Let the fear take the wheel and steer...

Before this post gets underway, I wanted to make a quick clarification about the Pampers giveaway.  This being NMOTB's first giveaway (though there will be more, I hope!), I think I did a bad job of explaining the rules of the giveaway.  Each comment you make on the blog (whether it be to tell me you follow me on Facebook/Pinterest, be your awesome sleep advice - I'm learning so much! - or your bonus entry for today) counts as one entry for the giveaway.  So, if you liked me on Facebook or Pinterest (thank you!) in order to enter the giveaway you need to leave a comment so that it can be counted for an entry.  If you already followed me on Facebook/Pinterest, you must also still leave a comment stating so.  I am terrible at explaining things without being wordy, so I blame the confusion on me and you're probably even more confused now.  Ideally, you will be able to enter the contest up to three times (So, three comments on the giveaway post - one with your sleep advice, one stating if you follow me on Pinterest, and one with your guess about today's bonus question.  Additionally, you must "like" New Mom on the Blog on Facebook to qualify you if you win.  You don't have to leave an additional comment stating so.)  Phew.  No wonder it's so confusing.  I'm terrible at this.

Though we have yet to experience them, I have several friends who have told me about their struggles with a very unsettling phenomenon known commonly as "night terrors." 

It's like a bad dream on steroids except that you'll never know what made your little one scream like a banshee in the middle of the night (nor will they).  In truth, since we haven't experienced them, I don't even know that much about them myself, so I was super excited when I received an email with someone who was interested in writing her solution for night terrors that worked like a charm.  This particular person is someone who has raised two wonderful children into adulthood and lives an amazingly healthy lifestyle (one which I modeled some of my own weight loss after).  She also happens to be my mother's twin sister and more importantly - my godmother.

Oh, AND, did I mention? She's gorgeous.

So here is what my Aunt Patty has to share with us.  And, make sure you don't miss the end of the post where I tell you what you can do for another chance at the Pampers Giveaway!

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From the day she was born, my amazing daughter, Katie, has thrived on rituals.  She still does to this day, 23 years later.  When she was a three-year-old little girl, she and I had to go through the exact same routine every night before she would settle down to sleep.  After her bath, we would read exactly three books, no more, no less.  We said the exact prayers in the exact order.  Then I was required to tuck her beloved teddy bear and water baby into the exact spots around her and give her the exact number of kisses on her sweet, little nose.  And finally, before closing the bedroom door, we would need to say the exact goodnight words, always ending with, “I love you so, so much.” 

Finally it was time for my own ritual, when I would have a little time for myself to relax before climbing into bed and falling into a deep sleep.  But without fail I would be abruptly awakened by Katie’s desperate screams.  I would rush up the stairs and into her room to find her in a completely different state than I had left her just a few hours earlier.  Sweating and breathing heavily, Katie would be staring wild-eyed into space, sobbing and screaming, speaking incoherently.  I tried everything to help calm her.  I tried soothing her with gentle words, then reasoning with stern ones.  I tried applying cold washcloths to her face to snap her out of it.  I tried holding her, only to be pushed away.  Every attempt to soothe or rouse her was useless.  All I could do was stand by helplessly, waiting until she eventually calmed on her own and she fell back into a peaceful sleep.

Luckily, Katie had no recollection of these terrors in the morning.  But I did.  I was exhausted and becoming increasingly frustrated and hopeless.  I felt guilty for the misplaced anger I had towards my small daughter, who had absolutely no control over these episodes.  I felt like a failure as a mother for my inability to help calm my terrified child.  Was it my mothering technique?  Was I doing something wrong?

I was becoming more and more desperate as the nightly terrors continued over the following year.  Finally I reached out for help from Katie’s pediatrician.  I described the episodes in detail and he explained that as long as she was in no danger of harming herself, it was okay to do nothing.  He assured me that Katie would eventually outgrow them.  After that I turned to parenting books and had some insight into other parents’ experiences with night terrors and had a few tips on how to handle the episodes.  The advice was mostly to not interrupt and let the terror run its course.  But I was not going to just stand by and witness my daughter’s nightly terrors.  And I did not want to wait until my daughter outgrew them.  These night terrors were entirely too disruptive in our household so I continued to search for help.

One day, I mentioned Katie’s ongoing night terrors to Jane, the owner of my favorite bookstore.  Surprisingly, Jane happened to have a friend who not only had a child with the same problem, but also had solved it.  She gave me her friend’s number, which I called immediately.  Jane’s friend was a complete godsend.  Her advice was so, so simple, but it changed everything.

She told me she would get her daughter out of bed about an hour or two after she fell asleep.  She would guide her to the bathroom, set her on the toilet, and then help her get back into bed.  She said her daughter never really woke up and would go right back to sleep.  It was that simple.  I gave her advice a try that night and it worked!  Katie’s night terrors completely stopped and our whole house could sleep soundly through the night.  I repeated this routine for about a year until slowly easing off.  She never experienced a night terror again. 

Today, Katie has a different set of nighttime rituals.  They do not include her beloved teddy bear or water baby.  And I no longer read to her or tuck her into bed and help her say her prayers.  But one ritual has not changed:  we never go to sleep without telling each other those exact same words, “I love you so, so much.”

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It is of course at this point that I share with you that the obvious reason we haven't experienced this phenomenon yet is most likely because we haven't potty trained.  So, just one more thing to look forward to.  Yay...

Feel free to ask more questions about night terrors or about this possible solution.  I'm sure Aunt Patty will be happy to ask them!

And now, the bonus round!  For one more bonus entry in Friday's giveaway: hop on over to the original post and name the connection between the subject of this post and the lyrics I used for its title.  (Your answer doesn't have to be correct in order for your entry to count, so give it a try!)  The giveaway will close tomorrow, May 2 at 7:00 pm CDT, so get all of your entries squared away before then!

Do you sleep anymore...

A couple of months ago, I helped throw a baby shower for one of my best friends.  My duties were extremely simple: drinks, dipping implements for the chocolate fondue, and diapers.  I saw this great idea on Pinterest to have the guests of the shower write bits of advice for the mom-to-be on diapers for her to read during those (NUMEROUS) diaper changes.  I wanted the diapers to be ones she could actually get a good use out of and so of course, I went straight for Pampers.

At my own baby showers, moms of all ages with kids of all ages all swore by Pampers as their go-to brand of diaper.  We were given countless diapers at our showers and we also made sure to stock up a bit before The Incredible Hulk made his appearance, but immediately we saw the difference in the quality of other diapers to Pampers.

I recommend Pampers to all New Moms for one small, but very important reason - SLEEP.  By far, the most jarring thing you experience in the first few weeks of motherhood is the enormous lack of sleep that follows.  So, when your precious babe starts to sleep for long stretches, the very last thing you want is for them to wake up because they have soaked through their diaper.  Pampers Baby Dry is your number one defense for this.  We diapered TIH in them all day long knowing that if he fell asleep and took an extra long nap, we'd be okay even if his diaper hadn't been changed for a few hours.

When your babe gets a little bit older, you will want to eek every last bit of sleep out of their one nap a day (if you're lucky) that you can.  We actually go up a size to ensure a little bit more absorbency when TIH wears them over night and we've also found they are a Godsend for long car trips (when you can convince your toddler not to unbuckle themselves out of the car seat while headed down the highway at 70 mph.)

We're on the road to potty training any day now (or so I like to delusionally tell myself), so I'm enjoying the time that we can rely on a good brand of diapers for the comfort of our kiddo and the extra hours of sleep (for all of us.)  So, in the meantime - I know I have Pampers in my corner.

Good news!  My friends at Pampers have provided me with the SWEETEST prize pack to giveaway this week on the blog.  Included in the package (valued at $100):

- Pampers Baby Dry Diapers (size can be selected by the winner)
- Pampers Sensitive Wipes (also a favorite in our house)
- Constellation B Glow Animals (TIH is absolutely obsessed with this)
- 3 of our FAVORITE Nighttime Story Books (Goodnight, Moon; Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?; Where the Wild Things Are)
- 1 FREE product coupon for Pampers Baby Dry Diapers
- 1 FREE product coupon for Pampers Wipes

I literally could not be more excited to give this prize pack away to one lucky reader.  So here are the rules:

- You must be a fan of New Mom on the Blog on Facebook to enter.  Leave a comment with the best kiddo sleep advice you've ever received.  (If you were already a NMOTB Facebook fan, you can just state that when you leave your comment.)
- For one bonus entry, you can follow me on Pinterest where I am obsessively pinning great ideas for kids, DIY, and food.  (Mostly food.)  Just leave an additional comment saying that you've started to follow my madness.

The contest will shut down Thursday night at 7:00 pm CDT at which point I will randomly select a winner from the comment section and announce it here on the blog on Friday, May 3!  And be sure to check back on Wednesday where I will be offering up another opportunity to win this awesome giveaway as well as some of the best sleep advice I've ever heard from my very own godmother!

Good luck to all who enter!  Hope to see you back on Wednesday!

Though the lovely folks at Pampers provided me with the Pampers Baby Dry Sweet Sleep Time Gift Pack to giveaway on this blog, the opinions expressed are my own.  I truly have always been a huge fan of their product.

Only when I sleep...

The Incredible Hulk started sleeping through the night the first full week that I returned to work for maternity leave.

Yeah.
Could I be any luckier?
In fact, I learned pretty quickly that he could have slept in even later than I was allowing him if I would let him.  For the most part, I don't even wake him up (read: peel him out of bed to change him, feed him, and get him dressed while he is still mostly asleep) until after I'm finished getting showered/dressed/ready, packing a lunch for me, packing lunch for the baby, watching a few minutes of whatever Real Housewives episode I had TiVo'd from the night before and brewing a pot of coffee.  He sleeps through all of it.

But then, we got sick and TIH started waking every. single. night. Other than the week my husband was out of town, I honestly don't remember the last time he consistently slept through night.  And even then, he probably only slept through the night in fear of being locked in the car again.

Around Christmas time, I was able to boast that I could count on one hand the number of nights he woke up throughout the night.  But now, I'm only able to count on one hand the number of nights he didn't wake up (and it wouldn't even take the whole hand.)

With the emergence of a tooth and the resolution of all of his illnesses, (including a raging double ear infection that mommy missed...parenting fail) I figured our sleep schedule would get back to normal.  Ha.  Right.

Three nights ago, he woke up every two hours.  Like clockwork.
The next night, it was the same, except that each time we put him down, he also woke up ten minutes after that.

I have been trying desperately to maintain a "no nighttime feeding" rule throughout all of these episodes, but when you're trying to rock a child who is latching onto your shoulder, your ear, your cheek, or anything that he thinks has any remote possibility of yielding food - it's hard to keep your resolve.  So, he's also been getting at least one nighttime feeding despite having no nutritional need for food in the middle of the night (as evidenced by the 5 blissful months of full nights of sleep.)  This is not good at all.

I've done lots of "research" (read: did one Google search) only to discover that there are A LOT of moms out there whose children have decided to stop sleeping between the ages of 7-10 months.  Apparently, this is normal.  In fact, I read one article that basically stated that children who are sleeping through the night at 9 months are the exception, not the rule.  Still, undeterred, I gleaned a few pieces of advice from lots of random articles, this book, blog posts, and :shudder: message boards and tried some of those suggetsions.
We messed with his sacred nighttime routine to see if he's developmentally in need of a later/earlier bedtime.  We had the babysitter track his napping habits to see if we needed an improvement there.  We stopped using Benadryl for his neverending runny nose and started using Claritin so the quality of his sleep is better, but so that we're not drugging him. Nothing really seemed to matter or improve the situation.

Finally - we just went back to old reliable.  Same bedtime routine since birth which consists of:

• Warm bath with lavender soap
• Lavender lotion before PJs.  I used to try doing a baby massage at this part, but he was too squirmy and didn't really seem to like it that much, so instead I usually sing or hum while I slather the stuff on to try to make him calm down a bit.
• Thick layer of the good stuff and a fresh diaper (in case he actually does make it through the night, it'll protect him from the wet diaper)
• Lullaby music turned on and reflux medication given
• TIH eats until he falls asleep

Wouldn't you know it?  It worked.  At around 2:00 am, he fussed a little bit and my husband jumped out of bed to get him.  I could tell from the sounds from the monitor that he was settling himself down, so I said, "Let's just see if he can get himself back to sleep."

And.  He.  Did.

So, of course, as luck would have it - I was unable to get back to sleep for another hour and ended up being even MORE tired the next day...when we returned to regularly scheduled programming and began nightwaking again.

Bored yet?  Me too.

Last night, he woke up once to eat (which wasn't surprising since he kind of zonked out before really getting a good bedtime meal) and then slept.  And slept.  And slept.
This child slept through a short, but torrential thunderstorm which was loud enough that my husband and I couldn't sleep and violent enough that it claimed the life of our grill and nearly killed our patio furniture as well.

But he slept.
Didn't make a peep.

I don't GET IT.
This kid is MESSING WITH ME, you guys.
Either that or I'm delusional from lack of sleep.
So...I wish I could say I'm wanting advice on this one, but it kind of seems like there is nothing that can really be done to improve this situation except to ride it out and eventually he'll start sleeping again.

At least I think that's the lesson here.
Or, I'm too tired to come up with a better lesson.