Everly is three!

Reblogged from little wren:

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I had a little getaway in Victoria this weekend to visit one of my best friends Jess and her wonderful family. It’s a trip I have made many, many times before… I have been going over pretty much once a month since my god daughter Everly was 6 months old… and this week she turns three – three!

I can’t believe how fast the time has gone!

Read more… 265 more words

The fabulous Hello Little Wren Blog just did a lovely piece on Everly's Third Birthday party! While you are there, check out some of her super fun DIY's... We will be trying those cupcake liners!

30

I turned 30 on Tuesday March 13. I remembered that I had a list of goals somewhere of things I wanted to accomplish when I turned 30. I dug it up. It was written in  2002, I was 20. I would have been in my second year of university. I had just met my friend Lauren (we had a 100 level Psych class together and also both worked at Gap). We were talking about goals and she shared with me how she had written a list of things to do before she turned 30. I thought that it sounded like a great idea and did it myself. I wrote the list in a spiral bound notebook with a purple gel pen, yes complete with sparkly gel ink. No I did not, however, dot my “i’s” with hearts. When I looked at the goals on my list I laughed out loud. Oh what goes on in the mind of 20-year-olds. There are a few things I would have liked to see on the list, and a few things I am embarrassed are on the list. So without further ado, here is the list, complete with annotations (of course).

Things to do before I’m 30:

1) Graduate Uvic with a GPA of 6.5 or higher. This one was a check! 7.25 was my GPA in fourth year. I finished overall with a 6.75. I may have slightly crapped the bed in third year as far as GPA goes, B+ was most common as I had other things keeping me busy, lol! I had met a really fun group of girls and well, let’s just say that I had many late nights- but I wasn’t studying! Looking back I get a little annoyed with my third year self, but then in the grand scheme of things what does it really matter.

2) Get my Audi Roadster. Fail. I laughed when I read this one. The movie About a Boy and the reviews in a car magazine shot down my dreams for this one. The movie demonstrated how kid-unfriendly this vehicle was for his son “Ned.” The car magazine highlighted the car’s poor visibility. Good visibility in a vehicle is important when you only have one working eye! My husband was quick to point out that we have a BMW x5 and it’s German so he figures this one should still be a check.

3) Live somewhere other than Victoria. Check. I spent 3 months living in Melbourne, Australia and I loved it. Actually I kind of wish I was there right now. It is the end of summer there, ahhhh summer.

4) See the British Isles. This one gets a 3/4 check. I have been to Scotland and England, but still have yet to get to Ireland. A chunk of my husband’s family tree comes from Ireland, so I hope that makes us more likely to visit one day.

5) Visit Australia. Check. I lived in Melbourne to complete my fourth year Practicum at the Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne. After my three months there, I spent 3 weeks traveling from Sydney to Cairns. I loved Australia and I would go back there in 10 seconds if I had the opportunity.

6) Own a designer purse. Check. Oh 20-year-old me, the things that were important to you. This one made me groan when I read it. I was in the phase of reading Confessions of a Shopaholic and well, let’s just say that I could relate to Becky. My first designer purse was a little over the shoulder style by Kate Spade, I still have it despite the fact that it is out of date. Kate Spade introduced me to a world of bags, and from there I was hooked. Coach was next up, and then on to Marc Jacobs (swoon). My bag now- JuJuBe. Ha- diaper bag. Although I must say that it is a bad ass diaper bag! Hmmm, maybe I still have the bag lust. Oh well, ha ha.

7) Go to Thailand. Fail; but I am not sad about this fail.This was an “everyone and their mother” goal, as in “everyone and their mother was going to Thailand” so of course I had to go too and see what all the fuss was about. Now that I know more about traveling though Southeast Asia, I really have no desire to anymore. Well, if I could stay in one of those ecoresorts with the huts on the water I would go, but that’s about it. I am not a backpacker. I think I was the only 19 year old who traveled through Europe with a suitcase on wheels, lol.

8) Own something from Tiffany & Co. Check! This goal had deep roots. Ever since I was 13 years old and saw Breakfast at Tiffany’s I was smitten. “Oh, golly gee damn!” I needed to own something from Tiffany & Co. and have it engraved on site. Well turns out that the turnaround time for engraving the bracelet that I picked out was longer than I had days in New York City, so it was never engraved. But now I think it was fate, because the bracelet I got had a dangling heart and I think that the letters “E” and “M” would be the perfect addition. There was a reason it was not engraved; my heart was not yet complete. When I return to New York, my first stop will be Tiffany & Co. for some engraving and I will be able to tell E and M all about it. How fun is that. Oh and the bracelet I got, it’s actually worth more now than when I got it, because the price of silver has gone up so much, nice! I totally knew that would happen, it was my plan all along. The bracelet was an investment piece.

9) Get married and plan my own wedding. Check. I married the person I was with when I wrote the list… 6 years later

10) Live in my own house. Fail; but again, not sad about it. When I wrote this list, it was conceivable that I could buy a condo and have it paid off by the time I was 30. Yeah, things have changed a wee bit. I consider something my own when I have paid for it. I am in no rush to rent from the bank right now at these prices. B has made me so aware of what is going on in our real estate market and honestly the thought of buying something right now makes me nauseated. One day maybe, but definitely not in the near future!

11) Have children and design their rooms myself. Check. I had no idea what I was getting into with this one. No idea. I can’t imagine my life without my kids, wait, wait a minute now, I think I can… hmmmm… ahhhh… okay, okay I wouldn’t trade them for the world, they’re awesome. Designing their rooms was too fun. I can’t wait until they get a bit older and need “new” rooms, lol!

12) Have a designer wallet. Check. Ha ha, said walled was acquired during the “Coach” phase. It is going on 6 years old now, so if you really think about it, it was actually a pretty good investment.

13) Stay in South America to do a tour of countries (Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Peru). Fail. This fail I am sad about. I really wanted to do this one, but time and money ran out on me. I will get there someday, this goal will make it to the next list! Fear not South America, I will be visiting.

14) Have at least one picture of everyone that I love and have loved. Epic check. This one gets a big fat check with stars. I currently have 108, 049 personal photos on my computer, and I only went digital in 2003. I have been an avid photographic record keeper since 1999, and I have the albums, and rubbermaid totes of printed photos and negatives to show for it. Oh wait… and then there are 753 photos on my iphone. When I wrote this, I didn’t picture myself becoming a professional photographer, I was in school getting a Bachelors Degree in child development, I was going to save the world, one dying child at time. I like what I do now much better.

15) Stay at a spa or B&B. Check. Funny enough, I can actually thank my former job at the Victoria Native Friendship Centre for this one. While working with them I stayed at a few spas. You know what? For the life of me I can not figure out why on earth this was a goal. Maybe I thought it was glamorous or romantic. Weird. My next list needs to have justifications so that I remember why, ha ha. I have a feeling that my 30′s are going to be much more of a whirlwind.

16. Visit New York City. CHECK. Insert some Jay-Z and Alicia Keys here. Ahhh, NYC, what can I say about that place. Nothing bad. You know when you go on a long trip and then come home and walk around your hometown and down your street and you feel “at home?” Well that’s how I felt straight off the airport shuttle bus in New York City. I walked down the street and felt, “these are my people.” NYC was such a magical place, I never wanted to leave. Ask my Aunt who came with me… I barfed on the plane I was so upset. When I see New York on tv or in movies, or even read about it in books I feel homesick. I didn’t know that you could feel homesick for somewhere that you had only spent a week in. Oh but you can. Let us pause here while my heart cries because now I am feeling homesick for New York City. I will be back.

And there you have it, my goals! I am currently working on part 2 of this post… Things to do before I turn 40…

10 Hours

So my last post on our sleep training was February 6. We lasted what, four days? Yikes. After those few days I said screw it and I went right back to what I was doing before. I thought it couldn’t get worse than M getting up every 30-60 minutes, but oh dear God yes it could! One night it took me two hours to get him asleep in his crib, and he slept for… Wait for it… F.I.V.E. minutes, yes five minutes and then he was up again. I took another 30 to put him back down and he slept ten minutes. Done. Done. Done. Done. I quit.

So we went another week doing what we did before, keeping M in bed with us and nursing on demand. If you haven’t realized this by now, M is very demanding.

When I visited our local health unit for his immunizations, I told the nurse about our sleeping and solid food aversion struggles. She immediately felt that M was hungry and that’s why he wasn’t sleeping. Yes, we thought that too, but what is to be done if he won’t eat food? Well formula was to be done.

The F word. Formula. I felt like an instant failure as a breastfeeding mother, and I shared this with the nurse. And that nurse being, “so smart and so slick, thought up a lie, and thought it up quick.” (thank you Dr. Suess). Okay maybe she didn’t lie, but she definitely worked an angle. She said that since M wasn’t taking solids he was at risk for developing anemia and would potentially need iron supplements, she said that formula has added iron and would be somewhere to start for a tiny boost. She recommended a brand and I left feeling like it wasn’t the end of the world.

So I researched formula for a few days. I asked our pediatrician what she recommended and I asked the pharmacist. They all told me the same brand, and it was one that git rave reviews on the internet, so that’s the one I went with. I didn’t think it would be our cure, but I figured that after 7 months of trying the same thing, it could not hurt to try something else. What’s the definition of insanity again… Doing the same thing over and over but expecting different results? Yeah that was me.

So we started with half and half bottles for his last feed on that Wednesday, he slept a little longer, but nothing huge. Same thing for Thursday night. I pumped before bed both of these nights and did not get a ton of milk, so I wasn’t completely sold that it was the formula making him more full, I felt it was more that the quantity he was taking in was keeping him full. I was just “too empty” in the evening. It’s been a struggle for me to make enough milk for this kid and I have been doing everything I can to just hold out until the time for solids. And of course now he wants to be difficult about that (but that’s another post).

I figured that the extra milk was definitely a turn to the right direction. And wanted to take our plans to the next level. I thought about our sleep training experience and analyzed the shit out of it. I came up with one conclusion- I was the problem. So I did the best thing I could think of and made plans to remove myself from the situation.

I made plans for myself and Everly to sleep over at my parents’ house for the weekend, leaving B and baby Matthew to work things out. We decided that the goal was to get M sleeping in his crib and weaned off the night feeds. Since B had never slept with him, nor fed him in the middle of the night I was sure he would have a better chance at success. I knew that M would not have those sleep associations with his dad that he had with me, and my hope was that with his dad he would make new habits! I have to admit that I was a bit hesitant to let go of control, but I had the self-awareness to see that under my control things were no working and it was time to pass the job on to someone else. If only our politicians were able to do this!

Matty’s first night with B he slept from 8:00 to 12:00, 12:00 to 4:00 and 4:00 to 8:00. When B texted me this information I was floored. The little jerk. The next night was even better, M skipped the 12:00am feed and just did 4:00am and 6:30am. By Sunday night B felt it was safe for me to come home. That Sunday night M slept from 8:00 to 6:00, ate, and went back to sleep until 8:00. He had slept 10 hours in a row, his longest sleep stretch of all time. That was such a milestone of success in this house. I was over the “Goodnight Moon.” That Monday night he slept from 8:00pm to 8:12am. And we had officially entered The Twilight Zone.

The two weeks the followed this successes were the time in my life I would like to refer to as “Sexy Sleep Bliss.” It was heaven. M would go to sleep by 8:00pm, hello evenings back to ourselves, and then be up for the day at 8:00am. Sometimes he slept right through and other days he woke up at 6:00-6:30 to eat and then go back to sleep. I didn’t mind that at all. I was able to get up, have a shower, and eat a hot breakfast (the ultimate luxury). Life was good. It’s amazing how much different you feel when you are getting 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep each night!

And then… (insert the sound of a scratching record here) Matty started getting teeth. Oh glorious, glorious Murphy and his Law, praise be to Murphy. I would seriously like to get a hold of that Murphy and introduce him to some medieval forms of punishment. My local wax museum has given me a few choice ideas. The first tooth erupted on March 5, and we are currently waiting on its neighbor, who is slow out the gate despite prime conditions.

This teething time has been not so ideal. He is up at least twice a night now, usually three. I started nursing him at these night wakings as well. I felt guilty denying him and letting him cry when I know he is in pain. But I have always put him back in the crib awake. So, I am hoping that all hope is not lost, and once this second tooth pops out he will go back to “normal” and by normal I mean the recent sleep habits that allowed me to feel human. Yeah, that’s kind of selfish to say, but really it is in his best interests for me to be getting enough sleep. I’m a much nicer person.

I was hesitant to blog about our sleep success, I was being very superstitious! I was worried that the minute I published the post, he would slide back into his old routine. So I figured why not talk about it now, when we aren’t getting any sleep anyway! Lol. The saga continues…

Progress.

The weekend was a bit of a gong show. Friday night we stuck to our plan, but Saturday and Sunday we slid backwards to our old ways. We had some fun events planned during the day on both days, and they ended up conflicting with our routine. I know that you are supposed to stay as close to your schedule as possible, but we are not a sit at home all the time family, and we don’t plan on becoming one. I feel that it’s best that our kids learn to be adaptable. Everly is, and with any luck Matty will be too. So he slept in our bed. But you know what, he actually slept pretty decent. Last night he did some three hour and two hour stretches, that’s bliss in this house!

Tonight is back to our sleep plan!

Fourth Night

Nuff said…

Third

The third night of sleep training is always supposed to be the worst apparently… I am going to have to agree, and I can back up my claim with proof. I would like to bring to your attention my first piece of evidence:

And my second piece of evidence for you to examine…

Yes, that is a big blank space. That blank space represents my mind, I’ve lost it, it’s blank, doesn’t exist anymore. As you can see from the photo, he was a whole lot easier to put down the first time. Silly me, I walked around proud as a peacock, thinking of course that he was “getting it,” and of course that he would sleep four hours again. Nope. The little bugger was just messing with my mind.

So there you have it, the third night has by far been the worst!

Once he came into our bed I didn’t bother trying him in the crib again. I was so exhausted. Before I started this whole sleep training thing I thought that I had nothing left to loose, he wasn’t sleeping for long periods anyway. But oh yes, there was more to loose. You see, there is that precious time in between.

When he is in bed, I only need to roll to the side and he latches on like a sucker fish, and then I fall back to sleep. When he is in his crib it’s more of a process. He takes 20 to 80 minutes to put to sleep and sleeps either 6 minutes, 45 minutes or 4 hours. The Vegas odds on the 4 hour stretch is currently 24 to 1. So each time I put him down, it’s a big gamble. I find it discouraging to put 80 minutes into putting him down to only get 6 minutes of sleep… Call me crazy.

It’s a good thing they’re cute.

On the second night…

Night two started off more challenging than night one. It took 80 minutes to put Matty down the first time, and then he slept for 6 minutes. Yep, 6 minutes. Just long enough for me to return a phone call to Everly’s preschool teacher. Another 20 minutes of rocking and soothing and he was down again. This stretch of sleep lasted 4 hours. Yep, 4 hours. He went down around 8:45 and was up around 12:45. And of course I figured he would be up in 45 minutes so I read a book in bed waiting for him. When I finished the book, I realized that a considerable amount of time had passed. Isn’t it amazing how quickly times flies when you are reading a good book!? I looked at the clock and noticed that it had been 2 hours! It was 10:45, wow. Time to go to sleep. And I fell asleep before I could reach the 70′s (to turn my brain off I will often count backwards from 100 with “ha” breathing in between numbers). I was shocked when I woke at 12:45. I spent another 50 minutes trying to put him back down in his crib, I even nursed him. When it was pushing 2:00am I gave up. He came back to bed with me. I nursed him again and he fell back asleep right away. I had high hopes, I’m not gonna lie. And the high hopes came to a crashing halt when he proceeded to wake up every hour for the rest of the night. He was up for the day at 7:57am.

I felt very discouraged. I tried to focus on the 4 hour stretch (which has happened less times than I have fingers), but I felt completely unmotivated to continue. My feels were evident apparently, as while I was changing Matty’s diaper B gave me a big hug. We decided that we will just keep doing what we are doing. Trying to put him down in his crib and hoping that he sleeps longer stretches. When it gets to be too much, he can come back to our bed. I forgot how discouraging sleep training is. At least this time I don’t have the guilt of letting him cry, that’s a bonus, lol, ah the little silver lining.

The First Night

So our first night had some success. Matty slept in his crib twice, he slept some longer stretches in bed with us, and twice he put himself back to sleep without nursing. And of course there were challenges… The first time I put him down it took 30 minutes and he slept for 45. The second time it took me 80 minutes and he slept for another 45. I was a little discouraged after this and B was helpful in offering to take over. Matty would have none of it and began screaming. After giving them a few minutes to sort it out, I walked into Matty’s room and scooped him up to be nursed back to sleep in our bed! Agh, I know. Where is the consistency. Well consistency left while heart and survival took over. Funny how that happens. We are going to stick to our plan tonight, (there’s your consistency), and I have no qualms with bringing him back to bed again. What I am hoping for is longer and longer stretches on his own. In 10 days I hope to see some difference. Below I have attached a photo of how the night went…

Sleep Logs

So the first step in our seep training process was to log night wakings and nap times. The book said to just do one day and night, but I did three nights and three days because I thought it would give me a better picture of how things are. Three full days gives some wiggle room for schedule changes and various other things that might pop up last minute (which in effect is a more realistic representation of our daily life!). So below are logs of Matthew’s night wakings and his naps:

NIGHT WAKINGS

January 24

9:04 Put down in bed, woke crying

9:16 Asleep (nursed)

9:53 Wakes nurses back to sleep

10:30 Evie briefly wakes him, goes back to sleep on his own

12:54 Wakes nurses back to sleep

1:58 Wakes nurses back to sleep

3:54 Wakes nurses back to sleep

4:48 Wakes nurses back to sleep

5:02 Wakes nurses back to sleep

5:45 Wakes nurses back to sleep

6:53 Wakes nurses back to sleep

8:26 Up for the day

TOTAL: 10h, 40m

January 25

9:00 Falls asleep nursing

9:40 Wakes up

10:12 Falls asleep nursing

11:06 Wakes nurses back to sleep

1:44 Wakes nurses back to sleep

3:02 Wakes nurses back to sleep

3:23 Wakes nurses back to sleep

4:14 Wakes nurses back to sleep

4:23 Wakes nurses back to sleep

5:55 Wakes nurses back to sleep

6:57 Wakes nurses back to sleep

8:20 Up for the day

TOTAL: 11h, 20m

January 26

8:30 Falls asleep nursing

9: 24 Wakes nurses back to sleep

10:15 Falls asleep

1:00 Wakes nurses back to sleep

2:32 Wakes nurses back to sleep

3:08 Wakes nurses back to sleep

3:50 Wakes nurses back to sleep

4:53 Wakes nurses back to sleep

5:41 Wakes nurses back to sleep

6:33 Wakes nurses back to sleep

6:49 Falls asleep

7:30 Wakes nurses back to sleep

8:15 Up for the day

TOTAL: 10h, 10m

NAP LOG

January 24 (no preschool)

8:45 am - up for the day.

10:48 am - down for nap, fell asleep nursing, put in vibrating chair.

11:20 am - wakes up happy cooing.

1:30 pm - down for nap, fell asleep nursing, put in vibrating chair.

2:00 pm - wakes up cooing, then cries.

4:15 pm - down for nap, fell asleep nursing then moved to vibrating chair, he woke so I bounced it and he went to sleep.

4:40 pm - wakes from nap, coos.

7:51 pm - falls asleep nursing.

8:20 pm - wakes and I put him on other breast. Drinks a bit, pulls off, stares into space and falls asleep.

January 25 (preschool)

8:30 - wakes

9:30 - falls asleep in car

9:40 - wakes

10:15 - falls asleep in car

10:35 - wakes

11:30 - falls asleep in stroller

12:20 - wakes

3:00 - goes down being bounced in vibrating chair

4:00 - wakes up cooing

6:30 - down for nap

7:00 - wakes from nap quiet alert

January 26 (preschool & swimming)

9:30 falls asleep in car

9:40 wakes upon arrival

10:55 falls asleep in car

11:40 wakes

1:55 falls asleep nursing, put in vibrating chair

2:46 wakes up

7:50 falls asleep nursing

8:25 wakes up crying

In case you are wondering- YES, I do wish we had a gas oven some mornings. But then I sit back and reframe it. I am lucky to have my healthy baby, and he is a typical baby. Recently I had a date with a fellow mom and we talked about how the baby that wakes during the night is actually the “normal” baby, not the one that sleeps 12 hours uninterrupted. Research it, you will find the same. But for some reason, us walking dead moms have “abnormal” and “bad” babies. My friend and I both agreed that it raises our backs to have people make comments like this, as there is NOTHING wrong with our babies. The problem is that our babies’ sleep cycles do not coincide with ours and so we are tired! That’s mother nature’s fault if you ask me! I will never again have these days with Matthew, so I refuse to be negative about them because I am not getting any sleep.

Now with that said, here we go with sleep training, lol. Like I mentioned before, we are sleep training because it is time for Matthew to be in his own bed. After six months of co-seeping, I am seeing signs that it is time to make the switch. Some of these signs?? Well for one, I am waking him through the night as I roll about in my sleep. Additionally, he is starting to go down earlier for the night than I do (8:00pm) and so it makes sense that he should be put to bed in a safe and quiet place. Also, I don’t think that him sleeping next to the all night buffet is helping the night waking situation at all! Oh and one more- I am so exhausted I don’t think it’s safe for me to continue on like this. There have been days where I feel like I am on drugs or drunk, there have been days I have not driven the car because it didn’t feel safe. It’s time for some full adult sleep cycles and regenerative sleep.

Now onto our plan… The plan starts tonight. It involves three strategies really:

1) pull Matthew off the breast before he fully falls asleep. Although sucking to soothe is a great reflex, being a human pacifier all night long is really tiring! My intention is to help Matthew learn that he can fall asleep in another way.

2) at a night waking, I will wait 2 minutes to see if he is actually awake, if awake I will rock him back to sleep instead of nursing. I am choosing to use the rocking chair, as he really seems to respond well to motion. And I am going to start out with me rocking him, but if he gets too pissed off with being denied the boob this may become dad’s job so that it isn’t so hard on him.

3) a bedtime routing. We don’t have one right now, well not a consistent one. His night time routine will begin around 7:30 (depending on the time of his third nap), he will have a bath, short massage, song, book and then nursed.

Once we have night time sleep under control we will work on naps. Matthew is an inconsistent napper and it makes sense that he would be as his days are really inconsistent. I feel like I only have the energy to tackle one issue at a time so we are starting with night time. I can handle having a snack napper again. So, for daytime sleep I am going to continue to do whatever I need to do to get him to sleep and I am not going to worry about how he gets to sleep and where he sleeps. Sleep begets sleep, so my Hope is that if he gets enough daytime sleep it will help us at night time.  And yes, that is hope with a capital “H.”

Oh and did I mention that Evie will be undergoing some sleep training of her own this week as well? I didn’t… well she is. For the last 6 months B has been sleeping in bed with her so that he could actually get a decent night’s sleep. So now Everly is used to having someone sleep next to her. She is a typical toddler in that she will go to bed and sleep on her own until the wee hours of the morning, and then she sounds the air raid sirens. B sleeping next to her has kind of killed two birds with one stone. We knew it was a dangerous deal we were making; all deals come with a cost/reward and this was one time that we felt that the reward outweighed the cost.

We figured that we might as well tackle both issues at once, no point in going through two individual weeks of hell when we can have a combined couple weeks of hell right. But then maybe it will go better than we anticipate. Now’s the time to think positive. Wish us luck! Will report on the first night in the crib and Evie solo sleeping.

Sleep

Sleep is a hot commodity in our house, even more so than gold, and we like our gold. Everly slept like a dream baby right from day one. She never slept shorter than a five hour stretch; by the time she was six weeks old she was sleeping seven to eight hour stretches with twelve hours of night time sleep over all. So, naturally when we had Matthew we expected that we had the whole sleep thing down, and he would be the same. Ha ha ha ha ha (insert the most evil villian laugh that you can think of here). Parent bubble burst! We are not amazing baby sleep machine parents, we just got lucky. Matthew thinks that sleep is for mere mortals, and he has no desire for his mother to be a mere mortal.

We have tried all the tips over the last six months; white noise, swaddle, increasing milk supply, soothers, dream feeds, warm baths, lavender, co-sleeping, solid foods… the list goes on. I think the only exception would be the old formula before bed trick, we decided to stay away from that one because there is no proof that it works, on the contrary there is proof that formula will upset his breastfed tummy and cause gas. I know how pleasant gas is, we decided to spare the baby. So, tips, tricks and old wives’ tales aside, here we are now at six months post birth and still not sleeping.

It’s time for a revolution. It’s time to overthrow the sleep dictator. His six month reign of terror is over. It’s time for a plan. Our house is an “attachment parenting” home, so there will be no crying it out or tough love. We tried this method with Everly and it didn’t work and I still feel SICK when I think about the whole process. I don’t have it in my heart and soul to do that again. Sorry Evie, you were the unfortunate test pilot of your parents and we shit the bed on that one. From my lengthy research on sleep gurus the last time around, I know what else is out there and I know that there is a “method” the gels better with my conscience. Now back up the truck before you think I am being all judgmental, I am not saying that the cry it out methods can’t work, don’t work, or are cruel. Cry it out methods have worked beautifully for some families that I know and I think that’s wonderful! It just doesn’t work for our family.

This is probably the point in the blog post where you are saying to yourself, “last time, again- hunh?” Yes we made the same “mistake” twice and I wouldn’t have it any other way! Sleeping for 6 months with each of my babies curled up next to me is something that I will NEVER regret. So although I make it sound like he is the bad guy, I know he isn’t. He’s just a typical baby who has adapted to the world that we have created. And now we are the jerks who are going to change everything. Why change everything now? Isn’t that cruel? Well no it’s not, because he isn’t sleeping as well as he could be and I am not either. Both of us need to sleep to be happy and healthy members of our family. If he were sleeping 8 hours next to me all night I can guarantee that I would not be attempting to put him into his own bed!

We have decided to use the No Cry Sleep Solution by Elizabeth Pantley. This method worked best with Everly and Matty seems to be having the same issues that she did- namely not being able to go to sleep on their own. Now this wouldn’t be a problem if it weren’t for all those brief awakenings during the night. Damn the shortened sleep cycles of babies and their stupid brief awakenings! At least Evie took a soother, Matthew has opinions of soothers that are similar to his opinions of daytime naps and night time sleep… My children are so stubborn and I have no clue where they get it -

For the last two days have been collecting our sleep data. I have been recording all of Matthew’s naps and night time sleep. When I see these numbers I think, “holy shit, no wonder I am so zombie, fried, dead tired.” NO WONDER! I will share the results at the end of the three days, along with our plan!