Savannah's 5 Months Photos

 

Smile!!

Our sweet Savannah will be 5 months old tomorrow. It's hard to believe! I'll be posting an update of her soon but maybe not until Thursday since that's when I weigh her at the BFing group. Stay tuned...

Sleep Training Update

Okay so after a whole week of racking my brain and torturing my child with sleep training, I have finally figured out a system that works for us. I can now say that I am not a Babywise Mom and Savannah is not a Babywise baby and that is totally okay with me. I decided that trying to make her fit on a strict schedule while I stay at home with her is just silly and not necessary. If she's hungry, then I'm going to feed her and if she's tired then I'll put her down for a nap. 

The things we have changed that we're going to stick with are the sleep sack and the no nursing/rocking to sleep. If she happens to fall asleep at night when I'm putting her to bed, that's okay with me. She has learned to put herself to sleep during the training and that is wonderful. I'm wanting to cherish her being little sometimes since she is most likely our last baby, so occasionally rocking her to sleep is what I'm going to do.

Our nights have been SO much better. We've both been getting more sleep and it was much needed. I was really at my breaking point a day or two ago. She went from waking at least 3 times per night a week ago (and me feeding her each time) to only waking once to eat. If she wakes anymore than that time for me to feed her, then I don't go in to her I just wait for her to fall back asleep. It's working beautifully!

She is still only taking 45 minute naps in the morning and the past 2 days she's taken an hour and a half nap in the afternoon. I'm not pushing the issue. I do however, leave her in the bed for 10-15 minutes after she wakes up just so she knows that it's not quite time to get out of bed yet. My hope is that over the next few weeks she will get more comfortable and will start sleeping longer during her first 2 naps. I've changed a lot on her over the past week so I think considering all of that she is doing GREAT!

Sertoma Park

 We love the little playground/park that is really close to our house. It's so clean and convenient. The playground is great! I like the the ground is covered with that rubber stuff instead of bark, rocks or sand. There is also a big parking lot next to it where kids can ride bikes and scooters. This is great because our little circle in front of our house is not flat enough for Brantley to ride her bike so we've decided to take her there to ride, or be pulled, since she still can't reach the pedals all that well. 

 She loves to ride her bike. We bought it for her 2nd birthday but she still can't ride it by herself since she's not quite tall enough to push the pedals. She's getting really close though now because she's getting taller. My sweet girl will be 3 in January. Ahh!

 One day last week, I took the girls there for a picnic. We ate and Brantley played. It was great! The weather was perfect!

 I LOVE this picture so much! The sisterly love is growing more and more everyday even though Savannah is still so young. Brantley loves her baby sister and tells her often. It melts my heart!

 Nothing like yummy "Chick-a-lay" at the park on a beautiful day!

Brantley loves to swing! Always has and I'm sure she always will.

Sleep Training Savannah

Over the past week I have been on a mission to get Savannah sleeping better. She has been dependent on me to help her fall asleep for her almost 5 months now. I made a few big mistakes in my opinion and they are as follows:
a) I rocked her to sleep every time she needed to go to sleep, at night or naptime,
b) I nursed her to sleep most every time she went down for a nap and during the night,
c) We've been using a pacifier so much that now she is dependent on it,
d) I'd been feeding her on-demand since birth, which means we have no real schedule that we've been following.

I didn't realize it at the time that all these things were going to cause us so much trouble, but now I'm in the trenches of trying to undo bad habits, get her on a schedule (eat/wake/sleep) and get her sleeping better during naps and nighttime.

I'm trying to move her to at 2.5-3 hour feeding schedule. We also have dropped the Woombie cold turkey and now have her sleeping in a Halo sleep sack.  She isn't really liking all the changes right now, but I'm hoping and praying that over the next week she will learn and make the adjustments well. 
Last night was her first night to sleep unswaddled and in the sleep sack. It wasn't terrible but it wasn't great either.

Here is how our night went: 
- Bedtime was at 7:45pm.  It took her an hour and 20 minutes to go to sleep (9:05pm) and then she woke up the first time at 9:50pm. Only 45 minutes after going to sleep. I thought for sure that we were in for a really long night of waking every 45 minutes. She cried for 30 minutes, I didn't go in there to her at all and she was back to sleep at 10:10pm.  

- She then woke again at 11:17pm. I waited 30 minutes to see if she would go back to sleep on her own but the crying only got stronger. At 11:45pm I decided that I would feed her and then put her back to bed. I laid her back in bed at 12:00am awake. By 12:10am, she was back to sleep.

- Next she woke at 3:10am. This was her shortest awakening. She was back to sleep by 3:20am. Only 10 minutes of fussing/crying! At this point, I'm thinking she's starting to get the hang of the sleep sack and not being swaddled thing.

- She woke again at 4:45am. This time is her regular time of wanting to be fed so I waited 10 minutes but then went in and nursed her. I put her back in bed, awake, at 5:15am. I actually fell asleep before she did so I'm not exactly sure how long it took her to go back to sleep but I doubt it was that long at all.

- She started her morning at 8:00am this morning.

So all in all, I'm still really tired from the night but we are making headway. I'm committed to staying consistent from now on so that Savannah can learn what she is suppose to do when we put her in her bed for sleep. Over this past week I have learned how strong-willed she is. I realized that if I go in to her at all while she's CIO (crying it out) then it just makes her more upset when I leave her again without picking her up. We've changed a lot in her little routine she had going on over the past week so it's going to take some time, but my hope is that after a few days of no rocking, no swaddle and very little pacifier use, she will learn how to "fall asleep unassisted" and be sleeping better/ for longer periods. I have read so much on sleep training and I still feel confused about a few things but now I do have a plan that I am committed to.

Our new plan and routine for sleep:

-We go into her room, close the blinds and turn out the nights. I change her diaper and put her in the sleep sack. I hold her for a few minutes (5 max) while humming or singing her a song. I then lay her in bed, awake, for her to fall asleep on her own. I will not go back into her room no matter how long she cries until she has gone to sleep and then wakes again.

This is SO EXTREMELY HARD for me! I hate to hear her crying. I have to sit and pray most of the time that God will grant me the strength to wait it out. I pray for her safety and that she, we, will be able to get some much needed rest. I pray that she will catch on to these changes quickly so that we aren't doing this for too too long. I pray for peace and endurance to with stand the CIO times, because it is so hard to listen to her cry.

I have to stop running into her rescue when she cries, she will never learn if I do. So from now on she's on her own. Nap times are the hardest times of the day because I can't seem to figure out her optimal waketime lengths. I can't figure out if I'm keeping her up too long or not long enough. This is so confusing and hard to figure out.

Man, I could go on and on and on about all of this. I have been SO stressed out and in tears many times because this is so hard to figure out. I think now I'm starting to get it all figured out and I know what I need to do now. Thanks to my friend, Marcie, who has helped me through texting during the day, I have kept my cool and not totally lost it during the past week. Thank you Marcie for being willing to help me and take time out of your work day and evenings, to help me figure this out. You are a great friend!

I'm going to keep posting updates on how sleep training is going. So far this morning isn't going well. I put her down for her first nap over an hour ago and she's still crying. Boo! I really hate this, SO MUCH!! More to come....

Beach Trip (Day 4)

Saturday night we went on a dolphin cruise. We chose the Southern Star because it was the biggest boat. It was fun but it will be much better when the girls are bigger.

 Brantley (and lots of other people, including Chase and my Dad) got to feed the Seagulls Frito chips. It was really crazy at the back of the boat while they fed them because the gulls were flying everywhere trying to get the chips out of peoples fingers. In the picture above you can see the Frito in the seagulls mouth as he's flying away.

 The sun was very bright and it was super hot!

 Savannah was just chillin' in her carseat at first but after a while she wanted to get out. I still not really sure if the swaying of the boat bothered her or if she was just tired but she got really fussy towards the end. I was finally able to get her to sleep in my arms for about 20 minutes and then she woke up and the cruise was over.

 We actually did see LOTS of dolphins but they are extremely hard to take pictures of from a moving boat full of other people also trying to take pictures of them. Of the almost 100 pictures we took, this was the best one!

 My favorite part of the cruise was watching the sunset. It was gorgeous! Chase got some great pictures that I can't wait to frame and hang in our house.

 There is a dolphin in this picture just to the left of the suns reflection. Cool!

We're already made plans to do that again in 2 or 3 years when Savannah is old enough to enjoy it and Brantley will love it even more by then as well. We also think it will be really cool to rent a pontoon boat one year and just go out in the bay for the day. We can fish, swim, sun bathe...it's a couple of years down the road but I'm already looking forward to it.

After the cruise, my parents took the girls back to the condo, so Chase and I could have a date night. We played putt putt golf at The Track and got drinks at the Shake place. Yum! It was a great way to end our vacation!

The next day was Sunday and sadly the time had come for us to head home. I hated to leave because the trip had been so perfect. I love going down to the beach this time of year because the weather is usually so awesome and they beaches aren't as crowded as in the summer. I'm already looking forward to going back next year.

Beach Trip (Day 3)

 Day 3 was another pool day. Chase and Brantley played for a long time. She loves to use the mesh float as a boat so Chase was making it go "real fast".

 

 Savannah napped under one of the shade trees that covered the edge of the pool deck. Then when she woke up she got to "swim" with me.

That night we had a dinner at a place called Dewey Destin's Seafood. The restaurant was on the bay so we got to look at the boats after dinner.

 Even though it got dark on us quickly, I thought it was really pretty looking at all the boats. We saw a few crabs in the water and lots of cranes and pelicans. 

This is a terrible picture but I want to document that Brantley got to feed the little fish. Thanks, Nana for the quarter!