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My 7 month, 1 week old baby finally slept through the night!

Breaking News: Kai slept from 7 pm until 5 am without waking up and crying once!
It is amazing!

To sleep: perchance to dream

Kai is 7 and 1/2 months!(actually he was 7 months one week when I wrote that)
Here he is with his sleep buddy a lion from BlaBla. It is great for him because he can grab it, bend it, toss it around. It was one of the first things I bought for Kai while pregnant. I'm glad because he loves it. I am thinking I need to get a double in case anything were to happen with this guy.

SO we decided to consult a sleep consultant. We are working on the sleep.
More on that later. Funny how as soon as we start we talk to the sleep consultant but before we started the plan Kai slept 4 1/2 hours in a row.. something he hasn't done if forever. Also funny how I went to a sample baby class and I meet, not one but two moms whose babies wake every 2-3 hours to nurse with babies over 10 months. It confirms what I expected.. if I were around more breastfed babies there would be more waking. The one girl reminded me of me a couple months ago- so sleep deprived and distraught about the idea of letting her baby cry. It has been a long process and through lots of research and watching Kai I no longer think the crying is damaging to Kai. Rather I am more on the other side of the fence that yes it takes some frustration in babies to learn to sleep on there own but crying is just a way of expressing themselves. I try not to get my own feelings caught up in his crying. Babies cry that is what they do, the only way they can talk at first. There are always times that they cry - in the car seat, at the doctor ect.
Ultimately I decided Kai and is mom not sleeping and having poor sleep habits going into toddler hood would be far far more pervasively damaging. But I really didn't want to see that for a long time, I didn't accept it because as a mom it is never easy to hear you baby cry at all. I also read about RIE philosophy that makes so much and helped me look at things from a different point of view. So I think we are headed towards much more healthy sleep. I need it.. I still have restless legs every night that started in my 9th month of pregnancy. I think it is just from not sleeping enough. I also keep getting cankersores in my mouth... my body aches for sleep. Soon, soon we will all be in happy dreamland..well at least until teething resumes!

In other news are also looking for a house or condo to buy. It is so confusing. We can't decide where would be good to live..In LA there aren't many places that are somewhat affordable and safe and have good schools. I am sure we will find something we are happy with but it will probably take a little longer than we think.

Kai always has that giraffe when he is in his stroller, my mom thought he had no other toys. It's just that he likes to chew on that and hold it. It is Sophie the giraffe, a very popular teether for babies. We call him Sophocles instead because he's a boy.

Still waiting for those teeth!

Sleep has been rocky lately.. as you can see Kai still manages to get his laughter in at some point, even though he is a little crankier during the day.
I am thinking we are going to have to do the sleep training all over again :(
because I have just been feeding him whenever hew wakes lately. I am just waiting for the teeth to pop through. I can see the one top corner but it doesn't seem to be making much progress.

Oh and he is actually 19lbs now not 18..

Joy is in the little things..a cool breeze on a sunny day...

You can't tell from the pictures but this day at the park there was a cool breeze blowing in Kai's face. I loved watching his reaction to it..He loved it!

I should rename my blog life with baby...

My blog used to be where I put up some prints that I did or daily life.. Since Kai was born though it is more like daily snapshots of Kai.
I don't feel like going to the big spiel about how I thought I would be back to painting and drawing a month after Kai was born, Ha! How funny, things have worked out a little.. ok a lot different than I thought. What with the reflux and the sleeping and the steep learning curve. It has been all consuming..I know it has  maybe taken us a bit longer to get to other things. But I don't care. I am happy. I am just so in love with the little guy.
I mean how could any one resist this face?

My mom took this picture also.

Anyways here is one little painting

Teething

Kai has been working on cutting two more teeth for over a week. Finally we are starting to see them popping through or about to pop through. It is harder to tell with the upper ones.
    So we have been putting off the night weaning until after. Also I have been feeding here and there when he wakes, since he is uncomfortable. Still his sleep habits have gotten so much better. Now he almost never cries when we put him down, he just goes to sleep or just babbles and then goes to sleep.
That is good, now if he does cry I know something is bothering him so I go to him and soothe him. Last night he was really uncomfortable, even with the motrin. He kept waking so much, I was so tired that I finally just took him in bed with me. He still kept waking but at least he would go back to sleep. After the teeth break the surface I will get back to the night(er..early morning) weaning. I think with just some more effort I may finally be able to sleep 5 hours..I have hope but we will see!! At least I have the most delightful smiley baby. Who cares if I can't sleep!

   Kai finally went for his 6 month appointment, I figured if he isn't sleeping well, might as well get the vaccines now. We just got two vaccines, there was no reaction like the irritability and sleeplessness we had with the dtap at month 4. He was 6 months 2 weeks  when we went and weighed 18lbs. He is 26 1/2"

My parents were visiting from NY so my mom came with us to the Doctor. That was nice to have her there. My mom also took the above picture. Mr Smiley man. How cute?
My parents were here for a week, it was great to have the company. Kai loved it and Sasha loved it and so did I of course!

Kai's babbling also sounds more like words now. It always sounds like he is saying dada. Also he has been eating more solids. Carrots, sweet potatoes, squash and some avocado and still the rice cereal. He is always so interested in our food and wants it! But we are trying to take the food introducing very slow.

I think I have finally accepted it: I will never sleep again...

By never sleep I mean I won't be sleeping for 5 hours or more any time in the near future..maybe I won't sleep 5 hours until Kai is 1..6 more months. It certainly feels that way...It's ok. Maybe I don't need it.

So lets see day 8 of the sleep learning Kai woke again in the early morning around 2 and didn't go back to sleep for 2 hours. After that I added the 2:oo dream-feed back. I figured I would try to wean it in a couple weeks. So then for a few days things went pretty well.

Kai went to sleep between 7 and 7:30. Then I did a dream-feed at 10. Then I got 4 solid hours of sleep. Woohoo! Then I would do another dream-feed at 2.. then I would get broken up 4 hours of sleep because he would wake here and there and go back to sleep within minutes. Then he would be up around 6. His naps were going well also...but then he started having the signs of teething again- runny nose first, just one time, then irritability, putting both hands in his mouth, getting a drool cough and waking more. So that means we put the sleep learning on hold. That was 3 nights ago. Yesterday I could only get him to take two naps..one was 45 minutes after giving him Tylenol and the other was 30 minutes nursed to sleep while I held him. Last night I didn't do any dream feeds I just nursed him when he woke up 3 times. 10:45, 1:05 and 4:30 Then he woke up at 5:50. We gave him baby Motrin last night I think that is why he didn't wake as much. It works better than Tylenol.

Luckily though Kai is never all that irritable, actually I think when he doesn't get sleep he gets delirious and laughs a lot. Sometimes lately I have to hold him longer but that is the worse that happens. That is good. If I weren't sleeping and he was crying I think I would lose it.

Lately he does a couple funny things. First he loves to make this sound with his lips- a raspberry type sound. He does it all the time. The other thing he does is scrunch up his nose when he smiles. It's so cute.

There are those teeth again! I can't imagine which teeth are coming in now. I Know it is supposed to be the top middle two..

Sleep Learning with SleepEasy solution day 7

Last night - a week from when we started this process Kai went down to sleep without even crying. I did a dream feed at 10:30. I decided to keep this feed until he started to eat more. We were supposed to have no other feeds since we had weaned him down to 2 minutes the night before on the last feed. I thought that he might wake up, like he did the morning before and sure enough he did. But this morning he woke up at 2:40! and he would not go back to sleep. He was crying on and off for and hour and a half or maybe it was more like two hours. He was not going back to sleep.

I feel like there are a few issues involved here. He was definitely hungry.
Also I wonder if he can get enough milk just during the day because he has always nursed such a short time- only about 6 minutes at a time. I wonder if he started this because of his reflux. So now I am trying decide if I should keep a 2 am feeding until he starts eating more solids in a few more weeks. Then..maybe try to wean it really slowly, like 30 seconds every other night, like a mommy and me teacher suggested. I really do not want to have another morning like today.

After it was nearing two hours and he started to cry a lot I waited for him to calm down then turned on the lights like it was time to get up. Took him to the other room for less than five minutes. Then changed his diaper, sang some lullabies then nursed him. Then I did the usual routine of carrying him around a little and singing. Then I put him back down in the crib. He cried a little but was asleep in less than 15 minutes.

The authors of the book would probably say taking him out was the wrong thing to do BUT I just knew he wouldn't go back to sleep without eating.

SO my dream of sleeping 5 hours in a row maybe be a little ways off yet. Even if I could get two 4 hour sleep sessions a night that would be a wonderful start. We will see.

**update I think that Sleep Easy solution helped us in the first step of getting Kai to sleep. I did find the weaning method too much and it just dragged out the crying process for us. I think it is a great book for the baby who is already night weaned or only eating once a night or so. I was hoping for a quick easy solution and for us it took longer and it took a sleep consultant.It also is a process that needs to be done over again after sickness or teething (if teething really bothers your baby) It's not easy. But I still think it is best to instill good sleeping habits between 4-9 months when it is easiest. It may not be the right anwser for all moms and babies but for those whose babies wake a lot it may be the only anwser.