sleep training, final attempt. day two.

7.30 am / good morning
11.10 am / asleep in stroller, which is dragged up to the second floor and placed next to a fan
12 pm / awake/falls asleep on his own in stroller
12.50 pm / awake
8.10 pm / nurse/five books/plays with trains
8.25 pm / bedtime/shhh night night/loveys/2 short cries
8.40 pm / asleep

to be continued....

notes.
i used to read that you're supposed to put your baby to bed sleepy but not asleep. i didn't understand what this looked like until now. as a newborn, leon would nurse til almost asleep, and then we would bounce him for 10 minutes, lay him on his back with our hand on his chest, and wait 20 minutes. during the day he would play, kick vigorously, smile, and then a split second later, scream, freaking out. i would rush to nurse him, and he would inevitably fall asleep at the breast. by the time he was 3 months old, i was nursing him to sleep in bed. at 6 months, i attempted to sleep train him. i would nurse him for a while and then rock him until asleep. once placed in the crib, he would start flailing and screaming. at this point he began vomiting from crying so much.

every time we tried to sleep train him, we failed. i tried the no cry sleep solution and manage to break the suck to sleep association after several weeks. but i could never get leon to stop nursing at night. we tried dr. jay gordon's method, but even after he started falling asleep without nursing, he never slept for more than a 2 hour stretch before needing us to help settle him again. so i gave up and went back to nursing him to sleep. unfortunately the 2 hour stretch became routine even with night nursing.

and now, i can't even believe how smoothly it has been going. he's visibly tired when i nurse him. i tell him 'night night' and he crawls into the bed and lays his head on the pillow (which he started doing 3 weeks ago). i place his two loveys next to him, and he touches them. i say 'shh, night night,' and he closes his eyes, shakes his head, and tosses from side to side a few times.

this is what normal should look like.

it all seems so easy, i now understand how crazy i must have seemed to everyone else who successfuly sleep-trained a baby at 6, 10, or even 12 months. this is just a theory, but i believe that not all babies are ready to fall asleep on their own until they've reached the developmental stage that is right for them. for leon, i think being more verbal is what helps. he now understands 'night night' and my promises to stay with him until he's asleep, and my repeated declarations of how much i love him.

it all seems so easy now, but it was not easy getting to this point. i am still following the dr. jay gordon method, but for some reason, everything is falling into place now. i don't think i'm doing anything different this time, i just think that leon is more mature, more equipped to handle sleep on his own. we'll see how it goes.

sleep training, final attempt. day one.

a sleep log for my own records.

6.30 am / good morning
12.30 pm / nurse
12.35 pm / shrieking/patting/offering of loveys
12.55 pm / asleep
1.40 pm / awake/shrieking/patting
2.25 pm / cuddling/asleep
3.15 pm / loud sirens/awake
7.40 pm / bath
8.00 pm / 2 books/nurse...leon is visibly sleepy
8.15 pm / lights out/a promising start with no crying
8.20 pm / crying/offering of loveys/cuddling with hands on chest and cheek
8.45 pm / asleep
11.10 pm / awake/crying/patting/cuddling
11.35 pm /matthew takes over
12.20 am / asleep
5.30 am / awake/nurse/asleep
7.30 am / nurse/good morning

notes:
the patting and cuddling worked until the first night waking. i think the desire for milk was so strong that he couldn't handle my immediate presence. i let matthew take over, and i slept on a mat on the floor. matthew slept on the bed with leon. this 5 hour stretch was the longest he's slept since he was about 3 months old.

on being a mother

She bends her head to his. She smells his hair. She has no choices. She imagines suddenly a film in which a sagacious dog travelled hundreds of miles, back along the scent, or the magnetic field, which pulled from what it knew and loved. This hair she could distinguish in a room piled high with other heads. This note she would hear through all others. This person is the centre. It is not what she would have chosen but it is a fact, it is a truth stronger than other truths. It is a love so violent that it is almost its opposite.

Babel Tower, A. S. Byatt

Going back to work in two weeks. Trying to get as much writing done as possible. The two hour nap at 11.30, which was reliable for almost three months, is no longer so. Not sure how to juggle childcare, teaching, writing, applying for jobs, and surviving. Lack of sleep is going to be a problem, but I don't have the energy to sleep train (nor do I think it will work). I need help. My mother is here for a month, cooking, cleaning, watching Leon for 2 hours at a time. Sleep has deteriorated, and he is nursing constantly. This is likely because he's separated from me now. Having my mother here has made me realize just how much help I actually need. Not having friends to rely on for an hour or two of babysitting every once in awhile, not having family, not having childcare, and not having a partner who can help...I don't know how people can be full-time stay at home parents without any breaks, any assistance. And yet, 18 months later, I'm so attached, I don't know how to function without him constantly by my side. But I will have to figure something out because there is little joy in this.

Leon's words at eighteen months

appah (father in Korean)

mommy ("help" or "I want")

truck

bubbles

up

no

it's mine
ball

imps and elfs sale

imps and elfs is one of leon's favorite labels. luckily for us, stel's carries the line, and their markdowns are hard to resist.

if leon were smaller, i would snap up a few of these double layered bodysuits for autumn ($20)

the perfect jacket, wind and water resistant. i'm sorely tempted ($40)

cloth diapering so far

we started cloth diapering around 5 months, took a hiatus at 10 months for 6 weeks (leon would not tolerate long changing sessions), and have been doing 3-4 day cycles once a week since then. i have a coin-op laundry in the basement, so washing and drying not only gets expensive, but it's a pain to find quarters so frequently. i thought about doing a diaper service, but the only one available in my area provides their own diapers. i've found a combination of prefolds, pockets, and fitteds that works for me, so i wasn't interested in a predetermined selection of diapers.

my minimalist diaper 'stash' includes:
12 medium sized pre-folds from green mountain diapers
2 pockets from apple cheeks (purchased used from the diaperswapper.com)
2 medium fitteds from sustainable babyish (these run small), great for long naps.
6 pul covers (my favorite is the thirstie duo wrap because leon is so skinny)
2 wool covers, one from little beetles, the other from the defunct luxe baby.

if i could start over, i would have bought 2 more wool covers. leon has only had 2 almost-blow outs while cloth diapering (rarely with disposables, too), so the wool doesn't really get dirty. it's breathable, water-repellent, and neutralizes ammonia. i balked at the price of wool ($30-50 for nice interlock, but you can knit your own, or buy repurposed wool), but they're actually more affordable that i had thought. between the two wool covers, i can use 6 prefolds and the 2 fitteds. all you have to do is air the cover out compared with rinsing and drying the pul cover (which i'm too lazy to do). i use this tutorial to lanolize and wash my covers once every 3 weeks. i'm glad i've found a use for all that extra lansinoh left in the tube.

i may be lucky in that leon has remained a slim baby. we've been using the same prefolds and covers since he was 5 months, but he's also only 20 lbs at 17 months. maybe cloth would have been more expensive if he had had a major growth spurt. i've seen people buy 5 pocket or aio diapers at a time at my local diaper shop ($20-25 each), and although i've been tempted by the rumparooz and fuzzi bunz, saving money has been one of the main reasons that i use cloth. i've spent less than $280 on detergent, snappis, wet bags, doublers, diapers, and covers. laundry is $3 per week, and disposables are $30 per month. i'm terrible at math, but i'd like to think i've done ok so far.

one of the hard parts of cloth diapering is finding clothes that fit over the extra bulk. i can do a pretty trim diaper with a snappi'd prefold and cover, but we always size up with onesies. leon doesn't outgrow the carter's onesies as often as he does with gerber or baby gap. pants are tricky because they tend to have a low rise. which is why i was excited to see these corduroy pants on baby gap's site.

i swear by catherine's wool jersey pants. you can ask her to increase the rise to accommodate a cloth diapered bum. leon finally outgrew one pair (both purchased last october), and the other one is still loose on him. he wore them nearly every day last winter, and finally wore through the knees. i patched them up, so they're ready for another baby (if not mine, then a friend's).

16 month update

leon doesn't wear too much clothing nowadays. one of the beautiful things about being a baby is that it's ok to not wear pants.

he had his 15 month check-up (at 16 months), and we learned that he remains firmly in the 75th percentile for height and 5th percentile for weight. since he still refuses to drink whole milk--he still nurses 6-10 times per 24 hour cycle--i've been trying to sneak in food through other means. for instance, his favorite dish is a beef soboro bowl with fried egg and a few chopped up veggies added surreptitiously. sometimes he'll eat whole milk greek yogurt with honey and granola, but food continues to be a struggle. he has also been indifferent to his sippy cup, so i've started filling it with coconut water instead of less delicious regular water.

as for sleep, it's still less than reasonable. he has yet to sleep more than 3.5 hours without waking. on the upside, leon will take a 2-3 hour nap (this includes wakings and nursing), so i am now able to get a little work done during the day (along with making lunch, starting dinner, cleaning out the cat litter, etc.). he goes down at 8.30 or 9 pm (trying to move the bedtime earlier), and then wakes around 11.30 to nurse. usually i give in and go to bed at this time. if i don't, i can do a little more work or read a novel until about 1.30 am. at this point i throw in the towel for good and join him for bed. between 1.30 and 7.30, he usually nurses 3-4 times for less than 2 minutes each. i still have to switch sides or drag him back from the edge of the mattress, so i do wake up to some extent.

a lot of people have asked me if i'm planning on weaning leon. they seem to think it'll help with his sleep. i'm afraid of the vomiting and screaming. in the past month, he's thrown up 3 times because i refused to go in and comfort him before 11.30 pm. sometimes i get really frustrated and feel like i'd rather not have anything to do with being his parent. i guess sleep deprivation and watching him from 9 am until 7 pm has really taken a toll on me. i need a break, but it doesn't look like i'll have the funds for another babysitter until september. until then, i need to finish a draft of the dissertation and hold down the fort.

things that make me happy include leon's spontaneous displays of affection. i love that he really interacts with his books and is finally swaying to music and trying to sing. i know that he's been busy with physical activities, but life is more bearable when he's able to interact with me in a meaningful way. the sleep and food issues will pass. the tantrums are becoming more challenging, too. all in all, leon has a remarkably laid-back temperament when he isn't being intense, needy, or demanding. i guess you could say that he takes after me. another way of putting it is that i have the temperament of a toddler.

outfit ideas, no. 1

a romper from the 1930s for leon, at belle heir
rachel comey boat shorts for me, at frances may