Yay Crawley!

Ok horrible at updating I know.  I will try better, I swear!

I just wanted to send a congrats out to the Crawley's on the birth of their son, we shall call him K-Craw!

Yay MC2!!

I promise I will update again for real in the next couple days.

Honest Toddler--Laughing always helps

Recently I have started to read the blog Honest Toddler.  This is one of the most hilarious blogs I have ever seen.  It is funny regardless of if you are a parent or not, but it certainly makes me feel better to read some of the same issues that have come up with JW.  I love the writing and the fact that its written from the toddlers point of view.This is one of my favorite entries

Also if you have twitter and facebook, follow the Honest Toddler...hilarious

Almost a year old

Ok so an absurd amount of time has gone by since my last post.  I have been super busy and really it hasn't even dawned on me to post.  I will work tonight on a couple posts and promise to be better about posting going forward.
For now please enjoy some pics of the little man who will turn 1 year old next month!  Crazy

At Andy and Maddie's house (above and below)

CSL Summer outing

Full Night of Sleep!!

Yay for a full night of sleep!  That's two of the last three nights that we have been able to sleep through the night.

Small victories, but man I feel so rested right now!

Daycare/Sick babies suck!

I actually starting writing this post about a month ago, but things just got so hectic I couldn't finish. The reason they were hectic, you guessed it....starting daycare, followed swiftly by getting sick

First off there is nothing wrong with sending your kid to daycare.  I hate reading about blogs and websites that caution against daycare because "the place a baby learns best is with its mother...".  Now the fact that mother is always specified aside, daycare is a very useful tool for the working parent.  JW goes three days a week and seems to really love it.  The staff is nice (although the morning lady is a bit odd) and JW gets to see other babies, something he doesn't get to experience at home.

Go and visit your daycares before you send them.  Get references!  Make sure to properly explore all your options before making a daycare decision.  Also don't let people guilt you into not taking price into consideration.  Price is a consideration and just because something is more expensive doesn't mean its better.  JW goes to the middle of the road option and seems to really love it.

Now the next big thing is be prepared for a month and a half of everyone in your house getting sick!  There just isn't any avoiding it.  Your baby has been in the safety bubble of home, where the amount of germs is greatly limited.  Once he goes to daycare he is exposed to everything, so be prepared.  Now that isn't saying that your baby getting sick is a bad thing either.  Our pediatrician said we had two options; either he gets sick now or he doesn't go to daycare and gets sick when he starts kindergarten.

Just hang in there.  We went through about a month and a half of really tough sickness going around the fam but we seem to have finally (knock on wood) gotten through it.

How was waking up two of three times a night so much easier a month ago??

Hi all!  So I very much apologize for the delay in postings.  I have just been very busy/in a slightly weird place so the blogs got neglected.  Not only that I have had a sever case of writers block!  I think the best solution is just to write and if its not the greatest writing whatever

So JW has started to pretty regularly sleep through the night (he may wake up once, but the majority of the time he goes right back to sleep.)  This has been one of the greatest things to happen so far!  However I feel like I have lost some of my parenting powers!  let me explain

2 months ago we were waking up every couple of hours on a very regular basis.  At the time it wasn't fun, but it also wasn't the end of the world.  If he got 4 good hours in a row before he woke up, we felt like rockstars!  Now if he wakes up two or three times at night the next day I feel like a zombie!

Its amazing how fast the human body gets used to things.  Once we started doing longer stretches of time with JW asleep our bodies reverted right back to wanting to sleep for longer periods of time.  None of this wakign up every couple hours thing!

Stay positive and just work through the tired!  Remember that a couple months ago 4 hours at a time would have felt like paradise.  Laugh as much as you can and enjoy the little guy!

Again hopefully writing will get better as i update more.

God I hate 4am...worst time ever

For the last couple of weeks JW (formally a very good sleeper at night) has decided that he is done with the whole "sleeping through the night" thing.  Instead he likes to wake up every hour, just to make sure that everything is ok.  Although a pain, most of the time we can just put his pacifier back in and he drifts back to sleep, except at 4am.  For some reason 4am just seems to be his favorite time of the night now.

Now to me at the moment it seems that this will go one forever and how can we possibly make it through much more of this.  However I know that this is just a phase and the big thing is just to stay positive.  The thing that i would always recommend in times like this is to keep a good relationship with your significant other.  At least then you have someone to share in your late night/ early morning exhaustion.
I will update more once I make it more than a couple of hours of sleep.

What I want to see on a baby monitor

What I see at 4am

Photo Post 2

Pictures of JW... he is going to be 6 months old this month!  Crazy

Going to see Santa at Greenmeadow Farm

Fraser Christmas

Auntie Corny can I have some chocolate?

Yay Christmas time...in awe of the whole season!

Happy Christmas baby!

I love food!

Where did it go?

Outdoor adventure

Outdoor adventure 2

Sleepy baby!

JW's new found obsession with cups

MMMMM cups (don't worry there is nothing in it)

Hey lil guy!

Naps part 1

Sorry for the delay in updates everyone, things have been crazy lately.  I figure the best way to get back into the groove of writing is to write about something excellent...I give you napping.

Anyone who has ever been to college (especially MMA) knows how amazing the nap is.  Probably the single most powerful thing in the universe, its even more powerful when it is a baby.  Right around 4 months our pediatrican, Dr. G, said that JW was really just crying to get attention and that, if we wanted to, we could start to let him cry it out a bit.

I know that there is a split in the parenting world about letting your baby cry it out.  Some view it as harsh and think that it will build trust issues between baby and parent.  I am going to call Shenanigans on that.  Anyone who has been a parent for more than a month knows how drained and exhausting having to hold the baby at all times is.  Yes its wonderful and fun, but it also can kind of suck.  Being able to put him down, even for an hour, gives mommy and daddy a much needed rest.

We did a bit of a modified cry it out method.  After we had our bedtime routine (food, bath, books, song, bed)  we would leave the room, putting JW down awake.  This is key to this method, putting them down awake starts to teach them to put themselves to sleep.  Then he would cry....

Yes your baby will cry.  No way around it there will be crying.  At first there will probably(definitely) be a lot of crying.  Then, as time goes on, the idea is that crying gets less and less.  Eventually your baby will be able to put themselves to sleep.  The thing that I have found is that its not the real time frame of the crying that should bother you, its the type of crying.  Obviously 45 minutes of crying is a pain, but remember you can always go in and give him a pacifier or rub his back for a minute.  The only time that you should pick him up is when his cry hits a level that you know he isn't going to go to sleep anytime soon.  You can hear it in the tone of the cry, there will be a change.  Once that change happens MW or I go in, pick up the baby, and burp and rock him for a minute then put him back down.  Follow this routine and, hopefully, your baby will begin to cry less and go to sleep easier

Now here are some things that we read online that just don't happen (or didn't happen to us so really bank on them not happening.  If they happen great!)

-Do not bank on your baby being able to put himself to sleep in a couple of days.  Its probably going to take longer.  Even if it doesn't take longer remember that things can change at any time and he could all of a sudden have trouble going to sleep again.

-Limit checking on the baby.  It gets heart wrenching to go up every 2 minutes and try and put the pacifier back in. Don't do it!  Try and wait at least 10 minutes before you go up and try to calm the baby.  Also if they are just fussing a bit leave them.  They won't learn until they practice and practice=time and crying

-Don't put your monitor on full blast.  Monitors are great, but having the volume turned way up will just stress you out and make you want to go check on them more.  Our model of monitor has a camera and a light that shows when the baby is crying, this has been great for us.  I turn off the volume all together and turn the monitor off.  This allows a quiet environment for the parents, but i can still see how much the baby is crying by looking at the light bar.  I am not saying you have to shut off the volume, but the more relaxed you are the better.

Sorry for the bad writing/disjointed thought.  Been a while since I wrote, but I will write more and hopefully it will get better!

Also I am going to write a couple more posts on naps, as they really are important!

I love food time!!