Napping is back in fashion!

As I noted in my last post, ever since Holden learned to pull up, he's been struggling with his naps. Finally, over the last week, things have settled back to normal. Yes, all Holden needed to do was to learn how to get back down on his own. So once again, we can safely let him blow off 10 or 15 minutes of steam in his crib before he settles down, on his own, to sleep. Hip hip hooray! Glad that stage has passed.

Why sleep when you could stand?

In the past few weeks, Holden has discovered the wonderful world of pulling up and standing. And of course, there's no better place to practice this new skill than in the crib. So every time we've put him down for a nap, the seemingly sleepy yawning boy perks up to gleefully have some independent play time. At first this new nap time challenge presented us with some deep frustrations: he figured how to get up, but couldn't safely get himself down. So we'd either have to come in and teach him how to get down (over and over again, reminding him that it's "nap time"), or we'd suddenly here a loud cry and know that he clunked himself against the side. This required some soothing and made a productive nap period nearly impossible.

Thankfully this week Holden seems to have gotten the hang of getting back down himself. In fact, this has become his new obsession during wake hours. Thus, nap times seem to be getting better. Last week--I'd have to go in about 5 times each nap to help him down--and it would take up to an hour (and a lot of protests!) for him to actually fall asleep. This week: about 20 minutes of self-play. Woot! Glad this little stage is quickly passing.

And to think that years ago, we adults preferred standing to sleeping.

On the move

Now that Holden has become mobile, his--and our--days are filled with rediscovering the world that is our home. At first, such adventures gave us anxiety; Holden was eager to crawl, pull-up, and stand, but not so adept at figuring how to reverse course and sit back down. Too often after pulling himself, he found himself crashing to the ground, and we found ourselves soothing him. But recently, he's decided that getting back down carefully will serve him well, and he's turned his energy to practicing these skills.

And who knew so many parts of our house were so inviting?

Here's a sampling of Holden discovering the world around him.

Addressing your sleep questions

Recently, Mike and I have been receiving a lot of questions from friends and readers about sleep issues. I don't think this is because we are experts (far from it), but we've tried to talk openly about sleep here on the blog because we have come to realize its a) important; and b) the sleep books don't address the quirks and challenges that come along with the territory. Nor, might I add, do the books address the dynamic ever-changing miracle that is a baby--who grows, and gets sick, and teethes, and learns to crawl, stand, and walk--at least not in any comprehensive way. So in an effort to keep the conversation going, I wanted to post a question that a commenter asked:

"My husband and I have a 15 week old son and want to use a cry it out method to sleep train, but it's the missed feedings we feel terrible about...did you get your little boy up to nurse, then start over, or do they just go cold turkey? This would involve missing 2 usual feedings...it feels like no one addresses the issue on the net...do I need to get a book or what? Would love to know what worked..."

I remember being that parent, who hunted the internet and asking friends for answers, doing insane things to get him to nap (driving him around, for instance), wondering if anything would ever work. I sympathize!

To address the last question first, it's certainly up to you, but we used a book--and we read at least a couple of them. I don't think one specific method works better than any other, but if you use a book--and stick to it--you have a clear guide to follow. Something tangible, and spelled out. Something your can pour over in the evening while you're using the method. And here's hard part: don't second-guess yourself about it. Just use the book, to the letter, for a WHILE (more than 3 days or even a week). It's hard but you have to trust the process. My husband would write down how long it took for Holden to fall asleep on the back page of the book; it became part of his process, and was strangely meditative.

We used Jodi Mindell's book, but we also bought and read a beat up old copy of Weissbluth. I couldn't personally like the Weissbluth method because I find it too cruel (put them in the crib, walk away, and don't come back to check), but his book helped me understand how sleep works in babies. And for us, understanding the science behind it all helped us attack the problem.

As for the night feedings...according to Mindell, you should only do check/cry method at bedtime. If they wake up during the middle of the night, she says to soothe them however you normally would (if that means nursing them to sleep, so be it). Once they learn to fall asleep on their own, she argues, they won't wake up as much. For us, this seemed to be true. Almost immediately after we started sleep training, he stopped waking up in the middle of the night. He didn't actually seem to need those extra night feedings. We never woke him up for extra feedings, I just fed on demand during the day. And because I was a bit paranoid, I usually "cluster fed" in the evening (fed him several times within a few hours) to "tank him up." This may mean feeding your baby a couple of extra times during the day. But it's worth it, I think, for a solid nights sleep for you and him/her.

And here's the thing about sleep that took us a while to not only accept, but embrace. They will still wake up sometimes. They will have bad nights, and they will teethe, and they will have days when they don't want to nap (like today!) because that's a part of being human. I still nurse him in the middle of the night when he wakes up, because it's a soothing technique that works. And now, even if they catch me by surprise, I treasure those nights, because I realize that there are only a few months left that he'll even want to nurse (heck, he fights it during the daytime already!). I never thought I'd say that when he was 4 months old, and we were desperately searching for a solution, but it's true!

Who need Newton?

Everybody's favorite restaurant game. Gravity in action.
Over. And Over. Again.

a goodbye to the sweetest cat that ever lived

Today, we were abruptly forced to say goodbye to our beloved cat Alice, with whom we have shared life for more than the past 8 years. She was diagnosed with advanced kidney insufficiency, and we had to make the difficult decision to put her to sleep.

Alice was, no doubt, a part of our family, and we will miss her dearly. She had lived with us in 3 apartments in Washington, DC, and our current home in St. Louis (where she had just about the best window sills to sit on and view the world). She was our first pet together, and she'll always have a special place in our hearts.

And while Holden did not have much of a chance to get to know her, I'd like to think that they really liked each other. The only picture I could find of Alice and Holden is before Holden was born -- Alice did seem to be drawn to Holden in the womb, and she would cuddle up with Bryna while she was pregnant. And as we said our final goodbyes to Alice this afternoon, Holden was able to reach out and pet her one last time, too.

Teething, redux

Wouldn't it be nice if they only did the teething thing once?

Holden is currently working on cutting his top two teeth, and this--along with his crawling/pulling up adventures--is wreaking havoc on whatever nap schedule he might have had. I knew this was coming. I had been warned. But it still doesn't make it any less frustrating.

The good news--since he's so obsessed with exploring, when he's awake his teeth don't seem to bother him. It just hits him once he's down for his nap. Which makes it all a little confusing, because we think all is well, and then bam, we have a whiny fussy no-napping baby who seemed perfectly happy when we put him down.

Come on teeth!

8 Months

About a week ago, Holden turned 8 months old, and so much has changed since the 7 month mark. One of the reasons we haven't posted a monthly update yet, in fact, is because it's been difficult to get the little guy to sit still for a picture. This slightly older picture will have to do; all he wants to do is move. Crawling, pulling up, squirming...the "explorer" phase is now in full action.