I'm excited to start this post by sharing news regarding our sleep situation! My baby (the same one that used to wake me up 10 times a night!) has been sleeping through the night almost this entire month! He has been cutting two more teeth over the last few days, which has caused him to wake some during the middle of the night, BUT.. aside from that, he's finally doing it!! (insert my smiling face saying 'woohoo' here!) And how/why/what??? I guess he was just finally ready. Despite strong recommendations from a lot of people, we never attempted to do any cry-it-out method and looking back, I couldn't be happier with our decision to not do that. I'm very happy for those who have found success using this method, but it just wasn't right for our family and our situation. It's been a very rough and exhausting road, but it's been worth it to know that I've been able to comfort Tyler every moment that he's needed me to and that he has found a way to self-soothe on his own at night instead of me forcing it on him by doing some type of sleep training. He is still co-sleeping with us and I'm really not entertaining the idea of him moving out anytime too soon. It's working for now and I definitely know that there will be a time when he's ready to make the transition. And until that time comes, I'm just going to enjoy all of the cuddling (and occasional kicks to my ribs!) while I can.
And, with our sleeping through the night success, this brings up our next huge accomplishment. No more breastfeeding! I'm sure that most people aren't even aware that I have had to still nurse Tyler to sleep for his naps. He hasn't nursed throughout the day since he was probably 11 months old, but the only way he would go down for a nap was to nurse. Travis has been a huge help and has done a great job over the months with putting Tyler to sleep at night, but he just wouldn't cooperate with me during naptime. He wanted to nurse and since I needed him to take a good nap so that I could work, I always gave in to nursing. I was at the point where I KNEW we had to wean from this naptime nursing, but had no idea how I was going to go about doing it. Once he started sleeping better at night, I tried to recreate our bedtime routine by putting him in his PJ's, reading his books and then laying down with him. It actually worked and it has gotten easier with each day to get him to nap. I still can't believe it! He doesn't put up a fuss about not being about to nurse either, so I feel like he almost initiated this weaning process. And again, in hindsight, I'm so glad it happened when he was ready.
Initially, I thought I would only nurse Tyler until he was about six months old, but he had a much different plan! Then I thought maybe a year. Then I thought it was crazy that I was still nursing my 17 month old to sleep and was worried about what other people would think of that (the reason why I never mention it). And again, I now realize I was doing what was right for Tyler and our situation and I shouldn't have cared about what anyone thought. I wish that I would have realized that sooner and who knows, maybe I would have enjoyed nursing a little more.
Anyway, those are some pretty big changes that have occured with us this past month and I'm obviously, very excited about them! :-)
Other notable things-
We had the follow-up appointment for his recircumcision and everything looks great. He is healing well and the minimal swelling that is left should be completely gone within the next few months. The doctor said, "He will be the best looking guy in the locker room." haha. Just what every mother wants to hear!
He is becoming such a boy- I mean, he likes bugs and dirt and he just stinks some days with that little boy smell and not the soft baby smell that I've been so used to. He loves washing his hands with soap in the bathroom sink, so I'm glad he enjoys getting clean just as much as he enjoys getting dirty. He has a crazy obsession with swings now! It has even become a problem when we go for a walk or go check the mail because he wants to go to the neighborhood park to swing. (And he KNOWS if we're trying to pull a fast one by going down a different street away from the swings!) He absolutely loves it! We have a swing that my Grandma got him, but I'm afraid to put it up because I think we'll either be outside swinging all day or he'll sit in the house and cry because he wants to go outside and swing. Maybe we'll try it though.
He is still such an unbelievably sweet boy. The other day, I was holding him on my hip while making some oatmeal and he grabbed my face with both of his little hands and turned it towards his face and gave me a big kiss. Oh- he can make any day great!
He definitely has his own language that we're getting used to. Most words all sound the same, for ex., there's 'boo' for book, balloon, and blue. And everything else is shortened to, 'dow' for down, 'mou' for mouse, 'bro' for broke, 'ba' for bad. You get the idea. One of his favorite words is 'Da-boo.' I have no idea what it means, but he clearly does and it's hilarious when he says it because it's very drawn out... 'da-boooooo, da-boooooo.' And speaking of drawn out- he has picked up a strong Texas accent. Think Texas accent to a complete extreme when he says Hi and Bye. It's SO funny and we love it! He likes to try and distinguish between mommy's items and daddy's items, so he'll walk around the house all day and point to my things and say, 'Momma' or to Travis' things and say, 'Daddy.' It's pretty cute.
Well, I think that about wraps up this long post. Enjoy the pics!
We'll find any excuse to make something yummy. Tyler and I celebrated his 1/2 year birthday with cupcakes! :-)
So serious-
Wanna see my belly??
I could listen to this all day!
Silly boy- put this hat on and tried to put my jacket on.
