At Play

Suckers?

...So, remember how I proudly proclaimed that Max no longer needed a soother to go to sleep? Well it has been 3 weeks of sleep training and he has greatly improved, however, he is still a basket case when we put him down for bed at the start of the night, as well as when we put him in his crib for naps during the day. We have been tough, but could only take so much crying before our hearts were melting...a soother was all it took to make him shut those little eyes, contently roll over and go to sleep...are we going to regret this later on? Does this tiny little man have us wrapped around his fingers already?

A Day For Daddy-O!

Max was up bright and early to wish his dad a happy Father's Day!

We headed out in the morning for a walk along Lake Ontario - lots of families were out enjoying the gorgeous day. Usually after a long walk on a hot summer's day we can justify an ice cream cone at our neighbourhood home made ice cream spot, called Sweet Olenka's. Carmon ALWAYS hopes that they will have toasted marshmallow on the menu but it is not a flavor that comes up too often. Today, I suggested that we stop in just to see if maybe his favorite would miraculously be there - it sure was! I had special ordered 4 litres just for him. Now he can have toasted marshmallow ice cream any time he pleases - a nice treat for this sweet Daddy.

Happy 4 Months!

Happy 4 Month Birthday Max!

Today was a beautiful summer day and we relaxed outside under our shady umbrella for most of the afternoon.

Sleeping has improved - although I don't dare say too much as it seems when I write brag blogs about the success of Max's sleep routine, I jinx the next few nights...I will say that we are doing much better and are feeling well rested today. Carmon has been the master at putting Max down for naps with very little protest - extra big father's day present for you hunny! It is hard to believe how fast Max is growing - these days you will find him putting just about anything in his mouth and drooling like mad...will we see teeth soon in amongst that gummy grin?

...A Failing Grade

Dear Max, did you forget the curriculum? Last night was hellish...our little sleep student was up every two hours again and was very persistent with the crying - ouch. Just when we thought we had it figured out. We are committed to stick with our program - I see that it may take a little longer to catch on - stay tuned.

How can you get mad at a face like this?

Sleep School

Max started sleep school this week...

Our Star Student

We implemented this whole sleep training program a little earlier than expected as a few bad habits were started to form - the most influential was the fact that little Max had begun to wake up every two hours in the night. Two solid weeks of that and we were all beginning to get a little cranky! I have been reading up quite a bit about sleeping and learned that many babies need to be trained to sleep through the night and the reason that Max was waking so frequently was because he hadn't yet learned how to soothe himself back to sleep. As we had just began putting him in his crib at night (happily co-sleeping before that) I was running to him at the first peep, feeding him and tucking him back into bed - this settled into a nice soothing routine for him and he would contently fall back asleep...for two more hours.

Last Friday I was reading the "Sleep Sense Program" and Carmon and I agreed that we would start the training that night. First, we implemented a bedtime routine which includes a bath, massage, PJ's on, a short story and then a nurse before tucking him into bed. His soother is a thing of the past - I read that it was a sleep 'prop' and would make it harder for him to self soothe. Soother gone - check. He fell asleep quickly without a fuss - but that had generally been the norm anyway...we needed to wait until his first waking - that is when the true challenge would begin. Like clockwork, he awoke two hours from the time we put him to bed - we were to now wait between 3 and 10 minutes (whatever we could stand) before we went to check on him...the crying persisted and Carmon went in to reassure Max that we were still here, we loved him and that it was time to go back to sleep. The crying went on for about a half an hour, he finally settled down and fell back to sleep. Amazing! We agreed that I would now feed him once during the night so I did my duty at about 1 am and then he actually slept a stretch of 4 straight hours! That was night #1 and things have improved vastly over the past 5 nights - last night he awoke once to eat and then at 4 am he cried for 5 minutes and was back to sleep until 7 am. I can't tell you how great it feels to be in control of our evenings now and to be getting some quality sleep again. Max - you are a star student, straight A's, bravo! Let's keep it up!

Bath Time

A Relaxing Massage From Dad

...No Soother...No Problem!

Jolly Jumpin'

We are loving Max's newest toy! What fun it is to watch him discover what those little legs can do...