Baby #2!

I found out this weekend that we're going to be having another baby, due October 24, 2012! That's one day off from Jackson's due date, so apparently this is our month. I really want to do a better job of documenting this pregnancy, since it will probably be my last. 

 4 weeks, 1 day

Weight gain: I need to buy a scale.

Maternity Clothes: None yet.

Cravings and Aversions: I'm craving ice cold water. No aversions.

Sleep: So far so good. I'm a little bit more tired, but nothing terrible yet.

Gender: Finding out as soon as possible! I don't care which this baby is, but I'm looking forward to not having to say it anymore. I'm going to ask which side of my uterus my placenta is on, because apparently that's 97% accurate. We'll see!

Names: Not sure on this yet, but we're playing around with a few. Cecilia or Madeleine for a girl, middle name Eugenie or Gale, maybe. For a boy, we're not as sure. With Jackson, we had the name picked around 6 weeks pregnant. I'm not sure we'll be so decisive this time. 

Health: I've been taking my blood pressure daily, and it's looking good so far. 110-125/70-80 in the morning. I'm anxious to talk to my new OB about how my pregnancy will be managed, since I have a 30-45% chance of developing preeclampsia again.

Movement: Well, the gas feels an awful lot like a tiny baby kicking. 

Best Moment This Week: Finding out I'm pregnant! And watching the line get darker on pregnancy test.

Looking Forward To: My first OB appointment and ultrasound on February 28. And for Jackson, a cardiology visit with the LAST holter monitor to make sure he's definitely outgrow his WPW!!

Sleep Training, Day 2

So last night went well. He only woke up 3 times, which is a VAST improvement from 10+. He was awake for 55 minutes, 5 minutes, and 5 minutes. Unfortunately I accidentally fell asleep with him once, but hopefully that won't hurt too much. He only nursed 3 times, which is incredbible. He was up for the day at 6:30.

He didn't nap at all today, after trying for an hour. I think this is because his schedule was all screwed up from lack of sleep and being up so early. He went to bed very early to make up for it.

It took 35 minutes for him to fall asleep, and he slept for 45 minutes before waking again. He took 15 minutes to fall back to sleep, and he's been down for 35 minutes so far. I hope he gets another 3+ hour stretch of sleep. I could use it!

Of course I'm still not sleeping even when he is. Hopefully the insomnia will end soon.

Sleep Training

     So we decided to finally sleep train Jackson tonight. He's just about 16 mos old, and has been waking up every hour at least for as long as he's been alive. I really just can't take the broken sleep anymore. Even cosleeping, waking up that often takes a toll on your body and mind.
     In the past several months, I've tried the "kinder" sleep solutions, like Dr Jay Gordon's method, but he would cry for hours and wake twice as frequently. I've also been trying to get him back to sleep with less nursing. None of it even hinted at making a difference, largely because it's very difficult to be consistent with the baby right next to you. I would accidentally fall asleep nursing him before I unlatched him, or just not even notice that I was supposed to be doing anything different.
     I don't mind the early morning snuggles. I actually like that part a lot, and I'll be sad for it to end, but I just don't see an end in sight to the night waking if he's in bed with me. Not to mention, it will be nice to cuddle with my husband again.
    So far sleep training has been expensive, but that's mostly because we bought the normal baby sleep things all in one week. I bought
Ikea Gulliver crib: $99
Mattress: $29
2 white fitted sheets: $14
Crib Pillow: 15
2 patterned fitted sheets (one for a sheet, one to make teething guards and a pillow case): $14
Mattress protector: $10
Bumpers: $22
Comforter (for a mattress pad, but prettier and cheaper): $17
Supplies for teething guard (snaps, snap pliers, batting): free! I had the batting and used a gift card for the rest
Video monitor - Summer Infant Handheld: $150
Itzbeen timer: $25
Blanket: $14

So about $420? Not too bad for furniture plus.

     I got the crib on Tuesday and put it together right away. My plan was to get him accustomed to sleeping in it with absolutely no drama. It seems to have worked. He loves being in his crib. He likes to roll around in it, and bounce, and pull on the bumpers. I put him to sleep normally, then transferred him totally out into it. No small feat when you're 4'10! I had to use a step stool to be able to reach down to the mattress. He never seemed remotely scared or even really annoyed to sleep in the crib, so we started the cry it out sleep training tonight.
     I've always been adamantly against sleep training for Jackson. I'm not opposed to the cry it out method in principle, but it never seemed like a good fit for my little cuddle bug. But lately, he's been trying so hard to go to sleep by himself. He rolls all around, lays his head on anything he can find, but he just can't fall asleep. He's been seeming so frustrated to need help to get to sleep. Coupling that with his ability to kind of understand me, I thought it might be time to tell him it's time to go night night in your own bed.
     That's what I did tonight. Christopher gave him a bath (one of his favorite parts of the day), we dressed him for bed, let him have a one last run around hurrah. I read him some books in the rocking chair. He tromped around his room for a little while, then nursed for a long while while I told him that mommy loves him, and it's time for night night in your very own bed, and mommy will check on you, and come in right away if you're hurt, but Jackson needs to go night night by himself. I think he got about half of that.
     I gave him a big hug and kiss and put him in his crib. He took 19 minutes to fall asleep. 19!! He cried for a while, the just complained, and finally heaped himself onto his pillow, played with the bumper ties, and fell asleep. He's been asleep for 2 hours and 12 minutes, and hasn't eaten in 2 hours and 33 minutes. This is for sure a record. I don't know if it will continue this way, but I sure hope so. It seems like he really was just ready to learn how to sleep by himself.
     I was fully prepared to have 2 or more hours of crying. I can't believe I'm sitting here for so long. I'm watching the video monitor, and he's stirred several times, but he just moves around a little and goes back to sleep. I really can't believe my eyes. I hope I'm not jinxing anything by saying this, but he's NEVER slept this long, except for a few freak accidents.
     Maybe that's what this is, but I really hope i was just his time, and he just needed a little push. I am SO looking forward to sleeping again!



EDIT: He slept for 3 hours and 20 minutes! He woke up, ate a ton, I put him in his crib, and he cried for 4 (!!!!!) minutes before falling back to sleep.

What I Want to Remember

You crawl and walk around chasing the cats, whispering KHEE KHA! over and over.

You give Daddy kisses and Mommy bites.

You are so sweet cuddled up next to me in the middle of the night.

You try to put things in my mouth. You're so good at sharing when you want!

You look so focused on doing something new. Daddy calls it your predator face.

You climb into my lap so I can read you a book.

You sit perfectly still, expectant, when anyone says the word book.

You love everything about books.

You spat out your pacifier so forcefully when you wanted something else in your mouth more.

You sometimes fall asleep with your head on my stomach.

You try to get coke cans like they're the best thing in the world.

You drink water like it's going to run out soon.

You shake the crap out of everything if someone says Shake it up!

You light up and bounce and run to Daddy as soon as he gets home.

You talk non stop.

You stop dead in your tracks or completely twist around to watch any animals.

You love to dance to any kind of music.

You bounce along to nursery rhymes.

I love you so much little boy.

New House

This weekend was our first time staying at our new house. It was the home of Christopher's Great Aunt Ann, but she died 5 years ago, and the house has been vacant but maintained since then. She willed it to her grandson Skip, but he died this year also. Apparently before he died, he rejected offers to sell it, hoping for a family member to be able to use it. We're that member. We're going to be able to live here rent free. We really can't believe how incredibly lucky we are.
The house is in amazing condition, especially for being built in 1956 and vacant for 5 years. It has some minor issues, like paint and a broken washing machine, but it is such an incredible gift. It's only 15 minutes away from work for C, instead of 45. It has a garage (!!) so my car won't be so hot when I put J in it. The garage even has a storage loft for all of our crap. It will be wonderful to get the random Babies R Us items out of our living room. It has 2 bedrooms, which means J will have his own room. Not that he'll be in it at night, but hopefully he'll nap there and we can begin to think about having our own bed again. Just as soon as I'm okay with not cuddling with him all night long and seeing his sweet smiles in the morning.
The neighborhood is wonderful. It's squarely middle class and not deed restricted at all, but I really like that. There's a group of kids playing all around the neighborhood running through backyards in the evening. It's so odd to see such a young presence after living in god's waiting room for so long. It's cool to be in a real living city again. Well, suburb. There are real stores close by! We're less than 10 minutes from the closest beach. And there's a real sno ball stand!!!! Oh man, if I had known that when I was pregnant with J, I would have driven up here daily. That was my only real craving. There's a park with baby swings in walking distance, but it's too hot to walk that far for now. It's only about a 15 minute walk, but in 95* weather, J would vehemently protest. This winter though, it will be awesome to avoid the car seat struggle to get him to the park. Baby swings are the best thing that ever happened to him.

He took his first steps this weekend! Just 1 on Friday, and then 2 today. He's been standing unassisted longer and longer. It's so insane to see him standing up all on his own. He can stand for about 30 seconds at the longest, but usually it's very brief before he realizes what he's doing and plops down. I don't think real walking is very far away now. Probably within a month or so he'll be walking all over the place.
He still sleeps like crap. I'm hoping for 4 hours in a row by the time he's 2. That's realistic, right? He's about every hour right now. More once I go to bed. I'd like to have another baby, but I can't imagine handling 2 night waking children at once. Or tandem night nursing. Dear f-ing god. I'll probably have to wean him before I get sleep. That's going to be awful.
He's also started saying mama. Of course, he usually says it when he's mad about something or is hungry.It's basically the coolest thing ever. I can't wait for I love you mama. I also got my first mommy fingers underneath the bathroom door today. That was adorable.

I feel like we're starting a new chapter of life, as corny as that sounds. I really feel at home here. I can't wait to really move in!

Little Big Boy

A boring entry to anyone but me.   
   Jackson is 22 lbs and 30". Apparently he's tall and skinny, so who knows whose child he really is. Switched in the hospital? He crawls all over the place. He's no longer content to hang out in the living room. He gets from the living romo to the bedroom and kitchen in just a moment's glance away. Once, I actually lost him. He was very happily underneath the table and tablecloth, playing with a diaper. He crawled out and smiled at me when I started calling to him.
     He loves to eat. He nurses first thing in the morning then has breakfast about an hour later. He eats before, during, and after his two naps. Occasionally he'll want to eat between naps, but that's happening less and less. He eats lunch around 12:30, but lunch is his least reliable meal. He could take it or leave it. Dinner is at 6:30, the beginning of his bedtime routine. He nurses before he goes to sleep and then throughout the night.
     Jackson's sleep is an unreliable thing. On a good day, he naps at 9 and 2. A good nap for him is 1 hour and 20 minutes, almost exactly. Often we're struck by the 45 minute intruder. Or 20 or 30 minute intruder. These days (which occur often) are tough, because it's really not enough sleep for him, but he tries to go as long as he would on a long nap. He ends up overtired and fussy. When he's cutting teeth, he reverts to 3 shorter naps. Sleeping through the night is a pipe dream for the moment. From bedtime at about 7:40 to when I go to bed, around midnight, he's up every 30 minutes to 2 hours. Usually, for one hour a night, he's up every 15 minutes or so. Once I go to bed, either he sleeps much better, or I don't notice how often he wakes up. Cosleeping and breastfeeding is absolutely wonderful for that. I barely notice when he eats once I'm asleep. Unless he's teething. Then it's usually an hour long wakeful period of crying in pain. Poor kid.
     He has 8 teeth, all the front incisors. When he bites now, it hurts. He actually drew blood on my areola once.  He may or may not be beginning to teethe for molars.  Jackson has a very difficult time with teeth. He beomes a drool factory, takes very short naps, sleeps horribly at night, and is fussy fussy fussy. He also bites during breastfeeding during the worst day or two of the pain. Doable, but honestly, that sucks. A regimen of acetaminophen and ibuprofen helps, but does not cure his teething pain.
     Breastfeeding continues to be wonderful. Honestly, I don't know how people make it with difficult babies without breastfeeding. If he was up this often needing bottles, I'd die from sleep deprivation. As it is, I function on a kindergarten level. I guess most formula fed babies do sleep longer though. Probably because their moms are more likely to try other soothing methods than feeding (because mixing a bottle is obviously more difficult), and the baby doesn't tend to wake as often. Nursing really is a wonderful bonding experience. Jackson is more of a pacifier soothed than a breast soothed baby because of my oversupply, but he still loves nursing more than anything. It's wonderful and furatrating to know that I'm the only way he eats, aside from his solid meals, which he finds less satisfying, but more fun. Holy run on sentance alert. I love being so important to him, but it's difficult to have to always always no matter what have him with me. I've been on maybe 10 very brief grocery shopping trips without him in his life.
     I firmly believe that breastfeeding saved his life. Latching is more difficult than drinking from a bottle, and in his first 10 days of life, he couldn't nurse at all while in SVT. I think that if he was exclusively bottle fed, I wouldn't have realized something was dreadfully wrong. He was in heart failure when admitted to the hospital, and I think that if I hadn't noticed for a day longer, he would have been a SIDS baby. There's obviously no electrical activity on autopsy, so noone would have no what caused his heart to stop. I wonder how many SIDS deaths are actuallly WPW-caused SVT. I should ask his cardiologist at his next visit.
     He's outgrown his WPW. It will probably come back, either at age 2, around kindergarden or 1st grade, or puberty. At that point it can be easily ablated. We're currently weaning him off his medicine by letting him get bigger without increasing his dosages. He's had no adenosine since November. Wishing for and watching my baby's heart stop is something I never want to see again.
     You'd never know how tough a start Jackson had in life. He's advanced in his motor skills, although behind in communication skills due to his prematurity at birth. Mostly just that he doesn't care to imitate speech. I'm also not sure he has 3 words. I think he says mama and hey with meaning. He only says mama when he's really upset and crying. He says hey all the time.
   I love this little boy more than anything. Motherhood is better than I could have ever imagined, and I imagined that it would be incredible. I feel like I'm finally doing what I'm supposed to be doing. I have really hard days and really good days, but I wouldn't trade any of it for anything.

Baby Things

The past week or so we've added a bed time routine to our day. It seems to be helping Jackson wind down and has added about an hour to his first stretch of sleep. It only takes 30 minutes or so, but I'm working on the timing after his last nap so that he plays long enough that he's tired by the time it's over but not so tired before that he doesn't enjoy it. He's been waking up from his last nap around 6:30 and for now I'm letting him play until the first tired sign, which ends up being around 7. There are a few things that make this much easier for me.

The first thing I do is give Jackson a bath. I use a chair like this, the Summer Infant Bath Seat, in our regular tub filled to about the bottom of the pillow. I like this method because it's much easier to store a small chair rather than a plastic baby tub. Jackson is hillarious in the bath. He kicks his little arms and legs until he's laying down in the bottom of the chair rather than sitting up in it. After I was him, I hold his neck and shoulders out of the water and let him float. He loves it so much.

 This is the Homedics SoundSpa Lullaby. This is an awesome white noise machine. The ocean  noise doesn't go silent between waves sounds like so many do, so there's no break in the noise. This is very, very important. I also like the lullabys it plays. If Jackson is super fussy, I can turn on Twinkle Twinkle Little Star loudly, and he calms down almost immediately to listen to the music. He really likes looking at the projector, but it keeps him awake so we don't use it often.

Christopher turns this on as I'm drying off Jackson, using an oversized flannel receiving blanket instead of a baby towel. It wraps him better, and I find it much easier to dry all his little folds with a thin blanket.

After I load him up with diaper cream and get a diaper on, I give him a massage with baby lotion. It smells soooo good. I'm not a very good baby masseuse, so usually Jackson chats up Christopher while I give him a massage.

I swaddle Jackson and feed him (I'll spare you the picture of that. The, ahem, food source is not so hot these days.) Then I read him Shel Silverstein poems. He loves the rhythm, and I love how funny they are. Even Christopher cracks up at some of them. I read to him for about 10 minutes or until he's looking very droopy.

I rock Jackson until he's completely asleep and still. This is the Summer Infant/Carter's Sleigh Glider and Ottoman combo. It's one of the less obnoxious looking gliders. It's also pretty comfortable.     
We're still working out what to do with him once he's asleep. Last night he slept in the cosleeper except for one stretch where I forgot to put him back in it, and one stretch after Christopher left for work that there was enough room in bed to lay him on his own in the bed with me. He slept so much better last night that he usually does. That is another post, however, because Mr. Man decided that nap time is O V E R.