Teefs

Our friend, Ryan Krauter, took these amazing photos of our family, some of which we used for our Christmas card. I love the photo of Axel in his little Peruvian beanie! Ryan is so talented. Everyone should hire him! His website is http://www.krauterphoto.com/. And no, he didn't ask me to advertise for him. If you knew him, you'd know he'd be embarrassed by that sort of thing.

So our suspicions were right, baby is getting some teeth! The day of my last post (7 1/2 months) I saw an itty bitty little prick of a tooth sticking out of Axel's gums. He got a fever that night, and he's had a cold that lasted over a week and infected me, Johan, and Grandpa Lennart.

So I also need to eat my words. In my previous post, I was so proud and well-rested that Axel had been sleeping 12 hours straight without waking. The same night that I wrote that post, Axel's first tooth came in and the night wakings began. It was like having a newborn again. Everyone warned me about teething, and people even told me that once your baby gets a routine down, they'll change on you. But for some reason I was in well-rested mom heaven, which brought complete denial along with it. The night his tooth came in, Axel went to bed fine at around 6:00 p.m., but at around 2:00 a.m. he started crying and wouldn't go back to sleep. When he cries at night, we usually wait around 15 minutes because he will almost always go back to sleep. When this didn't happen, I got up and went into his room and tried to comfort him. I picked him up and he fell asleep in my arms. It was the sweetest thing ever. I loved him falling asleep in my arms so much that I didn't mind getting up to comfort him. I even started taking him to the rocking chair because I loved sitting there, rocking, with him in my arms. But then the night wakings continued, night after night. And it got to the point where he would wake up every 1/2 hour and wasn't even consoled by either Johan or me holding him. I even tried nursing him again, but that did no good.

I ended up calling my doctor to ask if maybe something was wrong that we were overlooking. She asked if I was picking Axel up every time I went into his room at night. When I said yes, I realized that she was going to tell me exactly what I had already read in my Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child book; that we were conditioning Axel to wake up and expect us to pick him up. Duh, how could I forget the rules we had set earlier that had made Axel sleep so well? It's just so hard to not pick your baby up when they're crying. She said it didn't matter if he was teething or not, it's still not a good habit to continue to pick them up out of their crib.

So last night we went to Geoff and Nikki Ledford's amazingly fun wedding. We danced the night away and came home happy that we'd had a chance to go out. Johan slept like a log all night, and I woke up at around 3:00 a.m. when I heard Axel crying. So I stuck to my plan....I waited a little....when he didn't go back to sleep, I got up and went to him and just stroked his head and patted his back. I stayed there for about 10 minutes until he calmed down, then I left the room without picking him up. He cried even harder when I left, but after about 15 seconds....silence! Amazing! He woke up again about an hour later, and I did the same thing, patted the head but didn't pick him up and he fell back asleep again. Now he's back to his 12-hour a night sleeping schedule. Of course, it went back to normal just as our guests left...typical.


We've gotten a lot of grief from our moms about using the cry it out method on Axel. Their generation held and nursed the baby when they cried. And I understand that a lot of people from our generation do too. But I've tried that, and it just does not work for us or for Axel. In fact, every time I've fallen back into the pattern of holding him and nursing him at night, his sleeping gets worse and the wakings come more often. The cry it out method has been the best thing for all of us. And just to set the record straight, we don't leave Axel in his crib crying no matter what. By now, we can tell what his cries mean, he has a "come pick me up" cry, and a painful cry, among others. When he screams bloody murder, then we definitely go to him. But if he's giving us his "I don't want to sleep, I want someone to pick me up so we can play" cry, then we have to say no. I've learned from the Healthy Sleep book that healthy sleeping habits are just as important as healthy eating, or any other discipline because their brains are developing when they sleep. It's really important for their health. I like that perspective.

So on December 26th Axel turned 8 months old. He is still taking 3 naps per day, he stays awake about 2 hours at a time in between naps, nurses 5 times per day, and eats 3 meals per day. Axel also just finished his first month of baby swim classes. He really loves the water! He kicks and has started being okay with having his mouth underwater. He's not ready for his full face underwater though.

He absolutely loves his dad. No one can make Axel smile and laugh like Johan can. It melts my heart to see how much they love eachother. About 2 weeks ago he started saying "Da da da da". We thought he was going to say his first word "Dada", but then we remembered, we don't speak English to him! So we concluded that it's just baby babble.

Last Saturday while Johan's family was here, we got to play 9 holes of golf with Johan's sister and dad while his mom took care of Axel. It was so much fun, and a beautiful day. Afterward, we went with Johan's entire family to lunch in La Jolla. I was a little nervous because Axel has been getting more and more difficult to keep stimulated so I wasn't sure how he would do sitting at the table for an hour. Once we sat at our table, he started getting cranky. We got a high chair and put him in it, and I started to slowly feed him his lunch. To my surprise, the kid never stopped eating! He went through sweet potatoes, peas, and apples. Once I ran out of those, he started crying, so I started giving him some of my bread (which he LOVED), and bits of cucumber. He ate the entire time we were at the restaurant. The funnier part was that he would eat a bite of food, then chew on the edge of the table, eat a bite of food, chew on the table. That was a first for us....keeping him entertained by food. We were all laughing because Axel would throw a fit when you took his food away. Johan's mom said Johan was exactly the same way. After seeing how much he loved eating at the table with everyone, we graduated him from his Prince Lionheart baby seat to his high chair. Now he has his own seat at the table!

I finally talked to my boss about going back to work. We found a nanny who will work 2 days per week, and Johan wants to take his paternity leave one day per week. So I asked my boss if I could come back part time and work 3 days per week and maybe take work home with me and work nights or weekends if I need to work 40 hours. He is an amazing boss, he said yes, and is being so accomodating. I start at the end of January. There is no doubt in my mind that this was all the work of our extremely creative and generous God. Johan and I were so worried about how we would afford for me to stay home as long as I wanted, pay our mortgage, and how the whole job situation would work out for me. So far, it's worked out amazingly well, better than I could have ever planned. This has been absolutely perfect...staying home for 9 months has been exactly what I needed, and now I feel perfectly ready and wanting to go back to work (granted, part time). This is what God is best at...blowing our minds with his creativity and wonderful surprises.

Lastly, I joined a mom surf playgroup! Axel and I have our first outing next Wednesday where we'll meet a bunch of moms to surf at Ocean Beach. I'm so excited I can hardly wait!!!!