Bird Watching: On Sleep and Other Things...

Ok so those videos were supposed to go at the bottom...but now I can't figure out how to move them.

I know I know I know that I need to be better at posting on here. But I always feel like I need to have SOMETHING interesting to say. But more often than not, we're just chugging along with little bits of interesting things here and there and I'm never quite sure what will prove blog-worthy. So I'll give the little updates that I can think of.

Adam is as cute as ever. In fact, maybe even cuter. I swear he gets more adorable each day. We are ever so slowly coming out of a nasty cold and it was no fun for him to deal with it. He was super congested and he and I spent a few nights propped up sleeping on the couch with a humidifier trying to help him breathe through the night. I even panicked and took him to the ER one night when he wouldn't stop screaming. Of course, once we were there he was not only fine but was quite happy to flirt with all the nurses and patients. Now it seems all that's left is a bit of a cough, but we're pretty much through it. There were a few near sleepless (up every hour) that I thought I might go crazy though.

We've recently got started on the cloth diaper wagon. Man I don't want to be one of "those" moms...but I gotta say I wish we'd started sooner. AND because this is my blog and I get to post what I want when I want...I'm going to verge on the overshare. Both yesterday and this morning my little guy peed in the toilet like a big boy. Yep, five months old and he knows how to shoot! Fingers crossed this makes potty training easier. I know it sounds incredibly lame, but there's something incredibly satisfying about seeing your five month old stand up and pee like a man. I know, I know...you didn't really want to know. But hey, I celebrate where I can.

It's snowing like crazy here. There's a snowfall warning out and by tomorrow we should have between 15-25 cm. It's so pretty and Christmasy, but I'm a little worried about getting buried alive!

Jim is the best and seems to be finding more of a balance between work and home. The other night he was home at 5:00 pm, didn't bring any work, and he was really "here" with us. Often he will bring work home and not finish it but I'm always waiting and anticipating that he'll hunker over his desk and get lost in his work. And that's ok, I'd rather have him home working than not, but it was so incredibly nice to have him fully present and know that he was all ours for the night. I even took a bath, with bubbles, and a book. It was pure heaven!

I came to a bit of a breakthrough the other day. This may come off a little rant-y. I gotta say, I love my son because I'm his mother. But in almost all respects he really has been the easiest and best baby. Labour and delivery was straightforward, he nurses like a pro, he only cries when he needs something (and usually it's pretty easy to find out what) but when people would ask "is he a good baby? Does he sleep through the night?", I always wanted to say "he's the best baby!", but I'd be lying if I said he slept through the night. On average he's up a pretty predictable 3x a night. I'd done some reading that suggested that nutritionally they didn't need more than one nighttime feed at this point, so I decided that I needed to sleep train him. After all, I didn't want to spoil my baby. And each time I fed him at night, I was starting to feel guilty, like I was teaching him a bad habit.

I decided to try a technique advocated by the "Baby Whisperer" called Pick-up Put-Down. The idea being that you pick the baby up just long enough to calm him, and then put him back down again. You do this over and over until they fall asleep, the idea being that you aren't leaving them alone to cry it out, but you're teaching them to self soothe. This worked really well for 2 days...until he fought back. Finally after day three or four I'd had enough. I was tired, grumpy, and felt locked in a sleep battle with my baby. I planned to stay up all night picking up and putting up if I had to, and I wasn't letting Jim off the hook either.

So I knelt at the mighty feet of google to find whatever tools I could to help me on my sleep quest. And instead, I found some new information that completely changed my perspective. I found a site that instead of making me feel like a bad mother for feeding him when he wasn't starving and didn't necessarily "need it", it said that nursing for comfort was just as important as nursing for nutrrition and that when he was ready to quit, he would. All of a sudden I could breathe a little easier. Maybe it wasn't such a bad thing to feed him at night after all.

And you know what I've realized? I cherish those nighttime feeds. It's one of the only times when he's completely still and quiet. He latches on, I gently rock, and we both get this beautiful quiet moment together. When he's all done, I put him gently on my chest and rest his little chin on my shoulder and gently burp him. More often than not in his sleepy state he'll wrap hiss little arms around me and my boy gives me a hug. I hold him as long as I can wishing there were more moments like these, and then I gentlly lay him down in his crib and once more. At no point has he even completely woken up and so I'll watch him for a minute, wonder how I got so lucky, and gently tip toe back to my bed and my other, bigger, sleeping boy.

I know some mama's can't live without their sleep, and I get it. And one day I'm sure he will sleep through the night. But I love my quiet stolen nighttime moments with my little man.

And now, for some pictures!