If he's this tired....

WHY WON'T HE SLEEP?!?!?! Maybe I should just start leaving him in his highchair for naps?

a short reprieve

Yesterday Hudson slept in till 7:45 am, then took a one hour and 45 minute nap at noon and then went to bed at 8:15 pm. It was the best day of my life. This morning he woke up at 5 am (as he has been doing the past 2 weeks) and so far, has only taken a 20 minute nap (story of his life). Uggghhhh!

sleepy boy

You would think since he was so tired he went right down for a nap and slept a good couple hours, right? WRONG - this is HUDSON we are talking about. He was asleep as soon as I took him out of the seat but as soon as I put him in his bed and he was up crying. Took me 30 minutes to get him back to sleep - for a 20 minute nap! Is it even worth it?!?!?

TEETH

I am happy to report that Hudson is teething. Happy because I am hoping that is the cause of all of our night time sleep problems. I can hope anyways! Naps have been going really well lately (knock on wood) and nights are getting better because he is starting to sleep for at least a 4-5 hour stretch. But he is still waking up lots either before or after that stretch. Usually before. Two nights ago I put him down at 8:15 and he woke up at 9:30, 11:00 and 11:30. Whew!
But I can now see his lateral incisors coming in and his first molars up top - so he's working hard!

Why is it?

Why is it that on the days I have plans to go somewhere Hudson always takes a good, long nap? Yet on the days where we are just staying home and I'm trying to get work done they only last 30-45 minutes?

My sister and her husband are moving into their new house today so we are heading over there to help unpack once he wakes up from his nap. He's been asleep for one hour and 15 minutes so far! We put him down at 8 at night and never fails he wakes up again at 9:30 every night. But he slept from 10 pm to 4 am last night so that is great progress. Especially considering he was up from 1 am - 5 am the night before. Just up - ready to play, didn't want to sleep. That's the second time this week he has done that and he hasn't done done that since he was a tiny baby! AAAHHH - this child! What can you do?

sleep

So I haven't posted about sleep in a while. Definitely not because it's going good and Hudson is napping 2 times a day and sleeping all night. More like because we are so frustrated with it we don't even want to talk about it. Hudson hasn't slept well since he was 6 weeks old and we keep going back and forth from crying it out to not crying it out to just holding him so he'll sleep to laying down with him and then crawling away once he's asleep and on and on and on. Maybe we haven't stuck with one thing long enough but after several weeks I get to the point I can't take the not sleeping anymore and try something new.

So several weeks ago we gave up on the crying it out method (again!) and decided to try the "no cry". And the first time I put him down that way he actually took a 1 hour nap! That was awesome. However, that night, he was up every 2 hours all night long. And he has continued to do that for the past 2.5 weeks now. He is kind of napping - as in sometimes it lasts 30 minutes, sometimes longer - twice he has actually napped for an hour and a half! - and sometimes it only lasts 5 minutes - but we are sticking with a very strict schedule and routine and I am proud to say that today I feel like it might be working!

This morning when I put him down for his first nap we started out reading books on the floor in his room. I was reading him a book and he actually rubbed his eyes, crawled into my lap and put his head down on my shoulder I then proceeded to wrap his blanket around him, sit down and rock him (which he has never let me do - I always have to stand and walk and bounce) and he fell asleep within 5 minutes. I put him down in his bed and it lasted for 30 minutes. Wish it was longer but he had pooped his diaper and I couldn't sleep with that smell either! :)

This afternoon he did the exact same thing and is still sleeping so far -it's only been 25 minutes so we'll see how long it lasts but MAYBE we are starting to see some progress. Now if we can just get him to go back to sleeping at night like he was before AND napping during the day - life will be WONDERFUL!

putting Hudson to bed

So Jamie was putting Hudson to bed tonight and I was going to get some clinic work done (although I haven't started that, been blogging instead!). I went out to check on them and found them cuddled up on the couch. Guess they wore each other out!

taxes

Well, I don't really have a whole lot to say - except my dad and I are buried in taxes! Yuck!! We are working on them every afternoon (and yes, I just finished working on them now) - well, mostly him cause I am usually entertaining Hudson or putting him down for a nap - but we are making progress. We'll see if we make it without filing an extension!

Hudson is doing good. He has really started cruising around from different objects - like couch to chair to walker, etc. He has also started bending down to pick things up off the floor, which is cute. Today he was trying to reach his socks but he just couldn't quite make it! He is doing better about the "mommy hold me" all the time thing. He will at least play in the same room I am in now instead of me having to hold him - some of the time anyway. He is also doing much better with his sleeping. I think we might actually have the morning nap down but he is still fighting the afternoon one. He sleeps for 2-3 hours most mornings now, but I am still lucky to get 30-45 minutes in the afternoon. But the morning one is soooo long and soooo nice!

He will not eat anything but meat now, it seems like. And of course, sweet potatoes. But I am pretty sure too many sweet potatoes gives him gas, so I am trying to hold back on those. He won't even eat his pancakes anymore!! I made a new patch on Sunday and he took one bite and turned his nose up too them. he has also figured out that he can feed Zeus and Athena and he loves doing that. Today we were having banana bread for a snack and I tried to feed him on the floor in the office while we were working. Having him at the same level as the dogs was a mistake! He would take one bite, then let Zeus lick the next bite out of his hand, then he'd take a bite and back and forth...gross! He probably ate more dog slobber than banana bread!

all the things I got done today

So you might be wondering where we have been lately...Well, in addition to the teething (which seems to be over now) Hudson also entered the "I only want my Mommy to hold me and I want her to hold me ALL the time" stage. It's been exhausting! I hope he outgrows it soon because I can't take much more! He will usually go to my mom as well, and sometimes my sisters, but for the past 2-3 weeks, it's pretty much just been me. He doesn't even want Jamie most of the time. If I am not within 6 inches he starts screaming. The good news is yesterday and today he actually held his arms out to Jamie and went right to him when he got home from work - so maybe it's getting better.

Sleep - do I even dare discuss it again? Nighttime is getting better. He cries for an hour or two and then finally falls asleep. Sometimes he'll sleep all night - sometimes just till 3 or 4. Then he cries till we come get him - we try to wait till 6 - usually by 5 we give up and go get him. This morning he woke up at 3:30 and I let him cry till 6, then made him get up and eat and play for awhile before going back to bed. He was back asleep by 7:30 - but the nice thing about that for me was he slept till 10:30 - so I got lots of stuff done!

I am pretty impressed with everything I have accomplished thus far today - here's my list:
loaded the dishwasher and cleaned the kitchen
got November books done for the clinic
gave Athena a haircut
4 loads of laundry
gave Athena a bath
swept the floors (no small task since I cut Athena's hair inside!)

So here's my goal for the rest of the day: finish December books and clean up my office. This is what it looks like right now: Don't be fooled - this is a very organized mess!

mama

Hudson has started saying "MaMa" all the time now - I love it. He especially likes to say it when he's mad but he does it a lot of other times too. Jamie is working on dada but mostly it's just "mama" or "baba" or screaming.

Hudson slept from 10 pm last night until 6:15 this morning - which is the longest in a loooonnng time - so that was pretty exciting for me. And the best part was when he woke up he didn't wake up crying - I woke up hearing him call for his "mama". How sweet! :)

sleep

Hudson seems to finally be figuring out going to bed - at nighttime anyway. He's been crying for about 30 minutes or so and then falling asleep. (Although I say that and he cried for an hour and a half tonight before he fell asleep.) Our newest problem is now he has started waking up around 4 am and won't go back to sleep even after I nurse him. He's never done that before - he always used to nurse and then go right back to sleep, but no more! We have tried just letting him lay in bed and cry and going in every 20-30 minutes and soothing him - neither has worked so far. So he cries till at least 6:00 am and then one of us will get up with him. Of course then he's ready for a nap by 8 am - but let's not talk about naps - he still doesn't understand what those are!

Maybe I should quit taking pictures of him while he is sleeping - probably waking him up!

But at least he wakes up happy!

maybe a little progress...

So last night I put him down and a minute later he was quiet! But 5 minutes later he was crying. And he went on like that for 30 minutes or so . I think I fell asleep before he did! :) But he eventually fell asleep.

And he slept till 6:30 this morning but then didn't want to go back to sleep like yesterday. I probably should have left him to cry a little longer cause I think he would have fallen back asleep. He was about to fall asleep eating his breakfast so Jamie put him back down a little while ago. But he woke up 5 minutes later....so we're sitting here eating the breakfast pizza I made (It's kind of nice getting up so early and having breakfast with Jamie in the mornings!), watching the snow come down and listening to him cry!

fluke?!?!? or progress?!?!?!

Last night Hudson only cried for 20 minutes before he fell asleep! I was sure something was wrong with him so I snuck in to check on him. Literally snuck in - crawled on my hands and knees over to the crib and peeked up at him. He was sound asleep. But had kicked off all his blankets so I got him covered up again. So it was a good thing I checked on him because it has been COLD here the last few days.

Not only did he fall asleep quickly - he slept till 6:15 this morning. He wouldn't go back to sleep after he woke up and nursed so we had a pretty early morning, but I'll take getting up early over the crying for hours at night! We had breakfast with Jamie this morning, which doesn't happen very often so it was kind of nice. If only it wasn't so cold!!

They are just finishing up bath time so we'll see how it goes tonight!

road trip

We went to Great Bend yesterday for Christin's basketball game. We left at 3:00 so I thought Hudson would fall asleep and maybe take a nap the whole way (it's about a 2 hour drive) or at least most of the way. Didn't happen. He fell asleep before we left town but was awake in 20 minutes. So we stopped in Hutch and I fed/changed him then we got back on the road. And he cried and cried. So we stopped outside of Sterling and I tried to feed him again. This time he was happier when we put him back in his seat and I was singing and talking to him and he was happy and getting sleepy. Then we had to pull over and talk to a not-so-nice policeman who gave us a speeding ticket and that made Hudson very unhappy. He cried the rest of the way to Great Bend. And of course fell asleep as we were pulling into the parking lot of the college for the game!
So the game was really loud and woke him up and he wasn't happy during the game, but wasn't too upset either. He doesn't like the loudness at the games (They had a band and 28 cheerleaders so it was pretty loud in there.). Put him back in his carseat though and the crying began again. He cried the whole way over to Jamie's cousin's house, but again was okay once he got out of his seat! So we hung out there and had dinner and Hudson and his cousin Daniel got to play together. Then he fell asleep pretty quick when I nursed him so we thought let's get on the road so he'll sleep the whole way home. Wishful thinking. He woke up while we were putting him in his carseat and this time cried for 30 more minutes before finally falling asleep and sleeping the rest of the way home!

However we did have a good time at Scott and Amy's home and Hudson and Daniel got to play together. Daniel is crawling everywhere and I think Hudson took some notes.... We set them down on the floor to play together and Amy warned to be careful cause Daniel can be kind of agressive, but it was Hudson who kept reaching over and grabbing Daniel's face and clothes! But they played together really well. We'll see them at Thanksgiving next week so that should be fun to have more time for them to play - plus there will be a few other cousins around too!

naptime

Starting Hudson on cereal has not helped his sleeping patterns at all. He still fights naps all day long, and then wakes up once or twice at night. The night times I can handle - it's the skipping naps that is starting to wear on me. I can spend all afternoon trying to get him down for a nap - and never win!

Yesterday I was over at my parents and let my mom try. She rocked him for 15 minutes and then came upstairs and said "He is stubborn!" And he never took a nap yesterday.

Today I rocked him for 10 minutes like I normally do. And he screamed for 10 minutes like he normally does. So I decided to try the "let him cry it out" approach. It's not working... We started naptime at 3 pm. 10 minutes of rocking and crying. Then we went for 31 minutes of full out screaming and crying in his bed. I went in every 10 minutes or so and wrapped him back up, comforted him a little, then would go back out. Then I thought he was going to go to sleep because he had about 10 minutes of just moaning a little. But as I started this post the screaming began again.
Oh wait - it stopped - nope, there he goes again.

So how long do you let them cry it out? (It's taking longer than 10 minutes Cecil!!) He's gone on for long enough now that it's time for him to eat again....it's an endless cycle!

I don't hear him now - could I have won the battle??? Nope.

Mommy's coming Hudson!!

sleep - who needs it?

Evidently not Hudson. We have been having a rough time with sleeping for the last week and a half. Not taking naps during the day, staying up late, getting up early. It's wearing me out, but Hudson seems to be handling it just fine!

We think he is teething which is what has upset his routine so much. We have days where as soon as I lay him down after rocking him to sleep, he wakes right back up. And we'll do that 3-4 times a day and never take more than a 5 minute nap.

Then there's the nights - exhausting! He had been waking up at 4-5 and eating, then going back to sleep till 7-8. Not anymore. For several nights he has been getting up at 1:00, then again at 3:00, then again at 5:00 - you get the picture. Some of that I think I will attribute to a growth spurt, cause there were 2 of those nights that he ate and ate when he woke up. But normally he isn't too hungry and goes back to sleep after a few minutes.

So yesterday he never took a nap at all. So I figured he would go to bed early (His normal bedtime is between 9 and 10.) So by 7:30 I had him in his pajamas, fed him (he fell asleep) and I put him to bed. He was awake before I could lay him down and wanted none of that. Let him cry it out for awhile, then Jamie rocked him back to sleep. Laid him down, woke right back up. By nine I decided to nurse him again - and we started the whole thing over. Jamie ended up rocking him till around 11 and when he was finally really, really out of it, was able to put him in bed and he stayed asleep. Then he slept till 4 and was up again at 5:30. But this time he slept till 8 so that was nice!

I think he is taking after his father in the sleep department - doesn't need much of it. Jamie can go to bed at 1 or 2 in the morning and be up at 7 and be just fine. Not me! I need my sleep!

all-nighter

Hudson pulled an all-nighter last night, only this is the good kind - he slept till 7 am!!! Yeah!! He woke up at 4 and Jamie was able to just put him back to sleep so I didn't have to get up to feed him and then he didn't wake up again till 7. Then I fed him and he went back to sleep till 8:30. That's the most sleep I've gotten in exactly 4 months and 7 days. It was great!

naptime

How do you make something so cute take a nap!?!?!?

I know it's dark (it was naptime after all) - but you can kind of see and hear him smiling and laughing at me while I am trying to get him to go to sleep. This was about 20 minutes ago, and he's not sleeping yet!