Sleep Training: Day ??

Just a quick update because I'm SO freaking excited about this. So we've been keeping John on a 3-hour feeding schedule. We feed him at 7 AM, 10 AM, 1 PM, 4 PM, and 7 PM. After the last feeding, we put him to bed and he goes right to sleep. Then we just wait for him to wake up before we offer him another bottle. Well somehow he got himself weaned to just two bottles a night, then to just one... without me doing anything. I had this whole elaborate plan about how I was going to step him off the night bottles by a half ounce at a time, giving him three days at each new volume before stepping down another half ounce... blah blah blah. Then suddenly, two nights ago, he miraculously slept through the whole night all by himself! That's 11 hours of sleep (from roughly 8 PM when his bedtime routine is finished to 7 AM when we get him up for the day).

The dogs woke us up around 6 AM to go outside and be fed. I turned to James and asked him if he had gotten up with the baby during the night and he said no. I knew that I hadn't gotten up with the baby during the night, so we both immediately raced up the stairs to check on him because the first thought that crossed my mind was, "OMG my baby just died of SIDS!!!!" But when we peeked into the crib, he was fast asleep and just as happy as can be. We let him sleep until 7 and then took him out of his crib for his first bottle. There was no fussing, no crying, just sweetness and snuggles.

I. Was. Floored.

The best part? He did it AGAIN last night! I couldn't believe it. I thought it was a fluke, but he slept all night long. We've been doubling the inserts in his cloth diaper and putting a little preventative diaper rash cream on him after his bath each night, so I think that helps.

(FYI: That means we now use cloth even overnight and STILL don't have any problems with leaking. Woo hoo!)

Best. Baby. Ever!

And may the peace of the Lord be always with you.

Sleep Training: Taking a Time Out

So we had to take a little break from the sleep training. The first step is to get him on a four-hour feeding schedule, but after a couple of days I began to notice (from checking my baby log notebook) that he wasn't get as much formula as he had been before we started sleep training. As a result, we had one day last week that was a total nightmare. He was cranky. I was cranky. It just wasn't good. He isn't able to drink enough formula at each individual feeding to make up for the reduced number of total feedings. I guess he's just not quite big enough and not quite ready for the four-hour feedings.

So we took a couple of days off and started back on a three-and-a-half-hour feeding schedule, which gives him five daytime feedings instead of four. The good part is that he's drinking plenty of formula on the new schedule (actually, more than he was before we started sleep training at all) and isn't cranky anymore. The bad part is that it makes his day 14 hours long instead of 12, and his sleeping period only 10 hours long instead of 12. But he seems to be doing well anyway. After his bedtime routine (bath, bottle, book, and bed) he goes right to sleep and is out for at least four hours most nights. He still wakes up for a bottle twice during the night, but he goes right back to sleep afterward. I'm tempted to keep this schedule permanently and move on to step two, gradually eliminating the night feedings. I just don't know yet. I'm going to give him another week or so on the three-and-a-half-hour schedule and see how things go.

On a side note, we've been using the bum Genius 4.0 one-size pocket diapers exclusively for a while now and I really love them. Have I already talked about that? I've got a bad case of mommy-brain today. Anyway, we haven't had ANY problems with leaking OR diaper rash since we switched to cloth and they are SO easy to use. James even thinks so. We have a roll of Kushies flushable diaper liners so I don't have to wash any poop out of the diapers and they work really well. The only thing I would do differently would be to get a flushable liner that's a little wider, maybe just an inch more coverage to make sure no poop gets on the cloth. And I need few more diapers so I could wash every other day instead of every day and a half. I have 14 right now, so if I get 18-24 then I'll be set. I still don't know what I'm going to do once we put John in daycare in the fall because I am NOT going back to disposables.

Last thing. We had a doctor's appointment last week and John was 11 pounds 9 ounces!! He's huge! And he started trying to smile at me today. Be still my heart!

And may the peace of the Lord be always with you.

Adventures in Mommyland

I have to keep this short because we are about 30 minutes away from John's next feeding, but I wanted to give everyone an update on my crazy new life. So let's see, where to begin...

First of all, John is doing really well. His jaundice has completely cleared up and he's finally starting to gain weight. We took him back to the doctor about a week ago to have him weighed, just to make sure he wasn't continuing to shrink. He was seven pounds, three ounces at birth and dropped down to about six pounds right after we got home. But after another week, he had gained an entire pound back. Although I haven't weighed him this week, I can tell by looking at him that he's starting to chunk up nicely. His appetite has nearly doubled and he isn't having any digestive problems anymore. He sleeps through most of the night without too much trouble. I put him in the nursery between 9:00 and 10:00 and we get up with him between midnight and 1:00, between 3:00 and 4:00, and then between 5:00 and 6:00... all depending on how much formula he drinks each time. Luckily, once his tummy is full and his little bottom is clean/dry, he goes right back to sleep without having to be rocked endlessly. The whole process only takes 30-45 minutes most nights.

We're currently transitioning him from Enfamil, which is what the hospital started him on at birth, to Nature's One Baby's Only, a brand of organic dairy formula. Although there are many brands of organic formula out there, I decided that this one would be the best because of the types of ingredients the formula includes. Of primary concern was the use of corn syrup and hexane processed DHA in other brands of organic and regular formula. The only downside is that I haven't found it in any local stores yet. Supposedly the Whole Foods store downtown carries this brand, but I haven't been there to check it out for myself yet. I got free shipping on my last order from Diapers.com, so I took that opportunity to order several cans of formula at the same time. Right now we're giving him a 50/50 mix of the Enfamil and Baby's Only. When we get closer to the bottom of the Enfamil can, we'll switch to 25/75 and then exclusively Baby's Only. I wanted to transition gradually to avoid making his tummy too upset.

About a week after we came home, we switched from using regular paper diapers to using gDiapers. I've been wanting to use cloth diapers for a long time now, not only because it reduces the incidence of diaper rash but also because of all the chemicals found in paper diapers and how bad they are for the environment. I want to say I read somewhere that paper/plastic diapers take 500 years to biodegrade. Think about how many diapers one baby uses, and then how many babies are born each year. That's a LOT of diapers just sitting in landfills not going anywhere. With the gDiapers, you can either use 100% biodegradable inserts that break down in about 30 days, or you can use cloth inserts that you wash and reuse over and over again. I'm planning to do a combination of the two: disposable inserts when we're out of the house and cloth inserts when we're at home.

Originally I wanted to use a different type of cloth diaper, the Bum Genius 4.0 diaper. But I already know that the child care center on base won't use the cloth diapers. We don't have anything set in stone yet, but I'm hoping we'll be able to find a family child care provider to watch John starting in August. And I'm hoping that they will either be completely on board with cloth diapering, or they'll at least be willing to use the gDiapers with the disposable inserts. Until we nail down a solid plan for his care in the fall, we won't really know for sure.

We've been using the gDiapers for a little over a week now and so far I would say they are "okay." I'm pretty sure that some degree of operator error is to blame for our lukewarm success with these diapers. I bought some Kushies flushable diaper liners to act as a barrier between the cloth insert and his soft splatter poops, and those work very well. But we've been having problems with the diapers leaking and I don't know if that's because of the fit or because of the cloth inserts (which have to be prewashed up to six times before they're ready to use). I don't know... I'm going to continue experimenting with them and hopefully I can get all the kinks worked out. In the mean time, I've added some of the Bum Genius diapers back to my baby registry in the hopes that someone will buy them for my baby shower (HINT HINT) and we can give those a try as well. I just really don't want to go back to using paper diapers again.

Before John was born, one of my girlfriends bought me a Moby wrap so I could "wear" John around the house. I was really excited about it and gave it a try when we were hanging around the hotel waiting on our ICPC clearance. Figuring out how to wrap it isn't actually that hard. But figuring out how tight or loose to wrap it so that the baby will actually fit properly is another story! Like cloth diapering, there is definitely a learning curve when it comes to baby-wearing. But during the day, John really prefers for me to hold him rather than put him down in the bassinet. He'll happily snooze away in the bassinet or bouncer seat about half of the time, but all the rest of the time he really just wants to be held. Plus he LOVES being swaddled, so putting him in the Moby wrap kills two birds with one stone by keeping him wrapped up nice and snug next to his mommy.

I think that's enough for now. Time to feed and change my little man cub so I can get some lunch myself and start working on my outline notes for school... or washing bottles... or washing diapers... or doing laundry... or something else equally important that I've already forgotten about...

And may the peace of the Lord be always with you.