Sleep Training and Such

Lately Oliver's sleeping habits have become a mess. He used to sleep pretty well only waking up once in the night to eat.  For several weeks (what feels like months) he has been waking up at night twice to eat and about a bajillion other times just because. He's usually pretty easy to put back to sleep, but it seems like he doesn't stay alseep for very long. A tired momma did some Googling and decided that it was time to start sleep training. A tired daddy agreed.

We are not those parents who have to do everything that "the book" tells us.  We don't care how you hold him, burp him, change him, feed him, etc. He's pretty laid back and we are too so as long as you don't drop him on the floor we are okay with whatever.  I didn't read any parenting books (and Riley doesn't read. Period.), but I did seek out help on getting a little one to sleep through the night. After some internet research I found the Ferber method. Essentially, you put baby to bed awake, let him put himself to sleep, and anytime that he cries you wait a certain length of time before comforting baby without picking him up. 

Riley was game for it since it meant sleeping through the night as an end goal for all involved.  I was fully expecting an hour of crying with us comforting him every so-many minutes. I wasn't looking forward to putting him to bed awake. Typically, I nurse him, put him to sleep, and snuggle for a while. It was hard to swap snuggle time for sleep time. 

We gave it a try for the first time last Friday and have been at it since. It is amazing. Oliver puts himself to sleep without any problem. He simply rolls around for a while and is out. He only wakes 1-2 times, cries for a couple minutes, and puts himself back to sleep. Most nights we don't ever reach the 3 minute mark to go comfort him. Several nights we haven't heard him cry at all. Yay for sleep training and an easy baby that picked it up quickly.

Here are a few photos of a happy baby after a full night's sleep:

In other news...

We got a hand-me-down exerersaucer from my friend, Katie, when I was pregnant.  It's been stored in the garage since then and I figured that Oliver was probably big enough for it.  He loves it.  I can get things done around the house while he is entertained.  I think I love it as much as he does.

Grandma Marcia, Grandpa Jim, and Uncle Shelby attended the Seneca Car Show last weekend so we decided to surprise them with a visit.  It was a toasty outing to say the least, but we still had fun.