Wednesday, August 26, 2015

Sleeping Baby Beauty - a follow up

So it's been five months since we visited The Sleep Lady of St. Louis. We've even traveled during that time and have had babysitters. So how's it going?
AMAZING

I still can't believe how wonderful it's been these past five months. Liam has a structured bedtime routine and usually goes to bed easily. He has started to sleep with a pillow. And two blankets, and two books, and sometimes a couple animals. And a little car. Or a duck. He's starting to hoard.

When we were in Florida a month ago, we kept his bedtime at 7:15 PM CST. (So 8:15 in Florida.) That made a difference and he slept until 7am most mornings. He took decent naps too - usually from noon to three because we would spend the morning at the beach wearing him out. He got in plenty of pool time too.

We had a few hiccups with sleeping later into the morning. He started waking at 4AM and refused to go back to bed. It took a few weeks of sleep training the mornings and I'm happy to report that he's back to sleeping 7:30PM to 6:00AM+. Sometimes on the weekends we can get him to sleep until 7:30AM!

Lately Liam has been throwing some tantrums. The terrible twos. Being with him 24/7 during vacation for 12 straight days was sometimes difficult on my patience. Even coming back and getting back into our daily routine was rough. I was very happy to be back at work and away from the Little Man. I love him, but he pushed all my buttons. He was not however happy to be back at daycare. There were lots of tears and tantrums at drop off.

My parents took Liam for four days in July. Mom picked him up on Thursday evening, they headed to the Lake for the weekend, and then dropped him off Monday. It was a wonderful quiet weekend without him. I felt a little guilty. I had warned my mom that he'd been a little stinker. When they came to drop him off and visit a little, at one point Liam went to the back door and starting crying about going outside to blow bubbles. Mom shared with me that over the four days he never threw a tantrum like that. Oh, great, it's just me.

I had spent some time over that weekend reading about handling Liam. And how to manage my feelings and his feelings. I know it's a lack of being able to communicate with us. My parents also took Liam a few weekends later. While it sounds like I might be pawning my child off, it's really a timing thing. My mom is a teacher and didn't have classes this summer, and those two weekends were the only ones that worked this summer.

Dealing with Liam - I count to 10. It's more for the comical purpose. He doesn't always like counting to 10 with me. But when I finish counting to 10, he claps and cheers. So even though he's crying (fake tears), he'll turn it off to clap and cheer for me.

We recently had our first "stitches" incident. Liam fell at the zoo and gashed his knee open pretty good. We visited the First Aid station who pointed out the severity of the cut and that it was pretty wide, not so much deep. The First Aid guy recommend we visit the doctor to get some liquid stitches. We spent another hour at the zoo, Liam then took an almost four nap, and we headed to urgent care. They did a great job. Finished cleaning it, put liquid stitch in it, little sticky bandaids and a big bandaid. We kept it covered and dry for a week. He had to take a couple quick showers instead of baths. But it's looking really great. We're on day 12 now. He'll probably have a scar. Probably the first of many.

He has been moved to the 2-year old room at daycare. It's a new room, new toys, new things to learn. And when he actually turns two (one week), we get a discount! Finally! It's $195/week for a 2yo vs $240/week for an Infant/Mobile/Toddler. He officially turns two on September 3rd! I can't believe it's been two years already.