Sleep and feeding pattens from birth to two months

At the hospital they give you a piece of paper where you track feedings and diapers. When when got to the end of the paper, we decided to make the move over to Trixie Tracker.

We had used the online tracking for Logan starting around one month to six months. We found that experience interesting and we were interested in doing some comparisons.

Birth to 1 Month old

We only have data on this for Kalia. Her sleep patterns were actually really good for a newborn --I truly believe this is from following the Baby Whisper advice early.

In addition to putting her down when she is "sleepy but awake" and using a noise machine in her room, I really feel that the day time feeding is key to starting them sleeping better. I started feeding Kalia as much as she wanted to eat at regular times during the day: 7:30am, 11:30am, 3:30am and 7:30am. Given she is a new born I would give her extra feedings if she needed it and was flexible with these times by an hour either way. The first two weeks I was also breast feeding, which is not shown on these charts.

I'll use red to highlight the scheduled feedings. Once her day time feeding gets predictable and you get into a routine, the night time sleep/feedings start to fall into place too.

1 month to 2 months old

Here is where we can compare things between Logan and Kalia. Both are getting pretty much the same amount of sleep but the structure of that sleep is very different! Here is Logan's sleep chart at one month:

And here is Kalia's:
Clearly a huge difference! And if you look at their feeding charts you can see why.

I didn't put Logan on a feeding schedule until he was almost two months old:

And here is Kalia's at one month. At this point I could be pretty sure that I would have from 8pm to midnight free to "me time" and sleep! She would also likely wake up twice to feed after midnight. If I see that she is finishing her bottle each time, then I increase the amount I make future bottles. She can eat as much as she wants and I let her tell me when she has had enough. This routine is great for sleep and for planning our day --I know pretty accurately when she is going to start getting hungry and I can plan outings and packing of bags around this. I believe it's also the reason why she cries less; I know if she's fussing that I can rule out being hungry based on the time and attend to her other needs better.

Kalia is now into her second month and only waking up once a night for bottle. I'm also laying the work to correct an issue we had with Logan --no soother at night so I don't have to keep popping it back into his mouth all night.

What do toddlers dream about?

Since High School I've had a lot fun lucid dreams and when ever I kept a dream journal, that would increase their frequency. While I haven't really gone into the analysis of dreams, I do think they are really telling. So when Logan wakes up in the morning,I've been asking him what he has dreamt about and we've been writing some of them down....Here are a few:

M: what did you dream about last night?
L: Micheal Jackson store. We sent to Micheal Jackson store together. Barkey (his dog he sleeps with) picked out Micheal Jackson song.
M: What song did he pick?
L: (Logan sings Thriller)
M: What else happened?
L:Barkey picked out Billy Jean one.

M:What did you dream about last night?
L: A doggie
M:What did the doggie do?
L: The doggie's name is Barkey. And Shoes (the dog at daycare) come with me. And Qunicy and Lilly (the cats at daycare)
M: And what did you do?
L: Barkey found a treasure. And a blue treasure and a green treasure and a blue blanket treasure too.
M: What was the treasure?
L: He opened the treasure box. He saw an animal store and a long snake. He said, "Wow, cool". Justin Bieber was there.
M: Okay, I'll write this down...(read it back to him) Did I get everything from your dream?
L: There were more animals. An iguana, a peacock and a fish
M: What did you dream about last night?
L: A big red duck
M: What happened?
L: He float away...down the drain
M: Down the drain? Oh no!
L: He said "Help me! Logan! Logan!" I said, "There a ducky down the drain. I gotta go get him"
M: Did you get him out?
L: Yes, I get him out
M: Was the duck okay?
L: He hurt himself and I kiss the ouchie

Big Boy Bed

Logan is two years and almost five months. He's been ready to move to a big boy bed for a while now even through he's only climbed out about three times. We wanted to wait to after we went on our camping vacation as we would be leaving Logan with Grandma and Grandpa for the weekend alone and didn't want to add any trouble for them if the transition wasn't going well.

We took off one of the sides and then added a small side rail from the cousins. Besides reading a book about Elmo sleeping in a big big for a few days we didn't change any thing else.
Night-night!
It went really well. The first night he woke up twice and came out of his bed kind of confused about the possibilities of what could happen next --"I go down stairs?" But we just lead him back, reassured him it was night-night and tucked him in. It's been about four nights now and we haven't had any other wake ups or problems. Plus it hasn't seemed to cause any difference with naps. Phew!

Garden gnomes and night time bottles

Loggie is friends with our garden gnome...

Logan at 18 months has been surprising us with his independence. On the weekend he ate an ice cream cone by himself very neatly and this afternoon he ate a whole apple by himself that Lolo gave him.

Normally to go to bed we sit in the chair with his blanket and he holds his bottle, then when he gets too sleepy we hold the bottle for him and then put him in his crib when he's almost asleep without a soother. The last few nights he's been standing on his chair, grabbing his bottle and then sitting on the chair by himself until we put him on our lap moments later. Tonight after he did this we thought "Hmmm, maybe he doesn't need us at night anymore. Maybe can do it himself?" So we said our night-nights, gave him a kiss and put him in his crib with his bottle, dimmed the lights and walked out. Didn't hear a peep from him. Fifteen minutes later we went in and removed his bottle which he had removed from his mouth already and turned off the lights.

I think going forward we're going to slowly get rid of this last night time bottle. Yes, I've decided that by October 1st it will be gone! I got rid of Logan's night time feeding by reducing the volume of milk and watering them down. Logan was off night feeds by late April/ early May, so before he was three months. I'm worried about tooth decay so we'll make this happen. Next adventure will be getting him started on potty training....

Good Morning to You!

The last few days I've had to wake Logan up in the morning. He has a cold so I think that's why he's been needing the extra sleep. I never know what position I will find him in when I turn on the lights...
When he wakes up he always crawls over to you and stands up for his hug -no matter how sleepy he still is.

We've lowered the crib to the lowest level so our little guy can't escape!

The End of Tracking for Logan

Both Allan and I have been big fans of the online Trixie Tracker. We started tracking pumping, feedings, diapers and sleeps when Logan was just over one month old until he was 7 months. Allan and I have decided to stop tracking but it's helped us in so many ways -so here's a post dedicated to our tracker and six months of data collection.

Reason's why we loved our tracker

-Allan could check from work how our day was going

-I could see that the hard work put into sleep training was paying off; I needed all the motivation I could get!

-Even though it only took a few minutes a day people thought I was a supermom when they saw our site ;)

-When Grandma and Grandpa babysat I could look at the last few days of data and say with great accuracy what to expect from sleep, feeding and diapers ('He had a good nap this morning so he'll likely take about an hour and a half nap around two, around 6:30 he'll want to cuddle and might sleep for thirty minutes...') Truly data driven parenting.

-The first three months are fuzzy in my mind. It's nice to look back and see that we got through it!

-We've passed on the site info to friends who have new babies so they can see what the patterns look like and what to expect

-I love analyzing data and this gave me a little project :)

Sleep!

One of the reasons why we are stopping our tracking is that Logan now consistently sleeps through the night. He now doesn't even wake up at night for soother. The best thing that we did was switch to feeding Logan large volumes of milk four times a day (8am, 12pm, 4pm, 8pm) and then decreasing his night feedings. This had a immediate effect on his sleeping pattens and made going out on outings more predictable.

Month 1

Month 6

Pumping
Okay, all male relative have permission to skip this section.
Giving Logan breast milk was very important to me for many of reasons. Before having Logan I thought I could breastfeed if I just stuck with and got help from my doula. I went to the breastfeeding classes at the hospital and read up on it and thought I could do it no problem. But I found it awkward, painful and stressful. I could do it with Allan's help but I was afraid of being at home with a hungry baby and not being able to get him to latch by myself. We had a chat with our doctor who basically said 'having a baby is stressful enough. Any breast milk you can give your baby is a special gift -it doesn't matter how he gets it.' And so I pumped for four months and Logan did not have any formula until he was three months.

Anyone who has pumped breast milk knows it's time consuming -the whole process and sterilizing afterwards...maybe twenty minutes or so, compared to one minute to make a formula bottle. The first month I was pumping five times a day, often when Logan slept. If you look above at Logan's sleep pattens this didn't leave a lot of time for me to sleep. I think this whole thing shows how determined I was and it's something that I'm happy I could give Logan. Would I do it again if I have another baby? Probably not. LOL

Solids

According to our tracker Logan has tried over forty different foods so far!

Diapers
Did we ever change a lot of dirty diapers at the very beginning! Since the start of tracking we have recorded 832 diaper changes. Only maybe fifty were cloth diapers but I am happy to say that amazingly Markham composts their diapers.

Good bye, Trixie Tracker!

We love you!

Loggie Goes Downtown

First, let me just brag about Logan's sleep habits....last night he slept 11 hours and 34 minutes straight through! Here is his chart from our Trixie Tracker report...blue is sleep, yellow is awake and the time line is at the top. Just for fun, take a look at what Logan's sleeping habits were like at one month old. Big difference. Eight hours of sleep and free time at night is sooo nice. It was worth all the work and reading that went into the 'sleep training'.
Anyway, I made cupcakes again!

Logan and I took the subway downtown to drop them off to my colleagues at CCO and to take Sarah A out for a birthday celebration lunch. Logan had just woken up and was starting to get hungry when we got there so he was very cuddly and drooled on everyone.
((HUGS)) Miss you all!

Adventures in Logan Land

Logan and I had a busy week....Baby Goose at the Library on Monday, Babes in Playland session at the Early Years Center on Tuesday, a trip to the mall on Wednesday, visited Tita Julie and Baby Maya in Pickering on Thursday and a visit from cousins today.

After talking to a bunch of new moms this week I've really come to appreciate just how good I've got it. There is a list of complaints that I've heard moms rhyme off that don't apply to me anymore. I talk full showers. I blow dry my hair almost every morning. I've read many 'child care/ baby sleep' books and even a few Chick Lit ones since Logan was born. I take at least one bubble bath a week. I bake cupcakes. I'm well rested. I have energy to go for a walk every day. Every evening my hubby and I have some time alone together. I'm well rested. I have time to eat three meals a day. LOL These things might seem sooo small but it's amazing that once you have a baby these things are no longer taken for granted. There were days when Allan came home from work and I was still in my PJs. And just over a month ago I was so sleepy I walked into a wall. The first two months were a real challenge and adjustment. But the work Logan and I put into establishing a routine is totally paying off now. Logan has been the youngest baby that we've met at the playgroups; most babies there are over 7 months old. I guess it's pretty impressive for us to both show up feed, clean and dressed for a 9:45am session. I'm quite proud of us, especially since I didn't think we'd be doing this well until about 5 months. I guess Logie is just advanced for his age. :) LOL

Well rested!

I haven't posted anything in awhile -sorry Zia Sarah and Auntie V! However the good news is that I can't use lack of sleep as an excuse. Logan is sleeping really well now and is actually sleeping through the night: 8 hours plus. Last night he had a stretch of 9 hours and 41 minutes!

Here is the last 8 days of Logan's sleep tracking from the Trixie Tracker, with the blue being sleep time. Compare this to just over a month ago when I started the 'sleep training' and the results are crazy!!! I'm really proud of the both of us.

Two steps forward...

Yesterday morning Logan and I went for a nice walk. While it was abit cool (hats and mitts for Logan), summer must almost be here as there is a lot of dandelions now!

When we got home Logan surprised me with a 'new face'...

And in sleep news, Logan had a less than stellar night but still made progress. He needs his soother to fall asleep by himself. This is not a good thing when I have to put it back in his mouth all night....although there are nights that I don't. Last night I did though. Repeatedly. However last night was also the first night that he went without a nighttime feeding. When he woke after 4am, I changed his diaper and held him for a bit but he was falling back asleep before I gave him his bottle so back in his bed he went. He didn't seem bothered by missing his nighttime snack or overly hungry this morning so hopefully this is a step towards sleeping through the night...

Well rested and blessed!

Ahhhhh...it's amazing how much more enjoyable mommyhood is when you are well rested! Logan's overnight sleeping patterns are pretty good now -to bed around 8pm, up for a snack at 4am and then morning routine around 7:30.

The soother issue is getting better. Logan is in 'soothie rehab' to help him with his addiction. Instead of taking it away I'm just limiting it's use -putting him to bed without one when possible, not giving it to him in the car or stroller...basically helping him see he can self-sooth without it. From what I've read there is a real need in babies to suck before 6 months -it makes sense evolutionary as it wasn't long ago that we didn't have bottles and formula and survival-of-the-fittest depended on this sucking reflex to get enough nourishment.

Okay, some book reviews....

The Sleep Solution is a good starter book as it reviews pretty much all the 'schools of thought' on how to teach your baby to sleep. However at this stage I didn't really find anything new but it is a good overview. On the loosing the pacifier in the night issue, the author just says if the baby is old enough put a bunch in the crib so they can put it back in their mouth...but nothing about what to do if your baby isn't old enough!

I found the Secret of Problem-Free Nights to be a nice fast read and helpful. The author talks about your baby's Core Night -the block of time your baby sleeps through each night. For Logan it use to be between 8 pm to 1 am, it's now stretched out to around 8pm to 4am. One piece of advice is not to feed your baby during this time as the baby has shown he can mange for these hours without food; if he wakes up just settle him back to sleep while keeping him in his crib. This works for us but I can image it's easier said than done for other babies. Anyways, there are tons of tips and a lot of information is given in quick bullet form - worth the read.

In Search of Sleep wasn't too helpful at all for me. Written by the editor of Today's Parent, it's a good read if you're feeling bad that your baby isn't sleeping through the night -she stressed that you are not alone, you're not a bad parent, etc. etc. but her 'grab-bag of tips and tricks' aren't really anything special and is repetitive of every other baby sleep book without any of the detail. Anyways, I'd advice a new parent to skip this one and take a nap instead.

The Quest for Sleep

Apparently Logan has slept through the night. According to the Baby Guru, Dr. Sears, sleeping through the night is a five-hour stretch. Unfortunately I continue to a have more extensive definition. I think most people do.

Here is a quick look at Logan's sleep pattens from our Trixie Tracking.

What a difference a month can make! He's gone from sleeping in three to four stretches and now has one long stretch of sleep and then tries to make it to 7:30am. Three things have contributed to this:

1. Eating more volume in the day every four hours (8,12,4,8) with some flexibility if needed

2. Bedtime is after his 8pm bottle: draw blinds, turn on white noise, bottle, pjs, 'Good Night Moon', cuddle, into bed sleepy but awake

3. Morning routine does not start until around 7:30, crib music can be turned on after 7 if needed but no more starting the day at 5am!

Here is how his bottles are working out...

You can see how when the feeding were sporadic in the day so were the feedings at night. After getting him use to the 'every four hours' thing, I slowly lowered the volume and frequency of the night feedings. He now has one small 'snack' around 3am which is being reduced so soon that will be out too.

However more tweaking is needed! Logan is put to bed when sleepy and knows how to fall asleep on his own. This is an amazing skill we have taught Logan as I have read of people having to drive their baby around in the car, having to rock them to sleep for an hour or babies who only want to sleep in their bouncy chair or swing. However he really relies on his soother to help him do this -especially now that he isn't being feed as much at night. The problem is now he needs us to pop his pacifier into his mouth when ever he wakes up and finds it is not there. He makes a fussy noise and if you pop it in he goes off to sleep in an instant; like he never really fully woke up. However if you let him be and hope he'll drift back to sleep the fussing escalates to a full cry and he's wide awake. Replacing the pacifier takes twenty seconds and the light doesn't even need to be turned on -however when it happens six or seven times every twenty to forty minutes I really don't get any sleep. Even if he falls asleep at his bedtime without a pacifier he'll wake up later and want it.

Hence this is the real problem -Logan is sleeping very well for a two month old but his mommy is not. I'm no fun when I'm tired -I'm grumpy and sometimes I take it out on my hubby. I'd rather take a nap then take us out to a playgroup. I'd rather drink coffee and watch daytime tv then go out for a walk. So I think the next struggle will be to phase out the pacifier. How do I do this? I have no idea. Dr. Sears says "If you have a baby who really needs a pacifier, then use it, don't abuse it, and quickly try to loose it' but don't go further on the loosing it. I'm not a fan of 'crying it out' so I don't think we'll do 'cold turkey'. I dunno. I could use some advice....

It's all good, baby, baby!

Today I actually feel awake! I think it's the first morning in two months were I felt that I didn't need a nap as soon as I woke up. Ahhh! It feels amazing!

I picked up The Lull-a-bye Sleep Plan from the library yesterday and put it work right away last night. Even though the author calls out the No Cry Sleep Plan and The Baby Sleep Solution books, I'm going to use a combo approach. I was not looking forward to 'sleep training' since even the 'no cry sleep plan' actually has a bit of crying. I just don't feel comfortable with that. However the Lull-a-bye plan has no crying and it actually seems to work for Logan.

So this is the plan going forward: Before giving a bottle to Logan at night when he wakes up, I offer a pacifier first and talk softly to him AKA the lulling to sleep -without taking him out of his crib (unless he's going ballistic and then only until he calms down). Basically I go from head to toe and say good night to him softly ("good night Logan's eyes, good night Logan's cheeks, good night Logan's ears..") with the occasional coaching ("Mommy is here, it's bedtime, it's time to learn to go to sleep.."). The idea is that they are soothed by your voice and learn how to relax and fall back asleep...soon without your help.

In addition to this we're moving on a modified Step 2 of the The Sleep Solution, which is slowly decreasing the volume amount of the second feeding and increasing the volume of daytime feedings which are every four hours.

I never really thought you had to teach a baby how to fall asleep. I guess I though they just gradually did it themselves; slowly sleeping longer each day. I never really thought about the need of teaching good sleep habits.

Logan taking a proper afternoon nap in his portable crib after I 'lulled him to sleep' -he's been asleep over an hour so far! A load of laundry is in washer, bottles are cleaned, I've eaten and now might even get a cat nap in myself!

Na'eema

Logan and his friend Na'eema

So I'm trying to do the Baby Sleep Solution with Logan. Step one is having him eat every four hours in the day, be most awake between 4 and 8pm and put him down to bed after his 8pm feeding. so far it's gone okay. It's nice that I know now when he is going to eat in the day(8,12,4,8) as I know what to pack when we go out. For example, when we went to the baby show I knew at 11:45 we should start to look for a calm place to sit because it was almost time to eat. Better than having him freak out at random times because he's hungry. However it's not the most flexible. Logan met Na'eema last night but it resulted in his 8pm bottle in the car and a little bit later bedtime. This disruption in our routine may have had a role in last nights drama.

I went to bed around 10pm last night and maybe got 4 or 5 hours of sleep. After I finished washing and getting the next bottle ready at 4am this morning I actually walked into a wall on my way to bed. Today I'm just going to follow what my brother-in-law does and do a 'Jedi mind trick' on myself and just pretend I got eight relaxing hours of sleep. Anyways, this Friday it's time to work on Step 2 and I'm afraid because I know it isn't going to be easy...

Baby Sleep Solution

Katya, my co-worker at CCO is doing a massive bike ride to raise money for cancer research -over 200 kilometers in two days! I'm totally amazed and proud of her for doing this challenge. Pretty much everyone has a friend or family member who has been touched by cancer. Five dollars is not a sacrifice but little donations add up. The research it supports could help saved a loved ones life or maybe even your own. I challenge everyone reading this to go here to donate five bucks -just skip your Starbucks Latte and get a karma boost instead.

Thank you Tito Simon and Tita Fan for my play mat!

Today is day one of trying out the Baby Sleep Solution. I read this book last night and it's a bit of the 'BW', 'Happiest Baby on the Block' and the 'No Cry Sleep Solution' -except this lady says start at eight weeks and by 12 weeks your baby will sleep through the night -not just six or seven hours of sleep but up to twelve and take two regular naps in the day. Um, yeah, I'm totally all over this one! The 'No Cry' book basically says you're out of luck until month four.


So this is day one of following the first of four steps. The first step is getting your baby to eat every four hours in the day (8am, 12am, 4pm and 8pm) and try to get him to be the wake the most between the last two daytime feedings (4-8pm). This needs to be established first before working on the night feedings. Anyways, you can track our progress on our Trixie Tracker page.

Here's one of the charts from our tracker showing the propability of Logan being awake or sleep. Hopefully in four weeks the 8am until 8am will be become solid black.

Mom's New Project

From the start Allan and I have been tracking Logan's diapers and feedings. This is especially important when breastfeeding because you measure if they are taking in enough food by their diapers. And now that we're giving breast milk in a bottle, I'm now also tracking pumping.

I've tried to take things up a notch in the last few days and try and track his sleep too. I thought there might be a pattern developing and wanted to track improvements in overnight sleeps. I started creating the world's most complicated excel spreadsheet, until thanks to the lovely ladies over at Rookie Mom I came across the Trixie Tracker.

Now I'm sure this tracker is not for everyone as it's a bit obsessive maybe. However those that know me well will likely roll their eyes because it's 'sooo me'. I'm in love with it. It even can calculate the probability of Logan being asleep at any hour. Brilliant! Now I will be able to better guess if it's a good idea to take that long uninterrupted shower or bath I've been wanting. It even let's you share some of the information online for others to view. Now dad and grandparents you can check out how our day is going...what is doesn't show is a sleep deprived mommy serializing and getting bottles ready at 4am but you get the idea. Doesn't this make you want to have kids, Auntie Vinita?!?