Sleeping through the night?

I bought this sleep training book called The No Cry Sleep Solution by Elizabeth Pantley in hopes of getting Rhys to sleep better because lately he was waking up every hour during the night and only taking measly 30 minute naps during the day. I was seriously going crazy and taking it out on Brian and also getting very frustrated at the baby, sometimes forcing my boob on him so he would just eat and go back to sleep..(which he did not appreciate). After about a couple weeks of constantly waking up every hour or so, I decided I needed a solution. I wasn't about to try the Cry-It-Out method so I found this book that claims you can get your baby to sleep better and longer without crying. I bought it, read it and really didn't find it that revolutionary what they were telling me to do. I really thought that it was going to be a step by step guide to help me, but it was more guidelines and various ideas that I could pick and choose from based on what kind of baby I had and what kind of method I used to get the baby to sleep normally. But in any case, I had to try something. So Monday night, I tried it out. I fed him, played with him in the dim room, had daddy play with him, came back into the dim room, put him down, pick him back up because he cried, nursed him again, put him down, picked him back up and rocked him, put him down, picked him back up and rocked him....I think I picked him up like 5 times. Every time I tried to lay him down, he would startle and cry and be angry. Finally after the 5th time, he was so tired that he went to sleep!!.....But only to sleep for 30 minutes and cry again. So I nursed him, rocked him and put him down and he went down again after a couple attempts, only to sleep for 45 minutes and then again later for 53 minutes. Needless to say, I was exhausted come 1 am...so I just picked up the little guy and moved back into bed and nursed him back to sleep and called it a night. He must have been tired because he slept for a 3 hour stretch after he came back into bed with me. Still, baby was cranky once morning came.

    I considered not doing the sleep training the following day, but I read a lot of positive reviews for keeping consistent and persistent with sleep training and that in the end, the baby and I would both sleep better. So I tried again to disassociate my boob with him falling asleep. I took the nipple out of his mouth when he looked like he wasn't sucking much to eat, but just to suck. I did as they told me and kept him mouth closed with my finger under his chin...and it worked! Although he slept for only 40 minutes, I was so happy that I got him to sleep after I took the boob away. 

   When the evening rolled around again, I decided we try this sleep training thing again. We fed him some carrots (he just started on solids last week) and I nursed him, burped him, held him, took him to daddy to play a little, looked around and said good night to the various things around the house, and then I took him into the room when he looked tired and put him down in the pack n play. He fussed and started to cry, so I picked him up, then I put him down and then picked him up again, and then put him down. I put a fuzzy blanket over him and then he started to fuss and pull the blanket over his face so I just watched him to make sure he didn't do anything dangerous. He started kicking both his feet up into the air and banged them down on the bed over and over, all the while he looks as if he is trying to smother himself or eat his blanket. I just kept an eye on him to see if his crying/fussing would get worse....but it didn't! He fussed with the blanket and his feet for about a couple minutes and then his fussing got slower and slower and finally, he stopped moving! His hands relaxed and he twitched a little, but it looked like he was actually drifting to sleep! It was aroud 9:15 pm. I made sure that the blanket wasn't covering his face and watched him....and watched him....and watched him. I was in my room watching Rhys and catching up on Downton Abbey until about 12:20 when Brian came in to sleep. He slept for 3 hours on his own! He fussed and shifted and kicked a few times during those 3 hours, but overall he was able to get himself back to sleep without much trouble. I was so shocked and delighted, but skeptical that it would happen again. Tonight is Thursday night, the 4th night of sleep training and he went down without much fuss. He was pretty tired though. I gave him 3.5 oz of breastmilk from a bottle, then rewarded him with my boob, and then I put him down in the pack n play and he just went down...no fuss! 

Here is a pic of him sleeping. 

The only difference with tonight is that he didn't get solids at dinner. It's my little experiment to see if it was the solids that helped him to sleep for 4 hours last night or if he is just maturing as a baby. 

Now, how to deal with him screaming his lungs out when I'm not around...hmmmm...I guess we'll have to deal with that when the time comes. I already feel bad for my mom...I better get her a nice gift. 

Thought to thought to thought

I think we finally figured out why Rhys wasn't taking his bottle very well. Being born premature and coming home under 6 lbs made feeding a big task for us. He was coughing and choking and taking in way too much air when we first were using the newborn (size one) nipples. We quickly found some preemie nipples and noticed that he was eating his food with much more ease since the flow was more manageable. We later on went back to the newborn nipple, but until today, had never thought that the newborn nipple might now be too slow for him. We just thought that he was refusing the bottle because he wanted the boobs (which is still partly true). Brian came home with the size 2 nipples and he managed to take in most of the milk that we gave him! Lets hope this is good news and not just a fluke. I may just buy a size 3 nipple and see if that would make things better because I know for a FACT that my breasts flow much faster than any of those nipples.

Right now, Brian is walking about the house with the baby in the baby bjorn, giving me some time to write in my blog and enjoy a little free time. He is asking to hold the baby a little more often and seems to be bonding more with the baby these days. It's gotta be all the smiles and giggles that Rhys is throwing over to his daddy that is melting his heart for sure. I am very thankful that I have a hubby who is so handy around the house and is still willing to spend time with the baby without any complaint. I even was able to enjoy a few hours shopping at the mall this past Sunday. 

On another note, I think I may be a little crazy because I heard the news that Jessica Simpson is pregnant again and....I actually got a little envious. I don't know why, but I wanted another one when I found out she was pregnant. I think this is how women keep having children. They get envious about other women having babies and get pregnant too. I really do think this biological clock thing exists. I have baby fever! I guess you could say that if I could be a stay at home mom without any big financial worries for the long run, I would probably want to have another child not too far from now. But since I live in the real world, I will probably wait 2 years before having another. 

I guess I should try and enjoy at least one year of real normal people sleep before doing this all over again since I only sleep in 2-3 hour snippets every day. I've been doing this since Rhys was born. I don't know how the moms who work are able to stay up and do a whole day's work after 2-3 hour snippets of sleep. The only thing that keeps me sane during the day are the naps that I take when Rhys takes his 1 hour naps. 

Another thing that has kept me sane is my tablet and reading. I'm currently reading a book called Nurture Shock that talks about the importance of the "right" kind of praise to give to children and how the wrong type of praise can actually make children afraid of failure. If you tell a child that he is smart and continue to praise him so, he will become driven by this type of praise and choose not to try things that he may not be good at. So, if a child finds something difficult, instead of trying harder to improve, he will just give up and say that he isn't good at it and have a fear of failure. It's pretty interesting. They also talk about how it's not television, video games or even nutrition that is making kids obese, but in fact the amount of sleep that children get that is causing children to get fat. Well, I know I didn't get that much sleep when I was in highschool...I always stayed up for Conan..hehe.

Anyways, here is a video of Rhys and Mommy having giggle time together. 

Cold Streak

I find myself again with Rhys on my back with my sky blue baby carrier. Rhys has been sick for the past week and is finally starting to feel better again. I believe he had two colds because he had a nasty fever on Monday night that got better on Tuesday and then on Thursday he got another fever during the day and also developed a cough. I think both of them came from Brian unfortunately. He seems to bring viruses home from work often since the people at his work come in to work even when they are sick because apparently there is no benefit to using sick hours. So last night, I had a coughing baby and a coughing husband in bed with me. So you can imagine how much sleep I got...

But I surprised myself that I was able to avoid getting a cold this season so far...(cross my fingers). I just hope that this cold streak will end after this one. I read that infants get from around 6-7 colds in the first year of their life!! So I guess 2 down, 5 more to go.

Post baby diet? ha! I can't even get sleep let alone some time to exercise. The one part of my body that is getting more workout that ever are my arms. I am getting major biceps from holding this 17 lb baby for hours and hours, esp in the last week cuz he's been sick and has wanted to be held more often.

One of the things that has been keeping me entertained during my sleepless nights has been my new/used tablet that Brian got for me. I am reading books, watching movies, and keeping myself updated with the world the best I can for someone who stays at home most of the time.

Rhys is starting to graps things and examine them with his eyes and then his mouth. When I lay him down on my pillow while I go to the bathroom (with the door open), Rhys turns his head and stares at me while I pee...hehe. I of course wave frantically at him so he is entertained. (TMI? perhaps...)
He is already starting to try and lift himself up. I prop him up on a pillow in a recline and he tries to do a little sit-up. He is also starting to notice that he has feet. He stares at them and I have seen him bat at it once. He is developing fast and I can't wait until he can sit up on his own so I can let my arms rest a bit. Oh yes, he also stares and smiles at the dog on the box of dog treats we have next to his jumper. He won't smile at our dogs, but a dog on a box....he LOOOOVES! haha.

Today Rhys is almost three months old...or he could be almost 2 months old since he was born 5 weeks early. I am not sure what to go by. But he has found his hands recently and has been sucking on it as best he can these days. He has trouble sometimes getting his fist to his mouth and you will find him with his fist hitting his cute chubby cheeks. Rhys has also started smiling more at us and at random objects around the house...namely our ceiling fan. He LOVES the ceiling fan. I put him down on the bed and spin the fan with my hand and he will stare at it in amazement!!

Brian and I have definitely gotten the hang of taking care of Rhys. We manage to go on outtings on the weekends and feel pretty accomplished when we don't have a meltdown. Last week, we even ventured out to 30th on 30th and met up with the gang to have some cheap food! We only ended up eating a WAY too limey ceviche and two small macaroni and cheeses, but it was still an adventure and we had fun. Yesterday, we went to Pearl to get some dimsum. He slept pretty much right through our meal. I feel so blessed these days to have Rhys in my life. Watching him grow every day makes me so happy! Thank you God for everything you have given to us.

Currently Rhys is riding on my back as I type this out. This is the only way I can let myself have some lunch and go on the computer (computer is on my mantle so I can be on it while I stand). But I don't care, these very few short moments during the day are like little bits of heaven for me. I can be me again! My plans for this week are to go to Macy's to return an item and possibly do some shopping if the baby permits me.

I ordered a baby carrier from HOSAUSA yesterday. It is called a Chunei. It is basically the same as what I am wearing right now, but I got one in a Dark Jean look. This one works fine, but is pretty ugly and don't really wanna wear this out in public. I am also planning on making a trip to LA to be with my family on Dec 8th. I will be home for about a week so my mom will be very happy. She tells me that whenever she misses him, she closes her eyes and pictures his cute little face. I will be grateful for the help that my mom will be for me...plus I can do some needed bonding with my family.

It's about time for Rhys to wake up so I will end this blog here...Til next time!!!

Zombie parents

These days, all Brian and I do is feed the baby and change the baby and rock the baby when he is fussy and sleep somewhere in the middle if we can even get a chance. The first week with Rhys at home with us was tough because I was doing what is called "Triple Feeding" which is basically me taking Rhys to my breast for 20 or so minutes and then feeding him whatever he will eat of my breastmilk that I express into a bottle and then pumping my breasts for 15 minutes. He would eat and then sleep for about 3 hours so after all was said and done including cleaning the bottles and pumping accessories, I would have under an hour and a half to rest....if we were lucky. Usually he would be fussy sooner than 3 hours. That was a tough time indeed for all of us. Brian and I were not getting any good sleep at all.

Luckily these days my milk has finally come in and Rhys is feeding off of me much better than he used to. I am now exclusively breastfeeding, with a pump or two during the day to make a supply for brian to use when he feeds Rhys in the middle of the night so I can get some shut-eye. Right now, Rhys is sleeping under my arm while I am typing this out. He only at for about 10 minutes or so, so I imagine that he will wake up soon enough and complain of hunger. In any case, I am so glad that I don't have to pump. Pumping and cleaning the pump took about 20 minutes or so and having him take a bottle of expressed breast milk took an extra 20-30 minutes too. These days I will just put him at the breast for 30 or so minutes and if he is full enough, he will sleep for a nice hour. I guess I still don't get much sleep because he wakes up a lot more often than he used to. He used to feed about 7-8 times a day and now he is eating about 10-12 times a day. I am still not as frustrated about him getting enough to eat as I was doing with the triple feeding so life is a little bit nicer than last week.

We weighed Rhys today and he came in at 6lbs 5oz. He has already gained his birthweight and is now starting to gain weight! The lactation consultant that we met up with yesterday told us that she doesn't see any problems with me breastfeeding. She said that in another week or so, he will be doing great on my breast alone. That was good to know. Actually, the nurse and the doctor were both very happy that Rhys was feeding so well on my breast. It made me feel like I was doing something right.

Hopefully they are right and Rhys will grow leaps and bounds in the next few weeks.

We have officially run out of the Mi Yuk Gook that my mom has made for us. Luckily she will be back in SD for the weekend to make all that again and stock pile us with yummy foods. yay!!

In the meantime...Chipotle??

Here are some pictures of Rhys with his eyes open.

Look at those big hands! He is gonna be a big boy!!

 

 

Knitting a scarf in September

 

So I started really getting into cable knitting. I started knitting this scarf on Friday. I've been slowly knitting it little by little and having lots of fun looking at the results as it gets longer and longer. I think I'm about a quarter of the way done. However, unlike other scarves that I've knit in the past, this one really feels like a project. I showed it to my mom and she was impressed with the design that the cabling was making. I imagine that this should make a pretty nice gift once I'm better at knitting in this style.

This past weekend was a whirlwind. Brian and I went to LA to have dinner with my dad for his 60th birthday. We went to a Korean Seafood buffet called Hansong I think. The buffet was OK...but it was pretty fricking expensive. $26 a person! Plus dad always orders his soju so that was a nother $10 bucks on top of that. Anywhoo....we had a good time. Brian and Peter made a suicide pact to try and eat a snail that they were serving up at the buffet. They both had a really hard time swallowing it...bleh!!

After that, Brian and I were off the next day to Huntington Beach to have a belated birthday dinner for Sheila. Ruby and Raf decided to join us as well so it was a nice gathering. We went to a Peruvian place called Casa Inka. The food was decent, but there was waaaay too much salt in their cooking. I know this because I woke up the next morning just about to burst because I was so swollen. Brian had the runs the night before and apparently Ruby had the runs the next day as well. Raf had some heartburn, so we were all suffering in some way because of the dinner.

Brian's grandpa is in the hospital, recovering from Jaw surgery. I guess some of his teeth rotted so badly that it started to eat away at his jaw. The surgery was successful and he is recovering well. We went to visit him in the hospital after we had dinner with Sheila and Ruby. It was a whole lot of driving...but all in all, worth it because we got to meet up with a lot of important people in our lives.

Today is Labor Day and we plan on doing absolutely nothing. The dogs have been walked and they are le pooped. I will probably watch some more Harry Potter or Julie and Julia and continue knitting.  

Cable Knitting

 

I learned how to cable knit last night. I've been knitting for a little while, but I never got around to knitting cables because I thought it was going to be really hard to do. To my surprise, it is quite easy to do! I spent a few hours last night on various websites as well as youtube.com to get better acquainted with this style of knitting. I first started off by cabling every row and ended up with a big bunch of knots. Later, I realized that I only needed to cable after every few rows. Once I figured this out, it was smooth sailing. I started with this swatch of 12 stitches and worked my way into the evening. This morning, I learned how to add stitches to my work. So now I have successfully added on 7 stiches to my beautiful cable swatch. My plans are to make a scarf with this new skill of mine. Don't they look like those twisted donuts? Twisted donuts with glazed sugar are pretty much my favorite type of donuts.

 

On another note, I tried to put my ring on...just to see how well it fit me. The last time I tried, I could get it in, but it was a rather tight fit. This is as far as it goes as of last night.

 



 

This ring used to fit so loosely on my finger that I was afraid that it would fall out when I washed my hands. Sigh...but this is a sacrifice that I am happy to make for our little Stompie. Hopefully my fingers will go back to normal soon after Stompie comes out. What a pretty ring that I can't even wear out these days.

 

Finally, this is Julian...sleeping soundly after long and hot day. As you can see, he is quite possessive about his toys...but I thought it was cute.