Kai's first Owwie and Sleep Training

So I gave Kai his first owwie today. It was obviously an accident and I felt horrible about it. What happened was that I saw numerous little scratches all over his face this morning when I got him up and so I went in search of the culprit nail. I began clipping any nail I could find and wasn't having any resistance from Kai. When I was on his left thumbnail, however, out of nowhere he kicked my hand. You all can finish the end of the story. The clippers took a small chunk of flesh off of his cute little thumb and he was bleeding. Reid helped us out by getting the first aid kit and a Q-Tip to soak up the blood. Good little Kai, though, didn't seem to be bothered in the least and hasn't seemed to notice that anything's wrong. Thank goodness.

In my last post, I mentioned that Kai was sleeping much better at nights and thankfully he still is. However, his naps had not gotten any better and it was taking a serious toll on me. I found myself sitting in his dark nursery, holding and rocking him for hours at a time and for most of my day. Slowly but surely I was losing my sanity. (Reid may actually say that I lost my sanity......) The book Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child that I had been reading indicates that by 16 weeks infants should be ready to handle sleep training. So, we allowed Kai to enjoy turning 16 weeks old on Labor Day and then the day after we began the sleep training. Basically, I established a set of rules and a routine for his naps that I need to be consistent in implementing. Everything is actually quite simple, it's just the execution that gets to be somewhat difficult.

We start every nap with 10 minutes of cuddling and rocking with mommy and the binky. At the end of the 10 minutes he goes into his crib. He can be awake or asleep at this point and he will still need to go into his crib. Then he is to stay in his crib until he sleeps at least an hour or until an hour and half of time passes (whichever comes first). If he is sleeping when the hour and a half is up, I continue to let him sleep. See, sounds simple. The hard part was the crying the first few days. But after even only four days I was noticing some improvements in that his naps were just a tiny bit longer and the crying had decreased dramatically. And the best part.....on day 5, Saturday, Kai took his first hour and a half nap all by himself!! I was so proud of my little buddy.

Unfortunately, church on Sunday interfered with the training and then yesterday I caved into the crying because of an unfortunate binky incident. I have now decided that he can't take the binky into the crib with him and that will resolve those issues. So, we have experienced crying again today and I think we've regressed just a bit from where we were on Saturday. But we're still plugging along. He's in his crib fussing a bit right now, but I will remain strong. I know I sound like a hardened parent, but it really is for his own good. I have found that going in there only makes the crying worse or, even worse, completely eliminates all thoughts of sleeping at all. For him, my appearance is the beginning of party time. So, we're pressing forward and hopefully in a few weeks he'll be a much more consistent longer napper. I'm crossing my fingers and praying real hard.

Well, since I think I finally have this blog the way I like it (at least for now), I think it's time to tell the world it's here. It's up to all of you if you would like to read it or not, but at least this is a fun way for me to keep some type of journal for Kai and our family. I certainly do hope that you all enjoy these little insights and the occasional pictures!