Tag Archives: sleep

Our Visit to Mommy’s Work and What to do Without a Swaddle

03/07/2014 R.C. Liley 5 Comments

Avery is 16 weeks old today! Where did those other weeks go? I know I am impatient wanting her to grow so we can play and interact more, but geez, time flies! All of those experienced parents telling us how fast time goes with your baby weren’t kidding!

Today we made a trip to Kelley’s work, my old employer, just to see her and old co-workers. After her long morning nap and finishing a bottle, we were off to work….I mean Kelley’s work. That’s so fun to say; being a stay-at-home parent is world’s better in my opinion!

Mommy greeted us at the entrance and I wore Avery in the Baby Bjorn until we were inside. Kelley couldn’t wait to hold her baby and she immediately took her from me once we were in the main area. So, I was looking pretty cool with an empty Baby Bjorn dangling across my body. Not that I really cared, it was casual Friday!

Going Mom and Avery happy to be together!

Avery got to meet a lot of new people that mom works with and used to work with me too. They all took turns “ohhhing” and “aaahhhing” while passing her around. Avery did much better than I expected with all of the new people and she was hardly fussy at all. Go Avery!

We spent about an hour making our rounds and visiting friends/co-workers until it was time for us let mommy get back to work. It was an overall good trip and I was happy to be able to bring her to Kelley since I know how much she misses our darling little girl.

It felt weird wearing this, but a good weird.... — It felt weird wearing this, but a good weird….

Before leaving the campus (it’s a rather large area), I took Avery for a mile long walk around the dirt trails that surround the building. This loop is a walk Kelley and I would take together every day before having lunch, and it was nice to take Avery around.

She seemed pretty alert and interested in the new surroundings, but then fell asleep half-way through. I always hate waking her up to put her back in the car, but since I was in a Fire Lane, figured I shouldn’t press my luck any longer. Oops!

Taking my time before putting her the car seat.

Up to this point, Avery was oddly calm and she just felt like a ticking time bomb for when her major fussy time would blow! Once home, Avery ate a little and showed signs of tiredness setting in. At this time of day, I am usually laying her in her crib for an afternoon nap, but CRAP, her Woombie was wet in the wash and there is no way she can sleep alone without it. We’ll work on that, but not yet.

I put Avery in the carrier and went for another walk with our dog, Abby, since Abby usually gets a walk anyway. I usually have luck getting Avery to sleep while walking, but she squirmed forever while trying to what seemed like climb my chest to get out of the carrier. Finally, she fell asleep as I was half-way through again. I sense a pattern here…. I tried to extend the walk while she slept, but she ended up waking anyway. Is 20 minutes a good nap?

Short answer, no. That time bomb went off not long after coming inside. I offered her more bottle and she finished it fairly easily, but continued to wail and fling her arms about. Still without a swaddle, I just held her close and tried swaying with her. 30 minutes later and her eyes were heavy but still open and she was still crying. Ugh.

At this point I was just desperate to get her to have a little nap before night time, so I brought her to the recliner. With my arms wrapped around her and my hands holding her arms from moving to her mouth (a human swaddle!), I rocked the screaming beauty to sleep. And this is what Kelley came home to….

Kelley washed up and came back to get Avery for a feeding. The nap was successful and held Avery over until laying her down to sleep tonight. Phew, what a day! Poor girl was exhausted!

Aside from the tiring day, I do have great news! I spoke with a nice person from Onya which makes great baby carriers and they agreed to send one to us to review and write about! I can’t explain how happy I am and can’t wait to wear Avery all around with it. Stay tuned for constant updates on where we travel in the Onya Outback!

Have you ever had to make yourself a human swaddle to get your baby to sleep?
Do you or have you used a baby carrier? If so, what kind?

Parenting

Humming in Harmony

02/26/2014 R.C. Liley 5 Comments

Do you have a certain way of putting your baby to sleep? Maybe a song, using a deep hum, or a soft “shhhh” sound?

humming, baby, babies, parenting, Sleep=Good — Sleep = Good

I normally sing random, made up songs using her name and a lot of rhyming. Sometimes the words I use to make the rhyme aren’t even real, but it works! Kelley sings as well, but she uses real lullabies; I should look into that. Nah, I love making things up on the fly. I just wish I could write some down, I’d make……….ummmm….probably $10 at the most.

Kelley and I also use humming as a sleep tool. The humming usually comes second after our singing did most of the work and Avery is mostly asleep. But, what if we are mostly asleep and trying to get Avery to go back to sleep?

It just so happens this dilemma occurred last night. For bedtime, Kelley will feed Avery one last time and lay her down to sleep in her crib right after her bath. Lately, Avery has been sleeping pretty long in her crib and when she wakes up hungry, I will get her and bring her to our bed so Kelley can feed her. Once she’s had enough, Avery usually will just go back to sleep with us in bed until Kelley gets up for work. Keyword, usually.

Last night, Avery woke up earlier than she has been and I brought her in to feed like normal. After she finished, though, she just laid squirming around with eyes wide open. Not too fussy (yet), just moving and awake. Us, on the other, ready for more sleep!

This happened once before, several weeks back, and Kelley and I both started humming in bed trying to get Avery to go back to sleep. We were both using our deep voice hum, but since we were half asleep, we were trailing off at the end. After 5 minutes of the both of us humming in harmony (we’d make a great barbershop ~~quartet~~ duo), we both just started laughing out loud. Ahh, just 3 months into it and parenthood is already making us crazy. Or maybe we already were crazy…..meh.

Anyway, that first time, Avery did go back to sleep, but last night she wasn’t having our hum. Kelley tried holding her to no avail, and after several other attempts, I ended up on the recliner with Avery in the front room. Mommy needs her rest for work!

From there, Avery just squirmed for about 20 minutes and fell asleep. Then she woke up and screamed and thrashed for a good 5 minutes; then back to sleep. This happened one more time and finally it was time to get up. Yay.

I love holding our little girl and have learned to just appreciate the screaming while holding her (she has great lungs!!!), but man is she getting strong. Soon her kicking might hurt daddy in certain ways that are worse than others; gotta figure that one out.

Let me leave you with the reward of a good night’s sleep…..

I'm smiling because I pooped. — I’m smiling because I pooped.

Do you or your spouse ever have to take your baby to another room?

Any tips on how to handle these situations differently, or do we just need to deal with it?

Parenting

How Our Daughter Saves Us Water

02/23/2014 R.C. Liley 6 Comments

Avery has been sleeping pretty well in her crib at night lately and it’s throwing us through a loop. Despite not hearing cries at 4 a.m., Kelley has a hard time sleeping around this time since she’s waiting for “that” moment. I sleep pretty hard, but find myself waking with the expectation of having to go bring our swaddled princess to our room to feed. But, these moments have been slowly diminishing.

I fear getting too comfortable with this since the teething stage is just around the corner and who knows what that will bring. Until then, we’ll just try and make the most of it. Keyword, “try.”

Living the life of scared parents, when Avery is sleeping, we basically have adult quiet time, or at least try to. I suck at being quiet in the kitchen, and the animals suck at being quiet…..ever.

Amongst the things we do differently during quiet time is not flush the toilet. Have to pee? Sure, go right ahead, but please don’t flush, I’ll get it later. Yep, no lies, I even told my mom (G-ma) this as she stayed over for two nights. I keep thinking of her heading to the restroom and asking, “Can I flush in your bathroom?” Nope, sorry mom. I even denied her a shower and brushing her teeth at one point while ~~the mini demon was dormant~~ our daughter slept.

Too extreme? Maybe, but I don’t want to take any chances. Plus, as the title states, all of this not flushing is sure to save us some water. Avery’s helping us be eco-friendly and doesn’t even know it!

At night, not flushing isn’t too bad, but in the morning, I’m going (I am “Going” Dad, by the way) almost every 30 minutes. Not exaggerating, the several cups of coffee on top of multiple cups of green and black tea that I go through definitely keep the water works flowing. I’m a coffee lover and will drink the black stuff from our French Press like water. By the time her morning nap is over, our toilet is beaming with a vibrant yellow; unless I forgot my vitamins.

Maybe if you couldn’t hear everything through our house, I wouldn’t be so worried, but I even hold my breath as the pee splashes in the water. Too much info? Well, just speaking truth.

As a side note, G-ma confessed that she flushed several times while we were on our date night without Avery waking. So, maybe I am being a little paranoid, but I’ll stick to saving water, thank you.

Moving on, our little family of three had a nice day today. Not much happened, but I was able to get all of Going Mom’s lunches cooked for work while she cleaned a lot around the house. I’m just happy Kelley doesn’t ask for anything too fancy for her lunches. This week she’ll have brown rice with broccoli three times; two with wild salmon, and the other with chicken sausage. Then the other two meals will be something I make a lot of, quinoa with black beans and tomatoes. Such a quick, one-pot meal that’s healthy and doesn’t cost a lot. Wins all around!

We tried to enjoy a family run together in the outstanding weather we had, but Avery was not having the stroller today. When it’s just her and me, I’ll run with her at a good speed and she seems content, but we had to keep it easy as Kelley is working back up to it, and we were just too slow. So, that wasn’t the most fun 3 miles of screaming…..

I took Avery out and wore her in the Baby Bjorn for our walk with the dog and she stayed quiet, so I figure she was better. As always, we’ll miss mommy as she heads to work tomorrow, but at least Avery and I have each other to keep company until her return home in the evening.