Jonah: 7 Month Update

Weight: 20 lbs!

Length: ?

Clothes: 9 mo

Milestones:

First words (Sortof)  “Ma-ma-ma-ma” is constantly tumbling out of baby J's sweet little mouth.  He babbles it while playing with us, while in his carseat, while upset in the middle of the night, while interacting with strangers.  I’m sure this is a romantic mommy assessment, but I choose to believe he is saying “Mama” and knows that’s me. Sometimes a mama's just gotta claim her victories, no matter how imaginary. 

Sociability and Concentration: This past month has been SO MUCH FUN.  Jonah is nothing short of a delight.  He squeals and grins big gummy smiles, babbles and stares all the time.  He really seems to be taking in the world around him.  He focuses on faces, follows a pointed finger with his gaze and mimics facial expressions. I love wondering what's swirling around in that fuzzy baby head of his. 

Mobility: While Jonah first rolled over around three months, only recently has he decided to use this skill to move himself around.  Now we’ll plop him down on the living room floor with a toy, sitting up, and when we return a couple minutes later he’ll be on his belly a few feet away.   This skill displayed its ugly side in the middle of sleep training a few weeks ago.  Up to this point, when we put Jonah to sleep on his back in the middle of the crib, that’s exactly where we’d find him in the morning (and by morning, I mean 2 am, or 3am or 1:20am…whenever he’d get hungry).  Now I reach down into the middle of the dark crib and find an errant ankle, or a stinky baby bottom, or nothing at all because he’s rearranged himself to be squashed up against the short side of the crib on his side. It took a few nights (and naps) for him to settle into his newly claimed freedom (and for mom and dad not to panic every time we saw him face-planted into his mattress).

Sleep: 

Aside from the brief hiccup brought on by unfettered rolling, Jonah has maintained a good nap schedule.  He takes a 1.5-2 hour morning nap (starting around 8:15/8:30) and a 1-1.5 hour afternoon nap (starting around 1pm).  Some days we do a late afternoon catnap (often in the car or stroller), others we skip it.  I have a feeling he’ll be dropping the third nap altogether pretty soon.

A few weeks ago we finally deployed Nurse Nancy’s “sleep through the night” plan.  Actually, we deployed it twice. The basic plan is for the non-soothing parent (usually the dad, who can’t breastfeed), to make timed visits at night wakings, gradually extending the span between visits until he self-soothes without any interference.  The first time, 5 nights in after really great success, Jonah decided to roll and scoot in his crib, which really threw a wrench in the plan. For a couple nights, we were so nervous about him sleeping on his belly that we (actually, it was mostly Jake) went in and flipped him over, far more frequently than the plan called for.  This further aggravated him, causing more rolling (Jonah), lots of tears (Jonah and me), and cursing (Jake and me).  Not our finest moment. 

So we took a break, checked in with Nurse Nancy, regrouped and re-launched about a week later.  It was slower this time, but it still worked.  Each night Jonah would wake less and Jake would make fewer visits.  As of now, he sleeps uninterrupted from 7pm to about 4/4:30.  This last stretch of sleep has been hard for him. He’ll still wake and cry for up to half an hour before returning to sleep.  But we remain hopeful that a full night’s sleep is in our future!  Actually, this mama has already had a few full nights of sleep, thanks to her amazing husband!  Jake was kind enough to encourage me to sleep downstairs the first few nights so at least one of us would get decent sleep.  Most nights, I still woke several times and had trouble getting back to sleep (I guess its what I’m used to these days…), but a couple nights I was able to sleep straight through until 6am, which is when Jonah wakes for the day and I get up with him. My husband—a pretty swell guy.  

Food:

While Jonah’s main source of “food” is still breastmilk, we also do two “meals” a day of solids.  With the appearance of another one and a half teeth (in total, three and a half now, with two and a half on their way), Jonah has become quite the skilled chewer.  We still give him mainly purees (tons of fruits and veggies, greek yogurt, oatmeal cereal) and raw fruit in his mesh feeder, but we’re now (cautiously) introducing real food too.  I’m a fan of many of the reasons for “baby led weaning”, which is basically a feeding philosophy that skips purees and begins with “real” food, cooked and cut into manageable sizes.  I like that it introduces babies to real flavors and textures and encourages self-feeding, but I’m so incredibly nervous about choking to actually try it.  So far Jonah’s been eating mainly “meltable” yogurt bites and cheerios, but we’ve recently tried mashed potatoes and shreds of beef and chicken, which he loved. For now, we plan to continue with soft foods and slowly introduce “real” foods in small (teeny weeny!) bites.

Favorite Activities:

-Lying under billowing sheets.

-Spinning, dancing, swinging in mom and dad’s (or really anyone’s) arms.

-Being upside down.

-Sticking out his tongue.

-Blowing raspberries and babbling.

-Eating the mail.

-Squinchy-faced smiling.

-Watching his reflection in the mirror.

Things I want to Remember:

1.  Jonah’s First Thanksgiving:  My parents and my brother Parker and sister in law Hannah all joined us in St. Louis for a lovely Thanksgiving.  We played games, watched football, went swimming at the hotel pool, took a walk in Forest Park and, of course, ate REALLY well.  I love seeing my family interact with Jonah. 

2. Jonah Gym: A few times a week I’ll decide I’ve been too lazy and Jonah and I will work out together.  In the middle of the living room rug we do Jonah-curls, Jonah-squats, Jonah-pushups (I kiss him on my down press) and Jonah crunches.  I have to say, he’s much heavier (and cuter) than the free-weights I tend to use at the real gym.

3. Another Visit From Auntie Sarah: My best bud Sarah was in town briefly for a wedding and, lucky us, we got to spend a whole day with her!  We went on a walk, read books at the library, had lunch with Jake and got plenty of great catch-up time.  She’s amazing with Jonah; it’s clear she’s had lots of Aunt-ing experience!

4. Outings: Tis the season for Christmas gift giving, so Jonah was my shopping buddy a lot this past month.  Without fail, whenever we’re out, multiple people stop me and comment on how cute he is and “Look at those cheeks!  I just want to eat them!” and “He’s such a big boy!”  Then Jonah will turn on his charm and babble at his admirers and you can just see their hearts melt. I love it when people stop to tell me how lucky I am to have this little nugget.  Because it’s true. I am. 

Cowboys fans. Start 'em young. 

Thanksgiving toast with the family.

Bustin' out of those 6 month britches!

Joyful! Joyful!

"Attention Target shoppers..."

Big winter cuddles from Uncle Parker. One of my favorite photos of all time. 

Library time with Auntie Sarah. 

My little reader. 

Enjoying his reflection. 

Knee eater!

Jonah: 6 Month Update

Weight: 18 lbs 5 oz (67%)

Length: 27.5 inches (76%)

Clothes Size: 6-9 mo

Milestones:

Two teeth: It took a few days for them to cut, and those were painful days for all of us, but they finally made their appearance and are now helping him gnaw on anything he can get his hands on.

First Solids: Speaking of which, around 5 months we decided to start solids.  We’ve heard it can sometimes take a while for babies to get used to new textures and flavors but Jonah loved solids right away. We started with pureed sweet potato and mashed avocado, both of which he gobbled up.  Since then we’ve done mainly purees: apple, pear, peach, prune, carrot, green beans, avocado, banana, sweet potato.  His favorites are fruits, no surprise.  He’s a fast and efficient eater, like his Opa.  Jonah will lean forward in his high chair, with his hands planted on either side of him and open his mouth, eager for every bite.  Right now he’s eating 3-4 oz of food twice a day, once around lunch time and again around dinner-time.  I’m still breast feeding 5-6 times a day, as well. 

Unassisted Sitting: Since he’d much prefer to be upright than on his back or belly, Jonah’s gotten even better at sitting.  We don’t even have to put “crash pillows” around him in case he topples over. 

Favorites:

Squealing: Jonah’s definitely found his voice.  Where he used to babble, now he squeals. Sometimes he’ll stiffen his whole body in excitement and squeal, trying to participate in conversation.  It’s pretty cute.  Unless you’re in church.

His tongue: He also loves to stick out his tongue and wiggle it around.  Again, so cute.  He seems down right delighted by his mouth these days.  We are, too. 

Watches: If Jonah’s sitting on your lap, expect him to pay a lot of attention to your watch.  He’ll study it and pat it rhythmically with his hand. 

Sleep:

Up until a few weeks ago Jonah had still been struggling with short and inconsistent naps.  A daytime schedule was impossible and it was really hard to get things done or make any plans.  Until…

 All hail Nurse Nancy!  She’s a child sleep specialist at a local hospital and at least once a day Jake or I turn to the other and say “We should send her a fruit basket.” We met with her a few weeks ago, set out some sleep goals for Jonah and she gave us very detailed plans to achieve each of those goals.  Very detailed.  Like, 3 pages, single spaced 10 pt. font detailed.  Which, to these two Type A parents, was a dream come true. 

Goal one was for Jonah to put himself down for naps and for naps to become longer.  She gave us a specific schedule (the timing of naps is very important, evidently) and we deployed it the very next day, with huge success.  With minimal crying or fussing, Jonah has since put himself to sleep for at least two naps a day in his crib.  AND, like magic, naps have gotten longer and more predictable.  Now he sleeps for 1.5-2 hours in the morning (starting around 8:30/9am) and 1-1.5 hours in the early afternoon (starting around 1/2pm).  His third nap is a late afternoon “cheater” nap usually in the carseat or stroller for only about 30 minutes to tide him over until bedtime.  Goal one: check!

Goal two was for Jonah to sleep without the swaddle.  We now put him in a sleep sack for naps and bedtime and he’s done really well without the swaddle.  I’m still considering a Zipadee-Zip, since I think his hands get cold and he still flails sometimes.   Goal two: check!

Goal three is for Jonah to sleep through the night. We haven’t started that plan yet, but we will very soon because his night sleep seems to be regressing (which Nurse Nancy predicted).  Jonah now wakes 2-3 times each night.  Sometimes we’ll let him cry it out, but often I’ll just go in and nurse him back to sleep.  We’re all ready for some good extended night sleep!

Things I want to Remember:

-Mom-Mom and Auntie Jess’s visit for Jonah’s 6-month birthday. Over their extended weekend visit we toured Henry Shaw’s country residence at the Missouri Botanical Garden, went Christmas shopping at the Galleria, and enjoyed a “Taste of Baltimore” happy hour with friends, hosted by my generous mother- and sister-in-law.  Jonah even had his first encounter with a crab. It was a lovely weekend!

-Jonah’s been doing this for several months, but I’m just now realizing how much I love it: While I nurse, he takes his chubby little hand and absentmindedly strokes my chest or fiddles with my shirt.  It’s such a small thing, but that demonstration of affection and familiarity is one of the sweetest parts of breastfeeding. 

Jonah: 5 Month Update

Weight: 18 lbs

Clothes Size: 6-9 mo

Milestones:

-Sitting up!  Jonah’s officially a baby-sitter (or, a sitting-baby, I guess).  He can sit by himself for several minutes at a time now before he teeters over (which is adorable because regardless how he lands—on his side, on his back or face down—he doesn’t seem to mind one bit). 

-Motor control: Jonah grabs pretty much anything he can get his hands on (he especially loves holding and grabbing faces) and brings it to his mouth.  He can even coordinate both hands enough to (sort of) pick up a big squishy block.

-His first tooth is emerging! (Without much fussing or fevers, knock on wood.)

"J" is for Jonah.

Favorite Activities:

-Walks in the stroller, especially in the late afternoon.  We’ve made a ritual of going on a walk around the neighborhood after Jake gets home from work.  We bundle Jonah up and as soon as we get moving he immediately calms down, relaxes his body and peacefully observes the big wide world.  It’s awesome.  Jake and I can get in some good conversation, exercise and fresh air and Jonah seems to enjoy the ride.  I’m not sure what we’ll do once daylight savings time hits; it’ll be too dark to walk as a family after work. Maybe we’ll become mall walkers…

-Being outside.  Sitting on a blanket in the yard, swinging on the porch swing, lying in the hammock, all of it seems to make this little guy happy. 

-Reading: We read him several board books each day and Jake reads a story from the Jesus Storybook Bible while I nurse him before bed each night.  He really seems to enjoy looking at the pictures and “helping” to turn the pages. 

-The exersaucer remains a big hit. 

Bundled up for an evening walk.  

Digging the exersaucer. 

Reading on the porch swing with Mom. 

Sleep:

We took our first foray into sleep training this month.  It was challenging, but all in all, I’d say a great success (for nighttime, at least).  Jonah now goes to bed drowsy, but awake, around 7:00pm (after a bath, massage, swaddle, feeding and kisses) and we rarely hear from him before 5:00am anymore.  Most nights he fusses a bit before he falls asleep (rarely he’ll cry for longer than 15 minutes) and every now and then he’ll wake up in the middle of the night and put himself back to sleep after a bit of crying. 

-Naps are still a struggle.  We attempted sleep training for naps, but abandoned it after a couple days of extended crying (crying all the way through naptime on a number of occasions…absolute torture). So we still bounce or nurse him to sleep for naps, and they still last, on average, about 45 minutes. 

Things I Want to Remember:

-My mom visited for a long weekend while Jake went away for a wedding in Charleston, SC.  The weather was terrible (cold and rainy) but we made the best of it: cooking big meals to freeze for later, bundling up for walks during breaks in the rain, repotting a bunch of succulents that had grown unruly, making homemade baby food (which we’ll start offering to Jonah this month!), buying and assembling a highchair and drinking wine, eating cheese and crackers and watching Parenthood after Jonah went to bed at night.  It was a pretty awesome weekend with Omi!

-Jonah’s big gummy smiles, which he offers pretty much any time we look at him and smile now. And they’re often accompanied by giggles, belly laughs or babbles.  It’s so sweet to see him interacting with, and enjoying, the world. 
-I'm eating dairy again!  And boy does it taste great.  Especially the cheese. 

All Aboard the Sleep (Training)Train!

Overall, Jonah’s sleep had been pretty good over the past couple months.   Most nights he got a decent stretch of uninterrupted sleep in after bedtime (between 6-9 hours) with another small stretch (1-2 hours) after one night nursing session.  And we got about 3-4 hours of total naptime in each day. 

And then, at about 18 weeks, we heard it.  In the distance. A faint whistle and the sound of “chug-chug-chug”.  It was the sleep training train.  

I had read a few books and talked to a few friends.  I knew some of the terminology (“extinction”, “graduated extinction”, “controlled crying”) and a few of the major players (Dr. Ferber, Dr. Weissbluth) but I wasn’t really sure we needed sleep training.  But slowly I was reminded of a few issues we did have with Jonah’s sleep.  

(1) Short, irregular naps.  And I had been pretty inconsistent in how I put him down. Sometimes I’d bounce him to sleep and then lay him in the crib. Other times I’d side-lie nurse him in bed and we’d fall asleep together.  Sometimes he’d catch naps in the carseat or stroller.  And for the most part, naps only lasted 40-50 minutes.

(2) Increasing night waking. Starting around 4 months, Jonah began waking more frequently at night, up to four times (four month sleep regression?).  Unsure of what to do, sometimes Jake would bounce him, sometimes I’d go in and nurse him, sometimes we’d do both and often it seemed like nothing really worked to get him back into a deep solid stretch of sleep.

(3) Non-existent self-soothing. This was the big one, which became more obvious as Jonah started waking more at night.  Because we almost always put Jonah down for naps/nighttime all the way asleep (via bouncing, nursing, rocking), he had almost zero self-soothing experience, so any time he woke and didn’t have us around to re-create that soothing environment, he’d cry.   

And finally, after several nights of 4-5 wakings, extended periods of crying, a recommendation from our pediatrician and the encouragement of a few friends, we decided maybe it was time. The sleep train was boarding.  And this time we’d packed our bags and were waiting at the station.  (I can sense that this metaphor might be a little overdone at this point.  I’ll stop.)

Sleep training in the Salter House. Not pictured: Project Runway. 

So here’s the nitty gritty.

First, I looked into the claims that sleep training (specifically the “cry it out” method) had negative psychological effects on infants.  My instinct told me it couldn’t be that bad; he cried all the time in the car for extended periods without intervention, would eventually fall asleep and, upon waking, be his normal, happy self.  But I wanted to be sure.  Some digging showed that there is actually clinical  research on these techniques.  The verdict?  Turns out, sleep training isn’t just safe, it’s effective (when done properly).   For a good summary of the research, see: http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/the_kids/2013/07/clinical_lactation_jumps_on_the_dr_sears_bandwagon_to_say_sleep_training.html  (I recognize that this topic is quite controversial.  But my goal here is simply to share our experiences, not to debate the pros/cons of sleep training.  Certainly what works for one child won't work for all children.) 

So, we re-read a few sections of sleep books I had purchased last month (Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child; Babywise; Moms on Call), talked to our pediatrician (who recommended Ferber’s method of graduated extinction, i.e. “cry it out” with parental soothing at pre-set intervals), talked to a few parent friends and made a plan: We’d start Friday night (so that we’d have two weekend days to catch up on any lost sleep) and we’d go all in with the extinction method (which means you don’t go in to soothe or check on them until morning, letting them cry until they fall asleep).  We decided on the extinction method (over graduated extinction) because we read that, while harder on parents, extinction worked more dependably, more quickly, there was less overall crying and parents were more likely to return to the method after a sleep setback (illness, travel, etc).

Night One:

Friday evening we went to a birthday party got to hang out with some good friends and their sweet kiddos.  We headed home a little before Jonah’s normal bedtime (7:30/7:45pm) and stuffed our bags with a few leftover beers and chocolate chip cookies. To help blunt the agony of what was about to happen. 

Jonah was super calm and easy during the pre-bed routine.  Sweet and babbly and smilely as ever. He had no idea what was about to hit him. It was torture. As I rocked him and nursed him, anxiety started creeping in; I could feel my heart-rate increase, imagining endless hours of my baby screaming all alone in his crib.  But I knew, in the long run, this would be for his good.  I nursed him extra long while Jake read “The Jesus Storybook Bible” and prayed.  Then, at about 8:15 when he seemed to be done nursing, and had drowsy, heavy eyelids (but was still awake), I placed him in his crib.  We kissed his forehead, told him we loved him and that we’d see him soon.  It was so strange putting him down without the extended bouncing, hovering and tiny calculated movements to keep him asleep. 

The first 5 minutes he babbled to himself. It was so sweet. And I had a flash of optimism: “Maybe he won’t cry at all!  Maybe he’ll talk himself to sleep!” Ha. 

Then he started crying. Jake and I went downstairs, turned the monitor OFF, turned the fans ON (to muffle the crying) and folded laundry while watching TV to keep distracted.  We could hear the screaming (although dampened by white noise).  I kept imagining his little body, sweating and writhing in anger. His tears, hot on his sweet baby cheeks.  Ugh.  Would this actually work? Was he too hot?  Should we have swaddled him in a onesie instead of footie pajamas? Should we have waited another month?  I just kept rolling boxers, folding t-shirts and watching Tim Gunn encourage designers to “make it work!”.  Jake reached over to hold my hand. 

Slowly I became less bothered by the screaming and more interested in the show and then, by 9:00pm, we couldn’t hear him anymore.  We didn’t dare turn on the monitor.  We didn’t want to jinx it. We just both pretended to not notice while we finished Project Runway (which Jake generously offered to watch with me, for solidarity sake).  But, he was asleep. After only about 40 minutes of crying.

And we didn’t hear him again until 5:45am. He started fussing and we decided to wait it out for a little bit.  After about 10 minutes he was back asleep.   And finally I went to get him to feed at 7:00am.  He was awake and quietly playing.  What!??? This had NEVER happened. 

So night one was a pretty big success.

After Night One:

Subsequent nights started off with less crying (25 minutes on night 2, 10 minutes on night 3 and less than 2 minutes on night 4), but he also started waking earlier (5:30am!).  5:30 is a pretty early start to the day (we often lay him down for his first nap before 8:00am, which feels pretty weird since there were plenty of days prior to parenthood where we’d still be sleeping at 8:00am), but we still counted it a success.

Naps, on the other hand, were not so successful.  We initially tried to “rip the Band-Aid off”, so to speak, and nap train concurrently with night training.  We had a few successful naps (minimal crying and sleep lasting longer than 35 minutes) but we also had quite a few days where he would cry all the way through at least one nap, leaving us frustrated and him exhausted.   After some research and prayer we decided to put nap training on hold and try to establish a good nighttime sleep schedule, consistent wake up time and consistent nap schedule before nap training.

It’s been about three weeks since our initial CIO experience and nighttime sleep is still consistently better.  Sometimes I’ll “accidentally” nurse him to sleep (never wake a sleeping baby, right?) which sets us back a little bit on the self-soothing but I’d say we’re still fairly committed to the basics of sleep training.

The Verdict

So, in terms of our original sleep challenges, I’d say sleep training has helped moderately to significantly with #2 (night wakings) and #3 (self soothing) and not at all with #1 (short naps).  Those flippin’ 40-minute naps, man.  They’re killing me.