It all worked out in the end, though. After two weeks of terrible sleep (compared with his norm) we finally have a working routine, which we haven't seen since February! I'm even trying to make it more of a schedule, so we know what time Ethan goes to sleep (9 PM) and wakes up (7:30 AM) each day. We keep him up late so he can get in more daddy time, but if I go back to work (which is an option right now), that would shift to about 7:30 PM and 6:00 AM.
We're just starting these standard bedtime/wake times today, so we'll see if my plans work well! :) Our general schedule during the day is 3 hours of wake-time and 2 hours of nap-time, so he eats every 5 hours and I get nice, long breaks. It's heaven!
We've also stopped feeding to sleep, which we were only doing before Ethan went to bed at night, anyway. We did this to prepare for the future (not eating right before bed; brushing teeth) and make going to sleep quick & easy. This means we lay him down, give him his pacifier and blanket, turn on the noisemaker, turn off the lights and leave the room... and miraculously, after only crying-it-out ONE time, he gets it, and goes to sleep!
Because he can now put himself to sleep, we know he can put himself BACK to sleep at night when he wakes up. He's sleeping so well now, and while we believe some of that is the result of these new sleep training methods, we know that it is also owed partly to our introducing rice cereal to his bottle, and some baby food during the day, too. This keeps his little belly fuller, longer!
We haven't made much progress where crawling is concerned, primarily because of the cold we were still battling even a week ago, so he spent most of his time being held and sleeping. He loves his bouncer/jumper (whatever that thing is, we love it!) and he spending hours in that thing every day. Training him up for basketball already!
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| He did NOT want to stretch out - he wanted those feet in his mouth! |
So far, 6 months is my favorite age. He thinks "no" is a game, but he understands us a little better and picks up on things quickly. He also loves to play and we rotate out his toys so he isn't overwhelmed with too many options.
We also got a swing for the front yard, and for a whopping $30 we have lots of entertainment. Ethan loves Bear (we are convinced "Bear" will be his first word) and he loves that Bear is running around while Ethan swings back and forth. It's one of our "resets", or toys/games we use to "reset" Ethan's mood if he is cranky. These things typically buy us about 30 minutes to an hour of happy baby time, even if we don't spend that much time on the swing itself.
I'm off to clean out the fridge and hopefully read a couple of chapters of a book before Ethan wakes up!
xo,
you guys are so structured! I don't know how you do it. He's growing fast - it will be amusing to see the babies together. I have an old picture of me and Matthew as babies and he's so much bigger than I am (although I think I may be older...?). Glad the little man is feeling all better too!
ReplyDeleteWe try to make his days make sense because our doctor told us that if we try to implement a regular schedule, he would pick up on it and follow it almost on his own, which seems to be true! But now that he is sick (again! which is typical at 6 mos, so get excited...) his schedule is much looser... though he is doing a much better job at keeping some semblance of a schedule than he was the last time he had a cold.
DeleteMatt was born March of 1981, but he was also 9 lbs at birth :)
I can't wait to get them together! Especially once Ethan is well again!