I was reading a post about beautiful young lady who is turning 16 today.  One of the things her mother shared about her was that she “She has strong convictions and knows her mind, but she is ever gentle about it, never overbearing.”.  What a wonderful word picture of the character I hope my little girl develops.   (She is currently in the this is what I WANT  NOW stubborn stage:)  But this reminded me to look to her future and have hope that she is going to change and grow, and hopefully into a beautiful young lady.  And also, most importantly, I need to pray for her.  That God would work in her and shape her into a godly young lady.  I also prayed for wisdom to guide and correct her in a way that will gently teach and not hinder her.  Sometimes I just need those reminders to stop and pray and realize that my daughter is God’s daughter first and most importantly.

Well my mom bought me another book.  Solve Your Child’s Sleep Problems by Richard Ferber. (My reaction was: “Mom, I have already read EVERYTHING!”)  Well I was wrong – this book was great. It had similar stuff, such as making sure that your child can fall asleep on her own (check), and slowly weaning them off eating at night (tried but not yet succeeded) but it had something else as well.  He wrote all about the different sleep cycles and that information was very helpful.

For one thing, I realized that Anna was currently suffering from having a “late sleep cycle”.  This means that she was getting fussy earlier then normal but then falling asleep a lot later than normal.  This had happened because we had had family in town and stayed out later than normal doing things a couple of nights and Anna had gone to bed late.  So now she was having trouble falling asleep at her normal time.  Thankfully this was easy to fix.  I did two things he suggested.  I woke Anna up at her normal time each morning, and I put her to bed 15 minutes earlier each day.  After three days she was back to normal.

That was the short-term problem I had to fix, then came addressing the long-term problem of not sleeping through the night.  After reading the book I realized that Anna was having a hard time distinguishing between night sleep and nap sleep.  She would go to bed for the night and then I would feed her again at around 10:30 to hopefully help her tummy be full for the night.  This was the problem.  Her body was getting used to waking up after only a few hours of sleep (just like at nap time) instead of going into deeper sleep.  And then she would wake up every few hours, and when she did she would be hungry.   This was a lot easier to fix then I realized.   I needed to wean her off that feeding.

The first night I fed her at 10:30 but shortened the feeding. S than woke up at 4:30-5ish and I fed her for 1 minute. Then she slept until 8:00.

The second night I delayed the feeding until 12:30 and only let her eat a few minutes.  She than slept until 7:30.

The third night I did not wake her up at all.  She woke at 5:00 and I fed her for 1 minute and then she slept until 8:00.  (That means she slept 10 hours straight!)

The fourth night she slept from 7:30 until 7:30 or 8:00!

She has been sleeping all night since then.  We have had interruptions  with teeth hurting or a fever but each time it was one interruption in the night and the following night she slept just fine.  So I needed to do two things to get her to sleep all night.  First, shorten each feeding, and second, lengthen the time between each feeding.   Now she is happily sleeping through the night.

Our Quiet Bag

It hangs on a peg by the door so I can grab it when we go out. I try to save it for when it is needed and I don’t use it everyday.  Today I was so thankful for this bag.  I had a doctor appointment for my daughter.  Whenever I take two children to the doctor I make sure I am prepared.  We use the double stroller, I take a sling just in case, snacks and of course the quiet bag.

What is our quiet bag?  A child size bag filled with anything that might engage a child (ie. quiet toys, objects, or books).  I purposely pick things that will not jingle or rattle and try to have most of the object soft so they would not make nose if dropped in church.  The contents change constantly.  If I see something that my child has really enjoyed playing with that would work well in the quiet bag I might add it when she is not looking.   The fact that the objects are not seen often, and that they are even the same collection of objects helps to make the bag special. I have one fabric book that stays in the bag all the time.  Each page has different learning activities for the child to do.  It is great.

The objects in our quiet bag today: 3 books, a small purse, 2 people, a dog, a boat, and a ring

Front of the book, with a snap on flower

Pockets and Laces

Snaps and buttons

Zippers and colors and shapes

The bag’s purpose  is to help engage a child in church, or while waiting for an appointment or even in a concert.  So I keep it by the door ready to grab when I might need it.

Today we waited in the doctors office for 45 minutes before we saw the doctor.  And then he talked with me for about 30 minutes more.  During that time I was constantly pulling out different toys to engage my little girls.  Because I was prepared, our long doctor visit was a learning playtime instead of a stressful, boring, time of trying to keep the children quiet.

So what do you do when you need to keep your children entertained and quiet? Please share!!!

One of our local malls has a children’t playground in the middle.  We went early (9:30) and I walked around with the children in the stroller to get some exercise and then we went and played.

First we played on those car/trucks/airplanes that you can ride if you stick money in.  (We didn’t.)  It was a great chance for my girls to explore.  They enjoyed crawling on them, pushing buttons, and turning wheels.

Pushing buttons and driving away

Then we went to the playground and we climbed stairs and went up and down slopes.   Slopes were a challange.  Both girls crawled or walked to the top of the slope and then sat there.  They didn’t want to crawl or walk down the slope!

Crawling up the slope

After practicing with me, and much encouragement they became more comfortable but we will have to practice some more soon!  I love getting out and finding out where exactly each child needs to be challenged!  Our morning out was

Stopping at the top to decided whether or not to continue

quite the exploration trip!

Anna turned 1 years old this week!  With this milestone it has been fun to see her start to really mimic us.  Today we were able to play our first pretend play game.   My mom had brought with her when she visited a bunch of old hats so today Anna and I had fun putting them on.  I would put on a hat and then put a hat on her head.  She would grin and laugh and then take the hat off and then try to put it back on.  This my sound like a pretty basic game – and it is.  But it is the first stage of beginning to pretend play.  We also enjoy taking pretend (or real!) Phones and pretending to talk into them.   It is a lot of fun to see her take this first step in imaginative play and it will be fun to see it continue to develop.  I can’t wait to make princess costumes in a few years:)

Figuring out how to put the hat on

Personally I have been working hard on finding a good routine for myself.  Things got pretty chaotic for a while as my husband was finished up his semester and taking final exams and a little girl decided that she needed to be up several times during the night for some reason…  Things feel like they are falling into a new but better routine.  I have decided that I really need a written down daily routine.   I have been reading through the book that Flylady wrote and I have been working on putting together my own routines for the morning, noon, and night.   I have read through her site before but I hadn’t really figured out how to make her ideas work well for me.   Now I realize that I will probably have to adjust her morning and noon and evening routines for a while to figure out what works best.  I will also have to adjust it often as our life goes through changes.  But it really does help to have them written down.  If it is written down then it is one thing that my mind does not have to remember.  It also means that all I have to do it look at the sheet when I am extra tired and I will remember what to do next.  I didn’t think that it would make that much of a difference but it does.

Right now here is my morning routine: (now remember it is a work in progress)

1. Shower, dress, hair, teeth, make-up (some days I do make-up some days I skip it!)

2. Swish and swipe.  (This is quickly cleaning the sink and toilet – when I do it everyday it only takes a minute,  I also have been keeping seven small, old rags under the bathroom sink.  Then I can just grab a rag, spray some cleaner on it and wipe down the sink and toilet and floor around the sink.  Then I rinse out the rag and hang it up on a hook on the back of the toilet.  Then next day when it is dry I toss it in the laundry.)

3. make bed

4. make breakfast

5. make my husband’s lunch

6. Get my daughter up, change her diaper, dress

7. Put away clean dishes

8. 5 minutes cleaning our bedroom

9. 5 minutes picking up our daughter’s bedroom

10. Start 1 load of laundry

11. make kefir

Right now that is my morning routine.   Because of the busyness with children I don’t worry about when exactly I finish each thing.  I just work on the list as the morning progresses.  Most morning I finish the list pretty quickly but if it takes all morning because I stop and play with children then it is just fine:)  I will share my noon routine later on.

Having a list to guide my morning has helped me to get more down.   Feeling the freedom to adjust the routine and skip things has helped me to be able to stick to it without feeling to perfectionist.