OK to wake?

About 6 months ago we transitioned our toddler to a 'big boy' bed, (after his second birthday, but in anticipation of the arrival of his new baby sister). At the same time we bought the guard rails and a mattress protector, we also bought an 'OK to wake' alarm clock/nightlight. We thought this was going to be necessary to help contain him in his new freedom. However, he barely noticed the addition to his bedside table, and when he finally did, he just wanted to press the two buttons on its feet as if it were some handheld game only he knew how to operate (to his credit, one button does send the clock into making some series of faces back at him).

For the first five months we were smug pleased that it'd never occurred to him that he could get out of his new bed any more than he could get out of his crib, and we went happily along sleeping through the night. That is, until recently when he proudly announced that he 'woke up all by himself' and crawled into bed with us. At an earlier and earlier time each day.

When this started to develop into a pattern, we brought the clock to him after dinner and showed him how it worked (after a quick refresher myself, and finally actually setting the the OK time to get up). So you can stay in your bed until your light turns on green, right? Yes. And the first night he did. Even the second night he did. But the third night he must've gotten frustrated waiting, because he just cried out that he wanted Mommy to come wake him up (which is what he used to do before he realized he could get out of bed, if we hadn't noticed he was up yet, so I guess the clock still had some power...). The fourth day, he just decided to get up anyway (over an hour early) and I led him back and we tried to go back to sleep in his bed, but it didn't work. So we played with the stuffed animals on his bed and played with our fingers and time crept sloooowly by. Day 6 he still got up about 30 minutes early, and I laid down with him (this time actually more restful). Today is Day 7. Fingers crossed.

This is just another dimension of the 'transition to a toddler bed'. Parenting really is like the decathlon!!

So far my lessons learned are:

1. Let your little one 'help' you put the bed in their room. And let them help pick out sheets, or a blanket for the new bed (we pulled out every set of Full sized sheets in the little boy bedding aisle of Target and laid them out. Hubby hoped for the sports themed one, I wanted rocket ships. M picked construction trucks. Oh well)

2. Put REAL pillows on your toddler's bed, at least one or two and don't skimp. You will end up sleeping there sometime, and you will wish you had at least decent pillow.

As for the alarm clock, the jury's still out. ps. I was intrigued by this 'clock', too: Kid'sleep Classic

What do you do to keep your kid contained, or to at least get all the precious minutes of sleep you can in the mornings?

Take me out to the ball game...

backpacking it from parking to stadium

Baseball season started the day we moved out of our apartment that was across the street from the stadium. I was happy to get out of the apartment for many reasons, but I was sure that avoiding game day traffic could be added to the list. However, being able to just walk over for a game would have been pretty cool. Our new place is only a few minutes' drive, and we paid $5 to park in some business's private lot and walk a couple blocks. $10 would have save us half the walk... worth it? The weather was nice and we were able, so it wasn't a big deal. We didn't tailgate beforehand, but if we had wanted to we couldn't from where we parked, and there were plenty of families that did. In fact, it seemed like half the fans in attendance were Little League-ers, all in uniform, which was pretty cute. When we walked up there were still plenty of fun and games going on at these kid friendly tailgates... something to consider for next time.

Enjoying the game in the shade!

We didn't already have tickets, so we asked the nice gentleman at the box office to recommend something near an aisle so we could get up and let M run around if he needed to, and so we wouldn't be out of sight of the action. The ones we got were about $30 each (M was free). I overheard our seat neighbors later say that tickets were going very cheap for this game right before, so I'll squirrel that info away for next time, too, but this may vary by opponent. The kiddo was actually pretty OK with sitting in our laps the whole time (and slept for part of the game), but our location was VERY convenient to the bathroom, which was nice for the couple of diaper changes we had.

We had to remember not to scold the little one for cheering for the wrong team, because he was very happy to join in the clapping with the home team fans (we were in the 1% minority of visitor-supporters), and encouraged us to do so as well. He probably thought we were crazy asking him to clap at other times.

getting a little bit of a nap

There is a lot to see and hear at the game. We had hoped that M would make today a two-nap day, one before the 12:30 first pitch and one towards the end of the game or on the drive home. This didn't happen, even though we took him to the playground for over an hour that morning. But I was hoping he might still crash in the backpack on our walk over (also didn't happen) or even just get sleepy and snuggle in our seats. This did actually happen, but after over an hour in, and hubby finally just put his hands over the little guy's eyes to block out the action. He was literally out like a light after that (wish we would have thought of it sooner!) and kept sleeping for nearly an hour (which did not fulfill his quota). We paid for this lack of sleep around dinner time until bed time.

The Angels' Rally Monkey is a really genius idea to recruit fans while they are young. M shrieked and pointed every time that silly monkey came on the jumbo-tron. He even jumped up and down with him. The other key entertainment were the 'big kids' sitting around us. M found them fascinating to watch, and copied what they were cheering, noticed that he had on a hat like they did, and coveted their cotton candy (with longing eyes until one little boy asked if he was allowed to have some and shared - so sweet!).

We upgraded our mini-diaper bag to a real backpack for this outing. I admit, this was because I wanted to sneak in a water bottle for us grownups and it wouldn't have fit in the diaper bag. But, in my defense, the real backpack had much better organization and space and things weren't getting all crammed. We had 4 cloth diapers, a wet bag, wipes, hand sanitizer, a muslin blanket, Nalgene bottle of water for us and a kid's Nalgene for M, an apple, a banana, raisins, Larabar, snack cup of Annie's snack mix, toy cars and motorcycles, phone, wallet, and a change of shorts for the wee one. We needed 3 of the four diapers, so I was glad we had so many. If we'd dressed the kid in pants, we wouldn't have needed the blanket, but I wasn't sure where we were going to end up sitting and how the weather would be. We went through nearly all our snacks, so I was glad we had 'em. I was especially glad to offer M a sweet banana after his taste of cotton candy.

We were pretty satisfied with this trip, but would have loved to get another hour of toddler-nap in - anyone else have any ball game tips?

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Precious sleep

Etrade Baby

The one truth we all know about kids, whether we have many, one, or none, is that you get less sleep with them in your life. If you don't know this, and are expecting, here is your news for the day. Even if you don't sleep all that much, you will sleep less. And forgive this rambling post because of, well, lack of sleep.

With a new baby, I actually fully anticipated this, and was looking forward to finally getting to cuddle my bundle of joy at every opportunity, once I met him in person. And after he was born, the adrenaline kicked in, and we regularly had milk dates at 10 and 2. But then we were fortunate and the little guy started sleeping through the night. This continued beautifully until he was about 15 months or so (give or take the occasional growth spurt). And then he started seemingly random jags of getting up an hour early.

Now, I forgot to mention that once M was sleeping through the night, and we were constructing our morning routines when we were both working, we decided the best strategy was to get up about an hour before him, get ourselves ready, and bags packed, so we could fully attend the chaos that would ensue, and still end up at work with most of our belongings and clothes. So naturally, losing this hour of peace and privacy really bummed us out. Not to mention we somehow ended up mostly ready to go early... like before daycare was even open. Which means there is that much more time that we have to keep our work clothes protected from banana hands and toddler fluids. This hour early wakeup could last a week or two, then go back to normal for a week or two.

I tried to comb through the details of our lives to see what could have been the catalyst for the change, but came up empty handed. Sometimes we suspected teeth, or later an illness of some kind would be sprinkled in, but nothing truly clear cut. For about a week straight, he was waking up soaking wet, and I was losing faith in cloth diapers (thought they were doing their share of heavy lifting, the kid just had high output - he even outsoaked overnight disposables, such that we found little gel beads on him when we changed him in the morning). We even made a trip to a local cloth diaper boutique for suggested and they offered switching to the souped up nighttime solution, fitted bamboo diapers (such as sustainablebabyish or Sandy's fitted) + wool covers. These were a little pricey for us (especially this late in the diapering game), so I went the cheap route and bought some trim bamboo inserts to add to our overnight setup. They seemed to have helped some.

http://www.amazon.com/Newborn-Baby-Tracker
%C2%AE-Childcare-Journal/dp/9729375011

As I mentioned previously, just a few weeks ago, we moved our family from the East Coast to the West one. We adjusted to the 3-hr time zone shift over the customary 7-10 days. But still had this nagging 30 minutes-to-an-hour that we couldn't get him to sleep in. I consulted my What to Expect, the Toddler Years, and my Baby Whisperer, and Googled. Basically, if he was sleeping at least 10 hours (which he was hitting right on the nose), then they had no suggestions. ... except maybe to push bedtime back. Again, this feels like a milestone, but we are starting small, to make it seem less so.

So after about a week of going to bed 15 minutes later, I think we are mostly getting our hour back. He has legitimately had the sniffles, which gave us one rough night, but at least he slept in afterwards.

I'd love to hear what things worked for you! And if you suspect a cause I am overlooking!!

One last tip that I firmly believe has minimized the effects of this phenomenon: the Wait Just a Bit rule. When baby cries, if you know s/he is not wet or hungry or in pain (so new mommies of newborns, this probably doesn't apply to you) WAIT. Wait, like 10 minutes. It seems like a reeeeaaaallllly long time. But sometimes that is how long baby needs to figure out how to settle back down. You may hold your breath for this 10 minutes but will be rewarded!

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Miracle Blanket - Help Me (and my baby) Get a Good Night's Sleep!

Is the Miracle Blanket really that much of a Miracle? Why is such a contraption needed for a simple swaddle?

I have to say that this product came highly recommended to us from a family member who said it worked amazingly for their two children, and after knowing our son for 48 hours, I was skeptical that it would work for him. It seemed he really liked having his hands up by his face, and why not? He probably has had them there for the last nine months, and, truth be told, I like to have my hands up by my face when I sleep, too. However, on our first day or two home, we decided to give it a try.

The Miracle Blanket is pretty much like a straight jacket for babies. It keeps their arms down by their sides, feet tucked in a pocket at the bottom and overall, wrapped up snugly. The idea is that babies have only known life as being snuggled up in the womb, but now their little bodies have this new freedom to move. They have very little control over their limbs, and when they unknowingly flail they wake themselves up. Limiting that erratic moving keeps them asleep (or helps them get back to sleep more easily if they wake up) - and isn't that what we all want (within 48 hours of coming home from the hospital)?

It is different from a typical swaddling blanket because they can't wiggle out of it! I admit, we reserve this blanket for nighttime use only, and during the day, for naps, we use some lightweight swaddle blankets. These he can still wriggle out of, regardless of how I engineer them, but I don't mind because I am not looking for long stretches of sleep.

My husband is the swaddler in our nighttime routine, and our little guy looks like he's swaddled so tightly, that I was afraid that when I had to do this on my own, I wouldn't be able to bring myself to do it! However, I have come to know this blanket is worth its weight in gold, as we have been fortunate enough to get some really good stretches of sleep (I am talking about waking up only once a night, and we haven't reached the two month mark yet!), so I gave it my best shot. And you know what? It really doesn't have to be all that tight to keep the swaddle secure. I guess that is the genius in the design. And this doesn't hurt him at all - in fact, I feel like he expects and enjoys it as part of his bedtime routine!

I highly recommend putting this on your registry if you are expecting, or running out and getting one (or buying one online stat) if you are having trouble getting your little one to sleep.