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