Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Kayden's First Steps
Kayden has been trying to walk for a little while now. He would cruise all over the place, but once you put him out there on his own, he would get scared and sit down. He can stand for quite a while on his own, and will sit down without falling. Today, I was just putting him down on the floor and he decided he wanted to stand rather than sit. I stood him up right on the floor and usually he would just sit down. However, he decided he was going to walk to nick. He balanced himself on his own, and then took 5 steps to nick! We were SHOCKED!! We kept trying to get him to take that many again, but the most we have been able to get since are three. He is getting there though and I can't believe that very soon, we will have a toddler!
Friday, August 5, 2011
Sleeping (I feel like this is the title of 2/3rds of my posts!)
FINALLY!!!! I am happy to report that as of 3 nights ago, Kayden will actually lay down and go to sleep at night time. He will fuss for just a second when I lay him down but then he will just stop crying and will go back and forth from laying down to sitting to standing and continues doing that until he finally caves, lays down, and goes to sleep. It's usually about a 5 minutes process. I'm just thankful he doesn't cry anymore when we put him in his bed!
However, he still wakes up in the middle of the night and does not put himself back to sleep. I end up going to get him and put him in the bed with us. I can't figure out why he can't put himself back to sleep in the middle of the night but he can when we first put him down. So, that will be our next step.
I tried just putting him down for naps today too. That didn't work. Oh well, I'll take what I can get at this point!
I start back to work next Thursday. As many know, we had no where for Kayden to go on Thursdays and that was pretty stressful for me! Luckily, I got an email from our church's Mother's Day Out coordinator and they still had a spot open for Thursday's. They start August 16 so my mom is going to take off this Thursday (also the first day of school) and then he will start going there on Thursdays! I'm so thankful that this worked out because I was getting worried!! :)
However, he still wakes up in the middle of the night and does not put himself back to sleep. I end up going to get him and put him in the bed with us. I can't figure out why he can't put himself back to sleep in the middle of the night but he can when we first put him down. So, that will be our next step.
I tried just putting him down for naps today too. That didn't work. Oh well, I'll take what I can get at this point!
I start back to work next Thursday. As many know, we had no where for Kayden to go on Thursdays and that was pretty stressful for me! Luckily, I got an email from our church's Mother's Day Out coordinator and they still had a spot open for Thursday's. They start August 16 so my mom is going to take off this Thursday (also the first day of school) and then he will start going there on Thursdays! I'm so thankful that this worked out because I was getting worried!! :)
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
This is Kind of a big deal!
We recently started full blown "cry it out". Every time we have tried it in the past, we would do it for a couple days and then Kayden would get sick and we wouldn't feel comfortable enough continuing to let him cry in his crib. It was also really hard for me to get back into the routine of cry it out because Kayden would SCREAM bloody murder. It's seriously not just the crying... it's screaming. My child has lungs.
We then tried just rocking him to sleep and then laying him in his crib. I kind of enjoyed rocking and cuddling with him and then laying him down. I just wanted him to sleep in his crib. However, that wasn't working out very well. Getting him to actually stay asleep once we put him in the crib was hit or miss, and then after about an hour he would wake back up and not be able to put himself back to sleep. I knew something had to change. Especially with me going back to work and Kayden going to a babysitter during the day. We were still having to hold him in order for him to take his full length in naps (2, 2 hour naps). I know that his baby sitter will not be able to do this so I knew we had to start something.
Enter-----> full blown cry it out method. After talking to a friend and telling me that she recently did cry it out with her son (who is only a week younger than kayden), I decided that we just needed to do it. I know this friend does a lot of research on stuff when it comes to her child so I knew that it wouldn't scar him for life :) The first night we did our bath, bottle, book, rock/cuddle routine and then put him to bed awake but drowsy. A lot of people have told me not to do the rocking and cuddling part, since that is how he is use to falling asleep but I have a very cuddly baby right now, and when I go back to work I know that those moments are going to be so precious so I will continue it as long as he will let me. He cried for 3......THREE HOURS. I didn't go check on him once. We have a video baby monitor so I could see him every second and I knew if I went in to his room, it would just make it that much worse (found out from the previous cry it out experiences). It was sooooo hard to let him cry for three hours. And after three hours, I went in there, sat next to his crib and he laid down and fell right to sleep in his crib. I just held his hand, but he went to sleep in his crib. That was big for us. That was a step. But as the next couple weeks progressed, I felt like I was going to have to go in and sit next to his crib for the rest of my life. It wasn't that bad. I enjoyed going in and sitting next to it and holding his hand. It usually didn't take long after I went in there for him to fall asleep, no longer than 10 minutes, but usually just 5 or even less. It was just the fact that he would still wake up in the middle of the night crying and would eventually go back in to our bed. I felt like he still wasn't learning how to put himself to sleep.
I started lowering the time I let him cry before I went in there. The second night (after our 3 hours long scream fest), I just let him cry for an hour and a half and then went in to sit next to his crib, then an hour, then 45 minutes. Every time it still wouldn't take him long to fall asleep once I went in. We had to take a little bit of a break from this though so I thought tonight would be twenty times more rough than it had been. We had a really busy weekend so he never got good naps during the day and then we were out late so I usually ended up just rocking him to sleep and then putting him to sleep in our bed. We took about a 4 day hiatus, and then tonight we did our normal routine, I put him in bed and let him start crying. I was going to wait 45 minutes tonight and then start decreasing the crying time after tonight but much to my amazement, 20 minutes of just crying... NO SCREAMING... he was laying down and within the next 10 minutes he was completely asleep. I still can't believe it! It was such a fresh breath of air.
I feel like we have struggled for a long time with sleeping. I was getting really worried about sleeping, especially with me going back to work and needed my rest. He may not sleep through the night, and may still wind up in our bed sometime during the middle of the night... but I am ok with that for now. It's good cuddling time. I just really needed the late evening part of bedtime to work so that I could get things ready for the next day and get the house work done without listening to Kayden screaming. He will hopefully now get better rest seeing as how he is actually falling asleep closer to a normal bed time now, and he will be waking up earlier than he is use to in order to go to the sitters on monday, wednesday, and thursday.
We still haven't tried naps. I wanted to get night time down first. Hopefully nap times will be easier once we get the whole bed time, falling asleep on your own thing. We will see!
We then tried just rocking him to sleep and then laying him in his crib. I kind of enjoyed rocking and cuddling with him and then laying him down. I just wanted him to sleep in his crib. However, that wasn't working out very well. Getting him to actually stay asleep once we put him in the crib was hit or miss, and then after about an hour he would wake back up and not be able to put himself back to sleep. I knew something had to change. Especially with me going back to work and Kayden going to a babysitter during the day. We were still having to hold him in order for him to take his full length in naps (2, 2 hour naps). I know that his baby sitter will not be able to do this so I knew we had to start something.
Enter-----> full blown cry it out method. After talking to a friend and telling me that she recently did cry it out with her son (who is only a week younger than kayden), I decided that we just needed to do it. I know this friend does a lot of research on stuff when it comes to her child so I knew that it wouldn't scar him for life :) The first night we did our bath, bottle, book, rock/cuddle routine and then put him to bed awake but drowsy. A lot of people have told me not to do the rocking and cuddling part, since that is how he is use to falling asleep but I have a very cuddly baby right now, and when I go back to work I know that those moments are going to be so precious so I will continue it as long as he will let me. He cried for 3......THREE HOURS. I didn't go check on him once. We have a video baby monitor so I could see him every second and I knew if I went in to his room, it would just make it that much worse (found out from the previous cry it out experiences). It was sooooo hard to let him cry for three hours. And after three hours, I went in there, sat next to his crib and he laid down and fell right to sleep in his crib. I just held his hand, but he went to sleep in his crib. That was big for us. That was a step. But as the next couple weeks progressed, I felt like I was going to have to go in and sit next to his crib for the rest of my life. It wasn't that bad. I enjoyed going in and sitting next to it and holding his hand. It usually didn't take long after I went in there for him to fall asleep, no longer than 10 minutes, but usually just 5 or even less. It was just the fact that he would still wake up in the middle of the night crying and would eventually go back in to our bed. I felt like he still wasn't learning how to put himself to sleep.
I started lowering the time I let him cry before I went in there. The second night (after our 3 hours long scream fest), I just let him cry for an hour and a half and then went in to sit next to his crib, then an hour, then 45 minutes. Every time it still wouldn't take him long to fall asleep once I went in. We had to take a little bit of a break from this though so I thought tonight would be twenty times more rough than it had been. We had a really busy weekend so he never got good naps during the day and then we were out late so I usually ended up just rocking him to sleep and then putting him to sleep in our bed. We took about a 4 day hiatus, and then tonight we did our normal routine, I put him in bed and let him start crying. I was going to wait 45 minutes tonight and then start decreasing the crying time after tonight but much to my amazement, 20 minutes of just crying... NO SCREAMING... he was laying down and within the next 10 minutes he was completely asleep. I still can't believe it! It was such a fresh breath of air.
I feel like we have struggled for a long time with sleeping. I was getting really worried about sleeping, especially with me going back to work and needed my rest. He may not sleep through the night, and may still wind up in our bed sometime during the middle of the night... but I am ok with that for now. It's good cuddling time. I just really needed the late evening part of bedtime to work so that I could get things ready for the next day and get the house work done without listening to Kayden screaming. He will hopefully now get better rest seeing as how he is actually falling asleep closer to a normal bed time now, and he will be waking up earlier than he is use to in order to go to the sitters on monday, wednesday, and thursday.
We still haven't tried naps. I wanted to get night time down first. Hopefully nap times will be easier once we get the whole bed time, falling asleep on your own thing. We will see!
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
It's all coming to an end....
We went and visited with the lady that will be watching on Kayden on Monday's and Wednesday's when I go back to work. We are so fortunate to have a Christian lady with a little girl a couple months younger than Kayden that has agreed to watch him those 2 days. She is wonderful and such a sweetheart and I know he will do great there. However, this visit just solidified the fact that, in 16 short days I will no longer be a stay at home mom and will switch my role as primary care taker of kayden, to "secondary". I know I will always be the primary care taker per say.. but he is now going to be with people who will see him for a longer wake time than I will. I know people do it every day and their kids turn out just fine. It's just getting harder and harder on me to believe that I will no longer be home with him all the time and I will have to depend on someone else to feed, change, comfort, and play with my baby. I know everyone who will be watching him will do all of these things just as well, if not better, than what I can do.. but he's my baby and I'm having a really hard time letting go of that. I just keep telling myself that people go back to work after only 6 weeks of staying home with their baby and they are just fine. I KNOW he will be just fine, I'm just not quite ready for all of this to come to an end. Thankfully, this lady will watch him Monday and wednesdays, Nick will be home with him on Tuesdays or Thursdays (he will stay home one of those days, and we aren't sure where Kayden will go the other day) and my mom will keep him on Fridays. He WILL be ok. I WILL be ok. That's the mantra i'm just going to have to keep telling myself. I just don't know if telling myself that will work come August 11th.
Monday, July 25, 2011
Big boy carseat!
We got Kayden's big boy car seat in today! We ended up going with the Britax Marathon 70 because it has the highest safety ratings, goes up to 40lbs rear facing, and 70 forward facing. It isn't too big so that we can easily get it in and out of our cars and it's super comfy. We got it at a GREAT price too! The most I have seen it priced at was 289 and the least was on amazon for 219... but we got it for 179! I feel like that's a pretty good deal and I am thankful that I asked "Baby Cheapskate" on facebook for the best price. Then, when we went through the whole ordering process, order the black "onyx" colored seat. 30 minutes later we get an email saying there was a merchandise problem and they no longer have the black one, only the red and "cow" colored ones. I definitely was not a fan of the cow, and the red was alright... but I was really bummed about not being able to get the black one. I'm not normally THAT person, but we sent back an email asking if they would go down on the price anymore since it was a problem on their end and I was really only looking for the black one. They went down $10 more dollars (hey... 10 dollars is 10 dollars!) and so we ended up going with the red one. It's really not that bad now that we have it.. and I actually like it! For right now, this one will go in Nick's car since we take it more and I will keep the carrier in my car (booo!! but my mom actually buys the babies "big kid" car seat for their first birthdays and we can't afford to buy that expensive of a car seat until I get my first pay check for teaching... and Kayden isn't that close to reaching his limits on the carrier yet) However, we will be leaving that one with the sitter so really we will just be switching the car seat back and forth for a while. Thankfully it's really easy to install in Nick's car since he has the LATCH system, we haven't tried it in my car yet (i don't have the latch system) but it looks like it may be a little more difficult so we will see. Over all I am really excited about his new seat, but sad that within the matter of 24 hours we have started a pinterest board with decorations for his first birthday, put up the swing, and installed his new car seat. SLOW. IT. DOWN. !!!!
Trying it out in Nana's living room after it arrived!
In the car! (and daddy making funny faces to make him laugh)
Trying it out in Nana's living room after it arrived!
In the car! (and daddy making funny faces to make him laugh)
Sunday, July 24, 2011
10 months old
Dear Kayden-
Here we are with only 2 months left until your first birthday! I can't believe it's already time to start planning! I can't believe that in just 2 short months I will no longer have a "baby". I'm sure I will shed many tears on September 9th!
This month you have traveled so much! You were gone from home for almost 3 weeks out of the month! We traveled 2,900 miles and for the most part you were a really good baby! We went to Florida with Nana, Grampa, Uncle Jeremy, Aunt Paige, and Audrey. This was your first long car ride, and your first time at the beach! You were WONDERFUL on the trip down! You slept almost all the way there and when you were awake you just looked around trying to figure out what we were doing. You LOVED the beach and enjoyed playing in the sand, the water, and taking naps on the beach. I couldn't have asked for a better baby, especially since your daddy wasn't there!
After Florida, we went to go visit daddy in North Carolina! You hadn't seen daddy for 2 weeks, and even though it was late at night when daddy got to the hotel, you woke up and were so happy to see him! We stayed in North Carolina with daddy until he was finished recording and then we all headed to South Carolina to meet up with Gramma, Pops... and the WHOLE gang! You loved myrtle beach and you were a great baby there too! It was obvious that you loved when daddy took you out into the ocean and to the pool too! You sure did miss him!
This month you also started getting TEETH!!!! You got 4 teeth all at the same time. You did great with getting so many at one time. Mommy was starting to think you would never get teeth but there they were!!
You understand so much, even though you don't say very clear words right now. We say "dadadadadada" all the time and try to say dog but it comes out more like "dah" (but it definitely sounds different than "dada"! We can ask you several things though and it is obvious that you understand what we are saying. We can ask you "where's the dog" and you will instantly look through the kitchen door to the back door and start crawling over there. We can also ask you "where's mommy" or "where's daddy" and you will look at the correct person. If mommy asks you where daddy is when he is not home you instantly look up to the big picture of mommy and daddy on the wall. You are so smart my sweet boy and I love watching you learn new things everyday!
You crawl, pull up and cruise all over the place. You can stand for a couple seconds by yourself and you try to walk by yourself but don't have quite the balance yet. It won't be long though my sweet baby... and then you will official be a toddler, and not mommy's little baby anymore! Take your time sweet boy... mommy's not quite ready yet!
Here we go onto another month. This will be mommy's last full month staying home with you, so please don't grow up too fast sweet boy!
Love you forever,
Mommy
Here we are with only 2 months left until your first birthday! I can't believe it's already time to start planning! I can't believe that in just 2 short months I will no longer have a "baby". I'm sure I will shed many tears on September 9th!
This month you have traveled so much! You were gone from home for almost 3 weeks out of the month! We traveled 2,900 miles and for the most part you were a really good baby! We went to Florida with Nana, Grampa, Uncle Jeremy, Aunt Paige, and Audrey. This was your first long car ride, and your first time at the beach! You were WONDERFUL on the trip down! You slept almost all the way there and when you were awake you just looked around trying to figure out what we were doing. You LOVED the beach and enjoyed playing in the sand, the water, and taking naps on the beach. I couldn't have asked for a better baby, especially since your daddy wasn't there!
After Florida, we went to go visit daddy in North Carolina! You hadn't seen daddy for 2 weeks, and even though it was late at night when daddy got to the hotel, you woke up and were so happy to see him! We stayed in North Carolina with daddy until he was finished recording and then we all headed to South Carolina to meet up with Gramma, Pops... and the WHOLE gang! You loved myrtle beach and you were a great baby there too! It was obvious that you loved when daddy took you out into the ocean and to the pool too! You sure did miss him!
This month you also started getting TEETH!!!! You got 4 teeth all at the same time. You did great with getting so many at one time. Mommy was starting to think you would never get teeth but there they were!!
You understand so much, even though you don't say very clear words right now. We say "dadadadadada" all the time and try to say dog but it comes out more like "dah" (but it definitely sounds different than "dada"! We can ask you several things though and it is obvious that you understand what we are saying. We can ask you "where's the dog" and you will instantly look through the kitchen door to the back door and start crawling over there. We can also ask you "where's mommy" or "where's daddy" and you will look at the correct person. If mommy asks you where daddy is when he is not home you instantly look up to the big picture of mommy and daddy on the wall. You are so smart my sweet boy and I love watching you learn new things everyday!
You crawl, pull up and cruise all over the place. You can stand for a couple seconds by yourself and you try to walk by yourself but don't have quite the balance yet. It won't be long though my sweet baby... and then you will official be a toddler, and not mommy's little baby anymore! Take your time sweet boy... mommy's not quite ready yet!
Here we go onto another month. This will be mommy's last full month staying home with you, so please don't grow up too fast sweet boy!
Love you forever,
Mommy
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
The Gluten Free Diet
Well, it looks like we will be switching K-man to a gluten free diet. We knew there was a chance of this when he had such a hard time with the baby cereals. I was really hoping we wouldn't have to, but more and more things are pointing to celiacs disease. He has had cereal and the gerber puffs for a while and his gas and constipation have stayed around. I was doing some research on the issue and two of the main symptoms in infants is gas and constipation. Cheerios, gerber puffs, goldfish, and animal crackers all have gluten in them, which is everything he eats for snacks during the day.
I felt like he was having a lot of gas problems, more so for his age. We have to still give him mylicon drops every night and even those don't help. He will wake up from the gas, and he has to be pressed up against one of us when he sleeps a lot of nights. I'm really hoping that by eliminating these foods, he will sleep better also. Here's to hoping. In my research I also found that it can lead to iron deficiency, which he have to give iron drops right now because of an iron deficiency. We had talked to the pediatrician about the baby cereals at his 9 month appointment and she said to watch him as he started to eat more solid foods, so I guess we will report back to her at his 12 month appointment and let her know that he is still having gas and constipation issues. While I was hoping it would not be celiacs, I'm just ready for his tummy to feel better and for him to not have such pain.
I felt like he was having a lot of gas problems, more so for his age. We have to still give him mylicon drops every night and even those don't help. He will wake up from the gas, and he has to be pressed up against one of us when he sleeps a lot of nights. I'm really hoping that by eliminating these foods, he will sleep better also. Here's to hoping. In my research I also found that it can lead to iron deficiency, which he have to give iron drops right now because of an iron deficiency. We had talked to the pediatrician about the baby cereals at his 9 month appointment and she said to watch him as he started to eat more solid foods, so I guess we will report back to her at his 12 month appointment and let her know that he is still having gas and constipation issues. While I was hoping it would not be celiacs, I'm just ready for his tummy to feel better and for him to not have such pain.
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