Friday, October 26, 2012

Hollis is Here!

Our best friends Mitch and Amanda had their beautiful baby girl Hollis yesterday! Mommy and baby are doing great. And she was a chunky 7lbs instead of the doctors prediction of 5-something. Those doctors sure can be off sometimes!

We had the pleasure of visiting them last night and Baylor got to meet his girlfriend! Amanda looked great and Mitch was over the moon. Its so crazy to think we were in the same place as them almost 6 months ago. Where has the time gone?!?

Here are a few pictures of the gorgeous baby and family.

Sunday, October 21, 2012

Our Weekend According to Baylor

 
This weekend was a lot of fun. I got to spend lots of time with mommy and daddy which is my favorite thing to do!
 
Friday mom dressed me in this shirt and I got lots of laughs and smiles. I don't know what they were smiling about but I just smile back.  We went to eat at Red Lobster for dinner and the waiter talked to me a lot. He was pretty nice. Once I got my bottle though, I passed out so I missed the second half of dinner.
Saturday mom and dad took me to Carson's mom and dad's house (Jenn and Harper).  Carson wasn't there though so I got to play with all of his toys and even nap in his crib! Wilder came and I got to play with him. He sure is big though, he turns a year old in just a few days!
 
Sunday (today) mom and dad took me to the grocery store. They got me some good food and even let me sit in the cart for a bit. Next time my mom will remember to bring my cart cover since she knows I am big enough to sit up in the cart. 
 
 
After the grocery store daddy left and went to play golf so I played with mommy all day.  I tried bananas for the first time and they were okay. I like squash a whole lot more.  Squash is my favorite. 
 
I took a bunch of naps and even one on mommy.  She loves to cuddle with me.
 
Later I got a bath and got to play some more with my toys.  It was lots of fun, especially when Gracie comes up and tries to lick me. She is funny.
And now it's almost time for bed.  Maybe I'll sleep all night long, or maybe I'll keep mom and dad on their toes and wake them up a few times.

Monday, October 15, 2012

Sleep Training. or lack therof.

The first few months of Baylor's life we were spoiled. We quickly figured out he loved to be swaddled and to sleep at an incline in his Nap Nanny and he would sleep all.night.long.  It was amazing. 

Until he hit about 4 months old and began to outgrow his Nap Nanny and started to roll over.  He couldn't stay in the Nap Nanny because he was getting too big, and couldn't be swaddled laying flat because he could roll.  No bueno. 

The transition from Nap Nanny and Swaddle had been tough.  We decided to go ahead and put him in his crib at that time as well.  He didn't like to lay flat and would roll all over the place.  The reflex of his arms and legs moving would wake him up every hour or so. It was exhausting.

So for the last month and a half we have been trying everything under the sun to sleep train our child.  For weeks I was consumed by researching the best ways to sleep train a baby. And let me tell you something about parenting: no matter what it is, if a parent thinks it is the right thing to do, they are firm believers in this.  There seems to be no gray area when it comes to parents' beliefs on things relating to parenting.  People are either cry it out or not and they will let you know why the other way it horrible.  So what the heck were we to do?! The more I read and thought about it, in addition to my lack of sleep, I was beginning to dread night time and start to feel anxious about getting Baylor to sleep. 

I read the No Cry Sleep Solution, I read all about Cry It Out Method, I read all about how many naps he should have each day and for how long and how long his wake time should be, I read all about starting an earlier bed time. I was overwhelmed with info! But what is the best for my child!!?

So I would come up with specific plans and I'd tell Matt. "Okay babe, this is what we are gonna do tonight...".  He was super supportive and went along with all my crazy plans.  We tried the no cry sleep solution. We did short versions of cry it out. We did the pick up, put down method.  Nothing really worked better than the other.

And then one day, it hit me.  I said "Matt, I'm getting wayyy too obsessed with this sleep training thing. Let's just put him to bed at a decent time each night, whenever he seems sleepy, and just go with the flow. We will figure it out each night what we need to do." He laughed and was agreeable.

I quit being so uptight. I started letting Baylor sleep with a blanket. It worked great.  We would tuck him in the blanket in his crib and he would pass out. I think it reminded him of being swaddled. A couple weeks later the blanket wasn't as necessary to get him to sleep.  We started to dress him warmer and took the blanket away.  He sleeps just fine without it now and we don't have to worry about it getting wrapped up around him.  


We let him sleep on his tummy now.  He seems to favor it and he sleeps better on his tummy. 

Some nights we put him down and he immediately passes out on his own. Some nights he cries and we have to go in and pat him for a few seconds.  He has definitely gotten better at going to sleep and staying asleep though. This past week he has slept more nights than not through the night in his own crib without waking or only waking once (and we can very quickly get him back to sleep).

But there are still nights where he wakes and is difficult to put back to sleep, or nights where he fusses and won't go down great.  And we pull him into bed with us. Shocker, I know.  Those sleep training people would say we doing ourselves and Baylor an injustice.  But guess what? The very next night he will sleep just fine on his own in his crib.  And we both don't really mind having out precious little baby cuddling with us at night occasionally.  He won't be this small for long.  I'm pretty sure he won't be a teenager trying to sleep with mommy and daddy.

So I guess the point of this rambling post is that what works for one person doesn't always work for others.  And it doesn't have to be all or nothing.  Having a laid back, relaxed approach has been so much easier on all of us.  As a parent I think it's best to just figure out what works for your family and do that. 

Saturday, October 13, 2012

Starting Traditions

I love holidays.  And since having Baylor, they are even more meaningful. I am excited to share the fun of holidays with him, and even though he is now too young to remember, we will be creating new traditions that we can do every year. Today was one of them.
 
We started out by meeting our friends Matt and Angela and their son, Mattox at the boys' school Fall Festival. Baylor and Mattox are in the same class at school and are BFF.  Okay, maybe they don't realize they are BFF just quite yet, but very soon they will. 
 
So we went to the Fall Festival which was lots of fun, but the best part was after when we went to the Pumpkin Patch afterwards. 
 
We started out taking lots of fun pics.  The boys posed as Scarecrows. 
 
 


 
What do you think about the Pumpkin Family? Should this be our Christmas card for this year?



We then took a fun hayride to the pumpkin patch.  



Here is Baylor posing with all of the pumpkins. At this point he wasn't so excited for the photo opps. We still got some good ones though.


A good one of our group.  Trying to get 2 babies to look at the camera at the same time is almost impossible. 

Cute Family Photo

This one I thought was sweet of the boys.  It is so neat to me that both the Matt's grew up together as good friends and now their sons will as well. 

 
It's funny. I used to think a great weekend was going out and partying.  Now it's just making fun memories with our little family (and friends :) ).  Hope you all are having a great weekend!

Thursday, October 11, 2012

Life Lately According to my iPhone

Because Baylor's in my arms and won't let me type any more.

Thursday, October 4, 2012

I'm Baaack

So I apologize for falling off the being a good blogger wagon and would like to *hope* that I am going to be posting more regularly! I have now uploaded an app on my phone to blog from which helps make it a lot easier for me to blog and upload photos!

To begin with, our lives have been busier than ever. To be honest my life revolves around my precious 5 month old, but I have been trying to find balance with everything else. We have been able to get out a lot and do lots of fun stuff. Just this past weekend, a few girls and I went out for dinner and drinks. I even have evidence as you an see below!

We are also going to Atlanta this weekend to visit my family and a couple friends, so I will try to take pics and be a good blogger and will try to blog about it.

Hope everyone is doing great and as always I appreciate your support and kind words that you leave on here!

Wednesday, October 3, 2012

5 Months

I can NOT believe how quickly time has flown by since Baylor arrived. My days are brighter, more meaningful, and better than ever. Here is the rundown of our precious boy at 5 months:

- at last weigh in (last week) he weighed 15lbs 5oz! He grew almost 2 pounds this past month!

- he is now wearing size 3 diapers

- he is wearing 6 month clothes and a few 9 month outfits

- he LOVES Gracie (our dog) and jumping in his exercauser

- he laughs all the time! He is such a happy baby

- we are still breastfeeding though it has been difficult, as we both have been battling Thrush which is a breastfeeders worst nightmare!

- last week he tried his first food: sweet potatoes. He did not like them and the look on his face was priceless!

- he is a wiggle worm. He rolls anytime you put him on his tummy but still hasn't rolled from back to tummy.

- he is sitting up on his own for short periods of time!

- he now sleeps in his own room in his crib. He had some trouble at first but is hopefully* adjusting now.

- he changes every single day! I hate missing a moment without him.