IT FINALLY HAPPENED!!

Our little man slept through the night!!


After almost six long months, I thought this day would never come. The night before last, Preston and I were doing battle from 2-3:30am. At this age, I am trying not to feed him during the night (per doctor's orders) and do not want to pick him up out of the crib when he cries. It also would totally break my heart to let him "cry it out", so when I read about this "controlled crying" method, I thought I'd try it out. When I first heard him crying, I waited five minutes, then went in and gave him the pacifier and rubbed his back for about ten minutes. He was still fussing, so I went out of the room for 10 minutes, soothed him, then 15 minutes out of the room, and finally, when I was at the 20-minutes-out-of the-room mark, and he was crying pretty heavily, I was about to give up and rescue him from the crib. I had about 5 minutes left of my 20-minute window when the crying began to soften and then melted into silence. The little guy was able to calm himself down and fall asleep. And last night, he slept from 7pm-6:30am.

Hallelujah!

5 months old!

Here is an update of what is going on during Preston's fifth month:

(Almost) sleeping through the night-We put Preston down for bed between 7-8pm and he is now able to go without a feeding until the next morning. He still wakes up 1 or 2 times per night, and we have to go into his room and rub his back until he falls asleep, but we do not pick him up and he is able to get himself back to sleep with our help.

Sitting up on his own- Auntie Lesley discovered he could do this while we were all eating dinner together the day after Christmas.  She sat him on the table and then took her hands away and voila- we had a baby who was able to hold himself up on his own!

Eating solid food- Preston has really taken to trying out solid foods and is being a good sport about eating most of what we have been giving to him. For now, that has only been rice cereal, pureed peas and pureed prunes (that one was for "medicinal" purposes). 

Next challenge... working on getting this child to take a nap for longer than 30 minutes! Stay tuned...

Preston's First Christmas

On Christmas Eve, Preston experienced his first Vairo family Christmas party, complete with copious amounts of delicious Italian food, the infamous Yankee Swap that included a framed photo of cousin Matthew in the sixth grade and a Tiger Woods action figure, and of course, the family carol singing. Every year, we end with "The 12 Days of Christmas", each person or group taking a different day to sing. This year, appropriately, I got to sing "Eight maids-a-milking."  That evening, we all slept at my parents' house- Alex, Preston and I, Bobby and Jen, Lesley, Dug and Mazzy. There are only a few times a year when the family is all together under one roof, and I think those moments are very special.

Christmas day was very relaxed, with most of the morning spent opening gifts and then a family dinner. Preston loved being with everyone and loved his gift from Mimi and Grampy- an exersaucer! We bought him the same one, so now he can use it at home and at the grandparents'! Here are a few photos from the weekend.

america's next top models?

Liz and I took our babes to one of those portrait places at the mall. It was pretty hilarious.  They were both really well behaved, and I have to admit that the results were pretty darn adorable.

4 months old!

I can't believe how quickly time is passing! Preston turned 4 months old on Monday and it's clear that he is rapidly leaving his newborn days behind. He's rolling over from his back to his tummy like a pro and is starting to get restless on his play mat. He just wants to be upright, so looks like we'll need to bring on the next stage of baby gear (excer-saucers, walkers, jumpy things, etc).

He is now sleeping in his big crib in his own room and last night was the first night that we left him completely unswaddled. He did pretty well. He's still waking up one or two times per night, but for the most part he goes to sleep around 7 or 8pm and will sleep until 4 or 5am, feed, and then fall back asleep until 7am.  I'm liking this schedule because it gives Alex and I some time to ourselves in the evenings, which basically means that he can watch me while I fall asleep on the couch. 

At his 4-month checkup, he weighed in at 17 pounds (95th percentile!) and 25 inches long (50th percentile). I think we may have a rugby player in the making!  Good thing he's got his All Blacks gear.

the daily grind

Now that our little peanut is almost 4 months old, we are trying to get a bit of a routine going as far as sleeping and feedings.  So far, it's been working out well at night. We put him to bed at 7pm and then I feed him around 10:30 or 11pm (he is usually half asleep) and theoretically, he should sleep until 7am.  This isn't quite happening yet, and he wakes up anywhere between 4-5am. Luckily, he's able to go back to sleep after a quick snack and will sleep until 7am.  Eventually, I've heard that babies will sleep for 12 hours a night, but that seems like a far-away dream, and for now I'll enjoy my 11pm-4am snooze. 

Best time of the day...

...is in the morning. Preston is especially smiley and chatty. We get him up from his bassinet and take him into bed with us and he plays and coos and gurgles. This morning, he rolled over all by himself and Alex and I were both there to see it!! How exciting....he'll be off and running before we know it. Yikes.