing much during the day at all anymore...but at night...*sigh* I'm hoping things will change once teething pain stops waking him during the night.

3. His sleep schedule is more predictable and regular. He normally asked to go to sleep at about the same times every day, but even if he forgets to ask, I can take him into our room, sing to him, and put him down and he'll go to sleep. This doesn't always work, but it does more often than not.

4. We now know that he sleeps better without other people in the room. His first stretch of sleep is always the best. The longer we (Wil and I) delay going to bed, the longer he will sleep. When we go to bed, no matter the time, he will usually wake up within 20 minutes. We're working on figuring out how to get him his own room or place to sleep once we get back to Tennessee. We don't have any options that will work in our apartment here in California, unfortunately. Only a month left!

5. He is sleeping in the packnplay when he's in the room by himself. When we go to bed, he won't stay asleep there so he joins us in the bed, but as long as he's alone in the room, he will sleep in the packnplay, wake up to nurse, and go back to sleep in the packnplay just fine.

6. We have learned the effectiveness of a calming routine with low lights and low sound levels. We've worked it to our advantage when Quinn decided that he didn't want to stay asleep every night, just take naps and then play (he did this for 2 weeks before we figured out what to do). As a result, our bedtime routine for the kids is much calmer than it used to be and the post-bedtime house is completely cleaned up and ready to be darkened should a certain 16 month old decide he wants to see what after bedtime in our house is like. As far as he knows now, it's plain boring. ;)

Yay for successes despite teething!


What would I still like to see accomplished?

Short-term goals:


1. I'd love for Quinn to sleep through the night! I think he can do it but the teething pain is getting in the way right now.

2. Once we are back in Tennessee with a new rooming set-up, Quinn will be graduating to a mattress on the floor. He just climbed out of his packnplay today with the aid of of some furniture near it, but I think he's very close to being able to do it by himself. The crib we have in Tennessee was taken apart for storage and if Quinn is already starting to climb out of cribs, then why put it back together?

Long-term goal:
Get rid of the pacifiers! We have made progress in this area, actually. He now voluntarily gives me all of his pacifier/pacifiers before I take him out of the packnplay after naptime. He only gets pacifiers in the car and during sleep times. He also is growing more attached to the lion lovey. In a couple months, I plan to change the pacifier that's attached to the lovey to a smaller sized pacifier so that it's more difficult to suck on. A few months after that, I will switch it to a completely different style of pacifier that Quinn isn't accustomed to. Eventually, we'll get rid of  the pacifier on the lovey. Those are all the plans I have right now. I want him to have a lovey that ISN'T associated with a pacifier, so working on the lion lovey's pacifier seems like the logical first step. Eventually we'll work on weaning Quinn off of his pacifiers, but I'm not going to worry about that until he's around 2 or seems more ready (whichever comes first--and this is subject to change!).






So that's where we are after 100 days of using Elizabeth Pantley's ideas for helping our little guy sleep. We would probably have made a lot more obvious progress if Quinn hadn't started cutting his molars (and a bunch of other teeth!) right about now, but that's just how it goes. Once those teeth are in, I think we'll all be much more well-rested. Yay!

~Regina

Find all my No-Cry Sleep Solution Logs here!

The No-Cry Sleep Solution Logs Post List

I'm tired of editing every single post every time I add a new log, so I'm going to do this the lazy way. Look! Here's the whole list of the posts I've made on our No-Cry Sleep Solution journey!


Day 1--Nap Success!

Day 10--Baby Steps

Day 20--More Sleep? Really?

Day 30--Bad Nights Happen 

Day 40--What in the World?!? 

Day 50--I Hate Teething

Day 100--Rage against the Molars

Day 120-- More of the Same

Day 150--Are we done yet? No.

Day 170--Surprise! Transition out of the Crib

Day 180-- Troubleshooting

Tuesday, January 8, 2013

Testing the Cuteness

Let's see if this cute little gif works...


If you can't see the kids and Wil being goofy, please tell me!

And maybe this one?? This is Aurora playing with her Penguin Bowling game from Kiwi Crates. :)

~Regina