At Last! Dummy FREE!!!!!

First of all, I'd like to thank those that responded to my last post via Facebook. It was really interesting to think about some of the things that were brought up such as parenting styles and sleep training. In no way at all am I judging anyone on the way they choose to parent their babies and children. I think everyone has their own styles for their own children. Us included. It may not be the easiest way, but everyday is a learning day. Sleep training for us is necessary. I want our babies to be able to self settle. I don't advocate any special methods, but we have had some help from different bits of literature. For us, I let baby cry but I also will go in check on him and reassure him that we are there. We're on day 3 and it's going well...less and less everyday.

Now, we have reason to celebrate! NO more dummies for S!!! Yesterday, it disappeared and we still haven't found it. She seemed to accept that it's gone and we can't find it. She also knows that A's soothers are his and not for her bedtime. We aren't really giving it to A for the nighttime bedtime, but if he wakes too early, I will offer it to him.

We've also decided to mix a bit of spoon-feeding with the baby-led weaning style and it seems to be working as he's eating a bit more. Thanks for reading everyone!

SLEEPTRAINING begins:(

Alright so I know that teaching your baby how to sleep is an essential skill, but the process is utterly painful. I have to admit that I've been dreading this the second time around. S is amazing at putting herself to sleep now and I'm so glad we did it...but baby A seems to be a bit more needy so I really didn't want to do it. But he's almost 8 months old and I think it's time...so tonight we started. We did his routine of bottle, book, sleeping bag, sleepy song, cuddle and then sleepy time words. After the first couple minutes of crying, I went in and tried to give him his soother. He took it but as soon as he realized I wasn't staying, he started to cry again. Tried patting him and that wasn't working...he quieted down a bit so I left again. Waited five minutes and he still kept crying. Bending oner the crib SUCKS...he's on the lower setting now as he's decided to start pulling himself up to standing. This is the worst for trying to help him settle. After 15min of crying, I decided that I needed to just let him cry it out a bit so I took a shower. At the end of my shower, he finally fell asleep. From start to finish, it took just over 30min which I guess isn't too bad.

On a happier note, solids have been going well and bottle-feeding is MUCH better. Unfortunately, I need to pump twice a day and then top up with formula...but YAY!!! I really thought we wouldn't get to this day but now we're doing 2 bottles a day which is EXCELLENT. So very happy about that.

Yikes! Where did October go?

It's been much too long since my last post but it's been a pretty crazy month and a bit. I have to share the most disgusting poo incident to date yet! S went down for her nap as usual and about an hour into it, I heard her cry a bit, but sometimes she will go back to sleep. She stopped and there was silence, but about 15 minutes later, there was more crying so I thought ok, it's time for her to get up...opened the door and an all too familiar odor whiffed out the door. I took a look and there she was, standing, one hand holding her diaper and the other, a handful of poo! Ugh! So gross. I quickly scooped her up and proceeded to clean her up. Luckily, it didn't get anywhere else. Lesson learned, no more sleeping in only her diaper.

Halloween came and went. Poor S, came down with a virus that had her suffer a fever on and off for 4 days so she couldn't really celebrate Halloween this year. So I dressed up and Baby A in their costumes for pictures. Mommy and daddy, mainly mommy has enjoyed the halloween candy purchased for the festivities. Yum! Now, baby A has caught S's virus and ended up with roseola, a rash that sometimes breaks out onto the skin after the fever has broken. This totally freaked me out as S never had it so after 2 visits to 2 separate doctors, we were told that baby A is now recovering! Yay! Crossing my fingers that he will sleep tonight!