Sleep Training Update #1

Like my Sister on Carrot Tops, I am trying to train Squeaker to have better nighttime sleep habits. We are leaving Bean and Squeaker with OpaNana in 10 days for 6 nights. After our holiday travels, Squeaker reverted to waking up every 3 hours during the night. While a pain for us, we most certainly don't want to subject the used-to-full-night's-sleep OpaNana to such wakefulness.

We're pulling out all the stops to make Squeaker a good houseguest:

• Ensuring she's warm enough. We keep the house at 68 at night (much warmer than we would before kids), but her little paws have been very icy. After putting a space heater in her room with a thermostat, we now realize that although the core of the house is 68, her room is only about 62. The space heater brings it up closer to 70. In addition, she's now sleeping it at least 2 layers and a fleece hat.
• Re-reading Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child. This is a great book that combines some of the cry-it-out method with common sense. After reading the book, we realized that Squeaker may still need to eat 1-2 times per night, but she shouldn't need to eat 1-2 hours after a nighttime feeding.
• Introducing 1 bottle/formula feeding per night, and 1-2 bottle/formula feedings per day. It's my intention to continue breastfeeding after our vacation, but she's going to be on all formula while we're gone.

Initial results:

• Thu, 1/8: Slept from 7:30 PM to 12:30 PM. This was the first night of the heater, and I think it helped.
  
• Fri, 1/9: Slept from 8 PM to 1 AM. Getting better. She had a bottle at 1, and then back to sleep until 4 when she came to bed with us to eat and sleep.
  
• Sat, 1/10: Slept from 7:30 PM to 3:30 AM! A huge win. She ate at 3:3o and went right back to sleep. BUT then she woke up at 5. Usually, we'd bring her into our bed and I would feed her while sleeping. Instead we let her cry. For 50 minutes. 50 minutes, yes. It was not fun. I had the pillow over my head, telling myself it was the right thing to do. The book said to let them cry for up to an hour. She did go back to sleep until about 7. Hope we're on the right track.

Stay tuned. I know OpaNana will be the most attentive readers of the sleep posts.

Third Cousins, More Like First

Some of our favorite cousins, Wendy and Greg, arrived last night with their 3 boys for a stopover on their drive from Wisconsin to Texas. It was great to see family and hang out. Wendy and I are second cousins but raised more like first. Our Dads are first cousins, raised more like brothers. Our kids are third cousins, but I hope will be more like first as they grow up.

It was a quick but fun visit. Bean ran around behind the older kids the whole time they were here. She also said "Hiiiiiiii, boyyyys" about 10 times while they were here. Husband started reading "Cowboy and Octopus" to Bean last night and quickly had an audience of four.



They loved the book so much that they requested an encore this morning.

New Yearsolutions

It's cliche, I know, but I always set 5-10 goals at the New Year. Usually, I achieve about 80% of them. This year I'm committing to spend some time on myself which will most likely be in the form of exercise. So yesterday, I put on my running gear (it's been taking up an entire drawer in my dresser without use for about 3 years) and went out for a run.

Since it's been so long since I've run, I'm starting with a beginner's plan from Runners World. Stay tuned for progress on this, my 2009 Goal #1.