Sleep Training Works!

This last week we started sleep training with Josiah. After 5 days (5 heart-renching days!) Josiah is actually becoming a great sleeper!!! Some changes we've made:

1. Josiah goes to bed at 7:30 p.m. after eating, putting on PJ's, and reading a story

2. We will initially let Josiah cry for 2 minutes before going in to check on him, and then every 10 minutes afterwards.

3. When we go in to check on him we will NOT pick him up, but instead re-position him and then pat him for 2 minutes before leaving the room

4. He will only eat once in the middle of the night and we will push him to at least 6 hours from when he last ate before he went to bed

5. Josiah will go down for a nap 1-1.5 hours after eating during the day

Since starting sleep training we have noticed that he will sleep till 3 a.m. before getting up to eat. He has also been sleeping till 6:45 or 7 a.m. which is GREAT! This gives me a chance to get up and at least shower before he gets up to eat. And he's gone from crying for 1 hour to maybe 10 minutes before putting himself to sleep. Josiah is also napping SO MUCH BETTER! He takes 3-4 naps a day, all of them ranging from 30 minutes to 2 hours. Also, who knew that Josiah was a tummy sleeper? It scares the living day lights out of me to wake up and find him on his tummy but he's sleeping so much better that way! I always lay him down on his back first but since he's rolling now he immediately switches to his tummy. The other morning I woke up and found him with his arm stuck between the mattress and the crib but he was sound asleep and didn't seem to mind. Still, I get up and check on him often at night and do my best to move him without waking him up when he does get himself into a strange position in the crib. Sometimes he turns completely sideways so that he's kicking his feet on one side of the crib and banging his head on the other.

All in all, I am SO GLAD that I did sleep training. We ALL are getting more sleep and Josiah is becoming a much happier baby. His reflux is doing much better now that he is on medication and he's back to eating cereal. He loves his barley! In the next few weeks we will slowly increase his feedings to 3 times a day and also start adding in vegetables. Anyone know where I can learn how to make homemade baby food?

No More Doctors!

Hooray! Let's celebrate my 1 year anniversary of NOT going to the doctor for a sinus infection! I know...a weird thing to celebrate, but growing up I got a sinus infection every 3 months! Thanks to my chiropractor, I haven't been on antibiotics for a sinus infection for almost a year! Wahoo!

That Darn Cold!

Josiah has been fighting his first cold this past week. Andrew and I are both incredibly sleep deprived because Josiah is so hoarse that we can't even hear him cry. This means he has to sleep in the Pack n Play in our room so I can hear him better and get to him faster when he wakes up at night. First it was reflux keeping him up at night and now this? How will we EVER teach him to self soothe if he has all these physical issues keeping him up at night? Even with his cold he's so hard to comfort. He cried for an hour and a half the other night before I finally decided to nurse him and the instant I put him to my breast he fell asleep (but of course as soon as I laid him down he wanted to be picked up again!). He is up a lot at night with this cold and when he cries he coughs a lot. I've called the doctor and they've made it clear that as long as he's breathing and doesn't have a fever that there's nothing they can do. I feel like I've done everything I can...went to the chiropractor, spent time in the steamy bathroom with the shower on, turned up the humidifier, gave him saline drops for his nose, kept him propped up (we do this anyway for reflux), and I even got some All Natural Cold and Flu drops to give him. Anyone have other suggestions for fighting this cold, or at least to calm this first time mother's worries? He has a lot of chest congestion which scares me because he could end up with pneumonia, bronchitis, or my mom has me worried that it's whooping cough (eeek!).

Guess who has reflux?

That's right...Josiah is officially a reflux baby! That's why he was having such a hard time these past couple weeks. One day at day care last week he was so miserable, wouldn't sleep, cried constantly, and kept arching his back. Even the other teachers noticed something was wrong with him. I called Andrew and had him take Josiah back to the doctor (along with an entire page of questions that I had written out for the doctor). The doctor decided to put him on Zantac twice a day to see if that helps and to have me cut out ALL dairy from my diet. That night after taking Zantac Josiah woke up once to eat and slept the rest of the night, and since then he's been having fantastic days! He's been smiling, giggling, putting himself to sleep without fussing (even at daycare), cooing, and he even rolled over this weekend! I was so worried that his reflux would keep him from thriving because he wasn't eating well and wouldn't even play. But now he seems to be advancing quickly! Josiah is also a pretty big 4 month old. Last week at the doctor he was 17 lbs. 6 oz! He's got lots of rolls and is such a cutie! If he keeps doing well then I will introduce rice cereal again (or barley, not sure yet) and see how he does.

What A Week!

This past week has been such a mess! Emotional ups and downs, and not very much sleep. Josiah turned 4 months and immediately started having night issues. He would wake up every couple of hours screaming bloody murder and it took forever to comfort him. He also didn't have very good days and would spend most of the day screaming as well unless he was being held (which sometimes even that didn't work!). My mom guessed that he was teething but I took him to the doctor anyway (thinking that maybe it was an ear infection) and they couldn't find anything wrong with him. So we just had to wait it out. I think it's a combination of reflux and teeth so I propped his bed and have been giving him colic medicine daily. Sometimes this helps and sometimes it doesn't. We've also moved on to some major CIO sessions. He's cried it out before but we are really pushing it now because we can't constantly hold him all day. The past couple of days he's cried himself to sleep 4 times (only crying for maybe 15-25 minutes) and I've learned that it's best to just lay him down and walk away. If I come back in to check on him while he's still awake then he starts all over. I also put a fan in his room for some noise which has helped a lot! After 1 week of night troubles we are somewhat back to normal.

We also tried rice cereal last week. However, all of the night troubles started right after we began rice cereal so I switched to barley thinking that it would help his tummy, but when the night troubles continued I decided to stop that as well. I am considering skipping cereal all together and just going straight to veggies around 5 months, or at least mixing cereal and veggies. He has a very sensitive tummy and I don't want to risk upsetting it with cereal again.

On top of the baby stress, Andrew and I have decided to move AGAIN. We have realized that our finances are just a little too much for us to handle and even though we've made many cuts and we try to manage our money well, in order to drastically change our financial situation we have to make drastic changes. That means, by mid-March our house will be up for sale and we will be house hunting for something smaller in Story City. By moving we will save lots of money on gas, on our mortgage, and also save lots of time that is taken away by commuting! There is a lot that God is doing for us and I am just trying to trust that He knows best! I love our home, but I can't dwell on these earthly treasures, I have to remember this is my temporary home. God has made it clear to me that no matter where I live I can make it into a home, even if it's smaller and not as nice as our current home.