Tuesday, October 20, 2015

The Great Regression

zoe sitting up all by herself...for 20 secs. 
4 months and 1 week old 


my little zoezoe is already 4 months--well, actually, 4 months and 1 week now.  i used to wonder why parents always did that, counted months, week, and even days.  i get it now.  babies change SO much week to week (sometimes by day).  last week, she started to scoot on her belly as she pushed off of our hands.  THIS week, she can scoot backwards on her belly all by herself!  oh nbd, but actually it IS a big deal [to us] :)

ten things:

1.  so the 4 month sleep regression is real and i believe we are in the thick of it.  she has shorter sleep times and theres a period during the night where she wakes up and doesn't go back to sleep for a couple hours, once 3!!!  we are surviving.
2. under eye dark circles.  i hate you so much.  the ysl concealer is my best friend.  tho it does claim that its "8 hours of sleep" in a stick.  LIES. but its still my best friend.
3.  sleep regression AND teething? yes and yes.  poor baby is going through both at the same time.  even though jake and i have been doing our best to sleep train, its been really difficult to let zoe cry it out when we know she's actually in pain.  we started using Hyland's teething tablets and they seem to help.  teeth already????? didn't she just get here?
4.  we're going to hawaii this week and we're both super excited and terrified about traveling with zoe.  oh well, hawaiiiiii here we come!
5.  the initial guilt i had for letting zoe watch tv with me has gone away.  completely.  i just cover her eyes when a commercial for the real housewives of anywhere comes on. scaaaaary.
6.  i realized that after having zoe, jake and i say things in doubles when we're around her.  first with her name, zoezoe, and mama, dada, nightnight, but then we started calling darra, dardar.  soon we started calling her diaper, diapdiap.  does everyone do this?
7.  halloween is almost here!!! we went to target to buy some decos and of course, i wanted to get the  "cute scary" things and jake was opposed to that, but he eventually caved and let me get a halloween themed wreath, but he got a life-size skeleton thats hanging out in front.

when i was a kid, we had "holyween" at church where everyone would come dressed in costumes and got candy and played games, but didn't celebrate halloween.  even tho we totally did.  do churches still call it that?  i think pcc has some sort of celebration where kids come dressed up, but not sure what they call it.  our school calls the halloween parade, "fall parade" so all students can not celebrate  halloween together.  even tho they bring goody bags with jackolantern designs filled with candy for their classmates.  halloween is an interesting cultural holiday.

the past couple years jake and i stayed home (where the hell would we go anyway :)) and gave out candy and had so much fun seeing the different costumes kids came in.  some kids, like middle school age, came around twice and i called them on it.  oops.  i did it with a smile obvi.

one last story about halloween.  when jake and i were first dating, about a month in, his friend invited my girlfriends and i to a "mansion party on rodeo."  so of course we obliged, who wouldn't?? a party on rodeo?? yes, please.  so we all dressed in tastefully slutty costumes and went to meet jake and his friends.  we're on our way to this mansion and we all realized that were traveling in the opposite direction of beverly hills...even jake was confused.  we get to this janky house in the hood in our now questionable costumes and realize that this "mansion party on rodeo" was actually a ghetto house party on RODEO (like "yeehaw") in inglewood.  YAS!!!  awwwwwww that was 11 years ago.

8.  im nearly done with felicity on hulu.  damn, that show is good.
9.  our house is slowly turning into zoe's house and im cool with that, but this has resulted in jake and i being on a furniture buying craze.  we realized that our house isn't that baby friendly and since zoe looks like shes gonna be crawling soon, we're going to have to say adieu to a few pieces of furniture for a while. like our bertoias that we love, laterzzzz and our eames loungers with sharp metal feet, sorrrrrrry.  so we just HAD to buy two new leather arm chairs. heeeee photos will be posted on insta.
10.  postpartum hair loss! anyone up for giving me a good weave?

looking forward to month 5 w my zoezoe :)

some photos from the past month***


me n zoe


:)


jake n the girls


#morningswithzoe


at pa's pumpkin patch


at her 4 month appt


zoe and my granny


rare smile sighting in the car


licking and biting everything in sight


she may or may not be watching kathy lee and hoda on today


@@


=D



Monday, October 5, 2015

come on, ride the [sleep] train.

16 weeks
after rolling over 3 times, tired and over it. 
OR its me constantly shoving my phone in front of 
her face to take photos of her crying =D


first, this post is not one to encourage or discourage sleep training, its just about my experience with it.

ok, so, sleep training has been the most emotionally and mentally difficult thing i've experienced so far.  actually, the worst was when i thought zoe wasn't getting enough to eat and was wasting away. but obvi that wasn't true, cue the extra large double chin.

i actually decided to sleep train after about 3 consecutive sleepless nights.  i think she was going through some sort of growth spurt, who knows.  i had thought about moving her out at 3 month and i sort of wanted to stick to that...even though i was already a couple weeks late, oh well.  i actually don't know why i gave myself that type of timeline, but i did, and i wanted to at least attempt to keep it.  

after consulting with friends, more like asking a million questions, discussing every possible scenario, and almost wanting them to tell me not to do it yet (which they didn't, it was the opposite), jake and i decided to start sleep training last friday.  

night one-
jake and i do her normal nighttime routine, zip her up in her zipadeezip (LOVE THIS THING), and then take her to her room.  already, im starting to feel A LOT of anxiety.  i ask jake to pray for zoe, but really for me bc zoe didn't know what the hell was going on. we put her in her crib and then we walked out.  she was quiet at first, probably from the confusion. and then it started.  the crying, actually screaming.  of course i did what everyone advised me not to do, i sat in front of the monitor watching my baby scream for her mama. after about 20 minutes, i was in fetal position crying and telling jake that it was too hard (hahaha i guess i was a little dramatic, but it was painful!!!).  i said i was going to go get her at the hour mark and she ended up falling asleep at the 55 minute mark.  she woke up after almost 6 hours (!!!!!!!), which is the longest stretch of sleep she's ever had.  when i went in to feed her, her zippy was still damp and her sheets were as well.  even though she probably had the best sleep of her life, i still felt sad.  she woke up one more time that night.

the next morning, she looked more mature, like she had gone through something and came out alive. and i SWEAR, she was mad at me. she was all smiles at jake and wouldn't have eye contact with me!!!  like the last thing she remembers from the night before was my boob leaving her mouth and then PURE ABANDONMENT.  

i felt the same way on the second night and the third and the fourth (days too, bc i was training her naps too. the horror).  i think by the fifth night, i felt less sad, but the cries still hurt.  there was one night we actually did sort of cave.  its because she started to roll over in her sleep and zoe wasn't used to being on her stomach, but hadn't figured out how to roll back the other way (she can do it now!!!).  there were extra cries that night and jake and i both couldn't take it.  

its been over a week since we started training her.  i read and friends have said that it takes 3-5 days, some a week to get used to sleep training.  i asked a friend if its normal for zoe to still be screaming bloody murder every time she goes down and the long and short of it is, yes, its normal.  i guess i have to know that each baby has their version of normal and each mama has one too.  

tonight, we put her down and she played in her crib for almost half an hour, let out a couple squeaks and then fell asleep.  its working.  i am so proud of her.  she doesn't hate me for this.  but if its not this easy tomorrow, its okay.  

am i happy i sleep trained (still training)? yes, absolutely.  

was it really as hard as people say?  even harder. 

have i cooked for the first time since i made instant ramen while i was pregnant bc zoe has an early sleep time? YES!!!  #progress 

a couple product reviews:

Baby Merlin's Magic Sleep Suit-
as i posted on IG, zoe fell asleep in this suit really quickly and looked freaking amazing, but she woke up and was drenched in sweat (even though our AC was on freezing status)  so we had to take her out of it and put her in her Zipadeezip.  

Zipadeezip-
i bought the zippy because i wanted to transition zoe out of her swaddle.  she loved and hated being in the swaddle.  it calmed her down and put her to sleep really well, but would bust out of it all the time.  the days leading up to sleep training, she busted out of it every hour and woke up crying. zoe's reflexes are still really strong and she's just a really active baby.  the zippy gives zoe space to move around, but enough restriction so she can't punch herself in the face.  when we zip her up, she smiles! we all love this product.  i bought 2 more heeeee



my best friend, the baby monitor



zoe in her modified zippy.  i tied off the arms for more restriction.
worked really well until she started to roll over.  
i took off the ties now, she adjusted well.


her new zippy :)


lots of tummy time during the day 
so she can get more comfy on her belly at night


having fun rolling onto her back


one side of her face is always swollen 
in the morning from sleeping on it all night


a lot of our day is spent like this.


always two fingers. at her first bike race. 


in her big girl seat. 
the more toys the better.


evening walk to the market.