Archive for May, 2008

The 2nd Night

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Yet again, we tried the Ferber Method last night and the results were about 100% better than the first night. I’m not sure if it has something to do with when we give him his bath or not, but normally, when I was rocking him to sleep, we would start our bedtime routine at 8pm. Ian would get a bath, then dressed into his pajamas, and then we would go in and sit in the rocker. Usually, this is the time he gets a couple of teething tablets and a drink of water before we start rocking. Then by 9pm he is out and in his bed.

The last two nights, we’ve been giving him his bath closer to 8:30pm and then putting him in his bed by 9pm. As previously stated, the first night was a little rough. Last night, we laid Ian in his crib around 9:10pm and he was quiet by 9:15pm. We didn’t hear a peep out of him until 7:15am this morning. He not only slept through the entire night, but he didn’t have any problems whatsoever.

While this is good news, I’m not celebrating yet. It’s only the second night and it could very well be a fluke. So we’ll see how he does tonight and the next couple of nights before the celebrations begin.

the Morning After

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Remind me why we are doing this again. When I was rocking him to bed at night, he only got up once and that was on occasion. Last night, he got up every 1.5 hours and screamed for a good 5 minutes before going back to sleep. Even then, we ended up getting up at least once (both of us) each time he did wake up just to make sure he was alright. This morning, we’re all tired and, I have a feeling, we’re going to be for the next couple of days as well. Hopefully, Ian will take to it better tonight.

The First Night

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So tonight was the first night we tried the Ferber Method. While I am so not a fan of this method, Ian did pretty well with it. Who am I kidding, we both were a mess, but it only took Ian about 20 minutes to fall asleep. And I want to say at least 5-10 minutes of that I was in there trying to comfort him, but I only picked him up once and he was back in his crib within two minutes. He didn’t like that he wasn’t getting rocked to sleep, and he was getting so red in the face that it was bothering me. However, I didn’t cry this time. :)

In all honestly, we’ve tried this before and he’s never liked it, but he did go down eventually. I’m the one who usually caved because I couldn’t handle him crying. This time, we’re going to keep at it.

And the heartache begins…

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I took Ian to see the doctor today and we received some news that will be hard for me. I have to stop rocking Ian to sleep. NO! There’s nothing wrong with him. Man, do you think I would write about something like that this quickly?! Anyway, Ian’s been waiting up in the middle of the night screaming the last week or so and while we though it was constipation (the prune juice did it’s work), it didn’t fix it entirely. So just to make sure there wasn’t anything else wrong, I took him in to see the Doc. The prognosis…Ian is having nightmares or waking up during the night and since I rock him to sleep, he doesn’t know how to fall back asleep.

The doc basically told us we need to get Ian out of our room and he needs to learn to fall asleep on his own. This is something we’ve known for awhile, but due to the living situation, we were waiting until we got the house to start it. However, I don’t think we’re going to have that option. The longer we put this off, the harder it’s going to get. Ideally, we would be able to move Ian out of our room, but where would we put him? In the office where the cats wrecked it and it stills smells after multiple carpet cleanings or in the living room where we usually are since we don’t go to bed at the same time as Ian? We could always set the pack and play up in our room and then move it out into the living room when we go to bed, but I’m pretty sure that’ll wake Ian up.

As for sleeping, the doc recommended the Ferber Method. The basic idea, put Ian to bed while he is awake and leave him in there. If he starts to cry, let him and don’t go in to comfort him for 5 minutes, without picking him up. Then leave and let him cry for another 10 minutes and repeat. I’m not crazy about the cry it out method and I really don’t like the idea that we have to use it, but what else could we do? The idea that I’m just suppose to sit in the living room, ignoring my son’s cries is something I don’t want to do. I know I have to, but it’s going to be, both physically and emotionally, hard for me. If something is upsetting him, why would I let him cry when I can fix it? We tried this when Ian was a lot younger (about 2 months I think) and I couldn’t do it. I would spend the entire time crying and I wasn’t going to go through that. However, now that my hormones are back to normal (or as normal as they’ll get) and I’m more used to his crying, maybe it’ll work. I’ve heard good and bad stories about the Ferber Method, so I’m willing to try it (I guess), but I would love to find another way to get Ian to fall asleep on his own.

So now I’m doing some research on the Ferber Method and here are some sites I’ve found:

  1. The Ferber Method Helps Some Children Sleep Longer research results
  2. Q&A With Dr. Ferber
  3. Slate Article arguing against the Ferber Method
  4. Ferber Method Demystified
  5. Solve Your Child’s Sleep Problems by Dr. Richard Ferber

So cute…

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So I’m heading into bed and I do my normal check on Ian….and then I saw how he was laying. He was sleeping on his stomach with his arms wrapped around the stuffed elephant that Lori got him for his first visit to the Zoo. It is so adorable, I wish I could find the camera so I could take a picture of it and show you. If I do find it within the next few moments, then I’ll try and take a picture without waking him.

Ian’s Current Favorites

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I actually came up with this a couple of months ago, but I just realized I haven’t posted it here. This is a report from Literary Escapism (my book blog), but the same is still true two months later.

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Yes, I read a lot and I’m trying to get my 12 month old son to read as well. At the moment, he has a couple of favorites and I have to say that they are awesome. Here’s a review on some really good boardbooks for toddlers.

Goodnight Baby by Ibaby is a really cute interactive book for Ian. It involves six barnyard animals where you have to put each baby to bed for the night. When we first started this book, he really didn’t do much with it but follow the pictures as I read. However, the more we read it, the more he realized that he could put the babies to bed instead of having me to do it. Now he continually brings the book to either Jesse or myself and sits on our laps so we can read it to him. He doesn’t do this with many books, but he loves this one more than any of the others. There are more books by the Ibaby line and I plan to buy more of them since Ian loves them so much and can interact with them as I read.

Another really good book is called That’s Not My Dragon by Fiona Watt and Rachel Wells. It’s part of the Usborne Touchy-Feely Board Books and every page has something different for Ian to touch and feel. It’s a very simple and repetitive book, which is great for him, and each page is filled with bright vibrant colors that attracts his eye to each character on the page. Each book in this series/collection involves different textures , so you’ll never get the same feeling and that’s great for toddlers. Ian actually picked out this line when he was a lot younger while we were in Borders. I was pushing him around the children’s section and he just zeroed in on That’s Not My Kitty and he’s been hooked ever since.

And one that tends to be everyone’s favorite – Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown & Clement Hurd. I honestly don’t get the draw of this book, but Ian seems to have fun with it. This is probably the only other book that he will bring to either Jesse or I to read. We can go through it four or five times before he gets bored with it. The pages alternate between black/white and color, and every page involves the same image. The first page shows us a bedroom and each page thereafter involves an object that is in that room and we say goodnight to it. The book is cute and, normally, it isn’t one I would have thought to pick up for him, but I think it’s a good thing that we were given a copy of it.

There are a couple others that have his attention right now. For his birthday, he received these six Tiny Play-a-Song books where each is a nursery rhyme and has the corresponding music attached to the book. I’m not sure where my mother-in-law found them, but Ian loves pushing the button to hear the music and he likes to push more than one at a time. We’ve found that if you push all the buttons at once, it sounds like bagpipes.

So those are his favorites at the moment. I came across a list of the Top 50 Children’s books and had posted it on his website. I won’t post it here, but here’s the link to it.

Also reviewed by:
Well Read Child

3 words…Ice Cream Sundae

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And the cleanup…

Sandboxes

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So we found out that Ian likes sandboxes last night. Go figure, a boy that likes to play in the sand. I know, not that big of a surprise. We went to check out the house again last night (hopefully we’ll be hearing something within the next week, but I’m not holding my breath) and there is a horse shoe pit already dug. While Jesse was checking out the inside, Ian and I went outside to play in the backyard and he found the sand. Man did he get dirty.

Since we saw the house again, I went a took a quick look at what would be Ian’s room and decided that the previous color scheme wouldn’t work. There is white molding around the top of his room, so adding another white strip in the middle wouldn’t work as well. Never fear, I’ve already found a new theme I like. I found it at Home Depot, but Behr Paints has Disney themes and one of their themes (My Friends Tigger and Pooh) has a really cute design. Now, I’m not going to decorate Ian’s room in Winnie the Pooh, but the basic idea of it is really doable. The concept is the 100 acre woods, where you have green grass, blue skies, and white clouds with some trees thrown in. All I would have to do is leave off the Pooh characters and it would be a great outdoor theme that is also light and fun. Here’s the sample pic and color palette. If you click on the first picture, it’ll take you to a virtual tour of the room. Now remember, I wouldn’t be adding the Pooh stencils, but the basic design is really cute. So what do you think?


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