Day 2 & 3 of Mia's "Go to sleep" Training! - Victory!

Day 2:


By 9pm I had her dressed, nursed and ready for bed.  I knew she was tired because she was yawning these giant yawns over and over again! Totally adorable by the way!


I took her upstairs after she kissed Daddy "night-night". In her room I told her it was time to go sleep, she kissed Mommy "night-night" and I lay her down in her crib. She assumed the tummy sleeping position (aka chest and face on pillow and bum in the air with knees tucked under, lol!) which is her favorite but didn't cry! I covered her up, said "Goodnight" and walked out closing the door behind me.  Which of course was when she started crying!


I stopped myself from bursting back in there and decided instead to go get changed into pajamas and get my bed cleared off (laundry day...enough said), telling myself that if she was still crying by the time I was done, I'd go in and console her before putting her back down again.  I could tell it wasn't an "utter despair" type of cry, but never-the-less it tugs on the heartstrings.


Do you know what sounds scares me more?  Sudden silence!!  Like in the middle of a cry she suddenly stops and is completely silent! Eek! Needless to say I held my breathe for a few seconds and then slowly talked myself back into breathing...I mean there was no gagging, or flailing....nothing that would say she was in distress.  She was just...quiet!  A few minutes later she did make a few fussing noises (which were in a strange way good to hear ;) ) and then fell asleep!  This all took place in about 15 minutes....not bad for Day 2 right?!




Day 3 - Tonight:
Tonight Daddy fell asleep on the sofa after dinner totally worn out, the poor dear. He'd had a horribly busy day at work and had gotten home late on top of that.  I managed to get Jared in bed an hour late, but at least he got to bed in fresh bedding and teeth brushed! 


Then  it was Mia's turn for a diaper change, before bed nursing session and then we waved night-night to a sleeping Daddy (Yes he's still on the sofa, I haven't the heart to wake him yet!) and we went upstairs...


I got a kiss night-night and I said it was time to sleep and that I loved her.  I lay her down on her pillow and she assumed the sleeping position.......


No fussing!


Then I covered her up with her blankets....


No fussing!


So I told her night-night and walked out, giving her a little wave from the door before closing it....


NO CRYING!!  Not a peep at all from her tonight! I wish I had a webcam or video baby monitor so I could peep at her after I leave the room...I'm so proud of my baby girl...she's taking this sleep training like a real trooper!


Yay!!! Thank you SuperNanny! (even though I modified your technique for crib bound kids, um, a lot! lol! )


And now...it's the parent's bedtime....


Night-Night!

Day 1 of Sleep Training!

The baby (17 mths old in 4 days) is finally asleep!

We decided it's time to sleep train, she's no longer a little baby and it's starting to take longer to get her settled at night for bed.  Not a good thing for mommy-daddy time or my sewing time for that matter, lol!

So, loosely following Jo Frost's (the Supernanny) sleep technique, we're introducing her to the fact that when she's tired she doesn't need Mommy or Daddy to PUT her to sleep, she can do it herself if she just settles down, lies down and allows herself to go to sleep.

At 9:10pm (plenty late enough in my opinion) I got her to give us a kiss night-night and took her up to her crib. She has a night-light on the wall at the base of her crib (it's a slight sleigh crib with the short ends being solid, so there's no light in her eyes or anything) but the main light was off and the door was closed, so no light from the hallway to unsettle her either.

She cried and got up, I put her down and told her it was time to sleep, night-night. She cried and took longer to stand up. When she did I said nothing, just lay her back down. Each time i went back to sitting on the twin bed in her room, where she could see me and know I wasn't "leaving her", but i wasn't making eye contact, moving, or talking...just sitting very very still.

Now don't mis-understand me...when I say "she cried" I don't mean in pain, or that absolutely pitiful cry that little ones can make when they're feeling utterly alone and terrified.  No, just that cry that says "I don't WANT to go to bed mommy"...then a little bit of sniffing and watching you to see if you'll pick her up....Then a bit more crying...standing again, I laid her back down again...little more crying, then sniffing and watching me...and then she didn't get up again...just cried, sniffed, listened and watched me...wash, rinse, repeat for about another 20 minutes...and at about 25 minutes, she stopped crying and watching me...she watched the fan...she "knocked" on her crib...

And then she started closing her eyes once in a while...a little more wiggling....a little more eye closing, but a bit more often...and then they were closed for longer periods of time than open....and then she started to doze!  I waited...waited until her hand stopped twitching occasionally... waited until her sucking on her paci slowed so much that I was sure she was drifting deeper into la-la-land.  Then I stood up, a little at a time to make sure she wasn't jerking awake when the squeaking of the floor and creaking and popping of the bed frame....and slowly and quietly I opened the door and walked out, closing the door behind me on a sleeping babe as cute as can be!

And now ladies and gentlemen, it's almost time for my sweet husband to put me to bed as it's past my bedtime as well.  And while I am always finding "one more thing to do" before I let him guide me to bed, I can guarantee I never cry when I realize it's finally time to lay my head down, and sleep....

Good night!

Gathering our Gr 2 curriculum

I've started gathering the core subjects of our Grade 2 curriculum for Jared.  


I attended the Escondido, CA Homeschool Expo May 7th and 8th. I listened to a couple of talks by a speaker and spent almost every minute searching the expo vendor hall for "the perfect curriculum".  Yes, yes I know , giggle for a sec while you try and imagine me walking around and around that hall getting more and more stressed trying to find the perfect guide for each subject! lol!


In the end I decided to ask a lovely lady named Jeannie (please forgive me if you spell it differently than my cousin does!) from Area 127 in less than coherent sentences, what would be a good L.Arts program for my son to use. She spent a couple minutes trying to decipher what I was looking for, and then while she was asked a quick question by another expo attendee I listened. She was asked about the Learning Language Arts Though Literature program. The other lady was asking which set came next for her child and she had nothing but wonderful things to say about it! Jeannie sweetly sat down with me and explained to me how it worked and how she had used this program before and loved it! 


So Jared's Language Arts program looks like this:

 

History/Geography:
I also asked her about Story of The World Volume 1: Ancient Times, that is raved about by so many people. Apparently she loves it as well, and it is what we will be using for J's core History and Geography curriculum.  I'll add in some American history unit studies, a California one, and so on as needed to round things out for him. 

What about Math?
Well, Jared seems to be progressing well with his current Math program, Horizons from Alpha Omega, so we'll continue with that for Grade 2 unless we hit a bump in the road with it!

Which brings us to Science!
I haven't purchased it yet, but we're going to be using the Apologia Elementary Science, and we'll be using: Exploring Creation with Zoology 1. Flying Creatures of The Fifth Day. Yet another that I've heard nothing but positive things about. I'm planning on using the main textbook and then instead of the science journal / workbook, I'll be purchasing the lapbook lessons to go with it! 


The rest of it are still be decided upon, but at least we're closer to having it all planned out. There's no way I'm wasting precious time later this year with our family all together, by running around last minute trying to figure this out.  There's just too much going on to procrastinate about this right now. With James going back and forth on training and another deployment looming ahead, we can't afford to procrastinate...well, not about this anyway! ;)

Have you ever...

Have you ever watched a movie or read a book that just made you want to go DO something?

I just got done watching Julie and Julia during the kids nap time. Loved it!  And by the end of it all I could think about was I HAD to clean my kitchen and I had to find that supposedly fantastic recipe by Julia Child for Beef Bourguignon! Lol!

I found it! Here it is: CLICK ME! I'm slightly intimidated by the difficulty being, well, "difficult"! But who knows...maybe I'll make it one day. ;)

I'm not always the most eloquent blogger, and I certainly am not the most dependable! I spend more time blogging in my head than I ever do on the computer, and by the time I do sit at the keyboard any humor or cute "footnotes" that may have once been part of the story vanish and all is left is a basic textbook account of what I've done...not quite what I had planned, if you know what I mean! ;)

There's no doubt I have a few things to work on, but nevertheless, I'll keep plodding on and one day it'll start becoming a little more second nature.

The hubby's away on training right now. Jared's mouth is forever moving, as though he's his own little narrator! He's bright boy, loves math and is DESPERATE to do "REAL science experiments Mommy, please!".  So apart form all my other lofty goals for the rest of this year, I will be trying to work in real science experiments every now and then. I found some really cool ones on Rainbow Resources and I might decide to give them a whirl during our Grade 2 year coming up!  Wow! Can you believe that my baby boy is already about to enter Grade 2??!! Cliche or not...they grow so fast!

Even weirder for many is that I am now his teacher! Homeschooling is challenging for sure, especially when you're new and have no idea what is the best of the 400 000 (exaggeration i'm sure ;) ) option out there. But slowly but surely we'll figure it out.

Mia, being the toddler she is, is keeping us all on our toes.  Give her one second without anyone's eyes glued on her and you'll turn around to discover her trying to get into anything and everything she's not supposed to touch lol! Her hair is finally getting long enough for teeny tiny little pigtails...I'll post pics soon, it's so adorable! As soon as the little piggytails go in I can see so much of me as a little girl in her!

But Jared's desperate to get outside, Mia thankfully is still napping, and I have dishes to do...so ta-ta for now!