Day 4 of sleep training... Success?

I have to run an errand with my sis in law and mom in law soon but I wanted to make a quick note: we may have nap time success!!! Haylie fell asleep while eating for naps one and two today, and for nap 3, I fed her and she was almost asleep so I put her in her bed... Never mind, now she's crying :(. Instead of typing this while she sleeps, I'm going to ATTEMPT to type this up while she's crying it out.

I hate hearing her cry!!!! I at least do stay nearby and listen to her crying tho so should the cry change (like when she scratches her face once) I'm nearby to give whatever she needs to be ok. It's been two minutes. Goodness gracious I hate this. I wish she was just born knowing how to sleep like some baby's I know. :(. I've read that letting baby cry it out like this rarely takes more than a week for baby to learn tho so she should be close... Right? 5 minutes.

I'm trying so hard not to laugh now. She's almost out and her noises aren't even really cries any more. Just sleepy, loud complaints and they sound so funny. Sadly, just because they're humorous doesn't mean they still don't make me wish I was comforting her. 7 minutes.

At ten minutes, I go over to her and shoosh and rub her belly, give her back her bink and start the count again. Unless she's almost out, like she seems to be now. Dang, I seriously thought she was going to fall asleep on her own! 9 minutes... I'm going to comfort her at 11. Maybe it'll push her over the edge into sleepy time. ++watching the time like a hawk++.

And we're back to crying... :(. As I feared, the comforting only seemed to wake her a little bit more. We'll go again in 15 mins...

So why torture myself like this, you ask? Well, there are a number of experts and parents that are against letting a baby cry it out, even for short, supervised times like I do. For one, it was something Kris and I agreed we would do. Then I gave up and started going to her rescue after about a minute or two of crying every time. Kris didn't like that and when we went to her 4 month dr appointment, the doctor didn't like that Haylie didn't know how to put herself to sleep yet. The AAP recommended way to "teach" a baby to fall asleep on their own is a bit of crying it out, comfort, longer time of crying, comfort, longer time, etc. until baby falls asleep. My doctor also recommended this. For all the parents out there that feel that's totally wrong and mean to baby, you don't need to tell me, I hate it enough as it is!!! And I'm quite well read on the subject. This is what we have decided is best for Haylie. Not for me, I hate it. 9 minutes. How in the world is that child still awake?!

Whoever said this takes 2-4 days was full of it...

After 35 minutes, she is out. And I'm off to run an errand with some in laws. I shall tell you more about that soon! ;)

An honest to goodness stay at home mom...

First things first- day 3 of rigorous sleep training a success in my book! For the first nap and bed time, baby fell asleep while nursing. For what would have been her long afternoon nap (if we didn't have to go to the dr) she was screaming her lil head off and arching her back so I had to put her down in her bed. Within a minute she just kind of sighed and fell cozily to sleep! It was like she needed to be in her bed to sleep!!! Since her other lil naps were during car rides or one in her aunt's arms, I know that won't always be the case, but that has to be a step in the right direction!!!!

Another success of her sleep training is she has become much less interested in her pacifier (also known as binky or bink-bink to her) and better at self-soothing. It is all kinds of awesome :)


Now on to what tonight's blog is really about- the realization that I am truly a for real, honest to goodness, stay at home mom. On purpose. And long term. The realization hit me kind of slowly. I was a stay at home mom for the first 3 months of Haylie's life, went to work for a couple weeks then my husband and I agreed that it was best for all three of us if I stayed home. I love it. I love it soooo much! My daughter and our family (extended family included) are my world and it's sooo amazing to be able to concentrate on that for most of my time. It's also so great to know this isn't just a temporary thing. When Haylie was first born, I was just home with her until I found a job. Now it's semi-permanent. I'm home as long as we can swing it. This is my new day-to-day life! However, there are downsides to this realization as well.

My biggest fears accompanying this transition are finances and future career opportunities. I'm very worried about how we're going to live off of one income. Especially when Kris gets sick. I'm not sure if I've mentioned it on here yet or not, but my husband, Kris has Crohns disease and has a bad flare up once a year or so but gets sick fairly easily. The second worry, career opportunities, is obviously looking into the future. For the past few years, I was a pretty hot commodity in the business world. I'm professional, highly trained, tested at expert levels on many computer applications, smart and well read... Oh yeah, I was golden. But as you can imagine for any computer based professional, once you're out of the game for a few software releases, you can become just as out of date as the software itself! ++shudders++ I hope that doesn't become me... Granted, my career goal is no longer to become a high power executive so I may end up going back to school and making a career change. Teacher maybe? Follow up on my psychology training and go into that? Who knows.

For now, the only thing I hear calling my name is dreamland! Baby's been asleep for about an hour now, it's about time I follow suit. Good night blog land and any readers that may find this.

Blogging while the baby naps...

Why hello there my faithful followers! What's that you say? There's only like 3 of you?! Nonsense! Oh... ;). Well hello to anyone else who may find this interesting as well then :)

Today is day 4 of sleep training. Day 2 of vigorous sleep training. Goodness gracious it's hard and I hate it. For our sleep training, Haylie is put down in her bed at her morning nap time, bed time, any time she gets drowsy or after being awake for 2 hours if none of the other qualifications occur first. Making sure she is clean and fed, she is then left to "cry it out" if she needs to with us intervening about every ten minutes to soothe her but never to pick her up. Prior to yesterday, if I let her cry it out, she could last up to an hour. Yesterday that time started decreasing noticeably. Just now, she lasted a half hour. And! She wasn't screaming bloody murder at all.

In other news, I signed Kris and I up for membership classes at the church that he grew up in. There is only two things I dislike about that church- they don't have the same beliefs on social situation that I do and the music isn't my cup of tea. I think "social situations" is the best way to describe the things we differ on... I'm liberal and they're very conservative... However, I do very much like the people there (including my mother in law and father in law) and I do enjoy their sermons and usually get quite a bit out of them even if I don't agree with every sentence.

The church that I went to when I was younger and these past few years is a little different. The sermons are not very anecdotal (at least the ones by the main pastor) and I always get a lot out of them, he covers A LOT of ground in them. I seriously feel like I'm in a classroom or lecture hall when I listen to his preachings because there's so much he's bringing and referencing that I can later go into for further study. By the way, I'm comparing it happily to lectures in school, like in a favorite subject, not the kind of lectures where I practiced my doodling or fell asleep. Plus, it's the church several of my relatives are involved in and the one I went to with my grandma. Oh, and the music rocks. It's very upbeat and everyone gets up and sings, claps and moves around. THAT'S what I consider worship. ;) obviously there are plenty who disagree with that.

So, out of the two churches, why are we choosing Kris'? I mean, I'm sure you cam see how excited mine makes me. Simple. :). I can download the lectures from mine onto my iPhone and listen to them at my leisure and in order to go the service my relatives go to at my church, we'd have to be there at 4:45 on Saturdays. We've tried to do that MANY times but it just doesn't work as well as Sunday morning with his parents.

I'm very excited to get back into church and fellowship. Church isn't for everyone and since I got so much fellowship and spiritual guidance from my grandmother and other relatives, I was never too big on it until these past few years but oh how I do love it now.


I believe that's all that's going on today, we'll see if I'm able to write again in the near future, as I certainly hope to document more of my wonderful journey as a new mom, new wife, very happily stay at home mom and all other blessings and hardships thar come our way.... Yeah, good luck huh? ;)

We're having a....

little girl!!!! We had our "big" ultrasound on Friday and saw that she is for sure a little female baby. I could only see the screen when the technician would turn it towards me every now and then but Kris saw that our lil Haylie Grace was a constant mover and a shaker, just like when we hear her heartbeat. I'm feeling her kick and move around quite often now so I can also vouch that she moves A LOT :) So far, we've decided on Haylie Grace as her name but we know that may change as we get to know her better or when we see her.

We went to the ultrasound with my mama and since mom had problems seeing what was going on in my niece's ultrasounds, I was super happy to see her jump and exclaim "I SEE A BABY!" when the technician first put the ultrasound thing on my belly. She had no problem seeing her grand daughter this time!!! She also brought us a couple of adorable outfits that are similar to what I wore as a baby.

Here's the newest picture of our baby. As you can tell, she's not very bean (or beanette) like any more!


We can't see her facial features yet, but I think she already looks like Kris or Kari based on her facial structure. She's super adorable and I can't wait to see her again on another ultrasound in 2 weeks when we're hoping to be able to see her nose and lips. Kris' mom will be accompanying us to that one and I know she'll love it as much as we do. :)

As far as my body goes, I have got this adorable lil belly that I can't keep my hands off of! I haven't weighed myself yet this week and I'm honestly a little afraid to. I know that I should be gaining between 1 and 3 pounds a week right now, but I've been so impressed with the scale showing lower numbers than I've seen in years I'm slightly scared to see it look more normal. I know how ridiculous that sounds, but it's the truth. On the always positive aspect, I am LOVING how often I feel Haylie move around! I can't wait for Kris and our family and friends to be able to feel her move!

Starting yesterday, Kris' schedule changed from nights to "days" and he now starts at 3 am. That is a huge difference for our sleep schedule!!! I've found (for the last two days) that I love getting up in the morning with him. I make his lunch while he's getting ready which makes me feel incredibly happy that he's eating healthy and not wasting money on crap-food soaked in grease. We started changing our sleep schedule on Friday and I've yet to be able to get up earlier than my usual noon and STAY up. I'm working on it tho... :)

OK, that's all for now. I'll get a new belly pic this week or weekend.

Update from Valentine's Day

Let me just say an immense sorry to everyone that has to deal with me and baby-crazy-ness. I'm completely obsessed with Bean and strange body changes and "mothering" Bozzy and babies in general. Thank God Kris also is slightly baby-crazy and is extremely patient!

Today was Valentines and Kris and I celebrated throughout the weekend with quality time with another and a nice family dinner at his parents' this evening. Have I said lately how much I love my in-laws? I know I haven't expressed lately how much I love buffalo steak! I can't usually even look at red meat but oh my goodness, the buffalo steaks that Steve makes (and Kyle made once) are sooooo amazing!!!

Kris and I are still doing quite well. I'm completely stuck in the honeymoon stage and probably am thinking way more of him than he deserves, but whatever, I'm happy dangit! :) Kris seems to be in the honeymoon phase but with me so sick and all, he's taken on the role of provider and care-taker and house-keeper (a lot of the time, NOT all the time).

Kari's been taking belly pictures of me but earlier this week my belly looked even smaller than in the previous weeks. I took a picture on my own later that night and noticed if I sucked in, you can't even tell i'm pregnant. This of course eventually created a pregnancy semi-melt-down about how i'm not even really showing yet and not gaining enough wait and our poor baby doesn't have enough room. Yeah, that was fun.... Now, the belly is "back" and Kris teases me saying I was smooshing the baby when I sucked in and it doesn't count. When I'm thinking more logically, I'm actually very happy with the weight situation. I lost 10 pounds in the first trimester because I was so sick and have not managed to gain that back yet, BUT I have gained a pound a week for the last three weeks which is what my doctor wanted my minimum weight gain to be. I'm also getting much better at eating and keeping food down. Since my appetite shrunk so much while I've been sick, I can usually only eat small meals so I force myself to have a small meal or good sized snack every few hours. I am still dealing with a lot of morning sickness and exhaustion, but thankfully it's now only like 3 or 4 days out of the week, not 6 or 7. AND i'm able to keep most meals down!!! I'd be very happy if I never have the urge to throw up again!

Now onto the funnest part of this blog! BEAN!!!! So many people are calling our baby "Bean" now that it's stuck quite forcefully and Kris also sometimes calls the baby that. I am in my 19th week and find out on Friday what the gender of lil Bean is. Hopefully. My mommy will be accompanying Kris and I to the ultrasound and I am SOOOOO excited! Even if we're not able to find out Bean's gender, I'm super happy to get the chance to see my baby looking like a baby. I doubt we'll be able to really see what the baby looks like yet as far as features go but it will still be so sweet! Last time I posted a note, we had seen the baby's heartbeat, but not heard it. We've now heard it twice and both times I giggled like crazy. The first time we heard the heartbeat the nurse was also giggling because Bean would not stop moving around! The second time the baby was still moving a lot but my regular doctor only smiled and chuckled a little, not full on giggled.

Uh oh, it sounds like Kris has a stereo system hooked up to his laptop upstairs or he's playing a movie on the laptop REALLY loudly... I better go and make sure he's not going overboard with cords around the bedroom or has a new surprise tv or something.

Good night and God bless ya'll!!!