Wednesday, March 27, 2013

The No-Cry Sleep Solution Log: Day 170--Surprise! Transition out of the Crib

In a perfect world, this sleep log would have been like 60 days long and then we'd be done. But thanks to teething and moving, here we are at day 170. We've made a lot of progress, really, and I think sleeping through the night consistently is just over the hill of those last two canine teeth. Right now, that's my only goal: get this kid to sleep so I can get some sleep!

The past couple days haven't been too bad. Here's what yesterday was like...

Day 170 Sleep Log Summary

Nap: 2 hours, 20 min
Last time: 3 hours, 10 min
Night time sleep: 11 hours, 10 minutes
Last time: 8 hours, 35 minutes
Wakings: 3
Last time:
too many to really count
Total sleep per day: 13 hours, 30 minutes
Last time: 11 hours, 45 minutes
Recommended amount of sleep: 13-14 hours

Looking good! And this, my friends, is with him climbing out of his crib 10 days ago and being transitioned to a regular bed in a new room. I'd say we're doing really, really well given that. For the past 5 or 6 days, he's been sleeping in his new bed all night (well, waking, being returned, sleeping, waking, etc.). I've had to join him for the last stretch of sleep in the early morning 2 or 3 of those days, but that hasn't happened for 3 or so days.


Last night was especially good because he actually slept a 5 hour stretch of sleep. That's technically sleeping through the night for a child his age. I'd love to work up to an 8 hour stretch of sleep but currently 3 hours at a time is more typical for him.

He has been in less pain from his teeth, probably because he ONLY has two coming in and they're partly poked through at this point. When he needs painkiller it's super obvious (he'll go from fine to wailing, gnawing on his fingers, and drooling like crazy in the space of 30 seconds). Because of teething being less of an issue, I've started shortening his nighttime nursings again. Some nights he's fine with that, other nights he doesn't like it. Last night, he actually woke up 15 minutes after going to sleep because he decided he needed to nurse a bit more. So, really, two of his wakings were only about 20 minutes apart.

All in all, we're slowly but surely making progress. Our progress was so much more noticeable before teething started, but we've almost survived that so I think I might be able to breathe a sigh of relief. Soon, very soon, I think we'll all be getting decent sleep.

Guess this means it's time for me to review the book again to make sure we're doing everything we can to help success... ;)


~Regina


Find all my No-Cry Sleep Solution logs here!

Saturday, March 23, 2013

Goodnight, Little Quinn

Quinn is at such a sweet age. He's definitely a toddler but sometimes still a baby.

Tonight when it was bedtime (and it was definitely bedtime) he decided he didn't want to be put down. He laid down on my chest and snuggled there for a good 40 minutes. As much as I love snuggling with him, he was needing to go to sleep and there are a few things I like to get done around the house without the kids running around (like folding laundry!). So I had to figure out a way to get him to move off my chest to his pillow, but he wasn't very open to that idea...

I finally thought of something that might or might not work. He was starting to get restless and kick his feet, so I grabbed a foot, kissed it, and said, "Goodnight, little feet." Then I repeated with the other one. Quinn loved that so much that he had me do it two or three times more, then I covered his feet up with the covers. Next I kissed his belly--creating many giggles--and said, "Goodnight, little tummy!" Then I moved on to each of his hands, his nose, his eyes, cheeks, and head. Finally, I gave him a hug and said, "Goodnight, little Quinn! Now it's time for you to lay down on your pillow." And...he did!

I covered him up, gave him a few more kisses and he waved to me as I left the room. He was asleep within 5 minutes. Now that is what you call serendipity. :) Who knows if it will work tomorrow, but I'm pretty sure he's going to want me to do it again. What a cutie.



~Regina

Saturday, March 16, 2013

Photo dump: My parents come to visit

Momma came down for several days to watch the kids while Wil and I went to a conference. She did a great job distracting them each morning as we left.
Poppa visited a couple times, too. Quinn seems to be very interested following him around and doing what he does. :)
And at the end of the week, we visited a REAL (historic) train station!




Waiting for the train.
On the train!






Momma with two of her grandbabies! :)

~Regina

Thursday, March 14, 2013

Vroom, Vroom, Vroom

Hey, look! A video! Do you remember what those are? ;) Even more amazing, the kids are playing NICELY together! Aurora is so tolerant of Quinn in this video that it's incredible. :)


~Regina

Sunday, March 10, 2013

Photo dump: Aquarium and Kiwi Crate

Our first visit to the Tennessee Aquarium since returning to Tennessee.

Quinn wasn't too sure about the butterflies...

And that same afternoon, we decided to do this month's Kiwi Crate!
We built a park...
...and made some fuzzy friends.



~Regina

Thursday, March 7, 2013

The No-Cry Sleep Solution Log: Day 150--Are we done yet? No.

We're all still a wee bit tired around here....
 
Rather than continuing to complain about teething, I'll just tell you that I complain A LOT about teething. It's been 13 weeks since this mess started, Quinn has cut 6 teeth, has 2 more almost all the way in, and 2 more just starting to poke through. Hopefully this will all be over in a month and we can finally SLEEP again.


And last night was not good; it wasn't the worst night we've had, but it wasn't good...

Day 150 Sleep Log Summary

Nap: 3 hours, 10 minutes (this has become normal, probably to make up for his awful night sleep)
Last time: 3 hours
Night time sleep: 8 hours, 35 minutes
Last time: 10 hours, 30 minutes
Wakings: 4-??? (depends upon how you count those 3 hours he was so restless it was hard to tell if he was awake or asleep or what)
Last time:
3
Total sleep per day: 11 hours, 45 minutes
Last time: 13 hours, 30 minutes
Recommended amount of sleep: 13-14 hours

And since I've never actually shown you what my nighttime log looks like as I write it, I thought I'd type it up. I would just take a picture of it, but my writing at 4am is fairly difficult to read. Whose wouldn't be???

I wrote:
6:30pm-- down in bed
7--up again
7:40--down in bed
8-- asleep
10-- up & back down by self
12:50am-- cry, nurse, back down. 10 min.
1:10-- starts coughing :(
2-- restful sleep resumes
4-- up & restless
4:50-- moved to packnplay
5:40-- back out & nurse
6--back in
6:10--asleep
7:45-- up for day

Yep, that's what my fancy-dancy sleep log actually looks like when I create it. Based on what I wrote, I can extrapolate or simply remember how long we were up at each waking. Most of the time, if it's a simple up-nurse-back down, then it takes less than 5 minutes. Other times, like last night, we're up and down and back and forth for 2 or more hours. Typically giving him painkiller helps with the restlessness, but last night it made no difference. The coughing didn't help anything at all, either.

I have a spreadsheet set up that I fill out based on what the book (The No-Cry Sleep Solution by Elizabeth Pantley) suggests. Obviously, I can't type everything into my computer during the night, so the spreadsheet get filled out the next morning based on my scratchings from the night before.

So that's about all I have to say today. It's just more of the same. No forward progress and thankfully not much backwards, either. We're just trying to hang on until these last teeth come through and we can reasonably expect some progress.

~Regina

Find all my No-Cry Sleep Solution logs here!

Wednesday, March 6, 2013

Photo dump: Random

I don't think these need any description...










~Regina

Sunday, March 3, 2013

Postive Peer Pressure

I'm mainly writing this down so that I'll remember it...

This evening after dinner, while Quinn was taking his bath, Wil instructed Aurora to pick up the Duplo that the kids had played with all day. Aurora promptly threw a fit that it was "too much" and that she couldn't hold the bag AND put duplo into it. She continued in this vein for the next 30 minutes, slowly losing privilege after privilege. Nothing budged her. Typical evening, really...unfortunately.

Towards the end of this, Quinn came out of his bath and was dressed. He ran out and picked up a Duplo car to play with it. I told him we were cleaning up and asked him to instead put it away in the Duplo bag. He burst into tears and even as he wailed piteously, he stood up, walked over to the bag, and--still crying--put the car into the bag.

What happened next was amusingly impressive. I thanked Quinn for obeying even though he was upset about it and asked him to go get another Duplo to put in the bag. He perked up and ran to get more. Aurora, who had been watching quietly, suddenly realized she was going to be shown up by her baby brother. She jumped up and started gathering as many Duplo as she could grab. The room was cleaned by both kids within 5 minutes.

We've seen Aurora respond to Quinn in this way before. His willingness to obey in cleaning up has actually vastly improved her willingness to clean up, too. However, this was a very clear example of it. Oddly enough, this competitive spirit only motivates her when it comes to cleaning up. No where else does she seem to feel the need to keep Quinn from besting her. Obviously, we need to be careful in setting up any situations that would create a competition between the kids, so we aren't sure how or if we're going to "use" this. However, I'm pretty sure we'll be making sure the kids clean up TOGETHER from now on. ;)

~Regina

Saturday, March 2, 2013

Photo dump: Trip home!

Wake up, sleepy heads!

At the airport, in capes!

Breakfast at our gate.
Airplane fun...




Tired baby...
Yay for a layover!
Airport monorail!
Sleeping!

WE'VE LANDED!!
Fast asleep, finally in Chattanooga for dinner...
And refusing to go BACK to sleep...

Three weeks later, we are finally back on Eastern time and feeling like we have a normal schedule again.

~Regina