Hooray!

Kate's eating lunch!
1st:
I took my friend's advice and gave Kate some other choices for lunch.
2nd:
I make sure I'm home 30 minutes before her nap, and offer her some food then.
3rd:
I offer her more food when she wakes up from her nap.

This has helped so much! I'm so thankful for this blog, when friends give their advice. It always seems to help. Thank you =)

Lunch Challenge

Okay, so Kate is a GREAT breakfast eater.
For Breakfast she eats: A healthy cereal (such as wheat Chex, Raisin Bran, or Cheerios with sliced bananas), some yogurt, 8 oz. 2% milk, and sometimes a little whole wheat toast.
I couldn't feel better about it or more proud of what she's eating.

Then for a snack: she will have: some crackers, some of a banana, or string cheese. Of corse she's drinking water from her sipping throughout the day too.

Her nap is before she's hungry for lunch...

PROBLEM:
So after she wakes up from her nap (around 3:00pm) I try to think of something she'll want to eat.

I offer her: a peanut butter and honey/or jelly sandwhich, more yogurt, and her water. She usually doesn't want her sandwhich (or not very much of it). She's totally disinterested and would rather play.

WHAT SHOULD I DO? Any suggestions based on everything I've said?

So Funny

Kate is asleep in her pack n' play right now. (We went out of town for a week, and were so grateful that Kate slept well in her pack n' play. Since we got home, she's had a hard time staying asleep in her crib) I put her pack n' play in her room, and she's sawing logs... Isn't that so funny!? Well, if anyone needs me to watch their newborn or toddler for a night or two, I have a crib they can stay in! haha :)

Traveling

How do you travel with a baby? We brought the pack n' play with us to the motel. We were so hopeful that Kate would just LOVE it and not notice she wasn't in her soft, cozy crib.

The sides are mesh, so she could see us. When she could see us, she cried more. Even when she couldn't see us, b/c we were on the other end of the room, it still took her a long time to fall asleep. When she did fall asleep, she didn't sleep very long (nap:30 minutes, night time: 4 hour stretches).
Since we were in a motel, the walls were kinda thin, and someone pounded on the wall when Kate cried in the middle of the night. It made me feel so bad. I was trying to let her cry a little, so she could fall back to sleep. She cried again about an hour later, and the punched the wall again. :( So then I was so worried people would be upset, so I held her anytime she cried. (Kate sometimes needs to fuss a little bit before she falls asleep.) It was really hard. She was so tired. I felt so bad for her, and I also felt bad that I had become so upset. Any advice?
How could someone ever feel frustrated with this little lamb?

This was our room at the Econo Lodge. Greg slept in one bed, I slept in the other, and Kate's crib was next to me. I feel tired just remembering those 5 nights.

Naps in the Crib

Kate is starting to take longer naps again! She had a 2 hour nap on Tuesday and Thursday! She has not had one of those since her swing. She loves her crib. It's comfy and cozy. Sometimes she still cries for a little while before she goes to sleep, though. The HUGE thing, is that she's waking up from her nap and falling back asleep! That is HUGE! Hooray for Kate and hooray for Sleep Sense. Nights are going well too. She usually only wakes up once. She went 9 hours, the other night! :) I KNOW she'll wake up 4 times tonight, just because I am gloating!

Hooray for Cribs!

Kate is loving her crib. As long as she's fed really well, she doesn't mind being in her crib. I realized that the other day. We read stories, and I fed her some of her bottle, but she didn't want to eat anymore. So I put her in her crib. She got really sad, so after a couple minutes, I actually took her out of the crib and gave her the bottle again. She chugged it down. Then I put her back in the crib (Awake of course - Sleep Sense Theory) and she was just fine. So, that's what I do now when she fusses a lot for naps or bedtime.

We were at my aunts and Kate needed a nap. My aunt had a crib and Kate went to sleep right away. She didn't seem to know that it was someone else's crib. Hooray for cribs! :)

Does sleep sense make sense? We shall see.

Hello Folks!
Well, it's been a week and 2 days since we started the "Sleep Sense" program. I have to say that some nights it seems to be going great and others, not so much. It's funny how much I love the program on the "on" nights and how confused I am on the "off" nights. I also checked out a book at the library called "The No Cry Sleep Solution". I thought sleep sense was gentle, but this other book is soooo gentle. It's so confusing to know what to do in the middle of the night when both of us are sooo tired.

Kate seemed so hungry last night. One time I held her and she still cried (which hardly happens), so I knew she must be hungry. She was almost ravenous when I fed her! She woke up only 2 hours later, still hungry. Then 2 hours later, she woke up but wasn't hungry. She was AWAKE! It was 4:30 am! ahhaah I did the math though, and from start to finish, it had been 10 hours. So tonight, I waited to put her down until 7 pm. We did her cute little routine. She was falling asleep while I fed her. I kept blowing on her face and sniffing my nose to wake her up (she always jumps when I sniff my nose! I found it's the best way to wake her up!) haha :) So anyway, I woke her up and burped her and put her down in her crib and she rubbed her eyes and went right to sleep.

I'm always so hopeful at this point of the evening. 11pm and 4am are the tricky times. Hopefully tonight will be a good night for Kate.