milo on the move

we decided it was time to move milo's crib mattress to its lowest setting and put blankets and pillows around it after we witnessed some serious climbing skills exhibited by the little monkey this evening. he pulls himself up to standing at the foot of his high chair and plays with the moveable foot-rest on it quite frequently. he's also realized that he can reach the tray from this position, and i've seen him try to pull himself up, and would keep close watch, warning him to be careful and not pull the whole thing upon himself.

but tonight was new.... while holding onto the tray, he started gripping one of the angled legs of the high chair with both his feet, and was slowly creeping his feet up, supporting his weight by hanging on the tray. standing on the ground, milo's arms are fully extended to reach the tray. with this new climbing ability, ben said he saw milo with his chin at the tray, while i was watching milo's feet and readily waiting to catch him when he let his feet go... this boy is getting too good at the climbing business.

his other new trick came from a new game i've started playing with milo involving a bumble bee beanie baby leftover from my childhood collection. i fly the bee around him with a "zzzzzzzzzz' sound of varying tonal ranges, and end on a high note when i touch the bee to different parts of him, like his ear or his belly or his foot. somehow this got to me putting the bee on his head exclaiming "on your head!" which lead to the other new trick up milo's sleeve... ben and i were both playing the buzzing bee game with him, i put the bee on milo's head, it fell off, then milo picked it up and held it to the top of his head, looking at us with a great big smile.

jaws!

it seems milo has a real knack for biting. especially arms, feet, any skin surface he can sink his teeth into. i encourage him chewing on chew toys, and taking good bites of his food, but i'm really hoping we can break this cannibalistic behavior before he starts getting labelled as "jaws" in the church nursery... and i'm determined to cure him of this obsession before he starts preschool. thankfully time is on my side for the latter.

according to one of my baby books, the correct response is to calmly tell the little piranha "don't bite," and remove the afflicted area from his clenched jaw. to overreact negatively, to laugh, and basically it seems to respond in almost any way, shape or form only encourages it.

sometimes he blows raspberries instead of biting, so i've also taken to encouraging that. i'll blow a raspberry too, i'll laugh when he does it, and when he bites, i gently push his head back and as boringly as possible say, "no biting"...

i figure he can't possibly be trying to hurt me at this point... he has no clue of the repercussions of this action, or why it's okay to bite squishy plastic toys, and crunchy yummy food, but not the people he loves.

but if i'm not paying attention, like the other day when i'm talking on the phone to my mom, and i'm holding him on my lap and he's got his mouth on my arm, i tend not to notice right away that the teeth are starting to clamp down... he left a red mark where he bit me and i may have accidentally let out a squeal. it only lasted the day, but still, not okay, little man, not okay.

in the land of nod...

last night milo slept from 8pm to 6 am. he didn't wake up once. (or if he did, i didn't hear it, because i slept from 9:45-ish(?) to 6 am.)

perfect. i'm really digging this whole "deep sleep at night" thing... waayyyyy better than not being able to sleep.

milo is also getting pretty proficient at standing on his own. ben has noticed that he's a lot better at it if he has something in his hands to focus on, but overall, his balance and standing-stamina are totally priming up for those first steps.

as for walking, he'll walk if we hold his hands and kind of walk him along, although he's well aware that he can get to things faster by crawling, so he often goes straight to that over edging along the furniture... especially when the cat is in sight.

whoops....

i probably really shouldn't post in the middle of the night when i'm not sleeping well and anxious about not sleeping well and trying to use my blog as journal therapy for my middle of the night anxiousness...

as evidenced by the last two posts. :P

suffice it to say, i got better sleep last night than i have this entire past week, and this "sleep lady shuffle" i've been using for milo's random middle-of-the-night wakings seems to be working, and my hope is that eventually we'll get back to where he doesn't wake up at all during the night.

and with focusing on being more consistent and giving milo wind down time for naps and bed-time, he's getting better, longer naps during the day, so he's not over-tired and over-cranky, which totally helps the day go so much smoother. :)

orrrr not.

last night was another sleepless night.

i made sure to give myself wind down time. i didn't feel stressed or anxious about anything. ben and i even had some good laughs over pillow talk, which was nice.

i was exhausted, but i think it was the laughing that did me in maybe?

i found this article here on sleep issues, and so i thought i had it figured out i knew what i needed to do: eat better during the day/before bed and give myself time to unwind after getting milo to sleep. so i did that on sunday, and i actually was able to fall asleep sunday night and even fall back asleep after milo woke up at 3:30 AM and wouldn't go back to sleep for over an hour (ben finally got him back down, because i was too tired and just couldn't do it.) i did that yesterday, too, but then for whatever reason, i couldn't fall asleep. and i try not to let myself get frustrated or anxious as i wait to fall asleep and it just doesn't happen.

so i decided to get up and i wrote the last blog post thinking, "this is what's on my mind, maybe i need to share it? maybe someone somewhere out there in blog-land will benefit from hearing/reading it? etc..."

still couldn't sleep.

i haven't slept all night. i didn't sleep all night on saturday night either... and i slept very poorly last wednesday through friday night. and then milo wasn't napping well, so i couldn't get in a nap, and then i just started pushing through it, because really, what else can you do?

but i'm not sleeping. and milo's not napping. and the cycle just continues.

i've been reading Good Night, Sleep Tight on sleep training, and it all makes sense to me... so i try and follow the directions she gives, but it's hard to figure out how to adjust it appropriately to our needs, where we're at, smaller house, varying schedules, etc.

and so my biggest struggle is staying consistent. or i'll be consistent with something for a little while, and it'll work for a little while, and then something changes, and we get all out of whack, but i think this is the worst it's ever been.

even after milo was first born, and i was having difficulty nursing, and he was waking up every few hours and i was trying to do too much then, too, at least i was so exhausted that i couldn't even think, and i was able to sleep and basically function.

my parents are coming in tomorrow to help out for a few days. that should help... but this morning i decided i was going to try and sleep train milo to sleep until 6 am, since he keeps waking up over-tired, and clearly isn't getting enough sleep, and then is ready for sleep when i give him a bottle barely half an hour after he's gotten up, probably because of sunday's decision to use a bottle to help him sleep...

all these negative sleep associations that "the sleep lady" talks about, and i want to break them all at once so the whole process is quicker. i want to be consistent, but it's so hard to do when i'm going on nothing.

milo is playing contentedly in his pack n play, and that's the problem, too.... he's also learned how to push through it.... and him being over tired, it's difficult to get him to eat a full meal, it's tempting to just keep pushing formula so that i know he's eating enough, but that just leads to grazing. and again, all these "negative sleep associations" that are described in the book....

how i wish i'd had this book and read it before milo was born - but as the old adage goes, hindsight is 20/20. i read very few of the books i had before milo was born, except for happiest baby on the block, which was very helpful for when milo was a newborn, but does little to help me now...

okay, i'm done, he's getting antsy and i need to sleep.

i know it will get better, i just wish i knew how to get there, and had the energy to do it.

communication

i've finally decided to start doing "signs" (my own basic, made-up sign language) with milo, as i know both ben's mom and a friend of my parents' use sign-language with their babies/toddlers.

i just started it, so i doubt he'll pick it up any time soon, but from what i've read and just watching him, he does seem to know what's going on and understand what i'm trying to ask of him or tell him.

and then after church today, i was letting him crawl around on the floor with a little girl who's just over 1, and they totally love each other. they both squeal and try to poke at each others' eyes and it's fun to watch. but when she lost interest, and he was getting bored of the floor, he crawled over to me, pulled himself up to standing by holding onto my pant-leg, and then reached his other hand up towards me. this is one of the earliest "signs" that i'd been doing with him, reaching my arms down towards him before picking him up and asking, "do you want to get up?" that and "come here" by holding my hand out and waving towards myself, and - until he gets distracted by the cat or some other shiny-pokey-non-baby-proofed item - he'll start to come towards me and i'll cheer and clap and keep repeating the motion and the command.

this is most exciting to me, as his pterodactyl squeals only tell me that he's excited about something, but for all i know, it could be that either he finally pooped his pants or that the cat is making faces at him again. i'm looking forward to the life-time of communication that's only just beginning with the little man... and to have him be able to simply tell me he has a poopy diaper as opposed to having to check up-close and personal, was that nostril-full of wonderful aroma just a toot or the real deal. the "sign" for that is icky face. ;P

a-ha moments

i haven't been sleeping well, and neither has milo. i've been convinced for awhile now that he hasn't been getting enough sleep, and even though the idea was out there that maybe he just doesn't need as much sleep, i think last night went to show that he does need more sleep:

last night, at around midnight, a huge thunderstorm started rolling in, i mean HUGE. i kid you not, the house was shaking and the windows were rattling; i was convinced that the angels had decided to place all their bowling pins on the lane above our house, and were just chucking their bowling balls all down that same lane, all at the same time. (it is angels bowling, right?)

milo slept through the whole thing.

i've been trying something new, though, the past couple of days. frustrated and tired at both our inability to sleep (his during the day, mine at night), out of desperation, i decided to bring back the bottle right before nap-time. i decided i was going to help him wind down. i decided i wasn't going to let him cry it out, because that just wasn't working anymore. he would only get more frustrated and more upset and that wasn't helping him calm down to take a nap.

ben also helped me realize the importance of as quickly as possible, darting out of the room as soon as we lay milo down and he's out of our hands. like super sneaky black belt ninja - HI-YAH! (but quietly.... hi-yah).

lastly, i decided i was going to let him be over-tired, but not let him get cranky by playing with him and distracting him when he's getting into stuff he shouldn't and letting him chase the cat around the house because he finds it hilarious (even though she's now terrified of him - you can see it in her eyes, poor cat), and i'm learning to control my own emotions so that even if he's cranky, and even if i've gotten no sleep, i decided i wouldn't get frustrated with him, because that was only adding to the crank-o-meter of the household, and that wasn't doing any of us any good.

in all of this, i feel like i have finally found the schedule/routine i was in need of, with the flexibility that everyone has been telling me was necessary:

he wakes up, i give him a little bit of bottle for a snack, i let him play. i try to get him to eat some solids, i play with him some more. then, usually at about two to two and a half hours after he woke up, he starts getting the droopy eye, so i go into his bedroom and put up the airline blankets that we're using to help block out more of the light. then i make him a bottle, and we sit on the couch, and as mister rogers - cool, calm and collectedly - as i can, i explain to him while he's eating that we're going to wind down and it's time for a nap. then we go into his bedroom, i read him a book, i sing the twinkle song, he starts rubbing his eyes, and i know i'm winning. i put him down, i ninja out of there, and he hums a little bit and goes to sleep. then we repeat the process. twice more, once for the second nap of the day, about 4 hours later, and lastly for bedtime, shooting for 7:30 tonight, since he couldn't even make it to 8 pm last night.

he still wakes up earlier than i would like, although today he managed to make it till 6, but he sleeps through the night, and he's generally happy, even if his eyelids are drooping down to his knees, so i can't complain.