Wordless Wednesday

This is Mike and I on the Timber Twister in Duluth - It's an Alpine Roller Coaster open year round. I was totally freaked out by it. I am not a roller coaster person and they got me to go on it. It took everything in me to take my hands off the cart to do this picture.

Tuesday's Unwrapped - Sleeping

As I have wrote on here before sleep has been a struggle for us. When she was first born we thought we had a great sleeper and don't get me wrong she is s great sleeper at times. When she was an itty bitty she slept in her pack n play and would get up about every 2 to 3 hours.

When she was 2 months old we started to have trouble getting her to sleep anywhere but on us or in her swing. I have to admit the swing was awesome. She was STTN. From 11 to 7 every night for a month. Then slowly that stopped and we ended up moving her to her carseat. I thought for sure my kid was going to be going to college sleeping in a carseat.

A lot of our struggle with that was because she had an ear infection for 6 weeks. And it's hard to lay down with that. But eventually around month 7 we got her sleeping in get crib again. Gabby always did great going down, we NEVER had an issue putting her down once we did get her sleeping in her crib. Our struggle used to be getting her to stay asleep (and it still is partially that problem as well).

I have read many of the books, Healthy Sleep Habits Happy Child, Happiest Baby on the Block, The Baby Whisperer and I think a few others. We figured it out that CIO (Cry It Out) completely doesn't work for us, so that leaves out Health Sleep Habits Happy Child....and most of the books while we tried things, the methods just didn't completely work.

So I call this the Epp Family Sleep Method. I have decided that nursing her to sleep is okay, I don't have to change that, they do that at Daycare with a bottle and she does just fine with sleeping. We will keep doing our routine at night so she knows that she its time to sleep. But I have decided to try to cut out some of her comfort nursing. I think that will help us all get some sleep. We might have a few rough nights, but it will be worth it.

Sunday I started this - I know what you are thinking, am I crazy! what am I doing starting something like this on a Sunday, but I needed to.
Here was our schedule:
Bedtime - 8:00pm - We were out with my SIL, BIL & Niece at the zoo.
She slept until 10:15pm
1:30am - Finally fell back asleep (see below)
4:00am - Woke up to feed
5:00am - Woke up - I fed her, only because I didn't realize what time it was and was so exhausted.
7:15 - Woke her up to send her to daycare for Breakfast.

The few hours between 10:30 and 1:30 we fought back and forth about her going to sleep. The first hour was probably the worst, she screamed and screamed and I didn't think I could do it. I was in the room with her the entire time, she just wasn't understanding why I wasn't picking her up. I would ONLY pick her up if she sat up or stood up and cried in her crib, otherwise I just soothed her with singing and rubbing her back etc. I did finally end up taking her out of the crib and rocking her, but she was screaming even when I was doing that, we eventually got her calmed down and I put her down in her crib again. She did this thing where she would lay down, and start to fall asleep, and then 2 minutes later wake up screaming. Lay back down and repeat. Sometimes she would sit up and I would lay her back down with her lovey and her blanket.

Eventually we both fell asleep. I slept on her floor until 4am and then fed her, changed her and went into my own bed.

Night two was much better. We put her to bed (nursing her to sleep after a bath) around 7:15 or so, she woke up when some of our friends left but I just laid her back down and gave her lovey and she went right to sleep until 1:30am. It was a great night sleep. She then slept until 5am and I fed her both times. Right now I plan on just taking out one of her night feedings (the earlier one) and we will see how it goes...Stayed tuned for future Tuesday's Unwrapped and I will keep you all posted on our progress.

Fun Friday - Ants Go Marching

Ants go marching

Does your little one have a favorite song or lullaby that helps them fall asleep or do you have one from your childhood. I don’t know how it started, but my husband and I started singing the Ants Go Marching Song for Gabby and it seems to really put her to sleep when she is really fussy.

The ants go marching 1 by 1 – Hurray Hurray, The ants go marching 1 by 1 – Hurray Hurray.
The ants go marching 1 by 1 the little one stops to suck his thumb and they all go marching down to the ground to get out of the rain.

The ants go marching 2 by 2 – Hurray Hurray, The ants go marching 2 by 2 – Hurray Hurray.
The ants go marching 2 by 2 the little one stops to tie his shoe and they all go marching down to the ground to get out of the rain.

Whenever I am trying to get her to sleep or even in the car this song always seems to help her out. I rub her back and sing the song in a soft tone (or louder if she is crying) and it calms her down pretty quick. It’s amazing what one song can do.

My favorite one is 7:
The ants go marching 7 by 7 – Hurray Hurray, The ants go marching 7 by 7 – Hurray Hurray.
The ants go marching 7 by 7 the little one stops to say hello to Great-Grandma and Grandpa’s in heaven and they all go marching down to the ground to get out of the rain.

Hopefully she will remember this when she gets older.

Gabby's Birthday

So in attempting to have a great first Birthday for my littleone. I have decided I am going to make her a sock monkey cake, that's the theme that we picked and I am determined to make her a cake myself.  So today I set out to make the first round because 1. I am not the greatest at this kind of stuff. 2. I have to actually carve the cake and 3. I have to frost it more than just all over.

So here is my first attempt and there is room for A LOT of improvement. Please don't laugh.

The pans before I put in the cake batter....one of the round pans leaked and I had to move the batter to a square pan.

The batter - homemade I might add. I even sifted the cocoa, flour, sugar and salt together :)

Finished Cakes

And here is the final product. Now it's not the coloring I was going for. I want to add in the white and the red mouth etc, but this was mainly to get the cutting of the cake - which apparently I didn't take a picture of it before I frosted it. I also found out that the Pecan frosting is a bear to frost with, so I am going to try to find a brown butter frosting recipe I can use to get the coloring, or find a german chocolate frosting and just not put the nuts and coconut in it....at least I have time. There will at leave be another round of testing. and then I just have to figure out how to make a sheet cake :)

Here is the recipe for the cake itself that I used and this is what I am trying to make

Breezy Point

Every year my husband and I go on vacation with his family to Breezy Point in Northern MN.  Last spring before we came up here Mike was looking online and found a timeshare that was the unit right next to his parents. It was meant to be. We purchased it early in the hopes of having it for last year, but it didn’t work out. But this year we had the unit all to ourselves and I have to say it has worked out really well. Not only do we have the extra room for the bedrooms so no one has to sleep on the Murphy bed (my BIL and SIL, Mike and I would always trade off) but we also have extra fridge space and extra dishes to use.  It’s been super nice especially with getting Gabby down for naps and bedtime because we could have her in her own room.

Normally the weather is pretty nice, but this year it’s been a bit cold and rainy. We go up on a Saturday and had a leisurely day on Sunday until my BIL came up and then we went golfing. Gabby’s first trip to the golf course. I carried her the 9 holes at Wild Wedge in my Moby Wrap.

We took Gabby to the pool and she is a water baby.  She LOVED, LOVED, LOVED the pool. My MIL brought up the little blow up water boat that we had for my niece up at the lake and we put Gabby in it and she was splashing and having so much fun. There was a kiddy pool and it was only 1’6” so we put her in that in the boat and she could walk around in it.

On Monday Gabby and I took a trip to Brainerd because I could have sworn that she had pink eye and an ear infection. She wasn’t sleeping well and had really goupy eyes. But after trying to figure out which place to go to and getting an appointment we found out that she didn’t have pink eye and no ear infections. This is great, but doesn’t explain her not sleeping. :)

We met up with the family for lunch and then later in the day we went mini-golfing. Gabby had a great time being carried around with her dad while we were golfing.

Tuesday We headed to the Pines for golf which was just south of Nisswa. I didn’t have enough Milk pumped to leave Gabby with Barb or Dick, so we took her with thinking we could walk along with her, but the manager there didn’t allow it. It was fine it turned out. Gabby and I went north to Nisswa and went shopping. It turned out to be a great day. It was sunny and nice out and we hit the shops. There was this cute little shop called Tumbleroos. We actually found a rain jacket for her. It was a pretty high end boutique but it was on clearance for 50% off.  We timed it right to go back up and pick up Mike and head back for lunch. We had a great mother daughter shopping time.

Overall it was a great vacation. We didn’t get out on the boat but we did get some kayaking in. I haven't been kayaking for awhile so it was super nice to get out. Mike and I saw 5 loons and 3 of them were talking with us. I wish I had a camera with, because we were so close. We did get a lot of golfing in and swimming, with some ping pong as well. It was another great year at Breezy Point and I can’t wait until next year when Gabby is running around and we are already planning on going to the turtle races with her.

Sleeping in one morning

Chilling on the deck

Wait Mom you have the camera, I want that!

Look at me I am standing

Look what I have

on the Swing

Yes I did pull all the toys out mom (at the Children's Library in Nisswa)

Shopping with Mom in Nisswa

Wordless Wednesday

Tuesday's Unwrapped – Baby Led Weaning – Part 3

Thanks to my Guest Blogger Ella at Baby Love for the first of many Tuesday’s Unwrapped editions. I got the idea for BLW from Ella and I am so glad that I met her online and read her story for BLW.  It truly opened my eyes to the differences in parenting and what works for one parent may not always work for another. I always thought that babies just got baby food and that I would have to be buying purees and I remember back to my little cousin Rachel the few times I babysat and had to feed her purees (plus other babies I was around) and she wanted nothing to do with them (at least from me).

So when I got pregnant and I was reading about BLW from Ella and a few others as they went through the solid journey with their babies, I got excited about starting it with my soon to be daughter. When Gabby turned 6 months we made gave her bananas as her first food. I have to admit that my expectations were a lot higher than what actually happened.

We didn’t have a high chair at the time, but I just let her sit on my lap. We sliced a banana into quarters and I held it for her and let her grab at it. It didn’t really go into her mouth, nor did anything really happen. We were excited to start her on solids. To see her start the next stage of her little life, but it was sort of anti-climatic I have to say. But exciting non the less.

We then tried Sweet Potatoes and that went over much better. Daycare was pushing for me to send rice cereal and other things from 4 months on. We never did cereal. However I did pick up some cereal (Plum Organic Cereal) and we started sending some of the purees that my BIL & SIL gave us (thanks guys!) and mixing it in with that. We still do that today. For us a combination of purees and BLW works well for us. Since she goes to daycare and I am not with her at every meal it was difficult getting her one meal in when we started at night. Sometimes she would fall asleep before dinner and head off to bed. So it just made sense to send her some food at daycare.

I have to say that’s been the biggest struggle with BLW is trying to educate people how we are choosing to feed her. My parents and some others were worried about choking when we first started. But since seeing it and since I explained that a babies gag reflex is closer towards the front of the mouth and that when they look like they are choking it’s really gagging which is just how the body stops a person from choking.

 

 

The other part that has been a struggle is sending finger foods to daycare. For the first few months purees were not a big hit, she HATED them. The only solids we could get into her mouth were finger foods, so I started sending those and a few purees. Eventually she liked both. A few weeks ago I sent some taco fixing with her (Corn, Rice, Shredded Cheese and Ground Venison). I thought that they would just let her eat her food like they do with the toast and other things, but when I got there they mentioned that she was choking on the corn. I thought that was a bit odd, until I saw on her sheet that they were spoon feeding her the food. So I had to explain again that she needs to feed herself and then she won’t choke.

 

Overall it’s been a great experience and I wouldn’t change it for the world. I will definitely be doing this with our next one and probably getting a little more daring with the food.

10 Months

10 Months

Weight

19lbs

Clothing Size

12 to 18 Months
Some 9 Month stuff still fits

Diaper Size

Up and Up and Babies R Us Size 3

Feeding

15 to 20oz of BreastMilk a day at daycare
You nurse about 4 or 5 times at night.
Purees, Puffs, Yogurt and Cereal at Daycare

Whatever Mom and Dad are eating at night.
You really like cucumbers, avocado, bread and meatballs

Bedtime/Wakeup Times

 Bedtime: anywhere from 6:30pm to 8:00pm
Wakeup Time: usually around 10:30pm, Midnight, 3:30am and 6:30am for the day
Naptimes: 9am and 12pm

10 Month Milestones

* You are crawling so so fast now, it's hard to keep you out of things now

* You are also starting to pull yourself up and you even are walking along things and transferring from furniture pieces

* You loved the pool on vacation this month! and love the tub. I think we have a water baby on our hands
* You had tubes put in because of all the ear infections you had, and it's already helped.
* You went to your first Lynx Basketball game with the Epp Family and had a great time.

Dear Cuddlebug - Mama is so so proud of you and all that you have accomplished in your short little life. I totally love watching you figure things out and wonder how things work in your world. You are very persistent little creature and I love that about you. You are also very quiet just like dad and more laid back than myself :)

Love you always!

Wordless Wednesday

On the Golf Course

Tuesdays Unwrapped - Baby Led Weaning Part 2

Here is the 2nd installment of Tuesday's Unwrapped.  Ella has come back to finish telling us about her Baby Led Weaning experience.  Click here for the first installment.

Hi, I’m Ella. I write over at Baby Love. I am a proud Mama to one sweet girl, Eliza, who is 18 months old. Jess asked me to write about our experience with baby led weaning, and I am so honored – thanks Jess!

On the very day our baby girl turned 6 months old, we handed her a chunk of banana and let her have at it. And in that moment, as we watched her try to figure out how to pick up that banana and bring it to her mouth without it shooting out of her chubby little hands, it was like a light bulb went off. ‘This feels so natural’, we said to each other, looking in awe at our girl digging into that fruit with gusto. It just felt right, and Eliza loved it.

We were excited. She was excited. She was exploring her food, feeling it, playing with it, tasting it, and just having fun. And that is the point of BLW; first foods are not meant to serve a nutritional purpose (remember this little rhyme: “food before one is just for fun!”), they are meant to help our babes learn about food, to let them experience it and get accustomed to its presence and its feel – not just in their mouths, but in between their fingers, on their foreheads, etc… To learn what different foods look like, to feel their unique textures, and of course, eventually, to taste all the wonderful, varied flavors this
beautiful earth offers us. This is, after all, the important process that culminates in their eventual weaning from breastmilk or formula to table food for their nutritional needs.

BLW turned out to be a great fit for our family. We enjoyed the little perks that come with BLW like eating with Eliza, as a family, instead of one of us having to spoon-feed her during dinner, the hilarious perk of watching her figure out corn on the cob, and the expression of pure, unabashed glee when she got her first taste of a sweet cherry tomato exploding in her mouth (which, I might add, was freshly-picked from our garden by her own cherry-tomato-stealing little hand). Eliza took to BLW like a fish to water – she was
just as excited about touching and tasting the food, and bringing it to her mouth on her own, as we were about watching her do it.

It’s been a pleasure watching Eliza learn to love good food, and her journey continues to this day. I’m happy to report that she is now mastering the art of using a spoon and fork, and she loves most of the food we offer her. Sure, she still has her picky toddler moments – I don’t think you can escape that no matter how you introduce solids – but for the most part, she is an independent, healthy, interested and adventurous little eater (Edamame is a recent fav!). In order to combat food struggles, we go by the mantra that it is our job as parents to offer her varied, healthy meals, and it is Eliza’s job – not ours – to decide if she is going to eat and how much she is going to eat. This also avoids the potential Mama/Daddy-as-short-order-cook trap.

If you have questions about BLW and want to learn more about the specifics of it, I highly suggest reading this book. This website is also a great resource. Of course, Jess is also a great resource as she and Gabby have experienced (and are currently continuing to experience) the joys of BLW! And feel free to stop by my little corner of the internet, Baby Love, or email me at empberry at gmail dot com.

Thanks for having me, Jess!

Gabby Crawling

Wordy Wednesday

I know I usually do Wordless Wendesday, but since I didn't get the lovely pictures of Gabby covered in Avocado (See next week) You are getting a Wordy Wednesday post. It's also something that has been on my mind the past few days and I want to get people's opinions/advice and what they have done. So all you BTDT (Been There Done That) Mom's I need you to come out of the woodwork and stop lurking. Especially those that are working moms and have pumped for any period of time.

If you are regular followers you know that Cuddlebug has been exclusively on breast milk since the day she was born. We had our troubles in the beginning but I stuck it out and now here we are almost 10 months later and while I LOVE LOVE LOVE to nurse my little Cuddlebug I HATE HATE HATE pumping. Yep there I said it. I hate pumping and I want to quit. I know she only has 2 more months until she is a year, so I am trying to make it to then to quit. I have to go home tonight and tally up all the milk I have in the fridge and see how much that is and how long that will last me.

So I was talking to some of the mom's here at work and they asked me how much and how often is she eating and nursing. Here is our schedule:
6:30 to 7:00am is wakeup and eat time for the day. It's the only time I nurse her before going to work
8:30 or 9:00 - Pump #1
9:00 - Gabby eats anywhere from 4 to 8oz of BM depending on how hungry she is
10:00 - Snack time -she usually gets toast, avocado, cereal, puffs, or whatever puree is open for the day, or if I send some leftovers from the meal the night before.
12:00 - Gabby eats another 4 to 8oz.
12:30 - Pump #2
3:00 - Gabby usually eats about 4 to 5oz
3:00 - Pump #3
5:00 - Gabby nurses from me and then has dinner with us. Same as lunch, whatever are having.
6:30 - Nurses a bit and then goes down for sleep.

This next part varies widely. I think the past couple of days she has been nursing for comfort and I have been letting her because honestly sometimes it's just easier....
10:30- usually wakes up and needs a diaper change and sometimes I feed her, really depends on the mood. I know I need to be more consistent and I am thinking of trying to stop this feeding.
1:00 or 2:30 - wake up, change diaper feed again.
4:00- Wake up, change diaper feed again.

and we are back to the 7am feeding again. That being said I am usually pumping about 12 to 15oz a day, sometimes up to 17, but I havent' had that in a long time. as you can see Gabby can eat from 12 to 20oz a day sometimes...so obviously there are days when I can keep up and days when I can't. Also I am usually giving her frozen stuff which has to be used within 24 hours, so if we don't use it up at daycare then I have to throw it, which is like throwing away gold.

I took for granted in the beginning that I had an over supply and I am now kicking myself for not pumping more and saving more, but I can't change that. I also am so sick of pumping that I don't like to pump on the weekends or anything when she is with me.

So here comes my dilemma. Do I cut down her bottles. it's suggested by a few people that she is eating way too much at daycare. So I was thinking of slowly cutting down the amount that I bring to daycare to get down to 12oz during the day, instead of the 17. Then I can cut down my pumpings to two times a day which wouldn't be nearly as bad and I could probably manage at that rate for another 2 to 4 or 6 months. at that point she can be transitioned to Almond or cows milk and more solids and would be drinking less. Then my goal would be to cut out my pumpings and just nurse at night and in the mornings. until she is 18 months, loses interest or I lose my milk supply.

What have others done?

Tuesdays Unwrapped - Baby Led Weaning

Welcome my first Guest Blogger on my new blog entries on Tuesdays.

Hi, I’m Ella. I write over at Baby Love. I am a proud Mama to one sweet girl, Eliza, who is 18 months old. Jess asked me to write about our experience with baby led weaning, and I am so honored – thanks Jess!

I’m sure most of you have heard of baby led weaning (BLW) is already, but for those of you who have not, it basically means letting your child feed him or herself from the time they begin eating solid foods, at 6 months old.

Just before Eliza turned 6 months old, she and I were at a play date hosted by a mama who is also a family practice doctor. I noticed her little boy, who is 2 months older than Eliza, was perched on his high chair eating chunks of melon and Annie’s cheddar bunnies off of his tray by himself, his mom watching him as she chatted with the group of mommies seated around her living room. ‘Hmmm’, I thought, ‘how interesting that he’s
eating real food. I thought babies ate baby food…’

This was my first introduction to baby-led weaning. Before that day, I had never heard of it, and, in fact, my husband and I were already busy planning Eliza’s first solid food: mashed sweet peas. We were all set to feed our girl purees – complete with airplane- spooning the stuff straight into her mouth. After all, that’s what you were supposed to do, right? Feed your baby… baby food. That’s what I thought until I read this book
about BLW written by Gill Rapley, a British researcher who developed and researched BLW (this mama loves her evidence-based advice!).

I brought the book home, and hubby and I read it (or, to be exact, I read it and then provided him with a verbal book report on it), and we also did some further research online. Hubby and I both commented how this seemed perfect for Eliza – she was already reaching out and grabbing for our food at the dinner table, and she practically had a Ph.D in Putting Things in Her Mouth, so it made sense to us that putting food in her own mouth was the next step. Then, at Eliza’s 6-month well baby exam, our pediatric nurse practitioner mentioned BLW as a method of introducing solid food (right after telling us that feeding babies rice cereal as their first food was an outdated - and somewhat disgusting, I might add – recommendation that we could skip). It seemed our decision was made, and it was an easy one: BLW was going to be our method of
introducing our girl to the wide world of food.

The term ‘baby-led weaning’ is a bit of a strange name. First, the word “weaning” – well, this is the ultimate, literal term for what is happening from the moment at which babies begin to explore solid food. This is the very first step in the weaning process. Up until this point, they have relied on mama’s milk (or formula) for their nutritional needs.

The introduction of solids signifies the beginning of the (albeit very gradual) end to this need. Obviously, babies wean at different rates, and so this process may take anywhere from 6 months for some to 5 years or more for others (and it seems that so far, my Eliza is on the 5+ year plan, that girl loves her some mama’s milk!), but nonetheless, weaning officially begins when solid foods are introduced (no matter the method in which they are introduced). The “baby led” descriptor is used because it is, one again, a literal description of what’s going on in BLW: the babies lead the way! They are, for the most part, in control of their eating/exploring. Self-feeding is the main tenant of the BLW process; allowing babies to feed themselves gives them more control over how much they eat and what they eat (out of the variety of foods mama or daddy offer, of course).

Thanks to Ella for this post! and stayed tuned for the rest of her story next Tuesday on Tuesday's Unwrapped.

Things I have been meaning to do

Can I just say that I LOVE the blog world....I found out about this blog mama from another blog mama.
And I have to say that this post is really fitting for today. Thanks Kate for showing me another wonderful blog!!

My husband is a list maker and when I say list maker I mean he runs everything in his life by a list. We have a list for computer things that need to be done, things that need to be done today, tomorrow and next week. Things that he wants done 5 years from now. I live amongst lists. We have them on a whiteboard in our kitchen, we have them in our email that he emails back and forth and we have them on good ole' fashion paper all around the house and in his wallet and at work. While this is sometimes an annoying habit I have to say it's really good for remembering things.

Before I became pregnant and became a mama myself my lists were in my head and I could live with that. I never forgot things for more than a day and things always got done...then came Peanut! Good Ole Peanut apparently took all my list remembering capabilities and sucked them right out of my brain when she was growing inside of me and when she born she took even more. I really think that's what breast milk is truly made of.

So today while reading my blogs I came across this Lazy Mama blog and the Things I have been meaning to do.

So here is my list:
1. Clean up the office - Our office is a disaster I am not even going to justify it with a picture. Because it's not just an office. It's our storage room (Behind a false wall), it's our computer storage room (Also behind a false wall). It's our library, our workout room (which is really just a dust collector), the place where our dog is housed when we aren't home and my closet.
2. Put my clothes away - which really is part of #1, but I HATE putting clothes away
3. Re-pot my shamrock plants - although if you saw them you would see dead plants and wonder why. But Shamrocks never die. They go dormant in the winter and need to be re-potted, well it's June and I haven't done that yet, I will be getting to that after Father's day.
4. Work on Gabby's Scrapbook and scrapbook Europe

There are other things, but I think that's a good start. We will see how July goes. :)

Fun Friday!

Waiting for dad to go to the park.