I have been forced to take a short break from blogging due to the horrible migraines I have been experiencing in the past couple of days. I am almost certain that my migraines are hormonal, as I have never gotten one before I got pregnant but regularly suffered them through both pregnancies. And now that I am no longer pregnant, I only get them when I am PMSing. (Apparently, hormones can play a big role in headaches and migraines. I know this because the interwebz has told me so.) My migraines — like practically all other physical ailments — are exacerbated by fatigue and lack of sleep. And hey, guess what! I have a 4-month-old and a 17-month-old and I think that...
Continue reading
I am by no means an expert on baby sleep, but the (very) general sleep pattern that my girls seemed to have followed is:
- 0 to 2 months old: sleeps most of the day, but also wakes up often. She is still getting used to being outside of the womb.
- 2 to 4 months old: the sleepy newborn stage. She is finally used to the outside world and is “resting” from the trauma of birth. (Did you know that oftentimes, being born is much more difficult than giving birth? Think about how traumatizing it must be for the little guys!)
- 4 months onward: sleep goes to crap again, otherwise known as the 4-month sleep regression. She is starting to discover the world and is simply overwhelmed.
We sleep-trained Claire at 4.5 months because not only were we, as her parents, dead-tired and cranky, she was also miserable from the lack of sleep. Getting her from waking up 5-6x per night to 3x a night took about a week, and getting her to nap more than 20-30 minutes at a time took about two months. I used Dr. Weissbluth’s extinction method in both cases, and while sleep-training was one of the toughest things I did as a parent, I also believe that it was also one of the most worthwhile — Claire is such a happier child when she is well-rested!
With Aerin being a more laid-back, happier baby who slept better than Claire from the get-go, we had been hoping that we wouldn’t need to sleep-train her. And as she neared 4 months of age, I kept my fingers crossed that she would skip the dreaded 4-month sleep regression (as some babies do)…
But no such luck. Aerin’s sleep regression hit a couple of weeks before she turned 4 months old, and it progressively got worse. At one point, she was waking up every hour! She also seemed to have the same trouble that Claire had with naps, waking up just 20-30 minutes into her nap just as the deeper, more restful sleep cycle begins.
Welcome to today’s installment of Reverent Sundays, where I write about an aspect of my faith. This can deal with recent books I have read on Christianity, my thoughts on religion and current issues, as well as particular messages I find touching and/or powerful. I am aware that most of my readers are not religious, and that is fine — you are more than welcome to not read these posts if they make you uncomfortable, enrage you, or bore you to tears. I am open to debates and discussions in the comments section as long as everyone remains respectful. Enjoy! "Tolerance" — being one of today's most popular buzzwords — is used in some of the most deeply and passionately defended beliefs...
Continue reading
I love that there is a dollar store within walking distance to our home, because it is a great place to find cheap sources of entertainment for Claire (e.g., helium balloons). Earlier this week, I purchased a package of hearts stickers (pink GIRLY hearts that Claire herself chose...
Continue reading
The Nail Clipper:
Claire hates, hates, HATES getting her toenails clipped. She’s okay with us clipping her fingernails, but she has a strong aversion to our clipping her toenails…she’ll even start crying when she sees us clipping Aerin’s toenails! (I’ve tried clipping my own in front of her, making it seem like it was THE most fun and exciting thing in the world, but she still hates it. If anyone has any advice on this front, I’d love to hear it.)
The other day, I noticed that a few of her toenails were getting too long so I knew that we needed to take care of them. As expected, Claire bawled her eyes out and continued to sniff long after I was done. Since I was busy trying to cheer her up after the event, I failed to put away the nail clipper properly…and as soon as Claire felt better she got ahold of it. And before I could get it back from her, she began to shove the clipper between the couch cushions! The little booger was trying to hide it away so that I wouldn’t be able to use it in the future!
Her Stuffed Giraffe:
Earlier this week I caught Claire taking our Baby Bjorn (being small for her age, Aerin is not quite big enough to comfortably fit in the Pognae yet) out of its usual resting place. Curious to see what she would do with it, I sat back and left her alone. She struggled with it for quite some time, and only when she began to drag it to the full-length mirror in her room, picking up her giraffe on the way, did I realize that she was trying to wear her giraffe with the Baby Bjorn just as she sees me do with Aerin!
And yesterday, she placed her giraffe on the bouncer and insisted that we strap it in, just as we do with Aerin. Once it was securely strapped in, she turned on the music and vibration — once again, just like we do with Aerin.