The Bedtime Diaries Conclude

So tonight, I bravely moved from the floor to the couch.  I was firm, assured Kailee that I'd check on her in 5 minutes and retreated to the couch.  She wasn't thrilled, but she stayed put.  I never went to check on her but I'm fairly certain she's asleep along with Gavin.

My goal for these two weeks has been accomplished!  Yea!

XOXO,

Bedtime Training Night 4 among other things in our life :)

Last night Kailee coughed a lot and ended up in her pack-n-play in our room at 3am.  Bedtime was successful though, which is what's most important.

Today, I took Kailee to the doctor (because her cough is still pretty bad, she's not eating much, and she's refusing to drink out of sippies--the sucking motion hurts if there's ear pain).  It turns out she has a double ear infection along with sinusitis, poor baby!  No wonder she's been super-fussy and not sleeping well.

Tonight we were a little late on bedtime--we did not head to the pharmacy to pick up Kailee's prescription until 8, making us unable to begin the bedtime routine until 8:40.  It is now 9:02 and both kids are out like a light.  Gavin protested a little bit, but was out within minutes of lying down.  Kailee took a bit longer, though less than 10 minutes for sure.

Brady is definitely going to appreciate the ease with which the kids go down now.  It's amazing how a little structure can change everything.  Now if only we could get past the terrible twos.  The doctor told me to give up on time out right now and just take away toys and whatnot.  So basically if she throws a book at my head (which likely will happen again), take it away.  If she hits, take away something else.  Time out will not be effective for awhile.  GREAT! 

XOXO,

UPDATE @9:38am (the next day) - The kids stayed asleep in their beds, in their rooms all night!  HOWEVER, both got up by 6:30am all cheerful.  Mind you, yesterday when I got them up at 6:30, neither wanted to cooperate at first.  I tried to ignore them but by 7 had to get up to feed them.  

Night 3 of Bedtime Training

To begin, let me just brag about the kids!  Last night, Kailee woke up about 9pm for some water but she went right back to sleep in her big girl bed.  Both kids slept all night in their beds in their rooms and Kailee even got up cheerfully at 5:50.  She would have slept longer but I discovered Major took out his anger about Brady being gone by pooping ALL OVER Kailee's bedroom.  I woke her up while cleaning it up.

Right now it's 6:59pm and Kailee is in bed.  We got home, ate, and then Kailee proceeded to throw fit after fit and hit, kick, punch, throw things at us to the point that the only option is to put her to bed.  She's SUPER-fussy and my patience is gone.  I kept her in time out for 10 minutes waiting for her to stop screaming (the doctor says the two minutes cannot start until she stops screaming) and she NEVER STOPPED.  I captured a picture of her intentionally gagging herself.  I'm ready to pull my hair out so I got her out only to have to take another 5 full minutes to get her to calm down.

This is my 2-year-old intentionally gagging herself in time out.  Can we say drama queen?

As I type, Gavin is watching TV in his room and Kailee is fighting her early bedtime by rolling around and sitting up.  We'll see how this goes...

XOXO,

UPDATE @8:19pm - I allowed Kailee to get up and watch some DoodleBops at 7:30.  At 7:50, we went through our new bedtime routine with protests from both kids.  As of 8:15, both kids were out.  Hopefully they stay out all night!

Night Two of Bedtime Training

First, let me start with an update over the entire night last night.  Basically, I was celebrating my success at 8:50pm when Kailee awoke with a horrible coughing fit--not the barking cough, just a regular old one.  She got very upset and would not calm down for about 20 minutes.  At that point I gave her the option of where to sleep and she chose her pack-n-play.  She proceeded to cough ALL.  NIGHT.  LONG.  I kept dozing off only to be awakened again by her coughing and crying.  Then I woke up low at 1:30am.  Needless to say, we were both a bit grumpy this morning, though Gavin was well-rested and cheerful as can be :).  That's the silver lining.

So tonight we had to do baths.  I started them at 7:15 to make sure we'd stay on track for getting in bed at 8.  We were waaaaay faster tonight (even with the bath) so both kids were in bed by 7:45.  It is currently 7:58 and Gavin is definitely asleep; unsurprisingly, Kailee is still stirring, though once she's out, she should sleep well.  The doctor gave the okay for her to have the cough medicine from when she had the flu a month ago while also taking the steroid for croup.  The sweetie-pie needs a good night's rest.  As I type, I'm watching her watch me.  Hopefully she's asleep by 8:30 so I can get in some me time and still go to bed early.

While I'm glad for the opportunity to sleep train, I miss Brady so much.  It's so lonely without him here :(.

XOXO,

UPDATE @8:22pm - Kailee took her time but she's asleep.  I'm hoping she sleeps better tonight having had cough medicine :).

When Brady is out of town...

It seems that whenever Brady is out of town, I find myself having to do some sort of sleep training for Kailee.  This time around, I'm doing it for both children.  We have gotten into the bad habit of allowing the kids to fall asleep watching movies.  Gavin is usually pretty good--he passes out on his own every night between 7 and 8:30pm.  Kailee is another story.  She often falls asleep in the pack-n-play in our bedroom at the foot of our bed.  She takes FOREVER to fall asleep!

So tonight, I decided to take us back to a bedtime routine.  We began at 7:30pm by going potty (or diaper changing) and putting on PJs.  Then brushing the teeth and reading 3 books (we each got to pick one, myself included).  Then they repeated a bedtime prayer after me, and off they went into their own "big boy" and "big girl" beds.

As I type, I am currently sitting in the hall outside both of their rooms so they can see I am still here.  This is more for Kailee than it is for Gavin because she turned on the waterworks.  I am hoping they both are asleep by 8:30 since I have to get them up between 6-6:30 tomorrow.  We have to be out the door by 7 in order to get Gavin to school on time without stress.

We'll see how this goes.  I have more patience for these battles than Brady does so I'm hoping to have us setup nicely with an established routine before his return on April 15th.

Wish me luck and pray for our success!

XOXO,

UPDATE @8:14pm - Both kids are snoring!  SUCCESS!  By the way, I'm scared to move from my spot in case I make too much noise and wake either or both.

This is what success looks like:

Kailee's 2 Year Checkup

Today we had Kailee's 2-year-old checkup.  I was so worried about remembering the daycare form that I plum forgot to bring "Myna" (Kailee's name for her pacifier) in case she needed a vaccination.  Thankfully, she's all up to date on her vaccines and did not need a single shot.  

Well, our little lady is growing.  Here are her stats:

Weight: 24.5 pounds --21st percentile

Length: 34 inches --51st percentile (She's shot up a lot since 18 months!)

XOXO,

Sleep Training Success!

We have had some sleep training trials this summer.  Kailee really fought going to bed in her bed with all her might until recently...  By recently, I mean since we returned from our vacation on July 21st, so less than 2 weeks.

One night, when I put Kailee in her bed, I offered to "snuggle-bug" her (tuck her big blanket around her to make her feel bundled up tight) and told her I'd be back in 10 minutes to check on her.  She did not complain, I shut the door, and she went right to sleep--I never had to go back in.  The next day at nap time, I did the exact same thing, though at 10 minutes she began fussing.  I went back in, held her to comfort her for about a minute and then repeated the process--she went to sleep without another peep.  Ever since this started, this system has worked beautifully.  Sometimes she fusses at the 10 minute mark, but usually, she just goes right to sleep on her own.  IT'S FABULOUS!

The only problem we still face is the middle of the night wake-up and freak-out.  Lately, I've become a night owl so when she first fusses, I go in, comfort her, and promise to return in 10 minutes.  Usually, I even leave her door open at this point and she does not try to get up.  However, at some other point during the night, she wakes again and ends up in our bed.  We may just have to accept compromise at this point.

As for Gavin, he's still an amazing sleeper.  Last night, I told him he could lie down in his bed without the TV or in my bed with the TV.  He said, "I guess I'll go to my bed."  What kid does that?  What 5 year old chooses to go to his bed in the dark?  Mine!  Of course, I convinced him he needed to snuggle with Mommy for a bit but he agreed with reservations.  What a crazy child!

XOXO,

Battle of the Bed update

This is what we envision... Kailee in her bed ALL night!

Last night we began as we did during yesterday's nap and then proceeded to cry-it-out.  After 10 minutes, Kailee made herself throw-up so we decided to hold off on bedtime until Gavin went to bed.  Gavin was actually asleep (at about 9:30) when I tried cry-it-out again.  I put Kailee in bed, turned off the lights, shut the door, she screamed for 30 seconds and then... PEACE!

Of course the peace lasted until about midnight when she woke up screaming bloody murder and ended up in our bed...

Nap time today went smoothly.  I put her in her bed, shut the door, she screamed for 30 seconds, and then slept for almost 2 hours.  We are back on track!

After a few more days/nights of success at falling asleep, we will move on to tackling the middle of the night wakings.  I have fought Brady on these since day one--while I refused to go soothe her (knowing she'd go back to sleep in less than 5 minutes), he'd go in faithfully multiple times a night.  

We'll be all set just in time to head on vacation where normalcy is impossible.  Oh well!  We'll cross that road when we get there!

XOXO,

Battle of the Bed - Nap Time Edition

After the immense failure of cry-it-out the other night and a holiday weekend--which was no time to sleep train--I decided to work on fixing Kailee's nap time issues.  Her nap time issues began after she decided she could no longer sleep in her bed at night.  As a summertime stay-at-home mom, I was about to go INSANE without at least a short break from Kailee during nap time.  I felt like I NEVER got away from her because she wouldn't nap and insisted on sleeping with us.  That meant Kailee 24/7!

My little monkey continued to boycott her bed
by napping in her chair

Today, I started by getting her situated in her bed with her blankies and reading her favorite book Sometimes I like to Curl up in a Ball.  As I began reading, she started saying, "TV on!  TV on!" and when we got to the last page, she started crying, realizing I was about to leave and shut the door.  However, I changed my tactic today.  I left the door open, knowing full and well that she'd come out.  I set a timer for 10 minutes and every time she walked out, I walked her back to bed.  There were a few times that she stopped crying and considered staying in bed without protesting, but at the end of the 10 minutes, she was hysterical.  I sat her down and told her that I wanted to leave the door open but because she would not stay in her bed, I had to close the door.  The crying worsened when I shut the door.  Then 30 seconds later, it stopped.

At the 10-minute-post-door-shut mark, Kailee stopped the occasional fussing.  She slept for 1 hour 15 minutes.  SUCCESS!

XOXO,

Cry-it-Out Toddler Bed Take 1

Our littlest bedbug has made bedtime a nightmare again.  She immediately goes into hysterics which has resulted in her falling asleep in our bed the past two nights.  The problem is, it's hard to give tough love if your partner is completely unwilling and rushes in to "save the day" for our little one after less than 5 minutes.  Tonight I took control and we are trying again.

When I say "cry-it-out," I don't mean that I lock her in her room and let her scream until she falls asleep.  I let her cry, but I check on her periodically to let her know I'm still around but that she's going to stay in her room at least, if not her bed.  When I go in to check on her, the recommendation is to soothe/comfort but exit again in less than 2 minutes.  I try to get in and get out in less than 30 seconds to prevent working her up even more.  She's so high strung, the situation actually seems to worsen the more often I go in.

I set the CIAO Baby app to go off after 4 minutes for the first check.  Each subsequent check is twice as long as the previous, for a maximum of 32 minutes.  You can start with as few as 2, but I prefer to start with 4 since she's older.  Here's how it went down tonight:

Wait #1 (4 minutes)

0 minutes - The fit begins and she cries hysterically as Mommy shuts the door.  The timer is set @8:07:00 PM

4 minutes - Still hysterical, she claws at Mommy when comforted and returned to her bed.

Wait #2 (8 minutes long, total time: 12 minutes)

8 minutes (half-way through 2nd wait time) - silence

12 minutes (seconds before the 2nd wait timer went off) - The hysterics began again, she clawed at Mommy when comforted and again returned to her bed.

Wait #3 (16 minutes long, total time: 28 minutes)

22 minutes minutes (halfway through 3rd wait)- Silence (Daddy comes upstairs to tell Mommy the reason Kailee won't go to sleep is that it's still light out; sorry, Daddy, Mommy's not giving up so easily)

24 minutes (with 8 minutes left in the 3rd wait) - The hysterics begin temporarily but last less than 10 seconds, this happens periodically for the rest of the wait.  We have a VERY stubborn, headstrong little girl--I wonder where she gets it ;)?

27 minutes (almost done with 3rd wait) - She really gets worked up again briefly and then silence for the rest of the wait.

28 minutes (end of 3rd wait) - It's quiet in her room, I debate about going back in at all... I decide to set a new timer and if she cries again, I will go in regardless.  If not, I will check to confirm she is in fact asleep in 32 more minutes.

Wait 4 (32 minutes long, total time: 60 minutes)

32 minutes (4 minutes into 4th wait) - She fusses a bit.  I stay out

33 minutes (5 minutes into 4th wait) - She gets hysterical again so I go in.  She's sitting in her glider with her "bankie."  She jumps out of the chair, runs to me and gets VERY upset when I put her in bed.  She screams as I walk out, but then, silence...

38 minutes (10 minutes into 4th wait) - Kailee gets all worked up again briefly.  This continues to happen from time to time for the next several minutes.

44 minutes in (halfway through 4th wait) - Silence...

47 minutes in (13 minutes left in wait 4) - The hysteric outbursts begin again

49 minutes in (11 minutes left in wait 4) - Daddy comes upstairs and threatens to be the knight in shining armour.  At that point, I give up, go in and hold my precious baby.  If anyone gets to be the "good" guy tonight, it's going to be ME!  It took 5 minutes to calm her down.

55 minutes in (5 minutes left in wait 4) - Kailee and I are sitting on the couch, finishing up this post, about to go to bed in Mommy and Daddy's bed.

With checks included, it's been 1 hour of HELL.  This is the worst she's fought me and I totally FAILED!  When I've done CIO in the past, she was out in less than 30 minutes.  Of course, she could not get out of her bed then...

GRRRRR!

XOXO,

A big night!

Kailee recently has been VERY interested in the potty.  She has wanted to sit on it several times, for about 10 minutes at a time.  While we are not yet "potty-training," we are happy to see Kailee's interested and allow her to sit on the potty sans diaper whenever she wants.  

On Monday night, we had the surprise of our life!  After many occasions of just sitting on the toilet, Kailee actually peed!  Gavin and she had been tossing a ball back and forth when I heard the trinkle of liquid.  Kailee stopped, looked at me in confusion, I got all excited, and then she continued to empty her bladder.  Gavin and I were both sooooo excited while Kailee seemed a bit confused and clueless.  Gavin was excited because on the first occasion, I told him that if Kailee peed in the potty, they could both get M&Ms.  Gavin immediately ran to get the candy treat.

While she is no where near potty trained--in fact, she can't tell us when she needs to go--it was still a big day for our big girl!

XOXO,

The Consequence

A couple of years ago, one of my sisters-in-law shared a "cure" for the "talker-backer-syndrome."  She would put a drop of Tabasco (something she had tested on her own tongue to make sure it wasn't that bad) on her child's tongue if s/he refused to stop talking back to her.  We used the idea a few times with Gavin but I hadn't had to use it for a few months until tonight....

Tonight, Gavin decided to dump out all the dominoes from our Mexican Train (Turkey Foot on the Heil side) game.  I told him he could not watch TV or eat dinner until he put the dominoes away.  He slowly put them away, throwing out snide comments here and there.  I kept threatening the "consequence" (as Gavin calls it) but had not followed though.  Finally, 40 minutes into the process, with only half the dominoes put away and immediately after being told "I don't want to hear what you have to say, Mommy," I followed through with my threat and put a teeny-tiny drop on the middle of his tongue towards the back (where it isn't very sensitive).  You would have thought I'd poured acid on his tongue.  He cried real tears and boo-hooed.  BUT the other half of the dominoes were quickly put away, Mommy got an apology, and Gavin promised never to dump the dominoes out again--we'll see about that one.  

Mild salsa has the exact same effect as Tabasco.  In fact Gavin's reaction tonight was not nearly as severe as when I have used mild salsa.

XOXO,

Bed Bugs!

We have entered a new phase of sleep training, meet our bed bug:

She's cute and hard to resist with the pouty face and tears, especially in the middle of the night when all we want to do is sleep.  After one night of walking her back and forth at least 12 times (after which she still ended up in our bed), we didn't even try last night.  At 10:30pm, she got in our bed to stay.

Why can't she be as great of a sleeper as this cutie-pie????

Here's to a better night tonight! :)

XOXO,

Moving on up!

This weekend Gavin moved up into a booster seat and Kailee began forward-facing in Gavin's old carseat.  We originally planned to keep Kailee rear-facing until two (based on the most recent safety guidelines), but as she got bigger and more obstinate, it became too much of a battle to fight getting her strapped in at least twice a day.

Here are the happy riders on their first ride in their new seats!

Cool Man, Gavin!

Happy Girl, Kailee!  Hopefully the carseat fits will stop happening now!

XOXO,

It's my bedtime and I'll cry if I want to!

Mommy, it's your fault for getting rid of the crib!

Kailee will NOT stay in her bed tonight despite the fact that she is QUITE sleepy.  I finally decided to shut the door to her room, much to her dismay.  Brady lasted less than 30 seconds with her screaming before going in there to stay with her.

MEN!  As strong as they are, they are pushovers when it comes to their little girls. :)

XOXO,

Conversations with Kailee

After seeing Gavin's photo-shoot for his party invitation,
she insisted on having her own (though she didn't last as long).

Me: Is your name Kailee?

Kailee: No, Kai-Kai!

It's true, we often call her Kai-Kaie but usually she just repeats "Kailee" to the best of her abilities.  She also is starting to string sentences though many are only 50-75% intelligible.  She likes to insert gibberish where her words fail her :).

However, my favorite is that she is now starting to repeat "I love you," though it kind of sounds like "wuv you."

Just cherishing the little things. :)

The Terrible Twos and the Fabulous Fours

I don't know the date the colic began, but I do know our nights of endless screaming (5:30pm - 12:30am) ceased on October 15, 2009 (it was a Thursday and Roni, John and Jeremiah arrived in Dallas the next day for AC homecoming).  Since that date, Kailee has more than made up for the hard times.  She was a cheerful, easy baby until she became mobile.  Then she became TROUBLE.  We've always had to watch her more closely than Gavin; she's sneaky and quiet.  She's been a diva since birth but always knew that Mommy would not give in.  We've survived cry-it-out successfully on multiple occasions (Daddy had trouble sticking to it so Mommy had to retrain her a few times).  Just when things were beginning to calm down, The Terrible Twos struck.

They began on April 14, 2011 (yes, yesterday) with a long, drawn-out fit over not being allowed to take her toy stroller in the car.  She arched her back, kicked her legs, threw her head back and refused to cooperate as I forced her into her carseat.  She then got so worked up as I was driving that I thought she was going to make herself sick.  I pulled over to attempt to calm her down.  It didn't work that well.  By the time we arrived at school, she was composed but not warm towards Mommy.  She hardly looked at me when I left her classroom.

When I picked her up from school, she was happy to see me and eagerly went to Gavin's room.  That's where the trouble began: I wouldn't let her eat crayons.  Mean Mommy!  Kailee went from happy-go-lucky to enraged spaghetti-arms-and-legs baby in a matter of seconds.  I carried her out screaming, flailing, bucking her back.... It was not pretty.  This episode ended with me running back into the school to get a spare paci that I did not hesitate to pop in her mouth.  I openly admit that I was weak and gave in!  We didn't even take away her paci all evening.

Even with an all access pass to the paci, by the time Kailee went to bed last night, she had thrown 2 more similar tantrums.  Here is tantrum number 3, recorded in the car on the way home from helping Kalea and Matt move a piece of furniture (Well, Brady helped anyway).

This morning she had another meltdown over the stroller and then again when it was time to leave Gavin's room after school (nope, I did not let her eat the crayons once again).  It doesn't make a parent look great when s/he has to carry out a fit-throwing toddler 2 days in a row.  Thankfully, we avoided any more tantrum fun after getting home though Kailee considered having one over a water hose connector when we were leaving my brothers' house (By the way, it was great to see Lee, Alex, Holly, Joey and Nick)!

I don't know if we are quite ready for another round of the Terrible Twos.  With Gavin it was more like the Terrible Threes so we've only barely had a break.  It seems like he just stopped throwing fits when he didn't get his way.

Speaking of Gavin...  One of his teachers let me know that he had not been listening/following directions very well.  He also had begun head-butting again (an issue we dealt with last year).  We had been struggling with his lack of interest in following directions at home before this, but after diligent effort, things had been improving for us before his teacher notified me.  Gavin is on green most days (they have a traffic light system for behavior) so I assumed all was great at school.  Whenever he was on yellow or red, there usually was an incident.

I felt like our efforts at home were not successfully transferring to school so we sat down with Gavin and really talked about what was going on.  Gavin is a reasonable 4-year-old, but he is 4 and doesn't always think things through.  Whenever he wasn't listening/following directions, I pointed it out to him and reminded him what he needed to do.  He did have to serve some time-out sentences here and there, but he understood our goal and began to try harder.  Everyday this week, when I picked him up, he greeted me with "I didn't head butt today, Mommy!"  and when I asked if he'd listened and followed directions and he said, "Yes!"  Neither teacher disagreed with him so I'm taking it as the truth.  I am VERY proud of my little man.

While he was making efforts to do the right thing, I made efforts to praise him more.  Gavin thrives on praise, something I don't think I'm particularly good at giving.  I have made sure to acknowledge all the good things he's doing, and I can tell it makes him proud of himself.  I feel bad that I haven't been better about pointing out the good things he does.  I notice everything, I just need to make sure he knows I notice.

I am thankful things are improving with Gavin, now if we can just get our sweet Kailee back...