The Cry It Out Method

Jacoby goes to sleep on his own now, for naps and for bedtime. If he wakes up in the middle of the night, he usually puts himself back to sleep within 5 minutes. I know there is a LOT of controversy about CIO (cry it out) methods, and I was always on the fence about it so I developed my own little modified CIO method. It is nothing fancy and I'm sure people have thought of it before but all I know is it worked wonders. Once I started doing it, he was self soothing in a month. The first week was the hardest, oftentimes I had to take him out of his crib and rock him, but every week, he got a little bit better at it. Here is generally what I did:

1. Make sure he is full/clean/burped/warm/comfortable.

2. put him in his clean crib (no toys or distractions, my son likes to hold a baby blanket), and turn out the lights

3. leave the room for 10 minutes, let him fuss and cry (obviously check on him if you think something is wrong)

4. come back after 10 mins, patt his back/belly, talk to him and comfort him until he quiets down.

5. when you feel he is calmed down a bit (doesnt have to be perfectly quiet but better off then he was before you came back), leave for another 10 mins.

6. repeat the same cycle until he falls asleep on his own (if i did this for an hour and he was still not asleep, i would take him out and rock him to sleep, or feed him)

It won't be perfect every night but he will get the hang of it. Once again, this took about a month, so this isn't something that happens overnight. I hope this helps anyone looking for a good sleep method!

Wow been almost 2 months!

It's been almost two months since I posted. I was never very good at keeping a diary when I was younger. Anyway, now I am back, but I am not going to promise that I won't disappear again!

Updates on Jacoby! He is started crawling on August 24th and then pulling himself to stand on August 27th! He has two teeth that sprouted up, and he is now eating baby meats. He said mama for the first time (though he doesn't know what it means yet), and he is starting to cruise the furniture.

Ever since he started crawling he hasn't stopped. He wears himself out everyday. Here is a picture of him two days ago, jumping himself to sleep:

And it is pure frustration trying to baby proof a house. I have the living room and the bedroom (connected to the living room), sectioned off with his playpen so that he has a safe place to wonder around, but he still manages to find things he is not supposed to have.

As for the weight loss journey, I have pretty much given up for now. I want another baby, and I think there's no point to working my butt off to lose extra weight (I'm already at my pre-preg weight), when I know I'm just going to gain it back with the second baby. So I'm just trying to make healthy choices for now.

I still haven't started my period. I'm usually right on time, and today is the day I'm supposed to start, so we shall see. I really hope I don't get my period, even though we will probably catch hell from everybody for getting pregnant so early after Jacoby. I've tried to shake the desire to have another, but the more I try not to think about it, the more I think about it.

Updates on other things: Shaun finished his Bachelors in Business Management, and already has his Associates in Accounting. I convinced him to let me be a stay at home mom since he hates to clean, and Jacoby seems to really benefit from it. As long as I can babysit part time, he is okay with it. I met a really great family recently, and I start babysitting for them next week, so I think I finally met my match.