Jacob's baptism

Picture's from Jake's baptism.
I loved loved his outfit and Nick bought him some pumas as a final touch. I admit, I think they were a little pricey, but they completed the outfit!






My sister Rachel, Jacob's godmother




Nick's cousin Ashley made the cake. It was beautiful and delicious!


Nick's cousin Clinton, Jacob's godfather

I was very lucky that Nick's aunt Penny offered to host the party afterwards. It would of been a tight fit in my apartment. Also, Penny, Nancy and Arleen (my MIL) took care of all the food and decorating.

It was a fabulous day!

Jake's 1st movie

Today, I was feeling a little restless. I remembered it was Wednesday. Why is that important? Because on Wednesday's, the local movie theatre has baby and mommy movies at 1:30. Then, I got excited. I was going to the movies with Jake!

I checked the movie, and it was Alice in Wonderland, I wasn't keen on that. But I did want to see How to Train your dragon. Hmmm..a nine month old at a regular movie? I considered the facts: 1-It's a kids movie. 2-It's Wednesday afternoon at 1:30pm, the kids should be in school. 3- How many people go see a movie on Wednesday afternoon?

Overall, Jake was really good. There were only 5 other people there, a mother with her daughter, a teenage girl and a couple with a young baby. I brought my boppy, sat in a discreet corner and nursed him alot. He did get a little loud, but mostly with babbling and a little screaming (not fussing though, hahaha-screaming). We did end up going to the floor and playing/standing on the steps for a little bit. After about an hour, he fell asleep and just slept on my shoulder for the rest of it.

I had a good time. I thought the movie was very cute! And I really enjoyed it. It was a perfect movie to bring Jake too. If I were to do it again, I would stick to the mommy and baby movies, I read that the sound isn't as loud and there is more light, I think Jake would enjoy it more.

We had to re-sleep train

After a whirlwind week-end of Jake's baptism (pictures to come tomorrow!), we had to resleep train tonight.

We had company, we co-slept, and I did everything to make him happy the night before his baptism and I was too tired the night after to care. So much for consistency.

At least we didn't start from zero, it took 20 minutes for Jake to fall asleep in his crib tonight. Hopefully, he'll stay there without a fight, or else it'll be a long night. The past few nights, he's been up before midnight in hysterics and only settles down when he's in bed with me. Nothing like a new habit to break.

Naps are still hell. A great morning nap, no afternoon nap. I fear we'll never get this down before daycare starts.

Trouble

Update on sleep training

We have been doing the "Ferber" method for the past week with decent success.

I started off buying Solve your child's sleep problems, and reading it. Then I picked a night to start. I purposely picked the first three nights to coincide with night's that Nick was working or at school. It's just easier that way since Nick gets very stressed when Jake cries, and we tend to fight. Don't get me wrong, Nick was totally on board, we both knew that we needed to sleep train and we both agree on the method.

So..the nitty gritty.
Night 1
Was terrible. Absolutely terrible. Jake cried as soon as I laid him in the crib,flipped to his tummy, turned around to face the door, and cried. In total, he cried for 1h15min. It was devastating to listen too. I checked on him as per the intervals suggested in the book (3min, 5min, and then every 10 minutes). He woke up again around 230am, I nursed him, and once again, he screamed when I put him in the crib. He cried for about 35minutes, Nick went in at the same intervals. I'm sure our neighbours hated us that night.

Night 2
Wasn't all that much better. He cried as soon as I put him in the crib once again and didn't settle down for 45 minutes. He woke up just after 5am, and I got up with him and kept him up until his nap time. Though, I strongly feel that I made a mistake and put him to bed a little too early.

Night 3
He cried for 15 minutes and fell asleep pretty quickly.

From then on, he never cried more than a few minutes, or he just fussed for a few minutes, tonight, he went down without a peep!

A few tips that really made a difference for us:

1. We pushed his bedtime from around 7pm to 8pm. Ferber strongly suggested not putting your child to bed until the time he normally falls asleep. Jake wasn't falling asleep until 8ish, so we went from bath time at 630 to bath time at 8pm. It has made a huge difference. Now, we've settled into a bath time around 730. The first few days were a little rough, he was pretty fussy, but I just sat on the floor and played and played until he was really tired.

2. We were consistent. Don't bother starting if you can't go through with it, it's not worth it.

3. Read the book!

4. If he woke up after 5am, we were up for the day. We stopped bringing him into our bed for some extra sleep, we didn't want Jake to re associate sleeping with us. It has made for some interesting mornings, but it does make a difference.

This is all for nigh time sleeping. We are still struggling with naps, but just getting Jake to sleep in his crib at night has made a world of difference in our house. Not to mention, it's nice to share a bed with Nick again!

I'm a senior citizen

I finally, finally gathered the courage to take an aerobics class at the gym. I was super nervous. I checked out the schedule and decided to try out Easy Fit. Seemed like a good idea. As I'm waiting for the class to start, I notice that I'm the youngest...by at least 20 years. I shrug it off, it is morning, maybe it's just that time of day? Right???

Yeah, not so much. On my way out, I read the description of the class (which is not on my schedule) and the words 50+ put everything into perspective. I didn't belong there! In my defense, it also said beginners, which I am, but still, I felt out of place.

Leave it to me to pick a senior's aerobics class for my first time. At least I went, right?

Happy Easter!

We had a fabulous busy Easter this year.

We had lunch at my Aunt Janet's, she went all out and we had a yummy turkey dinner with all the works. My favorite is the stuffing. Jake's favorite was apple crisp, he was begging for more, I'll have to bake some apples for him.



Here's Jake before we left. He would only sit still with a Mum-mum in his hand.

Then, we went to Aunt Penny's for an Easter/Nicole's 17th birthday combo. We had another delicious meal of pork roast with roasted veggies and creamy cauliflower. Delicious. Jake loved the wrapping paper!

Playing outside

We had a busy Saturday today! This morning, I went to the gym, I even brought Jake with me and let Nick sleep in. Nick got to sleep in until 1030, which is a real treat around this house. I even picked up breakfast and coffee at McDonald's for him and surprised him with breakfast in bed. Nick was pleased. It's fun to do surprise someone.

Since it was absolutely GORGEOUS outside today, around 28 degrees, we decided to take advantage and go to Mont-Royal. We definitely weren't the only ones to have that idea since parking was a zoo! We walked around the Smith House, and beaver lake. We found a patch of grass and let Jake explore. It was the first time he sat in grass and he was enthralled, I couldn't even get him to look up. We stayed about an hour and a half, it was fabulous to be outside.








On the spur of the moment, we stopped at Walmart to pick up a few things, then came home and made chicken Caesar salad. Yummy! Jake ate chicken, croutons and peas.

It's time to sleep train. Part 1

I honestly never knew how challenging sleep would be with Jake. I anticipated the sleepless nights, and getting up at night when Jake was a newborn. I also could handle the nighttime nursing sessions as he got older. However, I could not handle this new curve ball that Jake threw at us this month.

He would no longer fall asleep. It was taking hours to put him down, not only for bedtime, but also for naps. When Jake was about 6-7 months old, I stopped being able to nurse or rock him to sleep. He just would not settle. I'm talking pinching, biting, hair pulling,mouth grabbing, back stretching, I will not sleep. Then, I laid him in bed with me and let him fall asleep next to me. That went out the window in the past few weeks since Jake is now mobile. On top of the previous pinching, hair pulling, mouth grabbing, stretching, we had rolling, crawling and bouncing.

Now, lets add a double ear infection and four top teeth. Sleep? Forget about it. We started co-sleeping. Now, Nick and I sleep in a double bed. We barely have enough room for the two of us, much less Jacob. At first, Nick slept on the couch while Jake and I slept in bed. Then, we pulled out the futon in Jake's room and Nick got the bed back. Well, Jake started refusing to sleep in his crib. I mean, even if he was sound asleep in my arms, he would scream as soon as he was put in his crib. After a particular tough night, I went on amazon.ca and bought three sleep books.

It was time to sleep train. My goal is to get Jacob to fall asleep in his crib for bedtime and nap time and stay in his crib. I don't expect him to sleep through the night, but I expect him to sleep in his crib.

Next post? How we "Ferberized" Jake.