Hi. I’m Amy and I slept 7 hours last night.

 

I slept 7 the night before too. It’s a miracle, ya’ll. My squirmy little 9 month old has found his circadian rhythm. It’s about time, son! We were incredibly spoiled with our daughter. Our first born slept through the night when she was just a few weeks old. Seriously. It’s this trait that runs in my husband’s family. All the babies do that.

We quickly realized Henry did not inherit this trait. After talking with a pediatric sleep consultant, I learned a couple things:

1. We can’t do the same thing with both babies. They are different people. Happiest Baby On The Block, the 5 S’s and all that shushing was great for Baby #1. That helped her establish early sleep patterns as a young infant and we never had to use any other sleep methods. In addition, I was working so she naturally fell into a great sleep routine with daycare. I lazily did the same for Baby #2. Mistake! As a newborn, the 5 S’s were great,  but then he needed ME to help him get into a sleep routine as he grew into an older infant. With me staying home, I was the one who needed to establish that, not daycare. Duh! I’m not sure why it took me so long to figure that one out. Live and learn. Granted, he is a lighter sleeper and more voracious eater than his sister, so he may have still had trouble until 9 months, who knows?
2. “Cry It Out” is not the child abuse I thought it was. I wondered how anyone could ever be so cruel as to let their baby scream. Here’s the thing, I was still in the “newborn mindset.” Of course you don’t let a newborn cry it out. They need milk and swaddling and comfort. They can’t be taught anything. They are in the “4th Trimester.” Thank you Dr. Karp. (Karp wrote Happiest Baby On The Block.) But an older infant? My older infant needed a sleep routine and I knew he could sleep through the night. The first night was rough as you may have noted from my Twitter stream as I live tweeted the affair using hashtag #HenryCIO14. But, the next night was better. The next night was even better and by the fourth night he was asleep by 8:30 pm and waking up at 6:00 am. Cue angels singing!

One other thing really helped Henry too as he transitioned out of the swaddle. Remember last week when I had a review and giveaway for Summer SwaddleMe products? I mentioned Henry is now in the fourth stage of their swaddles, the Wearable Blanket. While, he does wear it at night occasionally, he mostly wears that for naps. What is he wearing at night? Glad you asked!

When he was really little I mentioned to Beth Anne, “Henry wants to hold any tag on any fabric all the time. It’s crazy!” She said, “Oh! He’s a tag baby.” Huh? Oh, yeah that’s a thing. That’s why they have baby products devoted to kids who love tags.

Right as I was trying to ditch the swaddle because he was squeezed in it like a little sausage, I discoverd Bitta Kidda. I was all like, “ZOMG! What is that?!” They sent me a Bitta Blankie. They call it a “wearable lovie.” Genius! It’s a sleeper with soft tags right on them to promote self soothing. It is truly perfect for a tag baby or a kid who loves lovies, but you don’t want them to have toys in the crib. In some of the pictures below, he is holding the tag as he sleeps.

All this good sleeping at night as put him on a better nap schedule and we are all generally happier in our house. Now that our tag baby is a self-soothing night sleeper, the husband and I are all like…

Disclaimer: Bitta Kidda sent me a sleeper. My opinions are free and honest. 

Oh, I am still tired. Less tired than I was, but still sleepy. My darling little baby is 8.5 months old. He’s still not sleeping through the night. It’s been a battle, but we are so close! Hopefully I’ll get some good pointers when I attend a seminar with a pediatric sleep expert soon. That’s why I have put off writing this post. Two companies sent me some great products that have really helped Henry sleep and I want to do them justice, but it took several months to get where we are now. I’m going to write about one today and one next week. Stay tuned for more.

So where are we with Henry’s sleep? Well, he takes about a 30 to 45 minute nap in the morning and a two hour nap in the afternoon. He will go down anywhere between 8:30 and 10:00 pm before waking up one to three times a night. Let me be clear when I tell you this is SO MUCH BETTER than it was. I flashback to the days I slept downstairs on the couch with him either on my chest or in the bouncy seat because he woke up every hour or every other hour each night. I’m still waiting for him to sleep for a continuous 8 to 12 hours. We will get there! Keep the faith!

We were spoiled by our daughter. She slept through the night at just a few weeks old. She loved being swaddled. We only used one brand of swaddle with her. Summer Infant Swaddle. When we brought Henry home, we snuggled him up in the same pink fleece swaddle his sister was in. He also rocked the one with pink butterflies. (See below.) I tried to tell my mom that Henry’s manhood was in no way threatened by the pink, but she wanted to get him “a more masculine swaddle.” I told her that was fine as long as it was the Summer Swaddle with the Velcro. Both my babies calmed down as soon as they were swaddled. Granted, Charlotte slept through the night and Henry woke more often, but they both loved the secure feeling.

Right as I was transitioning Henry out of the swaddle this spring, Summer sent me some of their new offerings. They now have four stages that will take you at least through baby’s first year.

1. I was so bummed out that my kids were too big for the SwaddlePod. They would have LOVED that since newborns seem to like to have their hands by their heads. It’s so “womby” and cuddly. Love it!
2. We started with the SwaddleMe stage. (That is the pink swaddle and butterfly swaddle I referenced.) We called them our “baby burritos.” They loved them! They can’t break their arms out and startle themselves awake. So many parents tell me, “They break out of the swaddle!” Not these.
3. When Henry was ready to transition out of the swaddle and it was getting warmer, the level 3 SwaddleMe Wrap Sack was perfect!
4. Now we are in the SwaddleMe Wearable Blanket and I LOVE it. Henry uses it for his naps everyday. When he sees it he knows it’s nap time. It zips for easy diaper changes. I am still not comfortable with blankets in his crib, so this is great. We call him the “flying squirrel” in this thing. It makes me chuckle every time we put him in it.

So, the SwaddleMe Wearable Blanket is what we’re using for naps now and he is consistently taking good naps. We always had them in seasonal pajamas under their swaddle. We used fleece on cold nights and cotton every other time. If we were in the fleece swaddle, we typically had lighter pajamas underneath. We just used our best temperature judgment and they were almost always comfortable.

Henry uses another product for overnight right now, I’ll write about that next week. Again, we have used Summer swaddles with both babies and highly recommend them. Who wants some?! Summer is offering a super lucky Somebody’s Parents reader a prize package of all four products pictured above! Dude! Baby shower present, anyone? You pick boy colors, girl colors or gender neutral. Don’t fear the pink, boys! Henry didn’t. I’ll pick a winner Wednesday. Good luck!

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Disclaimer: Summer Infant sent me swaddles. My opinions are free. I only write about stuff I like.

I always figured watching your child take his/her first steps would be this joyous, momentous family affair. Blerg. I had mixed feelings when my daughter took her first steps at 9.5 months and was full-on walking by 10 months. My son started crawling at 6.5 months. He’s now 8.5 months old, pulling up on everything and to my horror, trying to stand on his own.

Last month we were hanging out with a group of friends when one started holding my son’s hands up while he moved his feet. You  know, sort of teaching him to walk. In front of everyone I said, “Uh, no we’re not doing that.” I scooped him up. The adults all looked at me with either baffled looks or smirks. Another friend remarked jokingly, “Wow! I’d hate to be the first woman your baby boy brings home!”  I explained this was not weepy maternal sadness at losing my baby, but a practicality thing. (Mostly. Shut up.) My rationale is that he has his whole life to walk. I get another month if I’m lucky.

Just as my son is close to walking, suddenly walking is very hard for me. Yeah, the broken foot is a huge pain. As I follow my crawling baby around the house I feel like Quasimodo limping through the halls of Notre Dame following a small animal he is singing to. I’m slow. I’m awkward. The last thing I need is to chase an unsteady new little walker with my club foot.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not hindering him from walking, I’m just not promoting it. I gladly help him back down on his rump if he’s unsteady after pulling up on some piece of furniture he shouldn’t be on anyway. I am quick to pick him up if he’s testing his balance. Sometimes I just look at him and say, “Slow your roll, son!” I’m just not ready. He has time.

I need to get out of this boot first. I don’t think that’s too much to ask.  So no, I’m not teaching him how to walk. He’ll figure it out on his own. If this somehow impedes his development I’ll take the blame and he’ll have plenty to write about on whatever a blog will be in twenty years. You know, “My mom was a gimp and delayed my development!!!!”

I like kids consignment stores and consignment events for yuppie designer brands that I don’t want to spend all my money on, but for some reason love to put on my children for the two weeks they can wear them. My favorite find, ever? This never-worn Lilly Pulitzer dress. It remains my favorite Lilly of all time. Charlotte was Henry’s age (approximately 7 months) in this picture. I picked the color to go with her eyes. Gah! My beautiful baby girl! I love these.

Alas, she is not a baby anymore. My first-born is a clever, active and growing preschooler with storage bins of organized infant and toddler clothes piling up in her closet. Last week I decided to try my hand at some local consignment shops to offload some adorable stuff. I saved some special items for posterity or my sister if her next baby is a girl.

Washing, repacking and taking these clothes to the store was more emotional than I had anticipated. Greyson and I had a moment as I sorted and inspected each item. Giving up those tiny garments was symbolic of her baby days being long gone. It was partly an admission that I may be done having babies. I’m done right? I’m not having anymore children…right?

But, I got over it. Time marches on. They’re just clothes. I have the photos and the memories. Let’s get down to business.

The business of consigning took for freakin’ ever! Thankfully the women at the store helped me unload. They warned me they weren’t taking too many items under size 24 months or 2T   because they get so much baby stuff. Okay, but I had crazy-awesome stuff that my child looked ADORABLE in and anyone would want to have, so I was good, right? An hour or so later I went back to the shop to find out how I was gonna make it rain with all the mad money I was sure to get for my baller baby clothes.

I got $41 dollars for maybe a sixth of all this:

Okay. No worries. This shop wasn’t taking baby stuff. Off to the next one! Two hours of my life, running out of gas in a nearby parking lot, and driving a town away was all it cost me to get $7.41. This store told me I “had a lot of stains.” Seriously?! That microscopic spit-up dot on a name-brand onesie means I get no money?! Trust me. I did not try to consign the things with the real stains. I had stuff that looked like my kid had worn it while running through the sewer before butchering some meat. I have bought some things with a tiny stain or itty-bitty hole or snag in the fabric. No biggie. It’s pre-owned. I get it, but 7 bucks? Screw this! I’m keeping the rest of her clothes and not ruling out a third kid to put in them. Well, maybe. Nah, I’m done. I’ll just donate it. I’d go with Craig’s List or eBay, but if that’s as much effort as this was, forget it.

 

I had another mother ask me if I make my own baby food. I’d really love to say I’m the kind of mother who lovingly purees organic vegetables for my baby, but I’m not. I buy the jars. My hat is off to all of you mamas out there smashing  sweet potatoes and blending peas. I just feel like there are a lot of good options in the stores, so I don’t bother.

Our pediatrician made a big deal about giving Henry only breast milk until he was 6 months-old. I feel like she made a bigger deal about that now than she did when Charlotte was a baby. I gave Charlotte rice cereal at about 5 months or so because someone told me it would help her sleep when she had like, that one night that she wouldn’t sleep well. Ha! If I only knew what I was in for with my second child and sleeping. I didn’t mind waiting until Henry was 6 months to introduce solids to keep his diapers filled with innocent breast milk poop for a little longer.

When Beech Nut reached out to me last month about sampling some of their new line of baby food, I was all like, “Yea! Perfect timing!”

Our pediatrician made a list of baby foods in the order she prefers you introduce them to your baby. This is her list:

1. Rice cereal
2. Yellow vegetables like squash (I can’t really think of other yellow vegetables suitable for baby foods, but whatever.)
3. Green vegetables like peas and green beans
4. Orange vegetables like carrots and sweet potatoes
5. Meats
6. Fruits

Obviously this would all be pureed food. Our doctor suggested introducing them slowly over multiple weeks. Now that Henry is 7 months, he’s at #5 on the list and had some pureed meat. She said she likes to introduce fruit last so they don’t get used to the sweetness and then not eat their veggies. Makes sense. Plus, some kids have allergies to fruits.

Beech Nut’s thing is that their food is not baby food, but “real food for babies.” Full disclosure, I tried it. It was pretty tasty. They sent Henry a sample of four of their new flavors of their Real Food For Babies,  just carrots,  just spinach, zucchini & peas, beets, pear & pomegranate and just honeycrisp apple. I have to hide the jar of apples from his big sister the applesauce fiend. Again, I have not introduced fruits, yet. He has only had the fruit in the beets blend. He loved all the other flavors he received. He doesn’t like his food to be runny. Other brands have been a little soupy for his liking. Not these.  They have a nice texture. Here’s something cool about Beech Nut. They don’t cook most of their new line and if they do, they gently cook it with indirect heat. Many of the Real Food For Babies flavors are created from a puree of raw vegetables and fruits.

I want to know a few things. Did your doctor give you different advice or tell you the same thing? How did you introduce solids to your little one? Do you mix breast milk or formula with your baby’s food? I sometimes do that if he’s not taking it well. How old was your baby when you started baby food? How old for finger foods?

Who wants some free samples of Beech Nut’s new line of baby food?! They come in beautiful boxes suitable for adding to a baby gift for a new mama or mom-to-be. If you just want your baby to try some great food, try to win! I’ll pick two winners on Friday. There are only four quick things you have to do. Super easy! Easier than making your own baby food, that’s for sure. Good luck!

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Disclaimer: Beech Nut sent me samples and is offering free samples for my readers. My opinions are free and honest.