how can you say no to that??

recently, caleb has been obsessed with his children's bible. we've always read it to him right before bed, but lately that hasn't been enough. usually we're pretty set on only sleeping with doggy at night, but how do you say no to sleeping with his bible? especially when all he wants is for it to be in the crib with him. last night, i wasn't home so troy put caleb to bed. apparently, he went down just fine but then started crying a minute or so later. and he wasn't crying for mommy or daddy, no, he was crying for his bible. so, like any good christian dad, troy went in there, put the bible in the crib, and about 12 hours later, caleb woke up. what a way to sleep!

like mother, like son

guess what caleb slept with today for his nap? his toothbrush. i just couldn't pry it away, he so desperately wanted to snuggle it!
and for those of you who don't know why this is an indication of his being like me... suffice it to say that, while i have never slept with my toothbrush, i have been rather obsessed with the use of it.

what do you want to sleep with today?

i ask this question every single day right before nap time. at night, caleb just sleeps with his doggy. but for his nap, he gets to pick 1-2 toys/books to sleep with as well. sometimes they are stuffed animals, sometimes books, sometimes kitchen utensils, etc. i can usually guess what it will be based on what he's involved in playing with right before nap begins. because of this, during lunch i try to hide two specific toys. first, is "music doggy"... a stuffed dog who plays music when you pull his tail. i've made the mistake of allowing him to sleep with that once. after about 1/2 hour of listening to the song over and over, i finally had to take it away so he could sleep. the other toy i hide is his duck. it's just too big, and wooden, to sleep with. so today it was two winnie the pooh books. yesterday it was two alphabet books. the day before, an elephant stuffed animal. most days it's different, and i always know he's really tired when he grabs a toy or two, his doggy, and comes to me asking to dance to personal penguin!

what is going on?

what is going on with caleb these days? he's having serious going-to-sleep issues. not every time, but occasionally. we'll lay him in his crib like usual and instead of just playing for a while or fussing for a little bit, he will start screaming-crying. like he's in pain.

and i don't know why.

at first i considered an ear infection and that maybe it hurt to be horizontal... but he keeps screaming even after he's sat himself up in bed or is standing up holding onto the sides. all he wants is to be in our arms. at first, we thought something was wrong, so we would go to him. but once it became evident that it was just a game for him, we thought we should just let him cry for about 5 minutes to see if he stopped. so we did. and the cried so hard he threw up. so now of course i don't want to do that again. what is going on?! i want him to go back to putting himself to sleep but i also want him to be safe.

and it's all about what i want, right? oy.

maybe God is trying to teach me something.

no more dream feed?

when janell posted a blog with the same title, she started with an explanation of what a dream is exactly. so, how about this... if you don't know what a dream feed is (and you care to know) check out her post. here's our situation... i've known for a while that caleb is old enough to not have a dream feed. but i didn't want to go back to him not sleeping through the night. so, i started to ease him out of it. we had been doing the dream feed at 11. then i moved it to 10:30. and then 10. and then, early this week, he sort of stopped. i still try to feed him, but he just won't do it. and he did start getting up once during the night again (although that may have to do with the fact that he has an ear infection). but last night... ahh, last night... caleb slept until 6. with no dream feed. ahhh.

adorable sleeper

the naps go in our home is that i usually feed caleb and then lay him down for a nap. then he plays and fusses for a few minutes and then goes to sleep. then i sneak in and cover him up so he doesn't get too cold. well, this morning when i went in there, he was sleeping on his side and, in his hands, he was clutching his little doggie-lambie. ADORABLE! i tried to go back in later and take a picture, but i wasn't tall enough to get a good angle over the crib bars. so i guess you'll just have to picture it!

crying it out...

so, here's my philosophy when it comes to crying it out... i've always been ok with the idea but just sort of felt like we weren't going to do it because i couldn't handle it, and, after all, there are other ways. plus there's a lot of talk going around nowadays that if you do that, your kid will not trust that you'll come when he needs you. so, we were trying other things for getting caleb to sleep for naps and bedtime. and they worked ok, but not great. and when he would test me, i would cave.
well, that changed last week. it all started friday when caleb did not want to go down for his second nap. and he'd been testing me all week and i was tired and did not want to fight him. so i just left him in his crib. and walked out. since mom was there, i cried on her shoulder a bit and then she reminded me that i wasn't ruining my son. and that he still knew i loved him. and that crying is just the only way he has of telling me he doesn't like something but it doesn't mean he hates me or is in pain (well, it could, but that sounds A LOT different than the "i don't want to sleep" cry). so we decided to have lunch and then i was going to go back in there and try again to get him to sleep. i just needed a break. but by the time i was part way through my bagel, he had stopped crying and was fast asleep.
i thought, "this is too good to be true" so i decided to try it again when he wouldn't go to sleep easily. and it worked again... and again... and again. so now, i just get him ready for his nap and i lay him in his crib and leave. and he goes to sleep. sometimes it's fast... like 30 seconds. sometimes it's forever... like 10 minutes. but he goes to sleep. and the best parts are that i feel less frustrated with him and he sleeps better.
i know there will be times where this won't work and everything is always changing, blah blah blah. but please just let me enjoy this for a while!

i don't get it

caleb used to be hard to put to sleep and then we worked and worked and it got better. and then it got easy... maybe too easy. and now it's gotten really hard again. he just cries and cries and won't calm down. i don't understand why he goes through such phases... and i want this one to be OVER! i need his nap times, and when they don't happen when they should it only makes us both grumpy.

redefining " tired out"

a few days ago i posted about being really tired because caleb was sick, grumpy, etc. i should have known not to speak so soon! now i truly have a deeper appreciation for what tired out actually means. caleb has a stuffy nose... a bad one! so bad that he couldn't eat and breathe at the same time, which really scared him. so he woke up every 1-2 hours last night because he was hungry... but unable to eat. we tried feeding him out of a sippy cup which helped a bit and gave him enough to at least tide him over. the other issue with his cold is that while he was sleeping it seemed like maybe he switched to trying to breathe out of his nose again and then it startled him awake when he couldn't. this resulted in him waking up crying pretty heavily and being scared of going back to sleep. i found that this continued over into this morning... he can now breathe ok so i was able to feed him, but he is really scared of being put into his crib to sleep. poor baby! as hard as it has been to not get to sleep and to listen to him cry pretty much all night, i feel so bad for him that it cancels out any feels of frustration i may have otherwise had. it also makes me so thankful for what a wonderful sleeper i usually have because i know there are some families for which nights like this are more common than not.

the problem with caleb...

is that he's always been a good sleeper. because of this, i haven't really had to work on sleep training with him. he has a 45-minute sleep cycle so he will either sleep 45 minutes or 1.5 hours. but, since that's always how it's been for him, i've never really had to teach him to go back to sleep when he wakes up. this is a problem when he only sleeps for a short time because he thinks that whenever he wakes up, it's time to get up. like yesterday, after church, he actually fell asleep in the car on the way home (which never happens) and slept for about 15 minutes. but then, when we got home and he woke up, he did NOT want to go back to sleep because, in his mind, he had already taken a nap. it took a long time to get him to go to sleep but finally he did and he slept 1.5 hours and felt a lot better afterward... if only he could understand that we really do know what's best for him!

hold on tight

yesterday caleb did something new when i was getting him calmed down for a nap. part of our routine is to turn on a quiet song and then i hold him and we softly dance to the music. well, this time, he snuggled close to me, grabbed hold of my shirt, and even tried to wrap his little legs around my waist. i never wanted it to end!!

just wait two weeks...

that's the advice my mom gave me... if something is hard or you think you have something figured out, just wait two weeks. what i thought i was really hard these last two weeks was caleb's sleeping started getting more sporadic. at first i blamed teething and then i thought i was putting him to bed at the wrong time. then his naps started getting a little shorter from time to time and he started hating to go down for his evening nap. well, what troy and i are now thinking, is that he's dropping his evening nap and going down to just two. it's a little earlier than we were expecting it, and we'll probably keep trying to put him down when he's looking really tired, but i think that's the direction we're moving.

we made it!

this weekend was our first weekend alone without troy. i know that many moms do this all the time or at least fairly regularly, but i'm blessed to have a wonderful husband who comes home every night. so i was worried about this weekend... but it has been a success! we haven't had any breakdowns (from either of us) or disasters. that's not to say, however, that we're not really excited to have troy back tomorrow! honestly, i think the hardest part for me has been going to sleep alone... i thought i would miss getting my evening break from caleb the most. and, while i do miss that, it's having troy around as husband, rather than father, that i miss the most.

all done

i've been meaning to blog about this for a while now... caleb does something really cute when i'm feeding him while he's asleep (dream feed and night feeding) and he gets finished. all of a sudden, he'll just stop eating, arch his back, crane his neck away, and close his mouth tight. i've tried several times to get him to change his mind and eat again, but that never happens. it's so funny, though, so i don't mind!

hold on tight... it's time for bed!

caleb does the cutest thing when he's falling alseep... he reaches around the crib for something to hold on to. usually he finds his doggy-lamby (long story) for one hand and his blanket from aunt gail for the other hand. i have to be careful not to have my hand in the crib while he's drifting off or else he grabs onto me. what a cutie-pie!

bam bam

that's what i call it when caleb lays on his back and just kicks his legs (usually his right leg) down onto whatever he's laying on. it could be the floor, our bed, the changing table, or his crib. he especially likes it in his crib because then it makes a cool sound AND the whole bed bounces! sometimes i'll lay him down for a nap and i can tell if he's flipped over and isn't going to be able to go to sleep because i'll hear "bam bam bam bam" coming from his room. so, i'll go in, turn him over, and then let him get to sleep.

they're back...

ever since caleb learned to shriek and squeal, he had forgotten all about blowing raspberries. well, don't worry, he remembered again. now he will alternate blowing raspberries with squealing. it's pretty adorable! this last time i put him down for a nap, i was holding him, getting him to settle down. he laid his head down on my shoulder and blew raspberries for 2 minutes and 43 seconds straight. i timed it. then, he got tired of them and stopped. i put him in his crib and 4 1/2 minutes later he was asleep... too bad my sweater doesn't dry as quickly as he falls asleep!

even on hard days...

i really have an amazingly good baby. he doesn't cry... unless i'm trying to put him to sleep and he doesn't want to sleep. yesterday was a hard day. caleb and i weren't feeling very good and i had PEPS so we missed his first nap, etc. etc. i didn't want to be patient, i just wanted him to go to bed so i could take a nap. so, obviously, that didn't happen. both of us were getting frustrated and cranky. but then i decided to just let it go. i got caleb up and we cuddled on the couch watching The Dog Whisperer. we played games and sang songs and, even though he was tired, he was wonderful. we had a great afternoon together and finally, at about 3:30, he went to bed. even on hard days, caleb teaches me to relax, have fun, and be patient!

be careful what you wish for...

last night, when i put caleb into bed after his nighttime feeding, he rolled over! way to go, baby! but then i turned him back over onto his tummy (that's how he sleeps) and again rolled over and grabbed his left foot. hmmm, i thought, this could prove problematic! how am i going to get him to go to sleep when he's so excited about his new found trick? fortunately, he was tired and after about 5 or 6 turns, he settled in and went to sleep. this morning's first nap he went down ok, so i'm hoping that he saves rolling over for tummy time!

plane flights

not a good thing. actually, caleb does well for about 1.5 hours of fly time. unfortunately, the way to kentucky had a 4 hour flight followed by a 1.5 hour flight. the way back had a 2 hour flight followed by a 3.5 hour flight. and that's all not counting layovers... oy! we've worked hard to get caleb sleeping in his crib and that's going well... but the flip side is that he basically didn't sleep the entire time we were traveling. on one flight, though, a wonderful older woman in the row ahead of us held caleb for about a 1/2 hour so we could rest. what a blessing! needless to say, we were glad every time we were done with those days!