I’ve been slacking on the blog as of late. We’ve been traveling, Lillian has been sick (me too), and it’s turning out to be a busy fall!
As you can see, Lillian is still learning how to use the nasal aspirator. As tempting as it was to try it out on myself when my nose was stuffed up, I held myself back.
Lillian continues to find lots of joy in our dog, Andy! She pets, pokes, and grabs at him everyday and Andy is such a great sport – he’s not phased by any of it! Lillian really enjoys it when Andy is chasing his toys. She laughs when he’s anxiously awaiting for me to throw a toy and continues to laugh when he retrieves it.
I think this video captured it really well. I apologize for the orientation of the video, I flipped the camera midway and it doesn’t make too much sense for viewing purposes, but it’s still pretty cute. The loud burping noise at the end is definitely some throw up – nice!
With Lillian sleeping through the night, (she’s doing great!), she goes a long time without a diaper change. Monday and Tuesday morning she woke up with a soaked through diaper and had pee on her pjs and on the sheet – no fun! The helpful women at BabyCenter recommended using a larger size diaper, or diapers designed specifically for overnight. The overnight diapers made by Huggies and Pampers begin with size 4, Lillian is currently wearing size 2. I bought a package of size 3 diapers and she’s had them on the past two nights. When she awoke, the diapers were very full, but there were no leaks – success!
In other sleeping news, she is normally crying for 5-10 minutes and then sleeping until about 6:30 the next morning – we are very pleased! Last night she cried for 20 minutes, then I checked on her and she cried for 25 minutes after that! I was so confused as to why she was regressing. When I laid her back down, I thought I may have smelled something foul, but I currently have a cold, so my sense of smell is off. I called Brian up through the monitor (great little trick!) and he confirmed the foulness – she had a giant poo diaper! Poor girl! I felt so bad for missing that! This time when we laid her back down, she was out like a light!
Lillian and Andy continue to be best buds! She’s getting so strong that she’ll be crawling so soon!
We paid a visit to Tanner’s house when we were in Sylvania (I still need to load pictures of that trip!) and Lillian was really into his super cool activity mat. It was far better than the cheap one that we registered for that would fall on her face if she pulled on the toys. We ordered Lillian one of her own and she loves it! Brian even finds in interesting and said he wanted one for himself…I just told him to lay under Lillian’s!
Lillian overall sleeps very well, and she always has. But it had become apparent to us that she was associating sleep with her pacifier. She would fall asleep with it and would wake up throughout the night crying until we ran in and put it back in her mouth. Most of my evenings, I would rock her to sleep and make sure that she was really asleep before putting her down. Then I would hover and wait for her to cry once her pacifier fell out. I would do that until it was MY bedtime, all the while, Brian was keeping himself busy downstairs by himself. After all of the traveling we have been doing, we returned home to Cincinnati and Lily’s sleeping was a complete mess. She wasn’t napping for more than a half hour 2-3 times during the day, was really fussy when putting her down for the night, and woke up about every hour or two throughout the night crying for her pacifier. Unhappy Momma, unhappy baby. Something needed to change!
After reading a lot, and finding help in the Teach Your Baby to Sleep group on BabyCenter, we decided on a modified cry it out (CIO) method. I never thought I would be the type of harsh, terrible person that would just let my baby cry, BUT, at this point, I am very familiar with Lillian’s cries and knew that her cries at bedtime were because she was, in fact, tired! We decided that we would put her down and when she starts not just fussing, but really crying, we would wait for 5 minutes before going in to soothe her. To soothe her, I would pick her up and calm her down, then when she was drowsy (BUT NOT BACK TO SLEEP), I would put her back in her crib. If she were to cry again, we would then wait 10 minutes and would up the wait period by 5 minutes each time, maxing out at 30 minutes. During the wait periods, I had the monitor on to make sure that her cries continued to just be her tired/frustrated cry and nothing more. The next night, you are to start at 10 minutes, and so on.
Night 1: Total cry time: 40 minutes. Didn’t make a single noise until she awoke at 7am the following morning!
Night 2: Total cry time: 45 minutes. However, her cries were more half-hearted. They weren’t filling up all of the colors on the monitor during the 20 minute wait period! Quiet all night long until a small cry around 6am because Andy was being loud and excited about his breakfast. But she quickly quieted down within 5 minutes and I didn’t have to go in to her.
Night 3: Total cry time: 25 minutes. Slept peacefully all night long. When I went in her room at 7:30 am, I see her feet up in the air and she’s just happily hanging out.
Night 4: Total cry time: 10 minutes…then she slept for a half hour and cried for 40 minutes. Boo. I blame the thunderstorm.
Night 5: Total cry time: 10 minutes, for real this time!
This has been by NO MEANS easy! It’s incredibly hard. I often cry along with her. When I would have her in my arms during the soothing period, I so badly wanted to keep her there all night long! Then, since she would fall asleep so early, I missed her! I realize this is my first step of letting go – and it’s happening at such an early age! I have been so used to being around her almost every minute of every day unless I was asleep and now I have this free time at night with her just a few feet away from me and I can’t be with her – it kills me! But I know that this is what I have to do to make her a happier lady during the day and, in turn, the time we spend together during the day will be more pleasant! And now Brian and I have a few hours each night to hang out! Win-win-win!
Lillian was just hanging out in her swing like this the other day. She gets cuter by the minute!
An organized lady in the making! Lillian was wide eyed during her first trip to the Container Store! I could tell that she was making mental notes on how to have the perfectly organized color coded closet! And our location is located in the same building, right across from Crate & Barrel! So the pouring rain made us take a twirl around the store and I had to buy a cupcake carrier. Suppose I should now make some cupcakes and find somewhere to take them 
Now that Daddy is back in town, Lillian’s being styled with mohawks again! It’s quite flashy with her hair being so long!!
Lillian is one happy baby because we are all together again! While Brian still has one short stint in Minneapolis later this week, the worst of our crazy travel is over! However, reuniting last night was fun – even though it was only about two weeks, it’s crazy how much I had to fill Brian in on regarding Lily’s daily life – it has changed so much! He got to feed her her nightly dose of rice cereal and she was quite the show off with her mad eating skills! Now, we’re working on relaxing and settling back into life at home for an extended amount of time. aka – sitting on the couch drinking coffee and catching up on the dvr
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