Success on the Road

So Christmas is behind us, and so is the two 6 hour trips with a six month old that we have been dreading.  It was actually much easier than I had expected.  We started the trip to and from at around 3:30 in the morning.  We of course had to wake Dominic up, but once we hit the road he fell right back to sleep.  We were probably 2/3 of the way through the trip before he woke up.  I would call it a fluke, but it worked 4 different times!  We were thrilled!


Dominic was spoiled rotten this year, just as we expected he would be.  He had three holiday celebrations and made out like a bandit at each one.  Here are a couple of pictures to show you just what I mean.

He is going to start crawling any day now.  He has pretty much mastered the backward crawl, and I am confident that the forward motion will be coming along soon.  We have been researching baby gates and will have them up all over the house by the end of the week.  


He is still sleeping through the night, which is making Mommy a really happy camper.  I have loosened up a bit on the schedule, but I try to keep it as consistent as I can.  As long as he takes at least 2 long naps during the day and eats at his scheduled feeding times I am happy.  I have noticed that he really needs his morning nap, which starts roughly 1 1/2 after he wakes up.  He usually takes two more naps, one long and one shorter one.  


We have officially decided to start a 529 college savings plan.  It is time to starting thinking about this little man heading off to college.  I did a little research and it is estimated that by the time Dominic goes to college it will cost roughly $250,000.  YIKES!!

6 Months

Dominic has finally hit the magic six month mark.  It is like they instantly go from being a tiny infant to a kid over night.  We have already started him on baby food, but have been very cautious about what we give him.  At his six month doctor's appointment the doctor told us that we could pretty much give him whatever baby food we wanted and even start him on teething foods like unsalted saltines and plain graham crackers.  We can also start him on water and some juice.  I think we will skip the juice for now, he can't miss what he has never had, and he certainly doesn't need all of that sugar right now.


At his appointment he was a wapping 28" long....in the 90th percentile and in the 50th percentile in weight at 17.6 lbs.  This is all right on track....he is a healthy, happy little man.


We recently let him try the water and he is a big fan!  He is taking it from a sippy cup like a champ.  Here is a picture of him trying it.

It is getting so close to Christmas and we are so anxious to start our own Christmas traditions.  Because we will be traveling for the holidays we had a small Christmas celebration early to celebrate with my husbands family.  Here is Dominic after opening his first Christmas gift.

We went to visit my family this past weekend to see my little brother graduate from college.  While we were there we took Dominic to have his picture taken.  Here are some of my favorites.

Our New Plan

So, after a good month and a half of inconsistent sleeping at night I finally decided that something had to change.  Several people, including some well respected family members, recommended the book On Becoming Baby Wise. 


I decided to give it a try.  I ordered the book on my kindle and read the whole thing in one night.  Needless to say, I bought into the philosophy 100%.  I read the book with an open mind as I have heard that the message is somewhat controversial.  After reading it, I can see why it may not be the right philosophy for all mothers, but it sounded good to me.


I was anxious to get started.  We started the process last Sunday, so we are just about 1 week in to our trial period.  Within a day or so Dominic had fallen into a nice routine that wasn't far off from the path we were on before starting the Baby Wise way of life.  I think this is why I was so comfortable with the philosophy.  


The book stresses the importance of setting the schedule for your baby rather than letting them be the one making all the decisions.  It suggests starting the process just one week after birth, but I am not sure I agree with that.  I do wish I had started sooner than 6 months though.  I think it would have been best to begin around the 2 month mark.  


Long story short, we have designed a schedule that works for our family.  Dominic eats, plays and naps at roughly the same time every day and has been sleeping for 9 to 11 hours since the first night on the program.  We are thrilled!


In other news, we went to pick out our Christmas tree today and had a blast!  Here are a few pictures of Dominic at Cox Farms. (I guess I forgot to take any of the trees ) :)

Sleep...what is sleep?

That's right.....my months of bragging about my perfect baby and his perfect sleep schedule are starting to bite me in the ass.  He has been a bit of a monster lately.  The real issue is that he is very inconsistent.  For awhile he was going down about 8:30 p.m. and sleeping until 4 a.m.  This was working great because I would feed him at 4 and then he would go back down immediately.  Then I could catch another hour or so of sleep before getting up for the day.  He would waking up again around 6:30 a.m., just in time for me to feed him once more before I had to go to work.  Sounds nice right?


Well it didn't last.  All of the sudden he started waking up at 12:30ish and then again at 3:30 or 4 and then he wouldn't want to go back down again.  I have a couple of theories on the situation.  First, I have noticed that this happens after I have disrupted his normal schedule in some way.  Either missing a rice cereal feeding, staying up too late, having friends over or just general over stimulation.  Another theory is that he is in the middle of a growth spurt.  I have read that the six month mark is a normal time for this to happen and he will be 6 months in 2 weeks.  My third and final theory is that he is ready for solid foods.  He wakes up super hungry in the middle of the night, so I am thinking that the solids might make him stay full longer.  Stay tuned for that fun.....I am sure there will be a hilarious video for that.


Regardless of the reasons behind the disrupted sleep schedule, I am trying to remind myself that this is temporary and that it will get easier with time.  Sounds so mature huh?  It is much easier to say now as I type than when I am pulling my hair out at 4 a.m.  Wish me luck :)


In lighter, more festive news, Dominic and I had an amazing Christmas photo shoot last weekend to get ready for Christmas card making.  He was a great sport and was sweet and smiley for at least an hour. Here are a couple of the best picture for you to enjoy.

Continuing Solids

Dominic is doing great with the rice cereal, but I will be honest and confess that it was not all sunshine and roses in the beginning.  I actually HATED it for awhile.  He was spitting it everywhere and Now that he is getting the hang of it I am anxious to start him on baby food.  We are going to wait until he is 6 months to start, but it should be fun. :)  It is so hard to believe that 6 months is in only 33 days.  Here are a few pictures of my little man eating like a big boy.

And now we are MAC people!

The husband and I went to the mall tonight and bought our first apple computer.  We have been experimenting with it all night and have been having a blast playing with the PhotoBooth app.  Here is a video for you to see for yourself...





Dominic was a great sport at the mall, even though I forgot EVERYTHING baby related.  We were walking into the mall before I realized that I forgot his diaper bag.  We thought we would be in and out and just look around for a few minutes.  We ended up asking a million questions and then purchased the computer right there on the spot.  The Apple salesman broke the computer out right there in the store and got it running to make sure it worked properly.  Sounds great...until a 4 month old starts screaming!  We got the abbreviated version of the user instructions and got out of there as fast as possible.  


On another note, it is HALLOWEEN TIME!  It is my favorite holiday and I have been looking forward to getting Dominic all dressed up.  I went with some friends to a Halloween parade and it was a blast.  Dominic was such a good boy!!  Here are some picture of my little man dressed up as a dragon.

Baby Proofing!

It is official, we have started the "baby proofing" of our house.  I know it is a little early because Dominic is not even crawling yet, but the OCD in me was screaming to get these things taken care of.  Here are a few of the changes that have happened so far.  We of course started with the outlet covers....and then moved on to door handle covers (because Dominic is sure to start trying to open doors any day now) :)

Our next change was a much needed baby gate blocking the stairs that lead to my basement.  This was a PROCESS!!  It was so much harder to install than we thought.   But it is nice and sturdy and blends pretty well with the walls.

Finally, I have started to reduce the number of breakable objects that are within the reach of tiny little hands.  I used to have picture frames, candles and knickknacks on these shelves, but as you can see, they have been replaced with fabric bins.  This is much safer....and provides some much needed storage for obnoxious baby nonsense.