Sleep Training 101

I am sitting here in my room as I type this and I can't help but keep looking over at the empty pack and play beside my bed.  Tonight began the dreaded sleep training.  Selfishly, I've been putting this off.  If this truly is my last baby, my heart aches that I will never have a newborn sleeping right next to me.  I have so much fun setting the pack and play up in our room; setting up a changing and bottle station in preparation for all those late nights.  And now those days are over, maybe forever, and it just really seemed to go too fast.  With Lyla, I was the typical first time mom and insisted at 6 weeks we start sleep training her.  I mean, it worked out and she became a super good sleeper.  This time, I tried two different times to make the move into Caroline's own room and two times I ended up in tears.  One night I even set up a bed of pillows on her floor so I could stay with her and after a meltdown, Eric packed up my makeshift bed and told me we'd try again another day.  Today Caroline is nine weeks old.  It's time.  I go back to work in a few weeks and we need to start to get into some routine.

As much as I hate it and it makes my body physically ill, we try the 'cry it out' method.  It worked really well with Lyla.  I remember sitting on the loft floor watching "Jersey Shore' as she cried in the next room.  The first night she cried for 45 minutes and I thought it was an eternity.  Each night was better after that and, if memory serves, she was going down without a peep within a week.  

Tonight, I put Caroline down at 7:25pm.  It's now 9:30pm and she still can't get it together.   She's fallen asleep a few times but eventually wakes up.  I've gone in there multiple times (against "Cry it out" rules) and tried to calm her but she is having none of it.  She's gotten into the habit of falling asleep while eating so that's another thing we are trying to break.  I know it's rough now, but it is all for the greater good.  A well rested baby means a well rested mom....hopefully.  And a well rested mom is good for everyone. 

Time to go back in there.   This pack and play might not be empty for long.

Update: 12 hours later.
I caved.  Sort of.  After more screaming, I caved in and gave her a small bottle.  Of course she passed out right away and only protested a little bit when I put her back in the crib.  It was 10pm by then.  At 11, she woke up and cried again.  Luckily I threw the paci in her mouth and it was over.  Repeat at midnight.  At 3:15 she woke up for a bottle.  This is perfect timing since I have to wake Eric up at 3:30am.  I put her back in and didn't hear from her again until about 6:45am.  She wasn't crying but I wanted to get her before she started and woke up her sister.  I brought her in my room to change her and give her a bottle.  As soon as I laid her down on my bed...out like a light.  Little bugger was just trying to get back in bed with me!  Minutes later Lyla woke up so that means everyone is up!   We'll try again tonight.  I don't have high hopes.  Until next time.

Update:  11/14
Night two.  Same routine.  This time she only cried for 20 minutes.  Score.  The next night...zero crying.  I am shocked at how quickly she is picking up on this up.   One week in and she slept from 7:30pm - 5am.  Holy mother!   This is awesome.   As much as I hate the empty pack n play in my room, having our nights back is pretty great.  We've settled into a pretty good routine.  While I put the girls down for the night, Eric cleans the dishes from the day and cleans the living room so I can wake up to a neat and tidy house...only to have it destroyed within an hour, but still.  As soon as the girls are settled I try to workout.  Yeah you heard me. I've been working out.

Update:  11/20
What the hell happened?  I knew this went down too easy.  While little Miss Caroline is still pretty attached to her 7pm bedtime, she isn't so interested in sleeping in super long stretches anymore.  For the past three nights, she is up again at 11pm for a bottle...just as I am finally settling down.  Then she is up again around 3am.  However, after that bottle she does sleep until about 9am.  But that does me no good as her sister has now decided to get up before 7am (which is new...and annoying).  Here is an example of how my last few nights have gone:

7pm - Caroline Bedtime
7:30pm - Lyla Bedtime
8pm - workout, clean, whatever
10:30pm - Mommy falls asleep
11pm - Caroline up for a bottle
12am - Back to bed for me
2:30am - Caroline up for a bottle
3:15am - Back to bed for me
3:30am - My alarm goes off for Eric
3:40am - My alarm goes off for Eric
3:50am - My alarm goes off for Eric
4:00am - My alarm goes off for Eric
4:30am - I finally fall back asleep
6:45am - Lyla storms into my room

In two weeks I go back to work.  I have NO idea how this is going to work.

Two Month Check

How is it possible that two months while pregnant drag on and on and yet two months with a newborn fly by in a blur?  I cannot even believe my little Caroline is two months old already.   Here are some fun facts about my girl.

• She is a beefcake.  She now weighs in at 11lbs, 5 ounces.  She's also 25 inches long. Yowza. 
• She's already busting out of the three month clothes that her sister passed along to her. 
• At her last doctors appointment the doctor informed me that she looks like she is ready to start rolling!  What?!
• Her spit up now rivals her sister.  At night we could go through 5 PJ's before she even hit the bed!
• She's a talker!  She loves to lay on her boppy and just talk away to us.  
• She is still a pretty calm and happy baby...until crabby time hits.  Crabby time usually starts about 5pm and goes until about 9pm.  Awful. 
• Part of what gets us through crabby time is cluster feedings.  It seems like between those hours she has double the amount of bottles she has through out the day.  I looked online where I discovered cluster feedings.   At least it helped give us a reason and something we could do to calm her. 
• She has a few nicknames already including Hubba Bubba (mommy), Sugar Sugar (mommy and daddy), Magoo (daddy), Sweetie (Lyla), Pixie (Gma Peach b/c of her pointed ears). 
• She's already had her first cold.  She handled it like a champ.  
• We haven't quite figured out a good sleep routine.  Basically she's up every two and a half to three hours.  My how things change with the second kid.

One Month In

One month feels like one minute.  It has gone by so fast!  So far, my little CeCe is the sweetest little baby.  She seems like a pretty calm and laid back kid so far.   I often say that she even asks for her bottle in a sweet little way.  She just makes these cute little noises that are adorable.  She growing by leaps and bounds!  She is definitely packing on the pounds much quicker than Lyla did. She seems to sleep much better in the pack and play than I was expecting, though she spends most of her nights asleep on my chest.  She is very prompt when it comes to eating and most often doesn't even make it 3 hours.  This girl likes to eat.

A few days after coming home we took Caroline to her doctor appt and decided to bring Lyla along since she was still pretty sick.  We ended up having to put her on a nebulizer, steroids and an antibiotic.   The doctor warned me that this particular antibiotic often causes kids to become emotionally unstable. Awesome.  Thanks doc.

Once we got over the sickies we seemed to settle down a bit.  Lyla has actually been great with her new sister.  She's a great helper and is always going over to kiss Caroline.  I am shocked and thrilled that Lyla also sleeps through her sister crying for a bottle at night.  Phew!

I knew better than to even try to set up a routine at this point, even though that goes against every ounce of my being.  I knew it would be a short time before I would be back at work and would be forced into a routine so I just allowed the chaos of having a newborn take over.  Oddly enough, I love the chaos.  Eric and I actually spend more time together when we have a newborn.  We are forced to stay up and watch movies while we take turns with feedings.  We decided to start watching the show Breaking Bad since we had all the time in the world.  I think we watched five seasons in about three weeks.

I can't wait to see what next month brings...

Coming Home

What a day.  I thought I would be coming home on Friday, just 24 hours after having my little CeCe but her pediatrician wanted to keep her an extra day because I had strep B with her.   We begged to be let go Friday because Eric had to go back to work on Saturday (don't even get me started), but she insisted.  So at 3:30 Saturday morning Eric had to leave me and our newborn daughter at the hospital.  He was pissed.   We sent Caroline to the nursery at night so at 5:30am, I got up, and got myself ready and packed so there was no delay when Dr. B made her rounds around 6:30am.  Eric's mom stayed at our house with Lyla on Friday so that my parents would be available to pick me up without having to drag her with them.   While the day is a blur, I think I was home by 11am.

Lyla and Sherri welcomed us at the car where we took lots of pictures.  I promptly came in and started doing laundry.  I had it in my head that I was going to have it all together and be super mom.  I soon realized that was stupid.  We spent most of the morning watching Lyla hold her sister and giving the play by play of everything CeCe was doing.  "Mom, she do like this" she kept saying and would make the same noises that Caroline made.  We did get it on video so Eric could watch it later.

Eric's mom went to the grocery store for us and when it was time for my parents to leave I started to cry my eyes out.  They sat back down and stayed.  A bit later I noticed Lyla seemed to be getting a irritated so I took her temp and it was 101.  Wonderful.  I have a brand new baby in the house and a toddler with a fever.  This was not starting out well.  I cried some more.    Luckily it didn't seem to stop her from sleeping. We ended the day very early knowing it would be a long night!

First Family (of four) Photo

It wasn't long after we met Caroline that we were reunited with the "original" baby girl.  Mimi and Pop brought Lyla in to see us and this is our first official family photo.

Expect the Unexpected

Since the moment Lyla was born, I feared the birth of my second child.  I thought, even though they say the second is easier, there was no way it could get any easier than Lyla's birth.

I was right.

It was about 9pm by the time we got settled into our room.  Once again we scored a huge room.  I LOVE St. Joe's Hospital.   The plan was the same as with Lyla.  They'd use Cervidil to get things "soft" in there and then they would start pitocin in the morning. Here's how it went down.

10pm - The cervidil was in and Eric and I settled in and put in a DVD that we brought..."SNL.  The Best of Jimmy Fallon".

10:15pm - I told Eric that I thought contractions were already starting (this is when I realized the feeling I had all morning really was contractions).  This didn't happen with Lyla.  

11pm - Serious pain.  Major contractions.

11:30pm -  Already asking for pain meds but I was told it was too early.  To make matters worse, when you have Cervidil you need to lay flat for two hours. I was having such bad back pain at that point and just wanted to move.  Nope.   Eric was watching the monitor and we discovered that I was having really big contractions right on top of each other.  I guess I already knew that but the monitor confirmed it.

12am - Nurse checked me to see if I have progressed  I should say she TRIED to check me.  After digging around for what felt like eternity, she told us her "fingers were too short".  At that point I think Eric was going to strangle her.

1am- Finally got some pain meds.  I was only allowed stadol as I still wasn't far enough along for the epidural (about 3cm).  They told me it would numb the pain but just for a short time.  Awesome.  They also told me I would feel drunk.  Yep.  As soon as she gave it to me my eyes started crossing.  I started calling Eric a Fraggle Rock and told him he looked like the Hamburgler.  I was with it enough to tell him I knew I sounded like an idiot and to write down what I was saying to him...which he did.  Then I fell asleep.

1:45am - Woke up in pain.  Serious pain.  A nurse came in to check me at which point she told me I was dilated to 1.  WHAT!?  I quickly sat up in bed really thinking I might knock her on her ass.  She informed me that they measure differently on the inside and outside.  Bull.  I've never heard of that in my life.

2am - New nurse, Jennifer, takes over for "short fingers".  Thank God.  Jennifer is wonderful and I still think about her often.   She got me through the roughest part of labor.  Still in pain and no meds, I asked to sit in a chair.  Eric (woke up and) came over to rub my head.  Let me tell you...I've never had such a good head rub! ha.  While it didn't take the pain away, it distracted me.

2:30am - Jennifer tells me my contractions are coming too fast.  She orders the epidural.  Did I say how much I love Jennifer?

3am - Epidural arrives.  With Lyla, it was one poke and done.  Not this time.  I felt as least three pokes and them actually moving the needle around in my back.  At this point, having been up for 24 hours and no food in his stomach, Eric almost passed out and needs to sit down.  Jennifer is there to hold me up.  Sitting in that position without moving with terrible contractions was by far the most painful part.   Immediately after the epidural is finally placed, the baby's heart rate drops.   They quickly threw an oxygen mask on me and start turning me from side to side.  Things start to stablize.

3:30am - Jennifer tells me that the contractions still haven't slowed down.  I ask her if this continued would it lead to a c-section.  She tells me she can give me a shot to slow the contractions down a bit which will be better for me and the baby.

3:45am - I get that shot.  Contractions slow.

4am - Finally feeling relaxed, I am able to fall asleep.  I sleep in 15-20 minute intervals for the rest of my labor.

6am - Doctor Egan comes to visit to check on me.  They decide not to start pitocin to speed up the contractions again so we just need to wait it out.

12pm - They bring in the big table with all the scary utensils.

12:30pm - Nurse has me try to start pushing.  She's impressed.  Doctor Egan happens to come in around then to check and is also impressed.  I even remember saying, "I am super good at this."

1:22pm - It's a Girl!   Again, surprise of my life.  Even the nurses the night before were telling us it was a boy because of the heart rate.  There was no question about the name this time.  Caroline Clare (CeCe).  I have two kids! Two daughters!

She weighed in at 7lbs, 1 oz.  Well, that's what the scale said, but they later said her official weight was 7lbs 2oz.  20 inches long.

A few hours later our visitors started to arrive, including big sister Lyla.  At first she was pretty interested in the baby, but that soon wore off and she just wanted to run around the hospital room like a typical two year old.   After the Laxton crew came later that night, Eric and I spent the next two days just cuddling our new girl   We knew that as soon as we came home other responsibilities would cut down on cuddle time so we just soaked it all in.

Clearly this says 7.1

Meeting big sister

Daddy's girl  2.0

My girl

Tonight!?

Wednesday, September 4th.  Grama Peach's birthday.  I usually don't work on Wednesdays but Lyla was sick (with what I thought was croup) so I stayed home on Tuesday instead to take her to the doctor.  That morning I was awake at 3:30am and could not fall back asleep.  I walked into work with a bad attitude.  All day long I told everyone that if I was there the next day, that they better not bother speaking to me because I would be a beast.  I whined to my mom in her office all day about how I couldn't be pregnant for one more minute!  I joked all day that I was going to eat a ton a salty foods so when they took my blood pressure that night at my appointment it would be sky high and they would have to send me to the hospital.  Like I said, I was joking.  However, thinking back on that day, I was having contractions all day but kind of ignored them.

Fast forward to my appointment at 5:30 that night.  Pee in a cup.  Get weighed (still only gained 16 pounds). Take blood pressure. When the nurse took my BP it took longer than normal.  She kept pumping it up and letting it go.  Pumping it up and letting it go.  Well, I have no idea how to read those machines so I asked (as I did every week) if it was bad.  She just looked at me and said "oh yeah".   Still not thinking anything of it, a few minutes later the doctor came in (Dr. Egan this time) and said high blood pressure must be in the air today because everyone had it.  I asked what it was and he said he didn't want tell me.  Wow, it must be really bad.  It was 148/102.  Now that is bad!  That was highest it's ever been!  He did "the check" and I was dilated to 2.  I was 38 weeks that day.  He said he would check my BP again, but why bother since they were going to monitor it at the hospital tonight.  TONIGHT?  I was in absolute shock.  As much as I joked that day at work, I really did not think I would be going to have the baby that night.   He told me I could go home, eat, get my things and then come back to the hospital for induction.  Panic.

Just the night before I finished cleaning the house and the bags were packed so luckily I was ready to go.  In fact, after I finished packing the night before I texted my mom that I was all ready and my house was clean and now I had nothing to do.  She told me to relax for the next few weeks until the baby came.  So much for that.

I immediately texted her again after my appointment on Wednesday and said she better start heading to my house to get Lyla (she was having dinner at Gram's for her birthday).  By the time I actually talked to her on the phone I was crying hysterically.  I wasn't ready.  I didn't get to play with Lyla that day.  She laughed and reminded me about all my complaining that day.  Still, I wasn't really ready!  I called Eric and he was in shock.  He wasn't expecting that phone call either.  But, always the one to calm me, pretended he was ready to go!  He called his mom to come get Cooper.  Oh yeah, forgot about him.

Eric ran to get McDonalds while I got myself together.  Our parents all arrived and asked a million questions, none of which I remember.  I was so distracted and just wanted to get to the hospital.  Now was the time to say goodbye to Lyla.  For nine months I thought about this moment.  Figured I would bawl my eyes out.  Just like every second time mom, I was worried she would feel abandoned, especially since it all happened so fast.  Well, without knowing it, my Lyla made it easy for me.  Since she was still pretty sick, she was a bit crabby and when I tried to cuddle and smooch her, she fought me and whined.  She didn't cling to me like I thought (hoped) she would.  She was more than happy to go with Mimi and Pop.   So, while it wasn't the moment I envisioned, it did relieve me from a little bit of guilt.

By 8:30 everyone was gone and it was just Eric and I.   When I had Lyla, in this very same moment before we left the house, I cried.  I was scared.  This time, I was in such a rushed state that we just got in the car and off we went.  I will still in shock about this whole thing went down.  But, I wasn't scared since I knew what to expect.   Or so I thought.