Silas is now sleeping through the night. Probably.

About 12 out of the last 15 nights, Silas has slept through the night. I guess his "sleep through the night" switch was flipped, though I couldn't tell you how or what did it. He turned 17 months old last week, so it's been a long time coming. I don't know if 15 days is long enough to become retrospective, but again - almost 17 months of waking up three to infinity times a night means the last two weeks of good sleep feels like forever (in a good way).

The switch is leaving me with a lot of mixed feelings on baby sleep. Seventeen months is a long time for me to go without good sleep at night and whereas Silas could nap during the day, I had to often use that time to study or do housework. But we tried crying it out for a bit and it didn't work for long. So, here is a list of six things that did or did not work to get Silas to sleep through the night.


6. An early, early bedtime

Silas likes to hold onto his naps. He was napping three times a day for several months before he finally transitioned to two naps a day, a few months before his first birthday. This meant that for most of his first year, he had a late "bedtime" of nine or ten. When he dropped his late evening nap, I pushed his bedtime up to 7:30 and then 7 and then sometimes 6:30. Occasionally he would sleep for a long chunk of time when I did this, but he was still up two to four times a night.

The nice thing about the super early bedtime was that I had some time in the evening to be an adult. The not so nice thing was that I still had to get to bed early myself if I wanted any meaningful sleep. It's all dandy when the baby sleeps for six hours straight, but when that means he wakes up at one in the morning, I had to be in bed by ten just to sleep for three hours in a row.

Now that he's sleeping through the night, he typically goes to bed between 7:30 and 8.

Conclusion: An early bedtime had a small effect on Silas sleeping for a longer chunk of time in the first part of the night.


5. Naps

Again, Silas likes to nap. There was a brief period of two or so weeks around thirteen months where he started to fight his naps and I was going to transition him to one nap a day, but that passed; I suspect he was simply testing his boundaries. He currently still naps twice a day, usually for about an hour or two each nap. I read a lot about how napping too much during the day could upset sleep, but let me assure you - cutting down on his daytime sleep meant I would be up every hour with him at night.

Lately we've gotten to the point where he will nurse and then ask to go to his crib and nap. I currently call this the "golden age of napping" because he then says "sleepy doggies, bye-bye doggies" and babbles to himself for a bit (anywhere from one to thirty minutes) and then falls asleep peacefully. And with two naps a day, I have time to clean up, do laundry and read and write constantly. It is amazing.

But that's a bit of a tangent. Over the last two weeks, Silas has not reduced his nap time even as he sleeps through the night. (I'm obviously overjoyed by this).

Conclusion: Naps are impossible to figure out. The time Silas spends napping each day seemed to affect his sleep negatively; if he didn't sleep enough during the day, he didn't sleep well at night. However, more sleep during the day did not correlate with more sleep at night after a certain point. Overall naps seem to be mostly independent of his sleeping through the night habits.


4. Nursing

Silas has nursed at least once over night since he was born. And for a long time, he was nursed to sleep. I had read a lot about nursing being a sleep association, but even when he wasn't nursed to sleep (as in the time we did cry it out), he would still wake up to nurse multiple times. I know that many books/professionals also indicate that babies should no longer nurse overnight much sooner than seventeen months, but thankfully at least one guy has my back. (Dr. Sears writes that babies might go up to eighteen months before dropping the overnight nursing).

For a long while, he had a bedtime routine that ended with him reading some books and then nursing and then being put in his crib awake but drowsy. He usually fell asleep without crying on these nights, but woke up often to nurse again by one.

Coinciding exactly with when he started sleeping through the night, Silas dropped his bedtime nursing. In fact, the two nights these past two weeks that he slept poorly were the two nights in which he was nursed closer to his bedtime than the other nights. Most nights he nurses for the final time around six now. I remember the first day it happened. We had been out at a friend's house and I had nursed Silas beforehand. When we got home around 8:30, Silas had fallen asleep in the car. Smiley brought him inside and put him in his crib and he didn't wake up, so I figured I'd head to bed myself and just wait for him to wake up at midnight wanting to nurse (which is what he has done countless other nights in situations like that). Silas slept until five the next morning!

When I tried to take nursing out of the bedtime routine in the months before, it backfired and he was up more than ever. So I think that the breakthrough is more on his decision to drop nursing at bedtime rather than me trying to force it.

Conclusion: Once Silas decided to stop nursing before bedtime, he slept through the night. However, experience showed me that he had to make the decision, not me.


3. Food intake and activity level

It starts VERY early - well-meaning friends and parents suggest putting a tiny bit of rice cereal in a bottle to get your baby to sleep through the night. From there, the suggestion is that if you make sure your baby eats enough during the day, they won't wake up at night. Well, I was nursing Silas and didn't feel like using formula or pumping to give him a bottle when he was younger, and when he got older, I noticed that there was no correlation between how much he ate during the day and how well he slept at night. Absolutely none. Some nights he would eat a lot at dinner and wake up a lot. Other nights he'd eat a lot at dinner and wake up a few less times. Sometimes he would eat very little during the day and wake up only twice. Other times, he'd eat a little and wake up six times. You get the idea, right?

Going hand in hand with that is the concept that if you wear out a baby during the day, he'll sleep better at night. This also had no correlation to how well he slept at night. And on days when he skipped his nap because he was at the park playing, he slept even worse at night.

Conclusion: Food intake had little to no impact on Silas sleeping through the night. Activity had little to no impact on his sleep either.


2. Teething

Oh, baby. My dear little Silas started cutting teeth early and hasn't stopped yet. At seventeen months he has all of his teeth minus his two year molars. His bottom eye teeth are still working their way all the way out, but they have broken through the gums. Some nights when Silas seemed to be extra upset, I would give him some ibuprofen in case he was in pain, but he rarely slept better on those nights. It is possible that since all of his teeth minus the two year molars have broken through that he is now able to sleep better at night. I guess I'll get my answer when his two year molars start to make an appearance.

Conclusion: Teething might have a horrible, negative impact on Silas sleeping through the night. It's possible that he did not sleep through the night until now because he has seriously been working on cutting one tooth after another since five months. However, ibuprofen did not seem to help, so I suspect it is less likely that teething had a huge impact.


1. A bedtime routine

I'm not going to make a blanket statement here; maybe your baby thrives on a bedtime routine. Well, I don't and neither does Silas. For several months I kept his bedtime the same - put on the overnight diaper and pajamas, brush teeth, turn on quiet music, read a couple of books, nurse, put baby in crib.

The past two weeks have not been that routine. He doesn't nurse. Sometimes we read books, sometimes we don't. Sometimes he puts on his pajamas and plays for a while longer before brushing his teeth. The lack of routine has not affected his sleeping through the night.

Full disclosure: during the day, we have a rough routine of wake up, breakfast, naptime two hours after wake up time, play time and lunch, naptime three hours after waking up from the morning nap, playtime and dinner, bedtime roughly four to five hours after waking up from the afternoon nap. Silas typically doesn't watch TV until after his afternoon nap if we watch anything. And that's about it in terms of routine.

Conclusion: A bedtime routine did not help and only stressed me out when I felt like I was deviating from it. I am not a good routine type of person and it stands to reason that my son might not be either. We use loose guidelines. It is not probable that the routine hurt anything, but I am super happy to not have to worry about it.


Final Conclusion: Now that I've spent forty-five minutes typing "Silas sleeps through the night" seventy-six times, I bet you that the moment I hit "publish," Silas will wake up every half hour tonight.

One Year of Exercise!

This past Saturday marked my one year weight lifting anniversary. Though I had enjoyed mandatory gym class for four years of high school because I like to move around and be active, once I graduated, I didn't do much exercise. Well, I walked. When I was at college, it was important to me to find apartments that were within walking distance and cheap. So "walking distance" was extended to a mile and a half to two miles away from the college (still not really bad at all, except on the below zero cold days) and I walked a lot, but that was it.

Upon graduation, I moved down to Florida and at one point, Smiley and I did P90X together for a few months, but that couldn't last. Daily exercise DVDs of an hour and a half were too time consuming and there is only so many times you can listen to Tony Horton tell you to act like "a pterodactyl backing out of trouble. Caw!" before you rage quit in the middle of a workout.

Cut to about 19 months ago. I was pregnant with Silas and shambling left and right. My walking pace was a brisk two miles an hour if I was lucky. Some of my friends decided to get together to start working out regularly. Smiley and I had a garage. They decided to work out at our house.

Three times a week I would see my friends as they came over and worked out. First I was pregnant and then I had a tiny newborn - there didn't seem to be enough time or energy in the world to get me to start working out with them.

But, around the time that Silas was five months old, I was tired of hanging around inside. Inspired by the strides everyone else had made, I started lifting weights with my friends.

A year later, I'm still not particularly impressive at it. I can't squat my body weight and I can only bench half my body weight on a good day, but I still enjoy it and I strive to do my best (and have good form).

I could have never done it if my friends didn't make the commitment to come to our house three times a week; that means I can do a set while one of my friends graciously holds Silas and then I can go into our house to let him run around and play. When it's bedtime, I can put him down to sleep in his own crib. There is no way I would have done this for this long otherwise.

The only thing that sucks is the protein requirement. I'm still struggling to find a way to eat more protein. It stems from certain quirks and issues of mine, so I think it will take me awhile longer, but maybe eventually I'll get there. In the meantime, I will continue to enjoy hanging out with friends and lifting heavy things and putting them back down.

Airplane Travel With 16 Month Baby

On my recent trip from Florida to Chicago, I redeemed a travel voucher and was limited in my choice of flights. I actually had to fly south from Tallahassee to Orlando to pick up a connecting flight to Chicago. Fun times.

As always, my goal was to bring everything I needed for my six day trip in a backpack and a messenger bag. It was tough, due to the fact that warm clothing is so space-filling. Let's break it down and see how it went. If you are interested in traveling with a small child, you can see what I brought and didn't bring and make changes in your luggage as needed.

First, in my backpack I packed clothing. Silas got a pair of warm pajamas, several undershirts, a couple long sleeved onesies, three warm coveralls, a jacket, a sweatshirt, a hat, and socks. I got a pair of jeans and a pair of pajama pants, two long sleeved shirts, two camisoles, a skirt, leggings, leg warmers, socks and underwear, and two sweaters. Somehow, when I wasn't using my baby carrier, I managed to shove it into the backpack too.

In terms of amount of clothing - it was possibly a little bit too much. I can't help that; I always, always overpack clothing. For one thing, I had access to laundry at my parent's house, so I just ended up washing clothes every day. I never ran out of clean options for Silas or me and I never wished I had different options.

I probably could have gotten by with two pairs of coveralls for Silas, but in the end, baby clothing doesn't take up THAT much space. Plus babies look so cute in different outfits; I'd rather he have some variety than me.

In my messenger bag, I packed diapers and wipes, a few toys and books. I brought too many books. I was very worried about Silas being bored on the plane and acting out, so I brought about six different paper books (standard size) and six or seven little board books (like two inch by two inch). Silas ended up picking three favorites that he wanted to hear over and over, and I ended up with a backache from carrying around all the extras.

I packed enough diapers for two days of the trip and bought some extras at my parent's house. That works out nicely. I brought two toys that he liked to chew on - also worked out very nicely. Once he was at my parent's house, he didn't want his own toys anyhow; he wanted to explore! I brought a baby blanket in case it was cold on the plane - that blanket never got used.

The messenger bag also carried my wallet and phone.

Because babies only fly free in an adult's lap until two, it's very likely this was my last flight with Silas for awhile. If I could change anything, I would have brought a few less clothes and a few less books. I think that it is easy to overprepare, worrying about a delayed flight or something, but keep in mind the airport and airplane itself also provide some entertainment; Silas loved looking at the safety cards because they were full of pictures.

Finally, economy plus seating is probably worth the extra money, kind of. I lucked out and ended up in there on my flight up, but on my flight back I was near the back of the plane in between two guys. Thankfully, the one on my left fell asleep and the one on my right told me he had four kids and to not worry if Silas accidentally kicked him. (Trust me, I still did my absolute best to make sure Silas kept the squirming down to a minimum. It was just nice to know I didn't have to apologize profusely each and every time a squirm happened.)

Oh, and there is probably no better workout than letting a baby walk down the terminal (try to find a section with mostly empty gates) - I would let Silas walk up and down, but the true workout came from trudging after him with all our stuff on my back and squatting down to pick him up and "reset" him when he started heading towards the crowded parts of the terminal.

Safe travels, all!

Tired Mom, Happy Baby

You remember Christmas as a kid? I mean Christmas Eve, the night before. Going to sleep seemed impossible because tomorrow was going to be so awesome.

Or maybe you didn't celebrate Christmas, but you might still know the feeling - perhaps the day before your family went on a really fun vacation. You might have been up every other hour at night in excitement.

Ok, so maybe you didn't celebrate Christmas and your family never went anywhere. I'm sorry. That sucks. But you still might know the feeling. That feeling of anxious excitement keeping you awake the day before you start a new job or go to a new school.

I'm pretty sure that for Silas, every night must be Christmas Eve. There is no other explanation for how he can almost settle down to sleep, quietly babbling baby bedtime talk before turning over and sitting up and starting to shout about "football" or "doggies."

And once he reminds himself that there could be doggies outside, he can't understand why in the world I would want him to stay in his bed and not go look outside for doggies. After all, if he's thinking about doggies, clearly doggies are around here somewhere.

Imagine that for five nights in a row and you've imagined how my trip up north went with him. Silas could not and would not shut down at night. Somehow, he got by on less sleep than ever and I could only hang on for the ride.

I'll write more about my trip later, but I wanted to finish with the "happy ending" of this story. On our last day of the trip, we had two flights to get home. The first flight was roughly around the time of his afternoon nap. Silas fell asleep in the car about fifteen minutes before we got to the airport and no amount of clapping or singing could have stopped him. This led to him really not feeling like a nap on the two and a half hour flight.

At the very end of the flight, as we began our descent, Silas fell asleep for about another fifteen minutes.

After a two hour layover, we got onto our final plane. I was certain that Silas would fall asleep and remain asleep for the short one hour flight. We boarded the fairly empty and tiny plane and got a row of two seats to ourselves. As the plane taxied down the runway for take off, the cabin lights were dimmed and I thought to myself - perfect!

Then pretty much everyone else on the flight turned on their reading lights. On the tiny plane, this brought the light level up enough that Silas had to look around. He waved to the person sitting a row ahead of us across the aisle. He looked out the window and said "bye-bye doggies" about fifty million times. We read the Airplane Safety Card sixty times or so. Every time I would fold it back up, he would unfold it and point to a picture, looking at me to explain what it meant.

But I was not going to be discouraged. I scooted over to the empty window seat, hoping the space would be a little darker and tried to nurse him to sleep. It was almost working, until the cabin lights came up when the complimentary beverage service began.

I knew when I was beat. I read the Airplane Safety Card with Silas a few more times and we looked out the window together, wondering if, perhaps, there were some doggies outside.

Then we hit some turbulence. It wasn't bad, but my stomach dropped a few times and I'll admit I was somewhat more nervous than usual due to the small size of the aircraft. I did my best to breath slowly and calmly and to force my heart rate to stay normal so that Silas would not sense my nervousness.

He quieted down, looking out the window without trying to pull down the shade or asking about doggies. Was he scared too?

He had never sat so still in my lap, and I was certain he was deciding that this flying business was no fun after all. I couldn't quite see his face since he was looking away from me out the window and was hugging my arm gently. Each new bout of turbulent movement caused him to cling just a touch harder, and I gave him a kiss on the top of his head.

That's when I noticed he was asleep. The hugging must have been an involuntary movement, because he was sound asleep. So sound asleep that even landing did not wake him up, nor the movement of passengers retrieving their bags from the overhead compartment. But we couldn't stay on the plane forever, so I gently woke him and we went on our way.

That night, Silas didn't get to sleep in his crib until ten, and I was ready to cry when I heard him crying in his room at about five in the morning. I sent Smiley to go grab him, and Silas surprised us both by snuggling between us and going back to sleep until eight thirty. He must have been making up for some of that lost sleep. I was very thankful. And I even feel coherent. I hope this blog post reflects that. I'm too scared to check myself.

Two dogs and a kid

This is what it's like having two dogs and a kid.

Sophie: (Sleeping peacefully in dog bed)
Silas: (tries to pet Sophie)
Sophie: (Surprised yelp)
Sherlock: (Comes running from wherever he was sleeping to see if Sophie is ok.)

Silas: (tries to pet Sophie)
Sophie: (moves out of the way and makes a little yip noise. Barely audible.)
Sherlock: (Comes running from wherever he was sleeping to see if Sophie is ok.)

Me: (tickles Silas)
Silas: (Laughs)
Sherlock: (Comes running from wherever he was sleeping to see if Silas is ok.)

Me: (Playing with Silas)
Silas: (Laughing)
Sherlock: (Starts barking: warning, baby laughing)

Upcoming Travel

Silas and I are heading to visit my parent's house fairly soon here, and we're going by plane again. After two very long round trip car visits (18 hours each way), you would think I'd be stoked to know that we'll only have to travel for a total of eight hours each way.

Well, dear readers, I am not stoked. (About the travel, that is. I'm excited about the visit).

In fact, I'm doing my best to not think about the travel, because our flights include our first ever three hour plane trip. I have no clue how to entertain a baby sitting on my lap for three hours. And that doesn't include the time until take off and time before deplaning.

I find myself pacing endlessly, looking at his toys and books and trying to figure out exactly how many minutes each would entertain him. Then I'm trying to figure out how I'll cram that all into a carry-on and then I typically just stop thinking about it and play Age of Empires II. (Did I mention Smiley got me a new copy of it? And that I'm slightly obsessed? It's been so long since I've played it in my younger years.)

My goal this time, by the way, is to figure out how to pack my two carry-on bags as efficiently as possible. I want to be prepared without being over-prepared. I'll let you know how that goes.

The Grocery Store Five Part Trip

My old online journal was a lot different from this wonderful blog. I used it mainly to record what I did each day, which tended to be hanging out with friends and going play DDR a lot. And going to Jewel (the grocery store I used to work out). I went to Jewel a ton. In fact, this old post I came across has me laughing at both how outgoing and social I used to be and how many times I can go to a grocery store in one day.

This vintage post came from the summer of 2005. Past me writes:

Well, yesterday was pretty cool. But let's break it down and see how many times I went to Jewel. Argh!

Woke up, went to Jewel - 1
Went to friend 1's house
Back to Jewel - 2
Taco Bell
Eskape
Friend 2's house
Back to Jewel - 3 
Home
Currency Exchange
OCB
Blockbuster
Friend 1's house
Jewel - 4
Eskape
Friend 3's house
Jewel - 5
Home

Well, in any case, though, I had a very good time, although I did fail Sakura.

Three friend's houses and multiple locations throughout the day? I was a freaking social butterfly, people.

In case you're wondering, Eskape is the name of the arcade that I went to all the time to play DDR. (Sakura is the name of a song I was learning to beat on Expert mode). I'm PRETTY sure OCB stands for Old Country Buffet, which is exactly what the name suggests.

I have no clue what I did at Jewel 5 times.

And Blockbuster? Now there's a sign that these were simpler, quieter times.