Tag Archives: sleep

Life

Happy 1st Valentine’s Day, Avery, and Kelley Too!

02/14/2014 R.C. Liley 1 Comment

red-heart — **Yep, I went with the corny heart. #noshame**

I know I complain about Avery not playing and being impatient, but I can’t believe she’ll be three months tomorrow, February 15th. And today is her first Valentine’s.

Avery with Mommy at less than 2 weeks old.

Yeah, not really a big deal, but as I’m sure all parents know, a first anything is a landmark we MUST get excited about.

I’m running short on time today, but I wanted to post my V-day wishes to Avery and hope we can have a great one. Tomorrow we’ll be visiting her grandparents from her mom’s side, and it’s supposed to be beautiful weather. Hoping for some nice sunshine and a great visit. I am always a little hesitant to throw her off of her routine since that makes nap time and therefore nighttime harder. Sometimes it’s not a big deal though, we’ll see.

Speaking of sleep, instead of the normal swaddle with snaps that we have been using, we tried the Woombie we bought a while back. I also used the advice from this video on YouTube for the inside layer to keep her arms down. This is a perfect combo! No more snaps coming undone either since the Woombie zips up!

Keeping those crazy arms down is a chore, and so far so good. Avery even slept in her crib from 9pm to 5am, that’s the longest yet! High five us! But I won’t get too excited until it’s consistent.

Crazy arms in action. So freakin' cute though! — Crazy arms in action. So freakin’ cute though!

Well, that’s it for today, I hope everyone has a wonderful Valentine’s Day and great weekend ahead. I’m excited we’ll have Kelley at home for an extra day, we sure do miss mommy around here!

Do you get overexcited about counting 1st’s for your baby? What’s the most random first you can remember?

Parenting

Do You Clip Your Baby’s Nails?

02/11/2014 R.C. Liley 2 Comments

We have been avoiding trimming Avery’s ~~pterodactyl claws~~ nails for quite a while now and I thought I’d give it a shot this morning. Bad choice.

It's there, but luckily not very noticeable! — It’s there, but luckily not very noticeable!

The baby clippers I used has a nice light to help see the nails, but attempting while Avery was awake and squirmy is not the best time. I knew this, it’s obvious, but I tried anyway after being scratched so much. Plus, she scratches herself!

Trying to trim her nails in her sleep is pretty useless too since she’s swaddled every time she’s sleeping. So, I figured this was my only shot while she wasn’t too fussy.

I was doing just fine and finished within minutes with a sense of accomplishment. I picked her up and we went back to the kitchen to talk and do whatever else she wanted to avoid crying. Mostly I just stared out the window with her and cursed the cold weather we’re having.

As I looked down on her clothes, there were blood spots across her leg. At first I thought is was from my dry, cracked hands, which is pretty common, but after a quick assessment, there were no open wounds on me. I checked Avery’s hands and sure enough, there was a little spot on her right index finger; right where daddy trimmed her nail!

It didn’t seem to stop since she kept moving her hands everywhere like a baby does, so I put a mitten on there to hopefully let the bleeding stop.

Seems to be acceptable.....for now — Seems to be acceptable…..for now

Do they even have Band-Aids for babies? I figure she’d just put it in her mouth which could be a choking hazard. All of here other scratches clot pretty fast and I’m hoping, given the chance, her finger will too. Avery, when you’re reading this someday, daddy’s sorry. Please don’t take it out on me if you have to care for me in my old age. : )

Yesterday we made our rounds to two stores and a vacuum shop to get ours repaired. Avery was pretty good the whole time but really missed out on her naps. I try to plan as much as possible so the entire trip will allow me to avoid feeding in a cold car and just do it when we get home. This worked, for the most part, but getting a good nap was futile and we just waited for her bedtime.

I still have some figuring out to do regarding store trips, but I guess I have time for this being a stay-at-home parent!

Have you ever trimmed more than your baby’s nail? Any advice?

How do you plan store trips with your baby?

Parenting

The Crib: Our First Night

02/02/2014 R.C. Liley 2 Comments

Super Bowl, what Super Bowl? We’ll be too busy watching a baby monitor for round two tonight.

Kelley and I were glued to the thing all day after laying Avery down for a nap in the crib yesterday. Daytime naps aren’t always easy (nothing is with sleeping), but at night, getting Avery to sleep is like selling a minx coat to animal rights’ activists*; not happening. I blame it on having something to do with the Moon’s gravitational pull affecting only children up to a certain age. Hey, who can ACTUALLY prove me wrong?

Regardless, getting Avery to sleep and keeping her asleep is a difficult task that neither one of us have mastered. Does anyone really master this? If you have, please come over for a good meal and a warm home.

After our nightly routine of bath time and Kelley giving the ol’sleepy boob treatment, she laid Avery in her crib and we hoped for the best. 10 minutes later, that hope went out the window and Kelley was back in to soothe her. After 3 more rounds of this, she finally seemed to quiet down and accept the crib!

Of course that would be too easy; she was back at it just squirming in her swaddle within 30 minutes. Damn. Hands flailing about as if swaddles could actually keep this night demon at bay and legs pumping up and down; she was not happy.

Kelley and I agreed that since she was not crying out loud, that we’ll go to bed and see how it plays out. In bed, we watched and listened and finally fell asleep as Avery seemed to subside in her wiggly ways.

2:30 a.m. – Kelley wakes me to go and get her since she was crying and probably need to feed. Thank you, boobs, for providing such wonderful food for our baby!! Okay, thank you, Kelley, too. : )

And that marked the end of the first night in the crib. Avery slept with us the rest of the night, and on me for several hours. My own living, squirmy, and fussy blanket!

So, that Super Bowl thing happening today….might be replaced with us watching the baby monitor as we try for round 2 as I said earlier. Maybe we’ll catch the end of it, but if Avery stays in her crib for even longer, it’s a win for us!

Any tricks we should know about on how to keep a squirmy baby from breaking free and waking herself up with crazy arms and razors (fingernails) attached? We ordered a Woombie that we are anxiously awaiting and hopefully that will keep the hands from breaking loose. Kelley didn’t think my rubber band idea was good…..

* I’m not against animal rights’ activists, just made for a good example.