Update on sleep

It's been almost a month since we started working on Isaac's sleep. In comparison to how it used to be, Isaac is doing great.

We now start bedtime at about 6:30. It always starts with the bath. Now, it's not just any bath: it's bath-theater. Josh usually plays his ukulele and sings to us (typical songs are "You don't have to be a prostitute" and "Carol Brown" by Flight of the Concords and the Police song "So Loney"). I'm in the bathtub with Isaac and wash him with a washcloth but also splash his feet around and move him around in the water. Once we've had enough (it's usually Isaac who makes the decision), we get him into a disposable diaper (he wears cloth during the day) and his pajamas.

His white noise (a wave song from iTunes repeated a hundred times in a playlist) and the cold-air humidifier get turned on and I grab his lovey (a blanket with a bear head) and drape it over my shoulder. Josh says "good-night" and then I nurse Isaac alone on the guest bed. I watch him very closely while he's finishing and wait for his little jaw to stop moving. Once he's done and almost asleep (but not asleep) I pick him up and sing the first part of"Waters of Babylon". Then I place him in his crib with his lovey (now smelling of me) in his hand.

Sometimes he cries or talks to himself. Sometimes he falls right asleep.

Then a couple of hours later, he cries for a few minutes, but puts himself to sleep. I nurse him at 1 AM (I set my alarm) and then all bets are off after that. Lately, I have been nursing him when he wakes up again in the 3's and the 5's. If I nurse him at 5ish, he'll sleep until 7:20--allowing me and Josh to shower and get dressed.

I'm tired a lot lately, but recognize I am getting a lot of sleep compared to many other new parents. I recognize that if we could drop just the 3AM feeding, I'd be a lot more rested.

Feed me...

Last Monday, I stopped by the local Shaw's Supermarket and bought a box of baby rice cereal on my way to pick up Isaac from daycare. He's been eating so much at daycare that Dana (the main Infant Room teacher) recommended that we start him on solids. A few weeks earlier at our 4-month appointment, Dr. Altman had told us Isaac was ready to start rice cereal, but we could wait if we wanted. Both Josh and I were hesitant to start solids but weren't really sure why. I found something on the web that said that there is a correlation between early solids and Type I diabetes. Yikes! My nephew Ryan has Type I. As the days passed after Dana first mentioned solids to us, Isaac's appetite really increased. On several days, he actually out-ate my supply for that day--a scary predicament for a nursing mom. I guess I was also hesitant to buy the cereal because it meant my little baby is getting older.

So last Monday night, after Josh came home from doing work, I mixed a tablespoon or so of the powdery rice cereal (it's actually rice flour) with refrigerated breast milk and then served the slurry to Isaac with a new spoon we had just received as a present. He didn't hate it or love it. The mix simply drooled out of his mouth.

We didn't try feeding him again until tonight.

Josh was out working while Isaac was having naked time on the mat before bed when I thought about the cereal. I mixed the cereal up with less liquid this time--making it more of a paste. I then dipped my finger in it and fed Isaac my finger. He opened his mouth and sucked. I served him maybe a couple of teaspoons before he stopped opening his mouth and I figured out that he had enough.

It makes me both excited and sad to think about Isaac getting nutrients from solid food instead of just from me. He's still a nursing baby, he's just expanding his palette.

End of 2010 summer

Isaac's Four Month Appointment

"So, he's a handsome fellow isn't he?" Thus spoke our family doctor, Dr. Altman (who we really like), turning to face the two (female) medical students who were shadowing him. We never get tired of hearing that Isaac is a looker. We think so, but it's great to hear it from a professional who sees his share of babies.

Isaac is handsome and big! 16 lbs. 4 oz. (72nd percentile) and 27" (96th percentile). (For those curious, his head circumference remains average: 50th percentile. Isaac doesn't seem bothered by this.) Can we extrapolate from Isaac's growth curve (beyond the 30 months charted), and begin spending like he's already in the NBA? (Josh reports that even the 12th man on the bench, the guy who never dresses for games, and simply stands and cheers his teammates, makes several million bucks a year.) If nothing else, maybe Isaac will someday reach six feet, fulfilling his father's frustrated ambitions.

We also learned that I should NOT be picking earwax from Isaac's ear, confirming Josh's view that it should stay put ("We are not apes!"). Also, I need not be so concerned about Isaac getting water in his ears during bathtime. I don't know when I became so obsessed with ears.

And, we're happy to report that Isaac survived his shots--two in the thigh--with nary a cry. Of course, he did have somebody's nipple stuffed into his mouth. (Josh wonders if a similar treatment might be in order when he is faced with a difficult situation--feeling frustrated while working on his dissertation prospectus, for instance. We'll see.)

Adventures

Last Thursday, Isaac started daycare at Adventures Preschool in Belmont. It's about a 1/4 mile walk from our house. He spent from 8:30am-5:00pm there and it seemed pretty good. They did the cloth diapers and the caregivers seemed really kind and wonderful. Josh got a little upset after we left Isaac, but I was okay. Later on, I felt a little sad, but felt better when I called while I pumped at work. Josh called them too and they said Isaac was doing fine.

Tomorrow is his second day there. I'm feeling a lot more sad about that today. I have really loved my weekend with Isaac and Josh and want to have "weekend" everyday. I hold Isaac so much when I'm home and now that we're sleep training, I don't feel guilty about nursing all the time because I know he's not associating it with sleep--only food and me--that has made me just want to nurse whenever he wants and hold him close when he's not. I love him so much and wish that it was me who was going to spend his first Monday post-sleep training with him. Josh will be with him on Tuesdays and Fridays. I come home around 5pm and have him all to myself a lot at that point because Josh frequently leaves to go do work then (and stays working until late). I love those night times and doing our bedtime ritual together, but I love daytime too.

So, daycare is okay. It just simply isn't me.

Sleep!

From Isaac in early August

After much debate, Josh and I decided to try the sleep training program that Jenn and Paul used with Maya. It's called the Sleepeasy Solution, but really the advice is pretty ubiquitous: put your baby down in his crib awake for naps and bedtime. You can still nurse at night, it's just that Mom goes to baby an hour before he usually wakes up crying and encourages him (gently) to feed at the earlier time instead of "on demand" when he's crying and she's trying to soothe him.

So here's the results: AMAZING! First, you need to know where we've been. At first, Isaac was a fantastic sleeper but depended on the swaddle to get deep sleep. He quickly outgrew the swaddle and Josh and I suddenly had a horrible sleeper on our hands. Basically, sleep for the last month meant Isaac and I in the guest bed and Josh in our bed by himself. Isaac would cry about every hour and I'd nurse him every time to help him fall asleep again. I was getting only max two continuous hours of sleep without interruption and I've been incredibly sleep deprived because of it. I've felt extra moody, headache-y and I've made mistakes at work because of it (nothing too big).

SO, Friday night, we put Isaac to sleep awake and then braced ourselves for the crying. And...it never came! He spent twenty minutes making an "arrrr" sound that did not even come close to crying--trust me, unfortunately I know what his sad cry sounds like. I then "dream-nursed" him at 11pm, 2am and 4am. He cried for less than 10 minutes around 1:15 and so we did ONE check on him (no touching--only loving words). Then, at 6am, I woke him up! It was amazing. He was in his crib and I was in my bed with Josh at 5:59am--a first in weeks.

Saturday, we encouraged him to take naps every 2-2.5 hours and every time, he was awake when I finished nursing and put him in his crib. He slept something like 5 hours on Saturday. Here's the deal: babies his age should sleep about 3-4 hours everyday, but Isaac was sleeping more like an hour because naps were so hard for him. You can imagine that it must have felt crazy for him. Remarkably, the deep sleep Friday night made him more sleepy for the Saturday naps and he didn't cry AT ALL for any of them. In exchange though, he was super cranky and tired when he was awake.

Saturday night we did our bedtime routine again (bath, pjs, nursing and an O-M family rendition of "Waters of Babylon"). Immediate sleep. I dreamnursed again but moved the times to help him with the 1am waking (11pm, 1am). I was too tired to reset the alarm for another nurse and man did Isaac know it. He woke up at ~4am crying his head off. Josh tried doing checks, but the man was hungry. Eventually, I broke down and said, "it's light out so it's morning now." I went into Isaac's room and said that to my baby and then happily nursed him. Thankfully, Josh gave me an hour to keep sleeping after that because I was just starting to catch up on long-lost sleep and was very tired. Naps today were frequent and pretty flawless. My favorite nap was at Danielle and Zev's house. I put Isaac to sleep awake on their bed (don't worry--he can't roll, but still, he was in the middle of their king sized bed). Daniellle then put Izzy to sleep in his bed in their room. The cousins were having a sleepover for about an hour when it ended with Izzy's cry. We went in to find Izzy upset and Isaac blinking at us quietly on the bed. He was totally fine with getting up then anyway. Today, he's had about 4-5 hrs of naps.

In the "extra" time that Josh and I have gained by having him nap more, we organized our house, I made homemade pickles, worked on my lab meeting, I went to yoga and Josh ran 7 miles and I made baba ganoush. Right now, instead of being passed out on the guest bed after nursing, I am writing about my awesome weekend. Pretty sweet.

Drakes Island 2010

My mom and dad rented a big house on Drake's Island in Wells, Maine and invited us all to come for as much of the week as we wanted. I took Monday off so that we could stay a couple of nights. It was absolutely beautiful there--great swimming beach, a preserve close by for walking and a house big enough for a bunch of adults and babies to have their own space. Here's a video I took at the beach. Notice how empty the beach is and how beautiful it is there.