Birthday Party, Swim Lessons & Sleepover

Last weekend we went to Emalyn's 2nd birthday party at Monkey's Treehouse. It was really cute and Patrick had a good time! He is a really shy baby, but once he warmed up to everyone he had fun crawling around everywhere!

Hannah and Patrick are close in age, so they had fun playing in the infant area

Loving the ball pit

Patrick was a little nervous on the slide at first, but ended up loving it and would get a huge grin on his face afterwards

We also had Patrick's first swim lesson this weekend. I know its a little early for swim lessons, but my goal is for him to eventually learn to float by himself in the pool. I can't imagine that Patrick could get down our back steps and make it all the way down to the pool without me catching him, but it still makes me extremely nervous! Michael thinks I am a little crazy for starting him so young. I think motherhood has made me overly paranoid :)

Here is my cute little boy on his way to his first swim lesson

I have to say that the swim lesson was a little bit of a train-wreck! There are 2 other kids in Patrick's class, a 7 month old little boy and a 2 year old little girl, and they both absolutely love the water and have no fear. Poor little Patrick was terrified, so he whimpered and clung to Michael and I most of the time. He hasn't been in a pool since he was about 3 months old, but since he loves the bath so much I thought he would love his classes. I think he was just a little overwhelmed with the strangers and the pool. It's an indoor pool, but it was freezing so I don't think that helped either. The teacher kept giving instructions on things to do and then would say except for Patrick... lets just try and get him used to the pool. The other disastrous thing that happened was that Patrick decided he needed to go to the bathroom at the end of the lesson. He had on a swimming diaper, but the smallest one I could find was still huge on him. So Michael and I pulled him out as soon as we could towards the end of the lesson. It was quite embarrassing! Hopefully next time will go better!

Patrick also had his first sleep over this weekend! Nana and Grumps watched Patrick while Michael and I went to the Predators game. We hadn't planned on having him stay the night, but when we got over there he was fast asleep and we felt bad waking him up. Sharon said that he got up once in the middle of the night to eat, but went right back to sleep afterwards. He also woke up at 5:45am, so we went to get him at 6:30am. It was weird waking up in the morning and not having him at home!

This was the adorable picture Sharon sent me. How precious is this?

Sleep Training

So this is how I feel about Sleep Training….Patrick = WINNER ; Mom and Dad= EXHAUSTED

Last week we decided to start sleep training. Since Patrick had slept through the night a few times recently, I felt like he was capable of sleeping through the night and was just waking up because he wanted to cuddle. I hadn’t tried before because he is such a tiny little baby and I really thought he was getting hungry in the middle of the night. But now that he has started sleeping through the night a couple times a week, and he is over 9 months old, it’s really time for him to sleep through the night every night!

I knew that this was going to be a very difficult task since Patrick is such a stubborn baby! Probably more stubborn than Michael and I combined. He does not quit until he gets what he wants! He has been like this since he was born. Perfectly happy baby as long as you hold him exactly the way he wants and feed him exactly the way he wants! It’s pretty funny that personalities can shine through so much at such an early age!

We started last Monday night and my plan was to put him to sleep the way he prefers. He has to be fully asleep before he goes in his crib to sleep for the night or he freaks out. I finally got him to sleep around 9pm. He woke up at 12am and I let him cry for 10 minutes. He was standing up and slamming his fists on the side of the crib and throwing a huge fit. He got so worked up that he was starting to hyperventilate. Most everyone I have talked to who has tried this said that they let their children cry for 10 minutes and they went to sleep on their own. Well not my little Patrick! I went in there, but did not pick him up and tried to just lay him back down and pat his back until he went to sleep. I left the room after a couple of minutes of soothing him and he freaked out. I tried this about 15 times, but he was getting so angry that I gave up and just picked him up and fed him. It took me until 2am to get him back to bed since he was so upset. Then I hear Patrick wake up and scream at 3:30am. After letting him scream for a few minutes and determining that he was not going to go back to bed on his own I went and got him. It took me over an hour to get the little guy to go back to bed. He ended up sleeping until 6:30am.

I took him to Margaret’s and told her that he barely slept the night before and should take some good naps. When I picked him up I expected for him to have napped, but he did not nap at all that day.

Even though I was exhausted, I decided I would try the sleep training again. I figured that he was exhausted from the night before (as was I) and that he had to sleep, right? Not the case… things went pretty similar to the night before. Around 4am, when Patrick woke up for the second time (we had already been up from 1-3), I was so exhausted that I got Michael up to help. Michael went up there and Patrick cried even harder. He is definitely a momma’s boy at night! So we all ended up watching Elmo (Patrick’s favorite) in bed for a couple hours until we could get him back to sleep. He only took two 30 minute naps at Margaret’s the next day.

After two nights of getting about 3 hours of sleep each night, I decided I was done with the sleep training and Patrick had won! Going to work those two days was absolute torture! Patrick ended up sleeping through the night the third night, so luckily I didn’t have to get up with him! I also noticed a tooth come through the morning after he slept through the night. I’m still not sure if he was rebelling against the sleep training or the tooth was bothering him. Either way, i’m not trying it again! Even though I only let him cry by himself for 10-15 minutes at a time, I don’t think I can watch him get so upset about it anymore!

Sleep Update

I started this post about 2 weeks ago after it happened and I am just not recovering enough to finish it! Since the sleep training incident, we have not tried to do sleep training again! This week Patrick slept through the night 3 times. The other 4 nights he woke up at 3 am, ate and then went back to bed. I’ll take 3 nights of sleep over the sleep training nonsense any day!

Before trying the sleep training, I had read lots of articles about crying-it-out and sleep training, etc. I have tried almost every method recommended (except where you leave them to cry for hours on end… my limit is 10 minutes!) None of them worked for Patrick. Parenting really doesn’t come with a manual, does it? I have come to the conclusion that Patrick will sleep through the night when he is ready and there isn’t a darn thing I can do about it! Until then I’ll try and savor the precious moments I get with Patrick in the wee hours of the night. He makes sweet little noises and his chubby little hand always rubs my face while I feed him. Once the sleep deprivation passes, I know I’ll miss this! I'm sure I'll look back on these days and wish I could go back to the times where Patrick only wanted to cuddle with me in the middle of the night!

9 Month Pictures

Zach took Patrick's 9 month pictures last weekend and boy was he in a bad mood! He is terrified of strangers so if we weren't holding him, he screamed bloody murder. He would also scream if we took his hand out of his mouth. A tooth popped in a couple days later, which was unfortunate timing, but at least explained why he acted so badly :)

We took the pictures at the Mulloy's and the Christmas decorations looked so pretty in the background. Below are some of my favorite pictures!

He also decided he didn't want to wear shoes for any of the pictures

Patrick loves jumping up and down, so we had to do lots of jumping so he wouldn't cry!

I wanted to have a picture of each side of the family, so my hope was to get a good picture of the Mulloy's and then a good picture of the Whitson's for his 12 month pictures. It's a lot easier said than done but I think we got a pretty good one!

Love this sweet picture of Patrick and his godfather

Family picture

He always gets excited when he rides on Michael's shoulders

Patrick- 9 Months

Patrick is 9 months old! Pregnancy seemed like an eternity, but the 9 months Patrick has been here have flown by!

We went to the doctor on Friday for his check-up and he weighed 17 pounds, 7 ounces (10%), is 28 7/8th inches tall (75%) and his head is 25%. He is a skinny little thing, but has jumped up in height. Unfortunately, his iron levels were pretty low so they had to prick his little finger twice :( The doctor said that even though the levels are low, they are not low enough to do anything about and we will just continue to monitor it to make sure he does not have anemia. Hopefully, he is just going through a growth spurt and his levels are low from that.

Patrick is such a busy little baby! He plays really well by himself. He is a speedy crawler and has figured out he can go faster if he lifts one leg up while he crawls. He loves walking with his walker. He isn't quite steady enough to stand on his own yet, but I think its coming soon! He loves peek a boo. He also loves when you kiss his feet and his belly. This is such a fun and interactive age!

Patrick has started speed crawling after Bailey and she hates it! She is terrified of him, so she runs away if he gets within 5 feet of her. He thinks its a fun game and crawls fast after her which makes her really irritated.

Watch out Bailey, i'm coming to get you!

Patrick has started giving hugs and its precious! He always hugs me after he eats in the morning and its so sweet. He also hugs Margaret before we leave her house every day. He has grown really attached to Ms. Margaret. Margaret has told me that he screams whenever another mom comes into the house and Margaret picks up another child. Yikes!

He takes this Winnie the Pooh book with him everywhere!

We have started feeding him a little bit of table food and he isn't that fond of it. He always tries it and then makes a face like its the worst thing he has ever tried. He has tried green beans, turkey, chicken, a baked potato, cheese quesadilla, grilled cheese and different types of bread. Now that we have been to his 9 month appointment, we can start feeding him a little more table food.

Patrick has made leaps and bounds in the sleeping department. He is by no means a good sleeper, but getting better. For the last few weeks Patrick has gone to sleep at 8pm! If you have read any of the previous monthly posts, you know that he has been a night owl and we couldn't get him down before 9:30 or 10. It's definitely a nice change! He has also slept through the night (from 8pm-6:30am) twice this week! He has only slept through the night about 5 times his whole life, so twice in one week is quite the treat for me! Although, I still find myself waking up and staring at the monitor for a little while. I guess I need to learn how to sleep through the night again too :)

I think we figured out the problem with his sleeping. I never really let him cry too long at night in his crib, because I really thought it was a hungry cry. So, we added another full meal of baby food a couple hours after lunch and that seems to do it! I guess this little guy just needs a lot more food than other babies :)

Unfortunately, he as regressed a little with his napping. He only takes a 30-45 minute morning nap and 1hr- 1 1/2 hr afternoon nap. Not nearly as much as he should be napping, but i'll trade sleeping through the night for shorter naps any day!

He is also getting better at being in the car (most of the time). He doesn't scream like he used to, which is a really nice change!

Unfortunately my autofocus was turned off for this picture, but it was such a cute picture of the two of them in their preds gear!

3 peas in a pod

Patrick you are such a happy and wonderful baby! We love you and can't wait to see what you learn next month!

Nana's Birthday

We celebrated Nana's birthday at one of her favorite restaurants, Cantina Laredo.  Patrick had a fun time hanging out with everyone!

Then to the Mulloy's to have some cake

We had a fun night celebrating Nana!

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!

2011 was such a wonderful year for us! We had some major changes in our lives during 2011...the two biggest being welcoming our sweet baby boy and Michael changing jobs. I can't wait to see what 2012 holds in store for us!

We had a low-key New Year's Eve this year. We ate dinner at the Mulloy's, hung outside for a little while and then came home.

Playing with Grumps

 Patrick was worn out since it was past his bed time. Can you tell how excited he is about the New Year? :)