My Favorite Time of Day

I've always been a morning person with more energy early in the day and not able to stay up late nights, but even more so with my daughter now, I really love the mornings with her.  We wake up, I nurse her, we play, she is smiley and laughs, now we eat breakfast together at the table and then I read her a story before she goes to sleep peacefully for her morning nap.  I love the sun coming in through the window in the morning or the occasional calmness of a rainy morning at home with coffee.  My plan for going back to work is that I will still have this time with her in the morning before we head off for the day, it won't be as relaxed but will be an important way to spend precious quality time with her.
I also love running in the mornings, the start of a fresh day and full of energy.  Yesterday was an incredible weather day for July, there was actually a cool crispness like fall in the air even as I headed out for my long run at 9am after she went to sleep for her nap.  The weather gave me a shot of energy which combated the extreme tiredness from our nights of sleep training over the weekend.  I ran solo with my Ipod and I was smiling as I ran just so happy to be out on a cool sunny morning for a run.  I ran 10 miles at ~8minute pace, feeling pretty much back to my old running self. 

Sleep Training

Its 3:23 AM and after 7 months of only getting blocks of 3, 4, maybe an occasional 5 hours of sleep at a time, it's time to get serious about sleep!  So we have a social baby, she is a great morning napper, a joy as a lunch date, the best in a stroller, and even good at falling asleep consistently when she gets fussy in the evening at 7pm BUT she wakes up frequently (~3 times) pretty much every night and we've used nursing and pacifier to get her back to sleep.  After 200+ nights of hoping and wondering if she's too young, too hungry, teething or the like its time to believe she is ready to sleep.

In June, at 5 months, we tried a few nights of the Ferber method (basically going into the room at regular intervals of increasing time until baby goes to sleep) and got her from 1am wake ups (after her regular 10pm wakeup and feeding) to 3am wakeups, but after a busy July the wakeups have started to revert not improve.  With going back to work on the horizon, getting a consistently good nights sleep is necessary for the whole family, including the dogs, who by the way have their own issues demanding to be fed at insane hours like 5am.  

So here we are on night one of Ferber take 2 at 3:30am up since 2am wakeup, getting started on a Friday night now Saturday morning given my husband is doing a large part of the checkins since my going into the room and not feeding can be more disturbing than calming, yes an exciting way to spend our weekend, but at this point we really are willing to do what it takes for sleep.  Tonight it's going into the room after 3 minutes, 5 minutes, then every 10 minutes there after and giving a calming pat (no talking, soothing or feeding) until she can go back to sleep.  There are times it seems the going in can upset her more, but we are following the method and now she is laying in the crib babbling while we lay awake in bed with a timer and I contemplate if I actually will be able to remember how to sleep 8 hours if this is successful...will report back.

For summary of the method and interval times by night:

http://noobmommy.com/2008/11/to-ferberize-or-not-to-ferberize.html

Hooray for Poop and Getting Back to Regular

After last week packed with events including a trip to the zoo, shots, anniversary night out, 4th of July, multiple cookouts, a couple races and finished off by traveling over the weekend to NYC (daughter's first flight was a success!), this week is all about getting back to the normal routine.  I welcome and thrive on routine, as do babies. 

Over the course of travel, hot weather and solid food our daughter hadn't pooped in a week, so after trying as many remedies as I could read about (rectal thermometer, prune juice, eliminating constipating foods, frequent breast feeding, and water) I spent my day yesterday waiting for the doctor to call with advice and texting my husband with poop status updates.  Since it had been so long we resorted to using a glycerin suppository which got things moving quickly.  Now I'm educating myself on all the ways to avoid this in the future and learning that starting solid food is like breast feeding in that both baby and mom have a lot to learn together!  I'd imagined I would have a baby who was just going to love and eat gobs of veggies right off the bat, but the facial expressions so far tell me we have some time to getting to that point.
This website I found is SUPER helpful for info on feeding babies and making your own baby food (I had great success today with steaming and pureeing pears):
 http://www.homemade-baby-food-recipes.com/index.html

Today I was determined to get to morning stroller class before the weather heated up, baby fell asleep at 8:30 and was still napping at 9:20 when it was time to head out, not wanting to wake her I debated what to do, about 15 minutes later the dogs barked and woke her up and I decided we could still make a good part of the class, so I changed her, buckled her in and headed to class.  She got an hour nap, I got to class 15 minutes late, still got a couple miles in including stairs, toning with a resistance band and abs/stretching.  It was a great decision, I needed to get out of the house for a workout, she got tummy time at the end of class in the park and again I was reminded about being okay with better late than never and making the most of the day.

2 Baked sweet potatoes:  a portion fort the fridge and individual servings for the freezer

Being Okay with Good Enough

Every year my sister and I head home to run our hometown 5K with my dad in celebration of 4th of July and their birthdays.  This year she couldn't make it, there was prediction of rain and the start time had been moved up to 7:30am, all making keeping family traditions with a baby in the mix a little more challenging.  We hadn't signed up in advance and yesterday realized to get there on time we'd need to wake up by 5am, not very appealing on a holiday for this already tired mom, but I knew the post race feeling, family time and some delicious food awaited so we decided we would plan to go but make a final decision in the morning.  After a 3am feeding I set my alarm for 5:30am for maximum sleep.  At 5:30 the radar looked clear so we got up and decided we would do our best to get there as early as we could, made coffee, skipped breakfast, packed a post race bag, fed the dogs, and lastly I got our daughter up to feed her, grabbed her a 4th of July outfit, double checked the diaper bag and put her in the car seat, we pulled out of the drive at 6:20, not bad, but cutting it very close for getting to the race.  Road closures for the race further delayed us and by the time we parked it was 10 minutes till race time, we jogged with the stroller to the start, hitting a portajon on the way and ran up to the start just as the national anthem got under way.  There were no warm up miles or strides, we didn't even have time to signup for the race, a quick stretch, passed the stroller onto my mom and we were off.  A mile into the race my shoe came untied which never happens to me and I just kept going hoping I didn't trip.  But even with all that it was fun, we got ourselves out the door before the rain, I ran a decent time, we cheered on my dad and our niece as she finished her first 5K.  So for this perfectionist, today was a lesson in doing "good enough" and enjoying the less than perfect because we were out there together and that's better than missing out.  Happy 4th of July!

A Run to Clear my Head

Today my run was more for mental health than physical.  After playing with my daughter, breakfast together (she is now starting to eat solid foods), dishes, getting her down for a nap, unburying the pile of mail, and getting plans in order for the upcoming holiday and weekend events, I decided to get myself, the baby and dogs out of the house rather than moving onto putting away the baskets full of laundry waiting on the bed.  We all piled into the car and headed out for a run.  Within the first mile I could feel my stress and clouded head fade away.  All the "to-do's" although none a big deal had all started to add up, and there is the reoccurring worry of how I am ever going to keep up with all these things when I go back to work.  We did a few miles then headed back home recharged to tackle cooking the carrots for some homemade baby food and maybe get to putting away that laundry.