Sleep training continued...

The next few days after Elsie first cried herself to sleep were good and bad.  She did great at bedtime, and is continuing to go down without too much fuss for the night (yeah!).  The first day naps were horrible.  Lots of crying, very little sleeping.  I was checking and consoling her about every 10 minutes during the screaming sessions, but that seemed to just prolong the crying.  She would finally fall asleep and only be out for 30 mins before waking up crying.  Her wake periods were terrible.  She was fussy, exhausted and would only last 30 mins before it was time to try napping again.  Finally in the afternoon, looking at my tired baby and knowing all she needs is sleep, I let her cry and did not do the check and console.  She cried 25 mins total and then fell asleep, took a 2 hour nap and woke up RESTED!

On the second night, after feeding Els, she was completely asleep and I decided to put her down in her crib.  It seemed to me that the swing was not doing anything to help console her or help her stay asleep (as it did a few weeks ago), but I was hesitant to change too much all at once.  I figured out quickly that I was right and  she has gone down in her crib ever since.  Hooray!  I stopped swaddling about 2.5 weeks ago and she did fine.  She was never all that soothed by it, therefore not all that attached to it.  I wanted to get rid of it soother than later and I am glad she has access to her hands now.  So different than are other girls!  They both loved the swaddle and had a hard time without it.   

Naps continue to be the biggest challenge.  I know some babies are just short nappers, but Elsie is clearly not well rested from short naps.  She really needs 1.5-2 hours for it to be a good nap.  She has started pooping a ton again, and that is one factor messing things up.  Taking Katya to and from school has also been an issue.  On Monday after a poor first nap, Elsie was finally down and sleeping really well.  She was out for an hour and would probably have slept another hour but I had to wake her up to go get Katya.  It kills me to wake her!  Of course with multiple children, that's the way it is going to go.  Today went really well even with taking Katya to and from school; Elsie's morning nap was 2.5 hrs, her afternoon nap 3hr and her third nap 1 hour.  She was in bed by 7:15 for the night.  She has been sleeping 12hr nights with 1 or 2 feedings. 

I am SO happy with her sleep progress!  It feels so different to not be attached to her all evening and night, trying with all our might to get her to sleep.  Dr. Weisenbluth (Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child) used the term "heroic efforts,"  to describe the work put forth by parents of extreme fussy/colicy infants in order to sooth them.  That is certainly what it felt like.  Now snuggling with Elsie before bed, looking at her calm and relaxed little face, it seems she is a different kid entirely.  We are fortunate and grateful that her colic ended so quickly.  Love and prayers to all, and happy sleeping!       

Pictures from the past few weeks

Playing in the rain with daddy!

Reagan in her training pants! Big girl.

Snuggle time.

Waiting for dad to get home!

Reagan's curls.

Love those perfect ringlets.


Arts and crafts time!

I am always trying to come up with new, simple projects for the girls. Thanks for the great idea Grandma Dana!

Potty training AND sleep training??!!

It has been a busy week around here with our little Reagan potty training, which inadvertently lead to the start of Elsie's sleep training. So much for the rest 'prescribed' to me by my midwife. I was planning on waiting until October to potty train Reagan, so to give myself more time to settle in our routines with Elsie. But she started showing interest in the potty so we started having her sit on it here and there, nothing major. She peed in her potty for the first time last week and last weekend Craig worked with her a ton and let her go without a diaper most of the day. Since then Reagan has really taken off! She will not keep a diaper on, hens we are full on potty training. I set the timer to remind myself and had her sit on her potty every 20 minutes Monday, Tuesday and Wed. She has had a few accidents but overall has done really well! She has even predicted and gone herself many times, but still requires lots of reminding and promoting (of course). It is always hard for kids to stop playing to go sit on the potty. I gave her the choice, "You can go sit on your potty or put a diaper on" and since she is so anti- diaper, it is working. I let her go bare butt on Monday but decided I wanted to practice underwear and not let her get use to being naky. We had such trouble getting Katya to stay dry in underwear after letting her go naky for a long time. She is doing really well! Today was R's first time out of the house in undi's, both to take Katya to school and pick her up.

So we did have a poop debacle the other day. As I said, R doesn't want to keep diapers on and sure enough, she took it off during nap time (rest time in our house). Katya, who was 'resting' with her, went and got Reagan's potty for her and she did pee in it. I separated the girls because they were not staying in bed and staying quiet and without thinking I put Reagan in our room with her potty, without her diaper. It dawned on me a while later, as I was feeding Els and soothing her to sleep, that Reagan had not pooped yet that day. I put Elsie down as soon as I dared and went in our room to find Reagan covered in poop. She said proudly, "I pooped in my potty!"  She had in fact pooped in her potty, and I can only imagine what followed. There was a small piece of (clean) toilet paper covering the BM in her potty and she had poop on her hands, arms, belly, legs, feet, and of course, her butt.

I threw Reagan in the tub and started scrubbing her down, of course Elsie started screaming almost immediately.   But I had to leave her and deal with the pressing issue at hand.   Elsie cried hard for 10 minutes and then fell asleep!  She slept for 4 hours.   In the evening.   When her naps are always the worst.   It truly was a blessing in disguise; grossly disguised.   Whoever said God doesn't have a sense of humor....

To my own credit, I had been thinking that very day that I should try letting Els cry for 5-10 minutes to see if she will sleep.  I did actually try it that morning to no avail.  It is so hard because she is only 11 weeks old and I want to be sure that she is developing secure attachments.  Much study has shown that infants who don't develop proper attachments to their caregiver(s) in those first, critical few months of life can have dependency issues later in life.  Because of this, and because of Dr. Wesinbluth's suggestion for colicy infants, I wanted to wait til 16 weeks to sleep train.  But Craig and I had already decided we would start at 3 months, 13 weeks old (for many reasons).  Elsie's colic has ended (Praise Jesus!) and we don't want her, and us, to continue to rely on poor sleep habits.  So that night after her usual routine of bath, bottle, lots of snuggling and soothing from mom, I put her in her swing (with it on) and left.  She fussed and cried half-heatedly for 15 minutes and then was out.  She slept great.  She was out by 8:15pm, woke once at 2:30, and was up for the day at 8:15am.  Success!  Well, partial success.  She slept great, and by herself, but still in her swing and still with the help of motion. 

This post is getting really long so I will continue the sleep training discussion later.

Smile!

It's a bad picture but at least captures a cute smile. Elsie is super smilely and talkative...when she is well rested that is.

I thought it was cute that the girls were both looking at a magazine in the van. We are having a lot of fun with the High Five magazine!

Pre-K update

Katya is dong great in school!  She really likes her teacher and loves going to school three days a week.  We are getting into the routine of drop off and pick up and discovered the quickest way to Holy Redeemer.  So far I am very happy with our school choice.  I like it much more than a community center or daycare facility because it is also a K-8th grade school.  I asked her what her favorite thing about school is and she told me, "Going to school in daddy's car."  Ha!  We are going to have him take her Monday's and Wednesdays and I  will take her on Friday's since he has to work a double.  Last week Craig only took her once because Els had a dr appointment at 8:30 Monday morning (I dropped Katya off and then headed over to Montgomery Park where our Peds office is).  Elsie's naps have gotten majorly disrupted because of school and it has been pretty hard.  She is a bear if her naps are not solid.  Hopefully things will get better once her naps become more scheduled and regular. 

Katya is getting to know the other kids in her class.  They do lots of great things including PE on Wednesdays and music class on Friday's.  I love when I discover something else that she did in school randomly through out the day.  She often says she doesn't remember a lot of what they did but them a few hours later I will here her singing a song that they did in school or saying something she learned.  The best was when she asked me one evening, "Mommy, do we look the same?"  I hesitated...not sure where she was going with this.  She then said, "No we don't.  God made us all different." 

Here is our big pre-schooler in her DARLING Aunt Candace dress:

Sweet sisters in their dresses! My sister is so talented!

Elsie's dress is 6 month size (the smallest pattern the dress had) but I tried it on our giant baby anyways. Obviously she was not in the mood to play dress up. It is still big on her but SO cute!

Pictures, pictures

I am sure you all get tired of baby pictures but I don't!:-) Elsie and I had a rough night. She ran a fever because of her shots and was up hourly half the night. The horrible night of sleep has triggered a flare up of my mastitis infection, which seems to be underlying and never really healed. I had an exacerbation of it this weekend, and now again today. I am achy, exhausted and in pain. I cannot seem to get rid of this stupid breast milk!   Never thought I would say that...I fought so hard for my milk supply at times with my other girls. It feels strange to want so badly for it to go away! I took some Vicoden to get me through the day.   I am counting the hours til Craig gets home....

Elsie stats

Elsie weighs 14lbs 2ozs and is 25 inches long. She is in the 99th percentile for both. Reagan weighed about the same (14lbs) at her 2 month check, but was significantly shorter at 22.5 inches. Dr. Gopaul said she checked out fine. We discussed her fussiness and a few other things. Dr. Gopaul could relate, she said all three of her children were colicky babies. We talked about Elsie's very sensitive skin. I am glad we are already cloth diaper users because they are the best thing for her. She got a bad diaper rash a while back so I switched to disposables and barrier creams (the creams ruin cloth absorbency) to try and clear it up. It took forever and I even called our Pediatrician office about it. Now I know that the disposable products are irritating to her, especially the wipes. Even the 'sensitive' wipes are too harsh for her. She did okay for her shots and is sleeping in her swing; yeah! The big girls are down for rest time so I better run and get some housework done while I still can. Love and prayers.

2 months old

Miss fussy pants is two months old! She is still a challenging baby but isn't crying as much, over all. She is a bit easier to sooth but we are not out of the woods yet.  Some naps she goes down easily for, others not so much. Usually the morning nap is the easiest to get her down for and it gets harder as the day goes on.  She has some great naps, 2-4hrs, and other times she is up and down every 10-30 minutes and only wanting to sleep in some one's arms. She is still toughest in the evenings, but she is doing better overnight.  She is pooping less frequently which is helping her stay calm during night time feedings.  She gets up around 1 and 4am to eat.  We are generally trying to put her down for the night around 8pm (depending on naps) but she doesn't often settle down for good until 9:30-10pm.  It is strange having to make bottles in the middle of the night.  Never something we had to do with the other girls.  I am letting myself be sad about her being on formula but trying not to beat myself up over it. 

Elsie has her 2 month check next Monday.  I will post her stats, they are sure to be impressive.  She is huge.  Reagan was chubbier (if you can imagine) but Elsie is longer.  She is getting big in the 3 month clothes, and is starting to wear 6 month stuff too.  She no longer looks like a newborn and is getting much more social.  Her smiles are longer and she is starting to 'talk' to us.  I am having a hard time capturing smiles on camera since when I bring the camera up to shoot, she stops smiling to stare at it.  Here are a few cute photos: 

Fun at the Tillman's!

We always have a great time at the Tillman's. I still get a very happy, surprised feeling of how my family and friends mix in this group; and how I have come to be apart of their lives here in Portland.  I love them all!   It was great seeing my Aunt Colleen and Patti Smith (Angie and Scott's mom).

Hanging out on the patio.

Snuggling with my Elsie girl.

I love this picture Craig took of Moira!   If only Reagan's  butt wasn't in the photo!

Patrick! He started preschool this week too!

Rich is rocking his silly outfit for the Warrior Dash event this weekend. He designed the shirt, which we all bought in various colors and styles.

Reagan playing in the kiddy pool.

Elsie slept for a while in her infant seat. Glad we are getting some use out of that thing! We brought it just for a place to put her down.

Awake now and being checked on by Moira and Patti!

Angie meeting Elsie! Angie has been in California with the kids for the summer while their house is being remodeled. The house still has a ways to go but the kids started school this week so they had to come home.

Katya's apples! Melanie and Rich had the brillant idea of making a game out of picking up the apples in their yard. We were all impressed how much the kids picked up.

The homeowners rewarded their child labor's with prizes:-)

Reagan found a rock friend.

First day of preschool!

Katya did awesome on her first day of preschool! We knew she would. Craig and I both went to drop her off and then he left for work. She has such a fun time. The only tears were from Reagan. She did not want to leave the school and sat on the front steps and cried. Poor thing! She missed her sister but her and I played a ton just the two of us. She was really excited when it was time to pick Katya up from school. Here are a few pictures:

Before we left for school:

Taking daddy's car to school with her new carseat.

Out front at Holy Redeemer.

She can't wait to go back tomorrow!

Breast-feeding woes

I love this picture of Elsie bug!

I won't bore you all with the details, but I have been struggling with clog milk ducts and mastitis for a few weeks now.  I also had a drop in my milk supply and had to supplement with formula last weekend.  For all these reasons, I have decided to quite breastfeeding.  It was a very hard decision that took me a couple of weeks to finalize.  I hate to give up so early and to deprive my baby of what I know is the perfect food for her, but I need to do what is best for our whole family.  Everyone suffers when I am fighting illness all the time.  I have had so much pain associated with these issues that breastfeeding has never been easy or enjoyable.  Also, Elsie being a fussy baby has made her much harder to nurse.  She does great with a bottle and is very happy with it.  I am slowly decreasing the amount of times I pump and we are feeding her either formula or expressed breast milk.  I am thankful we have some extra Vicodin around, it has helped A LOT with the pain.  I hope to be completely done soon. 

We have noticed a change in Elsie this week.  She is still fussy at times but she has calmed down a lot.  Yeah!  We feel it will only get better from here.  It is SO nice that she is not totally depended on me now.  I can get more help from Craig and do more things outside of the house for my own sanity.  Craig took baby duty all night on Saturday night!  It was great!  I woke up needing to pump but got a solid six hours of sleep.  Woo-hoo!  We are enjoying our long weekend together.  We had a great time  the Tillman's on Saturday afternoon, and we had some new friends over for dinner last night.  A guy who recently started with DowAgroScience and his family.  They just moved here from Tennessee and they have an almost 4yr old girl, a 2yr old boy, and a 4 month old girl.  It is really cool to have some new friends that have 3 children almost the same exact ages as ours!  Hope everyone has had a nice labor day weekend!    

Hood to Coast and pre-K meet the teacher

Craig had a fun time running Hood to Coast again this year.  It was a very different team, running with some Widmer crew (Widmer had two teams running).  Last year he ran with a very talented team and in fact he was the 'old, slow guy.'  This year he was the fast, young guy!  So you can imagine that this year it too them MUCH longer, a bit painfully long, to complete the race.  But they finished!  Craig was able to come home Saturday night instead of Sunday at my request.  He got home just as Cindy was leaving at 10pm.  My weekend went okay.  Wouldn't you know, the nights I had help Elsie did really well.  Melanie helped out Thursday and Cindy came on Saturday.  I am so grateful for their help and their company.  Friday was very tough on my own.  Having colds did not help and I was still fighting off the mastitis.

On Tuesday night we went to Katya's school to meet her teacher and some of the other pre-K families.  It was from 6:30-7:30, which is late for our kids so we did not stay too long.  We meet the full day teach and Katya's half day teacher.  The classes often do things together but there are two separate classrooms.  Katya is SUPER excited to start school next Wednesday and we are thrilled for her.  We bought a second car seat for Craig's car so he will be able to drive her to school most days.  This will help me immensely.  She has to be there at 8am and picked up at 11:15.  Elsie is often sleeping at that time in the morning and really needs her first nap to be undisturbed.  We will post pictures of her first day!