cuteness!

Trendy baby alert! :-) She's got the Robeez, the babylegs, and the "head garter", aka baby headband. And it's all matchy-matchy with her pink diaper! :) But, she's just so cute! It's hard to resist all these cutesy baby things!

starting the love of Friends at an early age! :)

Alhough she isn't crawling yet, Zoey is rolling like a champ and has figured out how to roll across the whole room in order to get what she wants. Gone are the days of just putting her on the playmat and leaving her there! We have even moved the coffee table out of the living room so that she has more room to roll around. And every time, she goes straight for the entertainment center and pulls out the Friends DVDs! It's so funny! She is gonna be a Friends lover just like her mommy! :)

sitting up

Well, Zoey has somewhat mastered the art of sitting up. She will do it, and is definitely able to balance herself but as soon as she gets distracted by something, she will start to lean and then topple over. She's better at the "tripod" right now where she will kind of lean forward on her hands. So, I wouldn't say she has it quite down yet, but we're getting there!

A great idea for bathtime

I got this idea from my friend Sara and it worked out so great that I had to share! She told me that when Zoey gets too big for the infant tub, to put a laundry basket it in the tub and fill that with water. That way, she will be able to sit in a little bit of water and play with her toys and they won't all float away so that she can't reach them. Also, then I wouldn't have to worry about her bumping her head on the hard tub if she slips (she's still a little unsteady when sitting). Well, I was a little skeptical of this idea at first because I wasn't sure that I would be able to get enough water in the laundry basket. But, I was pleasantly surprised and it worked great last night.


See how much fun Zoey had? :) She loves bathtime!

Look how she's changed!

six months old!

Where did the time go? I can hardly believe that Zoey is 6 months old today! We had a hectic day today so we almost forgot to take her picture, but remembered to do it just before bedtime. There's not too much to report for six months that I haven't already posted about. Sleeping continues to go really well (knock on wood!). She even took a nap at my mom's house today with no problem and less than 5 minutes of crying. I was worried that since she was "out of her element", and not in her own crib, that she might not go down without a fight, but there was no problem. And no tears at all at bedtime again tonight! It's such a great feeling. :) So other than that, there is nothing major to report. She's trying really hard to crawl, but doesn't quite have it yet. Every time that she tries pushing off with one of her feet, she ends ups rolling over instead of crawling. But I have a feeling that she will have it pretty soon. Yikes - guess we should start baby proofing the house!

Absolutely NO crying at bedtime!

I'm almost scared to post it because I don't want to jinx myself. But...for the past two nights, Zoey has gone to sleep with no crying!! :) When I put her in the crib, she would give a little bit of protest, but it was more of a "fake cry" and never escalated. Both nights she had quieted down before I even left the room. Hallelujah - she has learned to go to sleep on her own! I am now a believer in Ferber. I never would have thought that I would be saying that, but here I am. Like I said before - never say never! I'm sure that there will be many more times in this journey of motherhood when I will find myself doing something that I swore I would never do. Oh well....you live, you learn, right?

Sleep training was SO hard, but it's working... (super long post)

If you aren't interested in sleep or sleep training, don't bother reading this post - there won't be any fun pictures! :)

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Well, I broke down and did something that I thought I would never do - I "Ferberized". If you aren't someone who spends time on the Nest baby boards, you might not know about all the controversy about Richard Ferber and his sleep training method. The basic idea is that you have to teach babies to fall asleep on thier own without being rocked, nursed, etc and that in order for them to learn, you have to put them to bed awake, and will probably have to let them cry. I really never thought that I would let Zoey "cry it out" because I thought it was just awful, cruel, mean, etc. But one thing about motherhood that I have learned - never say never. Although Zoey has basically slept through the night since she was about 2 months old, it has sometimes been a struggle to actually get her to sleep. The basic routine would be - bath or massage, jammies, swaddle, nurse her until she was asleep, then bed. Well, this was working out great for the most part, but recently it was getting harder and harder to get her to fall asleep and then once she finally was asleep and in the crib, she would wake up within 45 minutes and then we would start the whole process all over again. Some nights it was taking 2 or 3 attempts at putting her to bed until she was finally really in bed for the night.


So....even though I had always said that I was so against letting her cry, I decided that I would at least read Ferber's book to see what his method was all about. And once I read it, I decided that I actually thought his theories and ideas made a lot of sense, and I would give the "progressive waiting" a try. So the idea was to put Zoey down awake, and then when she starts crying, you go into her room at determined intervals - 5 minutes, then 10, then 15, and then keep going in every 15 minutes until she falls asleep. The next night (or naptime) you start at 10, then 15, then 20....etc. But when you go into the room, you can't pick her up or rock her, feed her etc. It's just so that you can see that she is okay, and you can talk to her and try to reassure her that she's okay, you're just in the next room, etc and haven't just abandoned her to cry alone in a dark room. Well, it sounds really great in theory, but let me tell you it SUCKED. The first night, she started screaming the second I walked away from the crib and cried hard for over an hour. I thought my heart would break and felt like the worst mother ever. And every time that I went into her room to try to soothe/reassure her, she would just cry even harder. It was SO hard not to pick her up and listen to her cry, but somehow I did it and she fell asleep after about an hour and 20 minutes. The second day she did a little better with her naps, so I thought bedtime would be better too, but no such luck - she cried for more than an hour again. Day 3 was pretty much the same - naps were not so bad, but at bedtime she cried for about an hour. I was getting really frustrated and ready to just forget it. I was not okay with my baby having to cry for an hour every night at bedtime - it was just too heartbreaking. But I told myslef that I would try it for at least a week. Day 4 was the day that we had a breakthrough. She only cried for 3 minutes for her morning nap, so that was very encouraging. At bedtime, she only cried for about 10 minutes, and she didn't even really cry that hard. She was asleep within a half hour of me putting her in her crib - it was wonderful. That fourth day was definitely the turning point - after that, things have continued to go well with an average of about 10 minutes of light crying/whining before she goes to sleep.

So, all in all I consider the sleep training a success. We had 3 really tough nights, but it's a small price to pay if it means that she will go to bed easily and we are all sleeping well. And although there are some people out there that are dead set against "cry it out" and think that it's too harsh and you are just teaching your baby that they can't depend on you (I was one of them!), I really believe that a few days of crying is not anything to worry too much about.


Below are the specific details of the past 7 days - not to bore anyone with all the specific details, but more just so that I will have it documented somewhere for myself

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Day 1 - Friday

Bedtime - checked in at intervals of 5, 10, 15 minutes. Crying started to slow down at 50 minutes, but then started back up again. Asleep for good at 1 hour 20 minutes and STTN


Day 2 - Saturday
AM nap - checked in at 10 minutes. Crying started stopping at bout 15 minutes. Seemed asleep at 20 minutes, but then a few more stray noises and cries. Asleep at 41 minutes - slept I hour 10 minutes

PM nap - cried consistanly for 7 minutes. Never checked in. On and off crying for about 25 minutes total. Slept 1 hr 15 minutes

Bedtime - cried 1 hour 25 minutes :( checked in at intervals of 20-25 minutes. STTN


Day 3 - Sunday

AM nap - fell asleep in car, so she kept sleeping in the carseat

PM nap - checked in at 15 minutes, crying slowed down and stopped at 35 minutes. Only slept 20 minutes


Bedtime - checked in at 20 minutes, stopped crying at around 45 minutes, but started back up again. Asleep at a little over 1 hour

Day 4 - Monday

AM nap - cried hard for only 3 minutes! asleep within 15, but only slept 35 minutes.

PM nap - fell asleep in car, slept in carseat 3 hours

Bedtime - looked at aquarium for 15 minutes without crying Cried for 10 minutes, then stopped. Started back up again, but only a few stray cries - never escalated. Asleep within another 10 minutes. Woke up after 2 1/2 hours (10:30 pm), nursed, then went back to sleep without crying. Woke up around 4ish crying, never escalated, didn't check in, she went back to sleep on her own.

Day 5 - Tuesday

AM nap -- NO crying at all!!! :) asleep withing 20 minutes

PM nap @ 1:30 - cried for only 7 mins

bedtime - cried less than 10 mins. woke up @ 2:30 to eat (after 8 hrs) cried 10 minutes before back to sleep. woke up again 2 hours later - nursed, then right back to sleep without crying

Day 6 - Wednesday

Went down for naps with very little crying (more like light fussing/whining)

bedtime - cried 25 minutes (It was longer than the two previous nights but the neighbors were making a lot of noise scraping ice off of their cars and their driveway is right outside her window. Once they were done, she stopped crying within 5 minutes). woke up at 12:45 to eat (after 4hrs 45min), nursed then back to sleep with just a little whining.

Day 7 - Thursday

AM nap - cried for about 15 minutes

PM nap - cried for about 15 minutes

bedtime - cried for 8 minutes

Loving the solid foods

Nope, we haven't dropped off the face of the earth in case anyone was wondering! :) We've had a busy few weeks and I haven't been on the computer all that much. So one major thing to report is that Zoey has started solid food and she is loving it! We started with some avocado on Christmas, and then moved on to sweet potatoes, green beans, oatmeal, and bananas. She wasn't too sure about the whole thing at first and would make a face whenever I put anything in her mouth. But she has quickly gotten used to it, and now she really seems to be enjoying it. She gets all excited when I put her in the high chair, and then when she sees me with a spoonfull of food, she grabs my hand and pushes it to her mouth - she wants to do it herself! It's really cute, but the process definitely gets very messy. Sometimes she will just let me feed her, but more often than not she wants to be involved in the whole process and tries to grab the spoon, bowl, etc. She definitely is very interested in feeding herself, so I also have tried using a mesh feeder and she has finally gotten the hang of it. It's great - I just put a frozen cube of babyfood or breastmilk in there and she can chew on it and it keeps her occupied for a while.

Here are a few pics of her food exploration so far:

Here she is in anticipation of her first meal...

It was avocado - she wasn't all that thrilled with it, but still managed to eat some

After another try with avocado and a few with sweet potatoes she really got excited about the whole eating thing. By the time we tried green beans, she was trying to take the spoon away from me and feed herself - trying to be little Miss Independent already! :)

Since she likes trying to feed herself so much, the mesh feeder is perfect. She didn't understand it the first few times, but has finally gotten the hang of it. Here she is eating some sweeet potatoes

First Christmas was very eventful!

Well, we had a wonderful first Christmas with Zoey. The past few days were really busy and passed by in a blur, but here were some of the highlights (with lots of pictures, of course!)
*Everyone loved the Christmas pics that we gave them, and almost everyone asked where I had them done and thought that they were professional pictures. So, I guess my sister and I did a good job taking them :) (Thanks Shan!)

These are the two that I framed for the gifts:

And then a few more favorites from our "photo shoot":
*We hosted Christmas brunch at our house again this year and had a really great afternoon. Zoey got a ton of presents, and actually seemed pretty interested in the whole process of opening them.

Hanging out with cousins Madalynn and Cole Opening the "build a bear" that Uncle Scott and Aunt Charnell sent She got lots of books and especially loved the one with the mirror Opening the present from Mommy and Daddy It's an Exersaucer and she LOVES it!
*We decided that it's about time to start solid food, so Zoey had a tasty Christmas dinner of avocado! She didn't seem all that excited about it, but definitely was able to get the hang of eating off of a spoon. Joe bought me two baby food cookbooks, so I am really excited about trying new recipes and foods for her.

Christmas evening we went to Great Grandma and Grandpa's house, and Zoey met Santa Clause. (Shhhh...don't tell her it's really Grandpa Bruce!)

with Great Grandma
sitting on Santa's lap - she wasn't too sure about the whole thing, but she didn't cry Snuggling with Daddy in her Christmas jammies after a very busy day

After lots of holiday fun, she was so exhausted that she passed out in the carseat before we even got her into the car
So, all in all it was a wonderful Christmas. I'm already thinking about how different next year will be. It's hard to imagine Zoey so much bigger and running around the house and playing with toys. I can't wait!