Phase Two

Hello everyone,

It's been a while, sorry about that. My work at home and beyond is very encapsulating. For an update, the sleep issue is getting better. We've been giving him a consistent night time routine (at least when I'm home). I read to him and then sing to him. When we start walking to his room he already starts to cry because he knows what is going to happen. Usually he'll cry for about 10-15 minutes and then sleep. I wish that were a lot less, but I guess for now I'll take it. He is only waking up one time at night. If he wakes up another time I'll ignore it and he'll fall back to sleep. Now, when he wakes up, instead of crying, he is yelling "mama." I guess I should feel happy that he knows my name and he knows what he wants, but it makes it a little harder to ignore him. All in all, it's an improvement.

Today I had a day off to spend with Henry. We went for a nice walk in the park and then I bought some new fruits and vegetables for him. These are apricots, plums, nectarines, zucchini and beets. My mom would say that beets are not a good idea, but I decided to go for it. I'm curious to see how he'll react with these. I'm going to try to set up a quiz for everyone to guess if he'll like them all or not. We'll see if it works.

First Word! and Sleep Update

I can't believe he's already talking, but he's definitely started saying "Mama" in reference to Laura! I don't really know when the various milestones are to come, and I had no idea he'd have a word so early. He's just a baby! Babies don't talk! But apparently Laura had her first word (also Mama) at the same age as Henry (8 months). My dad always says I was talking when I was born, but I don' actually know when my first word was.


The great sleep struggle continues...we're still doing "phase one," in which Laura will feed him on demand during the night, but put him down immediately after. Happily, he has quickly adjusted to this, and really doesn't fuss at all anymore when she puts him down. BUT, he's getting up three times a night! It makes things pretty easy for me, because he doesn't keep me up crying and I don't have to take turns trying to sooth him. But Laura just cannot get rested between all the night feedings and the 60-80 hour work weeks. So it needs to move on to phase two (only allowing him one feeding per night) soon. Maybe even tonight (I'm on duty while Laura is at the hospital overnight).

I don't know if it is related to us putting him down during the night or not, but he has stopped going to sleep in our arms. He'll be obviously tired, and I'll try to sooth him to sleep like we've always done, but he just can't settle all the way down. So we're putting him down while he's still awake but tired now, which is just going okay - he cries between 5-15 minutes before going to sleep usually (sometimes more), which isn't very fun to listen to. We've been doing this for probably a week now, and it doesn't seem like he's getting any quicker at it. I'm sure he will though.

Overall though, things are great, and he just gets more and more enjoyable as time goes on.

Pictures From Dean & Val

Lots of great Henry photos from Dean & Val on Shutterfly.

Letting Him Cry

Alright,

So I (Laura), am ready for Henry to cry through the night. It's been getting worse to where he is staying up after I feed him in the middle of the night. I suppose it's my crazy schedule and he never knows when I'm being around. I dream of someday waking up refreshed.
So we've decided to try it. We are currently on Phase one of the plan. For now when Henry cries in the middle of the night I will feed him, but put him back in bed. If he cries after that I will not pick him up. Phase two will be feeding him only one time a night. Phase three is a full night without food or intervention. By looking at his belly it is obvious he is not deprived of food and does not need his little midnight feeds.
Last night was our first attempt and it actually went pretty well. He woke up around 2 or so, I fed him and put him back. He was pretty mad and cried pretty hard for about 20 minutes, but then did okay after that. He woke up again around 5, and I did the same thing, but he only cried for a little bit. Then, he actually slept until 10am. I don't think he's ever done that.
We'll keep you posted. If this keeps going well there maybe more blogs because I may actually have energy.
Keep your fingers crossed!

Walking With a Little Help From Grammy

No news is good news?

Well, really not much new to report in Henry land as of late. He's been a happy little guy for the most part. Keeps getting more and more mobile. Wants to be up on his feet most of the time, and needs surprisingly little support in order to stay up. He's started "scooting" some too (taking steps while holding on to something). His nights haven't been very good for several weeks now...waking up once or twice a night for the most part. He does go right back to sleep after eating, so it's not like we're up walking him around, but some solid nights' sleep sure would be nice!

Sort of crawling...

Laura thinks it counts as crawling, but I'm not so sure...

I call it "lunging." Either way, it's pretty cute: