Happy 5 Months, Kyle!

Five? Where has the time gone? On the other hand, 5 months of sleepless nights make it seem like we've been doing this forever!! :) Month 5 will remembered for lots of fun interacting together, never laying still or staying in one spot, pulling on mom's hair, and night after night without sleep!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It's been a fun month but that last one is a killer.

We took on "Project Sleep" about a month ago and we've been celebrating small victories with several setbacks. A month ago, getting Kyle to bed only involved holding him and patting his back. After a few minutes (most of the time) he would be sound asleep. The only problem was he'd never stay asleep for long. Oh, and my arms were falling off from carrying him and patting an ever increasingly squirmy boy. I was nursing the little guy every 3 hours. That's every 3 hours for 5 months! Do I even need to insert here how tired I am?! After nursing him, changing a diaper or rocking him back to sleep and then trying to fall asleep myself, I was getting at most 2 hours of sleep at any given time before getting interrupted again. (There had been some success with sleeping through the night during the 3rd month, but something happened and we were back to square one.) By 5 months, this was taking a huge toll on my emotional and physical health and overall sanity. After gaining some ground on a few sleep issues, like getting Kyle to take more restful naps, we decided to tackle the big one! A little while ago, we experimented and found out that Kyle really could go much longer during the nights and was eating only because it was offered to him. We've only done this successfully a few nights now, but hopefully we're on a positive trend. Instead of nursing him 4 times per night, I am now down to ONCE!! :) Yeah!! Now, I hesitate to talk about this and I haven't blogged all month about it because at any given time things change. For a month now, we have thought, prayed, read, and discussed sleep issues with each other and experienced parents. We've worked so hard on this and if you asked how it was going, I'd tell you something different every day. Kyle has done so well some nights only to do terribly the following. It's pretty frustrating.

We've gotten tons of different and contradicting advice from many people. Some of it helps, but for the most part we've already read about it in one of the 5 books I've devoured on the issue. Currently, we are getting the most help from a book called, Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child. It's really good!! I agree with the philosophy of the doctor/author and have enjoyed becoming a student of my son and watching for his sleep cues in order to protect his need for sleep and put him down before he becomes overtired and overstimulated. We've seen success in laying Kyle down just before he shows signs of being tired and watching him fall off to sleep, by himself, without crying. It's been so wonderful (again, most of the time)!! He wakes up now with more energy and is back to cooing and laughing with us (we'd seen a regression of sorts in that department because the guy was just too tired). We've heard of the "4 Month Wakeful period" and we're hoping that by entering Kyle's 5th month, we'll say good-bye to sleepless nights!! I know enough now to know I can't count on it, but I'll sure hope!

Now for the little man's 5 month updates:

• K loves my water bottle and my cell phone. He knows where these things are at all times and will crane his neck to get a glimpse of them and strain to reach for them, too.


• He makes motor boat noises with his tongue between his lips. So fun to watch him learn that he can make that sound.


• Kyle is growing more and more frustrated with himself for not being able to crawl. He scoots to things, but desperately wants to be more mobile.


• He's a fish on his changing table and plays with toys hanging down towards him to divert his attention from twisting and turning. Sometimes that's the only way I can get him changed!


• Kyle's wants to sit up and tries a lot.


• He loves our nightly reading ritual of Goodnight Moon. He seems super interested in the pages of that book, above all other books. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I tell him it was his Daddy and Mommy's favorite, too.


• Kyle enjoys much better hand-eye coordination and grabs anything in front of him!

Here are some pictures of our boy...

Merry Christmas, Kyle! Thanks for the outfit, Vicki!

"Mom! Can I open these?"

"Arrghgh!!"

Sneaky Shmu!!

"What? It was just the corner!"

Happy 5 months, Kyle. We can't wait to celebrate your very first Christmas with you !!!