Nap Nanny to Crib Transition Journal

Now that Makena is 3 months old, and I have a few trips coming up, I've decided its time to get her out of her Nap Nanny.  A NN is an inclined sleeper that has a 30 degree angled tilt so baby can sleep in an upright position, especially important for babes who have reflux.  It has been a GODSEND.  My aunt actually sent us this as a gift the day Kena was born and we had no idea how much use it would get.  Well, all good things must come to an end.  Since her reflux meds are working and she is getting bigger, its time.  I can't cart the NN on the airplane and I don't want to have to rent one every time I go on vacation.  I've also noticed that it seems like she can't really get comfortable as easily, always trying to roll onto her side.  The problem is, she has NEVER slept on her back.  Ugh, this is not going to be easy.

She loves to be on her back when she's awake, playing on her activity mat.  But I think to her, back lying and sleep have zero association.  The times I have tried to lay her in her crib, its almost as if she has too much freedom, flailing her arms and legs.  The simple solution would be to swaddle her, but I'm choosing not to for 2 reasons.  For one, its just another habit that we will have to break eventually, plus I just think shes too old to start swaddling now.  And two, she hates being strapped down so I'm positive it wouldn't fly.  Luckily we have a swaddle sleep sack that you can keep the arms out so that's my plan.

Night One: Epic Fail

The first problem here was that I decided to start the process spontaneously.  As in, she started fussing at 4am so after I fed her, I took the Nap Nanny, crib bumpers, loose blankets and stuffed animal out of her crib and gave it a go.  Bad idea.  She wasn't in her sleep sack, and I wasn't able to put towels under the mattress to prop her up.  I opened up the jack and jill door and laid down in the guest bed while I spied on her on the video monitor.  She tried so hard to get comfortable but I think she just had too much freedom.  It broke my heart, because I know she just wanted to sleep.  She didn't cry, she actually tried and tried to sleep for over an hour.  When I think she finally fell asleep, I dozed off only to be woken up from her crying what seemed like a few minutes later.  It was random.  I think what happened was she scratched herself in the face and woke herself up, hence the tears.  It was 6am at this point and I was exhausted so I considered that my trial for the first night.  I threw the nap nanny back in and we all slept peacefully for the next 3 hours.

Tonight I will dress her properly and prop up her mattress.  I'm torn between starting this at bedtime, or in the middle of the night.  I'm tempted to try the middle of the night again because that's when shes the most tired and will probably sleep a little better.  The other part of me just wants to go cold turkey and try it at 9pm, bedtime.  AHH I don't know.  I hope tonight goes a little smoother.  I don't expect a miracle, but if she can stay peacefully asleep even for just a few hours, I'll feel like we are getting somewhere. 


Day One: VERY Slowly Making Progress

Well, I'm back.  I signed off earlier debating whether or not I wanted to start the transition at bedtime or in the middle of the night.  I decided, screw it, I'm just gonna start it now.  I laid her down for a nap at 1:45 and she whined with very little seriousness for a good 30 minutes before I think she fell asleep.  We have a video monitor but it was aimed at where she was in the Nap Nanny so I couldn't tell.  She only slept for 25 minutes but hey, I'll take it.  Because her nap was so short (they rarely exceed an hour during the day) she was tired again an hour later.  I laid her down at 3:45 and she was quiet! I checked the video and she basically just laid there quietly for AN HOUR AND 15 MINUTES! She then fell asleep for a whole 15 minutes.  Oy.  Next attempt was at 6:30 pm, she was surprisingly asleep about 10 minutes later.  She slept for a record-breaking 30 minutes, lol!


Night Two: Getting There

Not too bad considering we cut her off cold turkey! She was out by 9pm, shuffled at 10 and 11 but put herself back to sleep, fussed at 1 but put her self back down, ate at 2, cried at 6:30 cause she wiggled down in the crib and was all awkward. I repositioned her and she went back down til 8. Cried so I got her up but she was still so tired so she was only up for 25 minutes. Ate and passed back out from 9-11:30. We usually don't let her sleep that late in fear of it messing up her bedtime but since her sleep was so broken last night I feel like she needed it. Also, she must have been going through a growth spurt.  She usually drinks roughly 24-25 oz per day.  This night she took 7 oz at 8:30pm, 7 oz at 2am, and almost 7 more oz at 8:30am which is almost 20 oz in a 12 hour period. Growing girl!! Making progress!!

Day Two: Almost!

We were out for two of her naps so she slept in the carseat.  The other two naps at home were pretty successful.  The one at 4:30pm was a complete success.  I must have put her down at the perfect time, because not only did she not make a peep, but she passed right out in less than 5 minutes.  Slept for 30-40 minutes.  The last nap of the day wasn't as flawless.  I put her down at 7:10 and she cried/whined until 7:30.

zonked.

 Night Three: Officially a Crib Sleeper!!

After our walk, bath, book and bottle, I set her down at 9:15 and she whined/cried for about 25 minutes.  We resisted the urge to go in there and by 9:45 she was zonked out and did not move or make any noise until 4:50am. WOOO HOO!!!!! She power ate 7 oz and went right back down until we woke her up at 9:15.  And there you have it.  Our baby now sleeps in her crib.

SO GLAD I stuck to it, even when I was completely exhausted after the first night.  Now I can stress and worry so much less when it comes to traveling.  One point for Mom (and Dad!)!!

Makena's Milestones. 3 Months.

I would have posted this yesterday, but apparently Makena was very excited about her "birthday" the night before that she was up drinking all night.  Lush. 

I consider this blog to sort of be her virtual baby book.  A place I can look back and reference things she started doing and when.  So this post is dedicated to all of Makena's firsts up to this point.

She hasn't been weighed or measured since she was 10 weeks but if I were to guess, I would say she's close to 13 pounds and around 23 1/2 inches long. 

She hasn't rolled over yet, but shes pretty close.  Once a big fan of tummy time, she has decided that being on her stomach is now frustrating and gets worked up after a few minutes.  She has a super strong neck and can hold it all the way up and prop up on her 2 hands to see in front of her.  Little Super Baby!
I'd guess she will roll over within the next few weeks or month. 

She eats about 24 ounces a day on average, give or take a few.  She kinda stinks when it comes to naps.  Its almost as if she has newborn tendencies for sleeping during the day.  She can only stay awake for an hour to 1.5 hrs tops, but then will only nap for 45 minutes.  I think she may be "behind" in her nap patterns for her age because she never got consistent naps when experiencing bad reflux, so its like shes catching up now.

As for bedtime, we usually go for a family walk around the neighborhood at 8ish, bath around 8:30 and pjs and bottle right after that.  She falls asleep around 9:15-9:30.  Her internal clock is still telling her that this is a nap, even though shes bedtime tired.  When she wakes up around 10, I usually top her off with a light feeding or just rock her back to sleep.  She then sleeps til 3-4, eats and then goes back to bed til we wake her up between 9-9:30am.  Can't complain!

She's in 3-6 month clothes, its crazy how fast she is growing and how quickly she outgrows things!  All these outfits we bought for the summer and gonna be too small halfway through!

Her cry has gone from a newborn cry to a baby cry.  She can definitely belt it if shes upset.  The nice thing is she already knows how to self soothe.  Sometimes we will miss her tired window by a few minutes and she'll cry when we put her down, but it only takes her 5-10 minutes to calm down and put herself to sleep.

She DEFINITELY knows who her parents are.  It is so precious.  Whenever we walk into her room to get her up from a nap, she hears our voice and lights up.  She giggles, belly laughs and smiles non-stop.  So fun!

No sign of any teeth popping through yet, but I still think she is starting to teethe.  She drools a ton and is always chewing on her hand.  We shall see!

I guess that's it for now!  She's officially off the Zantac and so far so good! WOO!  I love that baby girl SO much!

My HEART!

 

One Handed

I just have to start out by saying that since I've become a mom, I've gotten really good at doing things one-handed.  Like typing this post for example, while I pump (sorry for the visual).  It's been an amazing week.  I'm scared to say (type) this out loud, but I think we have FINALLY figured out exactly how to treat Makena's reflux.  We are even weaning her off of the Zantac starting today so wish us luck!  There has even been consistency in a schedule around here....PRAISE THE LORD!

Snuggle Bug.

 We have officially established a bedtime routine that starts at 8:45 and includes a bath, a lotion rub-down (for her, not me unfortunately) and a bedtime bottle in her dark room.  The last 3 nights she has been down by 9:15 and asleep around 9:30. WOO HOO!  Now if only I could sleep at night....I keep having jacked up dreams :(

We had a great weekend and weren't doomed to our house for once!  We spent all day Saturday lying by the pool with our friends Ashley and Josh at Ashley's parents house.  The weather was perfect, Makena was happy and we even got some sun.  Don't worry, baby wasn't in any direct sunlight ;)  She even took a nap upstairs happily while we enjoyed the pool.  Kena was the cutest beach babe in the whole world, however she did NOT like the pool.  In her defense, it was WAY colder than her typical bath water temp.  Can't wait til the beach houses this summer when she's a little older and can really enjoy the pool!

We are going on 2 hours for this morning's nap and it feels so good to be able to get some housework done.

Clean House!

 I'm even able to prep dinner.  Tonight is one of our easy go-to meals, here's the recipe if you're interested...

Sausage and Potato Skillet

1-1 1/2 lbs hot breakfast sausage
6ish potatoes, peeled and very thinly sliced
1/2-1 onion, diced
1 cup chicken broth
spices of your choice, i use paprika, flavor booster (lawry's would work too) and garlic salt

1.  Brown the sausage in a skillet, remove to plate.  If you wanna be healthy clean the grease out, if you're gross like me leave it for extra flavor.
2.  Sautee onions with a little bit of olive oil
3.  Add sausage back in, potatoes, broth and all of your spices.
4. Cover and let cook on medium heat for about 15 minutes, until potatoes are tender

Obviously its not a very exact recipe, I just eyeball it and adjust the flavors to my liking.  Its nothing fancy but its easy, quick and yummy. 

 I thought I had a picture from making this before, but I guess I don't.  I'll add one later. Enjoy!

3 months. Praise God.

I can't believe my baby girl will be 3 months old on the 22nd.  These past 3 months have both flown by, and dragged at the same time.  Those days where her reflux would be out of control seemed to feel like an eternity, but having to "retire" baby clothes almost every week makes it all feel like its going too fast.  God has a perfect concept of time, because as hard as the bad days were, I'm grateful for the amount of hours in the day to soak up all her baby-ness :)

Her last check-up was a day before she turned 10 weeks old, even though it was considered her 2 month appointment.  She was 12 lbs 5 oz, 23 inches long and growing on a perfect curve.  She is in the 75th percentile for each category.  I dragged Jon along because I knew a well check-up meant shots.  Shots haven't ever really bothered me until I got pregnant and had a whopping 17 viles of blood taken over the course of 2 days in my first trimester.  That and having to give myself a painful shot every day for 6 weeks post partum has made me a little leery.  Also, fact that you have to pin their arms and legs down breaks my heart, so I of course made Jon do it while I waited outside.

Since the meds have kicked in, we have actually started to establish a schedule of sorts! And if you know me at all, this has been something I've been dying to start.  She was notorious for going to bed super late, past midnight.  Even though Jon and I like to stay up late, this was pushing it even for us, plus we didn't get any time to ourselves.  We've started waking her up earlier and earlier everyday and last night she went down at a record time of 9:45pm!  She did wake up at 10:30 but we fed her a little and she fell back asleep until 5, where she ate again and went back to bed til we woke her up at 9am.  She's a great sleeper, gotta love it.  She's even starting a pattern with naps during the day.  She only sleeps for 45 minutes (almost perfectly to the minute) but goes down 1:15-1:30 minutes after she wakes up.  Another huge milestone is that I've started to venture out into public! She hates being strapped down in her carseat so I hated going anywhere.  I've tried my carriers (the ergo, beco and moby wrap) but she doesn't like to be facing inward.  I'm all about the proper support for both mommy and baby and that's why I've spent a LOT of money on these nice carriers but what I've realized is that she wants to be facing outward to see everything.  We gave in and bought an infantino carrier for $40 so she can face out and it is a GODSEND! Sure, it hurts my back a little, but that's a small price to pay for a quiet and content baby in public.  This week I've been able to go to the grocery store, Costco and Wal-Mart with a perfectly happy little girl.  Hallelujah!

That's it for now, she will be waking up any minute now.  The gummy smile I get when I walk in to her room makes me look forward to nap time being over :)  Tomorrow we are going to a friends house to spend the day at the pool.  I'll have to post after with pictures of our beach babe and her new swimsuit :)  Happy Weekend everyone!

I can SEE the WORLD!

My First Mother's Day....I'm BACK!

As I sit here watching the rain fall outside, my husband loving on our baby girl, and the fire flicker in the fireplace, I am one happy Mama.  The voice in my head has been bugging me for weeks to update my blog, considering its been months.  I've been putting it off simply because there is too much to write to update on what has been going on between now and then.  Simply put, its been the most challenging 3-4 months of my life but also the most rewarding.  The struggle and difficulty is still a little too fresh in my brain to reflect on and go into detail about, but i will eventually.  I will just say that silent reflux has been insanely hard to handle, and I can't express how much respect and compassion I have for mothers who are going through MUCH harder illnesses, injuries and challenges than we have.

Makena Rylie is quickly approaching her 3 month birthday and I can't believe how much she has grown.  Her little giggles warm my heart and I am so proud of the miniature person shes already starting to become. My heart is filled with so much love for her, and even more love than I've already felt for Jon, which I didn't know was possible.


It is my first real Mother's Day and I feel so incredibly blessed.  Starting at midnight last night, Jon took on baby duty and let me sleep through the night.  I woke up at 9:30 to the smell of bacon wafting into the bedroom and come downstairs to find a full on breakfast made for a queen!  He made dairy-free chocolate chip pancakes from scratch, bacon and maple sausage, raspberries, chocolate covered strawberries, mimosas and a steaming cup of coffee.  The true joy, however, came from reading my 4 Mother's Day cards from Jon, Kena and Kona, my mom and Rachel.  I feel so loved and couldn't ask for more. 

As the day went on, Jon drew a bath for me lined with candles, beverages and my book while he did a few loads of laundry and the dishes from breakfast.  When Makena went down for a nap, we spent an hour just talking.  We reflected on our life, our favorite dating memories and spent time making sure we really knew how much we meant to each other and how appreciative we are for the other.

I then made my way back downstairs and popped in a movie while I was instructed not to pay attention to what was going on in the kitchen behind me.  Jon had asked me a few weeks ago what I wanted for Mother's Day and I said all I wanted was a raw seafood meal including oysters and clams.  Well, he went all out and made an entire platter full of crab legs, lobster tails, shrimp, scallops, oysters and clams.  He even made two different kinds of dips for the seafood and paired our meal with a bottle of La Crema Chardonnay, the same kind of wine we drank the night we got engaged. 

Ok, bragging is over.  I didn't want the day to end.  At 11:30pm Jon even asked me if there was anything else he could get me that would complete my Mother's Day?  It was perfect. 

What was NOT perfect, however, is the fact that our daughter has again rebelled against her decent bedtime and didn't fall asleep last night until 1:10am.  Ugh! We were doing SO WELL!!

Well that's it for now.  I plan on making a solid effort from here on out to update more frequently, and even get back into posting recipes and what not.  Its good to be back :)

My extravagant breakfast

Mommy and baby bonding

Nom nom nom

Daddy and his sweet baby girl

Relaxing bath