Tiger's Milk

I've been trying to increase my milk supply to help with my baby's growth. One of my friends who happens to be a doula introduced me to Tiger's Milk. It's milk loaded with lots of good stuff your body needs to make good quality milk!

Tiger's Milk
-1 cup warm milk (organic if possible)
-1 tablespoon coconut oil
-1 teaspoon of BLACKSTRAP Molasses (it has to be blackstrap!)

So how should this help? Well to begin with warm milk helps the rest go down! It actually turns out quite yummy. The coconut oil helps supply the medium-chain fatty acids found naturally in mother's milk, making it rich in these health improving nutrients. Blackstrap molasses is an iron-rich leaving from the refining process of sugar and a traditional remedy for low milk supply. It is important to choose a high quality product because cheaper brands may be diluted with corn syrup.

To be honest it's hard to tell if it's helping. I'm only pumping before bed and in the MOTN. It seems like I'm starting to get a little more milk. I started drinking this twice a day to really kick in the nutrients. We'll see how it goes!

9 Month Baby Wise Update

Yay an update that is practically 'on time'. I had the choice between spending this time updating our family blog or doing this update. I figured this was more time sensitive, so here I am.

The changes we implemented about 3 weeks ago have gone awesome. We made the changes I planned (lengthening the time between the morning and afternoon nap) on to help with our morning wake time and they pretty much fixed it. Occasionally he'll still wake up 20 minutes early and play, but rarely does he cry the whole time. Here's his 9 month schedule:

7:30 Wake, Nurse
8:30 Solids
9:30 Nap
11:30 Wake, Nurse
12:30 Soilds
2:30 Nap
4:00 Wake, Nurse
6:00 Solids
7:00 Nurse
7:30 Bed

We also moved bedtime up half hour. Since putting him down later wasn't helping his morning wake time we brought him back to his 7:30 bed time.

One thing that has come up this week was at his 9 month appointment he didn't gain too much the past 1.5 months. His total gain since 6 month as been good, but all of it was up until 7.5 months. I think this may be in part to dropping his 5th & 6th feeding rather abruptly. I still feel he's healthy and gaining weight, but just at a slower rate than before. His pediatrician wants us to come back in 6 weeks to check his growth. Our plan is to start adding more fattening foods to his diet like coconut oil, avocado, cheese, etc. I'm also going to try to add in a feeding after I get home from work. I don't think he'll eat a lot, but hopefully get a few extra calories in.

I just finished reading BW II. It's a great book. The best part may be the fact that we shouldn't have to change Elijah's schedule until at LEAST 15 months; most likely 18 months. This will be wonderful-that's seriously 9 months of consistency!!! I LOVE IT. We'll see of course, but it should be nice.

The other parts that I'm really enjoying is talking about training and obedience. Balancing between baby-proofing the house and house-proofing the baby. Elijah is already really good at understanding what NOT to touch. He still tests and pushes boundaries-he's going to be a mischievous one, but I can tell he knows.  It also focuses on purposing play time. Using it as a learning opportunity. Eljiah is already learning so quick. He knows bye bye, milk, all done, eat, and starting please. He can also clap!

I'm not sure how often I'll do BW updates now. If anything changes, I'll be sure to come back!

8.5 Month BabyWise Update

Another 2 months has passed. It's been a lot of work, but his schedule is finally on a good track again!

After finally realizing that this learning thing doesn't end-I hopped on the BabyWise forum to get some help (a blessing straight from God!) along with purchasing BabyWise II for 5 month-12 month babies. Why didn't I do this months ago???

As I said in my last post, the CIO worked to get him sleeping through the night again. It's been great! I also didn't pick back up the MOTN pump, so I've been getting sleep! 8 hours again. Finally. Really, it's priceless.

After starting Babywise II and getting ALOT of advice from the forum, I realized that Elijah needed more wake time, more food, and he needed the dreamfeed and late afternoon nap dropped. Within about 2 weeks, we implemented all of it. It's worked WONDERS! He started his 2 hour naps again, he's eating SOOO much better, sleeping SOOO much better. He's well rested and happy again.

Here's his new schedule now:
7:30 Wake, Nurse
8:30 Solids
9:30 Nap
11:30 Wake, Nurse
12:30 Soilds
2:00 Nap
4:00 Wake, Nurse
6:00 Solids
7:45 Nurse
8:00 Bed

There's still a few little things that need worked out, but I have a plan and we're starting it today. He's still waking pretty consistently at 6:30 a.m. My late bed time helped for a while, but then dropping his 3rd nap through that off a little. He's getting much better at staying in his crib and being happy. He'll usually cry the last 20-30 minutes though-but he stays in until his desired wake up time. So to fix this, I'm going to try extending his wake time between his morning and afternoon nap. So his wake time amounts will be 2/3/4. I think this will work great!! He's usually REALLY tired by 2 p.m., so I may increase it in 15 min. increments. We'll see how he does.

I'm also going to increase his food by an ounce. He's usually comfortable after his 4 oz, but he seems he could eat more-so perhaps this will help with his sleep as well. I always sleep better once I'm full.

So I'll hopefully update again soon and let you know how it worked. It seriously feels like it changes once you finally get it. Oh well, the life of parenting right??

A few notes:
1. We keep him in his crib until his scheduled wake time. He plays and jabbers a lot of it. He still cries some of it though.
2. We now go more by the clock that we used to. Not so much the wake, eat, play schedule. He's old enough I feel comfortable with him waiting to eat. I want his body used to normal eat/sleep times. It is still parent-directed though-meaning I use my mad mommy skills to interpret what he needs (even if it's outside the schedule). The schedule is there to help us, not rule us.  LOVE Babywise.

Babywise has taught me MANY things. One thing that has stuck out to me lately though is that it really never ends. Parenting isn't just learning the basics with a new born. As soon as you get comfortable, you baby grows, his needs change, and you change with it. I thought I was 'done' learning once I got the hang of things around 4 months. NOT A CHANCE!!! That's when things went haywire. Now we're in the disciplining stage-which I get a feeling is training me and Tyler just as much as it's training us.

We've also started transitioning to baby led weaning. So instead of using purees, were trying to feed more finger foods so he controls how much he eats. It also gets him ready to eat on his own. We're doing more a combination right now, but he loves it.

I know BW isn't for everyone. I know some people CRINGE at the idea. I can't help but notice the difference though in the way Elijah sleeps compared with other babies though. He goes to sleep in his crib, happily-even excited at times, he sleeps 2 hours for nap times, 11.5 hours for night times, wakes up happy (most of the time), I honestly believe it's healthier for mom, dad, and baby parenting the babywise way. It's been ALOT of work. We're not 'lucky'. It's been so worth it though. The way I see it is you're exhausted and it's a lot of work no matter how you parent-so I would rather my exhaustion and work be directed towards an end goal that is the best for the family as whole. If you ask me 8 hours of sleep is an excellent end goal for mom and baby ;).

6.5 Month BabyWise Update

I really want to get better at posting my BabyWise updates. I plan to once a month. Here's where we're at now. Elijah had a growth spurt around 5 months old. It felt like it lasted FOREVER. He started waking up one to two times at night. My middle of the night(MOTN) pump went out the window, but luckily I was able to get enough milk for Elijah's bottles until I was done at my old job.

I took two weeks off and was basically pump free. During this time, Elijah stuck with his normal schedule:
7 a.m. WEP
8:30 a.m. Nap
11 a.m. WEP
12:30 p.m. Nap
2:00 WP (When we pick him up from the babysitters)
2:30 BF
3:30 Nap
5:30 WEP
7:30 BF, Bed

Around 5.5 months we started solids. Slowly, but with Elijah's growth spurt and waking up twice at night-I was hoping solids would help. They did a little. I quickly increased solids from once a day to 3 times a day, about 1-2 ounces per feeding (usually 4-6 oz. per day).

Right now at 6.5 months, we're in a transition phase. I'm researching appropriate 6 month schedules. Elijah was still waking up around 3 a.m. until last Friday. I decided that it became habitual since it was the same time every night and we let him cry it out (CIO). CIO lasted about 30 minutes then he went back to sleep. The next night, he woke up around 3 and only cried 5 minutes before going back to sleep. He's been sleeping through the night (STTN) ever since (about a week now)!

Now that that is fixed, I'm working on fixing his bedtime/morning wake time. I need him to wake up around 7:30 so that his 1st wake time isn't over 1.5-2 hours. Sometimes he'll wake around 6:20, and we don't get him down for his nap at his sitters until 9:10 (that's almost 3 hours!). So I'm trying to put him down for bed at 7 p.m. I have to admit for this working mom-that's tough. I'll try this for a week and see what happens. If it doesn't fix it, I'll try 8 p.m. and see if that works.

Once that is fixed-hopefully soon-I'll work on his wake times (WT), so I can drop his late afternoon nap. We have a lot to fix! Here's his messy 'routine' now:
6:20-6:30 WT (this is supposed to be 7-7:30) I BF at this time.
8:45-9:10 Nap (this depends on his sitter)
10:30 WT (This is supposed to be 11). I go to his sitters at 11 to BF.
12:00 Solids
12:30-12:45 Nap (we're going to try to extend this a little later to hopefully get him to sleep longer)
1:30 WT (This is supposed to be 2:00).
2:30 BF (I think I'll extend this to 7)
3:00 Solids
3:45 Nap
5:30 WEP (He'll usually actually sleep until this time!) I BF when we wake him up.
6:30 Solids
7:30 BF and Bed

As you can tell-it's really messy! When we created the first schedule listed, it was completely 100% accurate. It's crazy how a growth spurt and a month can switch everything around. It's true that as soon as you get used to something, it changes!!! I'll post soon once we get a good 6-7 month schedule in order. Wish me luck!

4 Month BabyWise Update

So Elijah is now 4 mo, 1 week. At about 17 weeks (from due date), he started having a growth spurt. I think this was 1 week before he turned 4 months. His growth spurt lasted 2 weeks. Pretty much at 19.5 weeks it ended. After posting a few questions in the Babywise Babycenter forum, I was introduced to the Wonder Weeks. He was right in his wonderweeks. Now that we're on the other side, I could see that he was effected by them. He did so much growing and learning in those 2 weeks. He went from 4.5 oz up to 7 oz per feeding. He is now back to 5 oz. I was so stressed about pumping enough while I was at work. I started pumping in the MOTN right before this, so I had some milk stored up and a good supply. During these weeks, Elijah started waking up once or twice at night. I think it was because he wanted to eat-or possibly growing pains. I thought it may have been teething, but now I see I was wrong. I also think that his sleep was just disrupted by everything he was going though-the 'wonder' of seeing things a new way.

He's back to STTN and eating every 3 hours. His naps stick around 1.5-2 hours with at least one 45 min nap per day. I think I'm now slowly going to move him to a 3.5 hour schedule and possibly remove the DF. We'll see how it goes!