1- With little kids/babies do you wake up before you think they will and get ready for the day or do you wait until their morning nap, or just find something to entertain them with while you get ready?
2- Did you sleep train your baby? What method did you use? At what age did you do it?
3- At what age did you introduce solid foods to your baby? My pediatrician says I can start now if I want but I don't think I want to. Did it help your baby sleep better at night eating solids?
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Zack and Emily
Elise
James
A little bit about us
We met each other in high school and have been married since 2008. At the end of 2010 we welcomed our little girl, Elise and in 2013 we were joined by James. We are currently living in Milwaukee, Wisconsin while Zack attends The Medical College of Wisconsin. He is in his 4th and final year of medical school and works very hard for all of us! Emily is lucky enough to stay home and take care of Elise and James.
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9 comments:
1- I usually wait for her morning nap to get ready. This means that sometimes I don't get ready till after noon. Every once in a while I get ready before Chad leaves for work so he can watch her.
2- No. Kiley sleep trained us.
3- We started giving Kiley solids (rice cereal)at 4 months. We didn't start fruits and veggies till 5 months. She loves food and couldn't get enough of it once we started!
1. i get up super early (think 5 or 5:30) so i can exercise, check some email, read some churchy thing, and then shower. my kids wake up earlier, but aren't allowed out of their rooms until 7am. (but i think when i just had one kid, i would exercise when baby was still sleeping, then shower/get ready at morning nap time. now, though, most of my kids don't have a morning nap. :)
2. YES. sleep training is a must in my opinion. it is my saving grace. i read the book "healthy sleep habits, happy child." you can start his ideas now. the biggest key in my babies has been the 2-hour thought: after about 2 hours of wakefulness, they are ready for a nap. lucy wakes up around 6:30-7, takes morning nap at 9, wakes up around 10:30-11, afternoon nap at 1-2:30/3ish. now she stays up until bedtime at 6:30-7. when she was 6 months and under she would take a 3rd (!) nap from like 5-5:20. i could go on and on, but just get the book and start as soon as you want. you'll be glad in the months that follow (and the years. . .)
3. i wait until 6 months. i just didn't see any reason to start earlier. and let me tell you this: i think it's a pain starting solids! :) it takes way longer and is way messier than nursing or whatever. it's fun, too, though don't get me wrong. but i'd wait.
wow, sorry to go on and on and on.
1- It totally depends on the day! Eli is an early morning riser and will occasionally take 2 naps still so sometimes I wake up and exercise and get ready, and sometimes i just let him entertain himself with something while I quickly do it- or worse comes to worse, wait until he's napping.
2- Sleep training is a pain but wonderful, I liked Ferber's method "solve your child's sleep problems" but I didn't follow it exactly. I kinda just did what worked for me. I think the biggest thing for me was getting him on a consistent routine with naps and bedtime. Honestly that was my life saver! However, that didn't work really well until he was about 5-6 mo. and would take longer naps....
3. I didn't see any need to start before 6 months. There's no going back and they really don't get it at first anyway. It definitely didn't help Eli sleep any better and I am glad that I waited! :)
1. i've always gotten up when they did. no need to get up earlier for me (unless you're like my sister and have four kids). i figure that rhett can just deal with my showering time and besides, i feel strongly about kids learning to entertain themselves. you can always put elise in her crib with a few toys while you shower. and i ran with rhett, so no need to do exercise beforehand. but waiting for a nap makes sense too. rhett gets up too early (6/6:30) for me to get up any earlier.
2. oh YES. yes yes yes. this was just too important for us to sit by and HOPE he learned to sleep through the night. we read both "babywise" and the other one emily recommended. caveat: we took what made sense to us and tossed the rest. some seemed too extreme for us, but what we liked, we used. don't let any book tell you what feels good for you. another important thing: both you and zack need to be on board with doing whatever you decide. for example, if you want to let elise cry it out and you don't think zack can handle it, make him go outside for the four minutes she's crying until she falls asleep. i had to force chuck away until rhett fell asleep. i've got a much harder heart. ha. but seriously, this one paid off for us sooooo much. oh yeah, we started pretty much immediately. we couldn't wait for our nights back!
3. gosh. don't remember. probably 4-6ish. starting with rice cereal and then to veggies and fruits. if you're not ready, then don't! nothing says you have to now.
whew. i think i wrote more than emily wrote! ha. can you tell we're sisters?
1. Yeah right, I would never wake up before Jilly wakes me up! I either give her stuff to play with in the bathroom with me while I get ready or wait for her morning nap, which is pretty soon after she wakes up anyway.
2. At 4 months we trained Jilly to put herself to sleep. We would do our bedtime routine then put her in her crib while still awake. It took about a week of intense crying but now she goes to sleep on her own every night no problem. She still wakes up during the night, but it's because she's hungry and she can put herself back to sleep as soon as she's fed.
3. We introduced solids at 5 months. She wasn't so sure at first but now at 6 months she looooves them (except green beans.) She has slept better because she's less hungry during the night, but I don't know if that applies to all babies. If nothing else, feeding her solid foods has provided lots of laughs around here. Good luck, you're a great mom!
1. I used to wait until her morning nap, but now wake up before she does because she only takes one nap & it isn't enough to get everything done!
2. At almost 9 months, I had HAD IT with getting up 2-3 times a night (she was only getting a "snack", not really hungry so it was just annoying) so I spent one night going in every 5 mins, then 10, then 15, etc and telling her it was "night time" and good night but not picking her up. It was hard & she cried for about 2 hours before going back to sleep. The next night wasn't near as bad & then she did good on/off for 5 more months before sleeping consistently all night (but she was a crappy sleeper from day one).
3. We gave her rice cereal @ 4 months. She hated it. I gave her oatmeal single grain cereal around 5.5 months & she did much better with that. And NO it did not help her sleep better in the slightest! If you aren't ready, I say wait!
1. I wake up when he wakes up. I run with him and try to take a shower before his nap because he's good while I'm showering. Then I get ready during his nap because he is awful while I get ready.
2. At about 1 month we started making him cry himself to sleep. The most he ever cried was 15 minutes. At about 3 or 4 months we gave him a bedtime routine and a bedtime of 8 pm. We try to stick to that pretty closely. Then at 6 months we just let him cry in the night if he woke up. It only took a few nights and he started sleeping through the night. Of course when he is sick or teething he wakes up and I go in there. We just read what it said in What to Expect the 1st Year about sleep training.
3. Our doctor said no solid foods until 6 months, so that's what we did. It was so hard for many months. He hated eating and I kind of wonder if he would have done better starting earlier because they are more adaptable early on. But it all worked out eventually. It definitely didn't help him sleep better. And it is such a pain.
1- I wake up at all sorts of times. if I need the sleep I sleep. I like to be up before him though if i can to read scriptures or it never happens. and i started showering at night to skip that step in the morning. Getting ready? Not really necessary very often unless I'm seeing folks I need to show off to. A little mascara goes miles.
2-I let him cry to sleep since like week two. Call me horrible but it worked. We read On Becoming Babywise and loved it. Basically what it said in there is all the sleep training we've done and he's been giving us 8 solid hours or more since 3 months.
3-We started solids to help him gain weight already and he seems to do fine. It's just time consuming. I'll keep you posted.
I let Zac wake me up--it's fool proof because he didn't come with a snooze button! ;)
I didn't sleep train, but Z slept through the night at four months--my guess is because he was bottle-fed?
I started solids at four months...Z was totally ready for it though, and he ate them like a champ, if you aren't ready I would say don't. But...that could have contributed to the good sleeping?
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