Baby with a snowman cup

I'm still working on Leo's 9 month post.
It's a lot of work you know and we've had visitors and I've been sick and so busy just doing stuff.
Is that enough excuses?

anyway.

I just wanted to write down this sweet little moment that happened on Sunday and save it in my memory bank.

Leo has entered what I guess is the 9 month sleep regression people talk about.  I don't know, but all of a sudden about 2 weeks ago he decided that 3am was a great time to wake up and scream. Not cry, but scream bloody murder like he was being attacked... and then continue to scream until I give in and feed him (which I KNOW they say not to do, but come on, if you've had a screaming baby for 5 minutes you know what's it's like to just do whatever it takes to calm them down and get some sleep) or the other option is - Lee paces around the house or bounces him on his lap for over an hour and he finally gives up and goes to sleep.  The later doesn't happen too often because Lee actually isn't here in the middle of the night a lot lately!  He's off delivering babies!
So I've been fighting a sore throat and cold as well as being up in the middle of the night and then up for the day at 6am most days...
Sunday happened to be Lee's day off, but he was leading the music at church and needed to be there extra early so I didn't even get to sleep in like I usually do on his day off! waaa

That afternoon while Leo was taking a nap Lee and I both laid down to get some sleep (lets face it as tired as I am, I know Lee is even more tired.  Dude has been working so many hours this month it's insane) and as soon as we'd fallen asleep Leo woke up screaming....
Lee hoped out of bed immediately and told me to stay in bed that he'd take Leo for a walk.
I needed that nap because over an hour later I woke up rested to Lee and Leo peeking through the doorway of the bedroom.
Leo was holding a snowman cup that was half his size with the hugest grin on his face.
It was just the most precious little sight.
That little baby was so proud of his new cup and wanted to show his mommy.

I said what is that?! and Lee said - we saw it in Target and he really wanted it!
hahahaha.
Isn't that sweet?

I didn't know a silly plastic cup could make me so happy.
or maybe it was the Daddy that wanted his baby to be happy so he bought him a snowman cup.
;)






ps. for the past two nights Leo has slept through the night again... but getting him to sleep has been a struggle and today he skipped his morning nap.
boooo

Sleep!

I know it just seems like yesterday that I posted Leo's 6 month updated and admitted that we weren't quite there yet with the sleep schedule.... but in the past 2 weeks something miraculous has happened!
Leo has started sleeping the entire night through!! 10, 11, even 12 hours!

So what changed?
Well.... I got a little tough.  (In addition to maintaining a schedule and bedtime each night and allowing him to fall asleep on his own)
I wouldn't say that we did the Cry It Out Method because that is just a little too sad for me to handle, but I did let him cry some...
I began this a couple months ago making him stretch his feedings out in the night.
I did this by when he would wake up, say around midnight, I would go in and comfort him, but not feed him.  Usually this was patting him and offering the pacifier, but sometimes I rocked him.  After a while he realized I wasn't going to feed him and fell back asleep........... or fought it majorly and screamed bloody murder until I gave in and fed him.  We had both.

Eventually he began sleeping longer and longer until we hit about a 6 hour plateau.
I was fine with the 6 hours because he's still a baby and there's always that nagging feeling in the back of your head that maybe he really is hungry and what kind of mother would I be if I was denying my baby food?!

Well at 6 months a normal, healthy baby can safely go 12 hours without food.
So when he got a little older Lee suggested we get a little tougher and teach him that he could go longer and longer.
So once again I began comforting him without food, which sometimes meant crying... there were 2 nights that there was a lot of crying, or it seemed more like screaming.  He wasn't sad. He was MAD.

But after 2 nights of that he stopped waking up for that middle of the night feeding and saved it for morning, which I am happy to do.  For close to 2 weeks now he's been waking between 5:30-7:30 to eat!  If it's more like 5:30 I'll bring him to bed with me and feed him and snuggle for another couple hours.  If it's 7:30 he'll be up for the morning.  To tell the truth I actually prefer the early morning feeding because I love falling asleep with him next to me, and Lee is usually up around 5:30 so we have the bed to ourselves.


Now that he's sleeping through the night it seems like the perfect time for him to start teething and screw it up...