And Regressions....

And here's the hard part. James, my 2 year old has been having some issues. Let me give you his background. James has ALWAYS loved to sleep. He was the baby who kept his 3 naps when everyone else was down to 2. Going to sleep at night was wonderful because you put him down, gave him his binky and he went to sleep for 12 hours. That was until a few weeks ago. After trying for the 2nd time to put him in a toddler bed, he's now back in his crib. When he wakes up from his naps, he starts yelling until you come up. When you go get him, he won't get out of bed and pulls the blanket back up over his head. That's not a fun game. Especially when there's a fussy 7 month old downstairs yelling. And this in addition to the fact that our whole house is hardwood floor, so every echoes!! Anyways, last night we put James down at 7:30, because he was super fussy all day. So, around 8:20 he starts to yell. So, we go up and think maybe he lost his binky.......This lasted for another 3 1/2 hours. I'm dead tired from Ryan's lack of sleep, the rough morning and now, James, who won't go to sleep. So, we bring him downstairs for a bit, no sleep. We bring him in our bed, no sleep. So, Alex falls asleep around 10:30 or so and James is till wide awake. Or so he appears. Finally, I got him in bed at 11:45 and he fell asleep.....Till 5:30....I didn't go get him after he started yelling and he quieted down. But started again at 6:30...So, any suggestions on what the problem could be?

Improvements...

For those who have been concerned, Ryan is doing much better. I met my friend's aunt, who is a doula, and we had a lengthy discussion on what could be causing Ryan's fussiness. Here are the facts:

1. He is 7 months old and still fusses 50% of the time that he's awake.

2. He had a real hard time getting a settled stomach, mostly there's a lot of burps that don't come up and he looks real uncomfortable.

3. The snowball effect: When his stomach hurts, he doesn't eat much therefore he doesn't sleep well therefore he's super tired and fussy.

4. Nighttime sleeping was pretty bad. He started sleeping through the night at 2 months and since he was 3.5 months, he hasn't. So, he wakes up super tired, takes naps the 1st half of the day and is tired but can't nap the 2nd half.

So, Aunt Susie, who also teaches a childcare class helped me come up with some suggestions. The first was the try one of the more specialized formulas. Ryan currently eats an organic kind for some reason unknown, it does better than the regular stuff. Since it tastes so different, we are gradually changing his formula. The 3 days that he's been on it, have been much better with his fussiness. The burp pains don't hurt him as much, so it appears. And, I worked with him at night to stop waking up, and now he sleeps to about 6:30, on a good morning. The problem with Ryan is that he has no other warning symptoms that have prompted my Dr to think there was a problem. No rashes, no fever, no sickly looking child. So, my medically healthy child is still fussy 50% of the time at 7 months. That's the problem. So, if things don't keep getting better, we will go in for a "well baby" check just to make sure. The picture I attached makes him look like a baby who feels well, doesn't it?

Quiet House means Trouble

Just another example of what a quiet house usually means. James is not a mischievous child, however, he does manage to do some things that a curious 2 year old might do. He spent most of this morning being super fussy, not sure why. He got a good nights sleep and had a good breakfast, but he was still fussy. I did make the mistake of buying him a $1 recorder which he now runs around with chasing the animals and blowing in it. He thinks it's quite amusing. Anyways, while I was using the restroom, he slams the door shut and disappears. After a few minutes, I realize it's awfully quiet in the house. So, I walk out and the back door to the screen porch is open and the door to the backyard is also open. I continue walking to see my barefoot child walking around in the yard. Needless to say, I was concerned for cold feet since it's in the 50's, but also for the mounds of dog poo spread across the yard. He also let the cat out and she's an indoor cat. She has yet to start crying to come back in. Anyways, this is just a reminder than no matter how much it hurts to have your kids yell all the time, at least you know where they are and what they're doing. It's when they're quiet that there's concern...No picture of my boys to accompany this, just one of me and our friend's new little baby boy, Brooks.

Boys will be boys

Well, today was pretty good. The morning went well. I had a babysitter here for a few hours this afternoon, so I was able to pick out some countertops with Alex. But when I got home, things were not as nice. Ryan doesn't want to sleep even though his red puffy eyes say different. James didn't want to take a nap so he's, amazingly, being quiet on the couch watching Nemo. As I looked over from where I was on the computer, this is what I saw.

So, I guess boys will be boys.

Ryan, Ryan, Ryan

Well, I finally had the time and energy to work with Ryan on his sleeping schedule. I was going to make him stay up longer during the day, between naps, so he would eat more and sleep longer at night. But of course, the night before my plan began, he decided to sleep through the whole night and mess up my schedule. Then he got the runs and then he threw up. So now, between forcing him to drink some pedialyte and some formula our schedule is all messed up. He is fairly pleasant despite all the poops but wants to be held a lot. This is hard, especially when we just made James start using a big boy bed. 10 spankings later, I think he's still in bed and asleep. Any tips on helping your children stay and sleep in their first big boy bed? All this while the 3 cleaning ladies were cleaning. They did an excellent job, by the way. This is the 3rd set of cleaning people I've tried within the past year. And the best so far.

Anyways, Ryan is now crawling, even though he doesn't feel good. He'll crawl over to me and put his head down in my lap because he's so tired. It's one of those endearing moments where you wish they felt better, but you like the affection. He tried putting his head in James' lap once, but James didn't like that. So, here's a photo from today of Ryan trying to climb up into my lap. I also put a short video of him crawling on my facebook.

Baby Language

Recently, I heard of this new baby thing called the Dunston Baby Language. The inventor is an Australian woman with the ability to hear things at an extra level. She has determined 5 distinct baby cries that mean hunger, burp, tired, gassiness and change me. I purchased the DVD and it's quite interesting. For example, when your child is making an "eh" sound, kind of like he's tightening his chest, that means 'burp me'. And lo and behold, my Ryan, who is in constant need of burping, makes this sound. And so, then I work on trying to burp him so he can finish his bottle. Anyways, it's very interesting and something worth looking into. Some babies makes more of the noises than others, but so far, it seems to be true.

SuperNanny 911

Do you know how to nominate a family for Supernanny 911?!?! Because we found a family in need of some help. There are not many times when I think a family should just stop having children. I mean, they're a blessing, but when there's no discipline, no structure and the father just sort of smirks all the time, many it's time to think about things again. Yes, I do have a story to back this up. On our way back from California last week, we were one of many families with children. Ryan, has a very loud cry and I try to keep him as quiet as possible as not to disrupt the other passengers. However, I do appreciate the grace other passengers give us. Anyways, as we sit down in our seats, a family arrives to sit in front of us. They looked like they were gonna be trouble. The mom looked quite disheveled and the dad, he looked like he didn't care. They had a toddler with a harness tether backpack. No matter how much you disguise it, it's still a tether. Then this toddler, I think his name was Simon, wouldn't sit with him mom and the dad just kept passing him back to her saying "what do you want ME to do with him" (he said this while smirking). So, most of the time Simon was standing in the aisle where everyone, including the flight attendants, had to walk around him. The parents didn't say anything or try to get him out of the aisle.



So, about an 1 1/2 left on the flight, their 2 daughts decided it was time to yell. They were in the 8-10 age range. So, the one girl had on headphones, so she had to yell so everyone could hear. Then her older sister started yelling "mooooom, mmooooom, Give ME the Book"! And she continued on for a few minutes. While the mom would just ignore her, the dad would smirk and not say anything. By this time, everyone in the plane was looking at this family and this yelling girl. Finally, the flight attendent came by to remind them that they weren't the only people on this plane. That seemed to work because they did remain fairly quiet. That was the fun part.



Once we got to Atlanta, our flight that was supposed to leave at 10:30 pm, left at 12:30. But we had arrived from CA around