Olivia and I spent a week in LA and then Greg came down for Easter weekend to spend with us and my family. It was a great trip and Olivia had quite the LA welcome. One test complete: Miss O makes a good road warrior! She slept 90% of the drive and ate the other 10%. No fuss, no muss...thank goodness. She saw LA, the OC and San Diego too--hindsight I was probably pushing it, but thank goodness the little lady appears to have the travel bug gene. The only downside is a 5-6 hour drive to LA from SF turns into an 8-9 hour drive with stops, stretches and feeding breaks.
Our other big approach is developing a bedtime and nap time routine. We started with naps and are in day 4 of bedtime routine. I don't want to jinx anything but so far so good. We started with putting her down for naps in her cradle (where she currently sleeps at night) for her naps. Then moved to developing a bedtime "routine" which consists of feeding, bath (every 2-3 days, don't think every night is warranted right now, do you?), books, small talk or song, swaddle, giraffe sound machine(by Cloud B--see photo--a Godsend) and in 15 or so minutes she is out! Whoo hoo!!!!
I'm a little torn though I will admit. I was an anti-pacifier pre-child person and will admit bedtime also includes a paci/binkie. My aversion to the pacifier was developing a dependency to it; you know the speaking toddler roaming about with one in mouth while trying to talk. So I fear while she is going down for bedtime like a champ, am I creating a dependency on not only the pacifier but the giraffe?!!?
My fears were slightly calmed when I read "The Happiest Baby on the Block" by Dr. Karp. Although Olivia is/has never been (knock on wood) a colicky baby (which Dr. Karp focuses much of his approach toward), developing good sleep habits and ability to sooth a fussy baby has been on the top of my list. So to see that I was hitting 3 of his 5 "s" was a relief. But then again as any baby book has there are always another viewpoints and opinions. The good thing is Olivia doesn't seem to be a fan of the pacifier anytime except for bedtime. She has recently become a bigger fan of her fist--I was a thumb sucker and that is my other fear seeing how much that cost my parents in ortho! But the other night Olivia slept 7 hours and last night it was 6so I'm selfishly loving the sleep I am getting as well :)
So what worked/works for you? What's your bedtime routine? And go ahead give me your opinion on my dependency theory...goodnight (hopefully another long peaceful night)
Okay, so Jane loved the pacifier, we quit it a bit late, around two years. But even that was doable. She only ever used it for naps and bedtime. I, like you, was worried about getting adicted to the pacie, but after three days it was gone, no problem.
ReplyDeleteCheck out our blog from September
http://brownsenbeach.blogspot.com/2009_09_01_archive.html
Our routine with Macy is easy. Dinner, bath, pajamas, book, milk, teeth brushing, snuggles and kisses. Down for bed. It works perfectly 90% of the time. The other 10%... hell if I know.
LOL! Thanks Lizzy, I love it and appreciate your support which continues to calm my fears :)
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