Beckett in control....fun while it lasted!

Who me?

Playing with daddy.

Why are you looking at me with that big black camera?

Okay, i give in.

love his toes.

well, and his smile.

little man.

you can just guess what's happening here. hey, IT happens!

clean baby.

proud poppa.

checkin' it all out.

just a swingin'.

So, considering my maternity leave is coming to an end (and for that i'm so very sad *tear), we decided it is time to definitely put mr. beckett on a schedule! Yesterday was the start and boy he didn't really like us calling the shots. ha. to be perfectly honest, i think it was harder on me than it was him! it makes me so sad to think of the end of this point in his life. i wasn't even really thinking when we woke up yesterday that he would no longer be sleeping right next to me in his bassinet. that it would be the last day i would wake to him lying in it. if i would have known i would have looked at him a little longer. dan said, "we can lay him in it anytime." i said to myself, "it isn't the same, i know he is growing!" He has slept there since day one of being home from the hospital. I was a little leery of doing that but seeing is, his room is two levels below ours, i didn't want to have to walk down two flights of stairs to nurse him every two hours. we decided it would be best to stay in our room, (mainly for our selfish sake). i knew the day would come that he would be going to his room, i just didn't think it would get here so fast. dan said he is excited, it means he is growing! but if you are a mother you know where i'm coming from. it makes me sad to think he is getting bigger, and big enough to be in his very own room. as much as i have been enjoying all of his other "firsts" i.e. smiling, discovering his hands, intensely watching us, along with a very long list of things, this has been the hardest for me. Because you see, with every first there comes a last and i hate to think about something being the last time i will ever enjoy it with him! No matter how tired i was in the middle of the night, i loved hearing him and pulling him close to me while dan and the rest (well most) of the world was sleeping, he would just cuddleup next to me, "snack-feeding," (which now i know is not a good thing).

He had been sleeping through the night for the most part (10p.m.-@ 5a.m.) and then all of a sudden he started waking one extra time before five. I would just pull him into bed with me...considering, how exhausted i was, i felt it was the only way to get some sleep! the sooner he was back to sleep, the sooner i would be. SURVIVAL MODE. little did i know, that he probably just needed to resettle and didn't need to eat all. so, we somehow managed to fall back into a routine of eating every two hours. the more i read, the more i realized that was called quantitative feeding "snack feeding." he just kept demanding food in short intervals and that was disrupting his sleep patterns. he should be able to take in more food at one feeding and have less feedings throughout the day/night "qualitative feeding" or "full-feeding." it's a cycle, the fuller he is, the happier he is while he is awake, the longer he will sleep undisturbed and then wake to eat, play and then sleep again. instead of him calling the shots, eating to always tide himself over sleeping immediately after, for only a short period and then waking to eat and a little playtime, we decided now is the time to stop all that. everything was just so random. he wasn't getting the quality undisturbed sleep for his developing brain or the quality feedings he needed during the day! in return, all of that was affecting his night-time habits as well. Oh, makes perfect sense now. So we are concentrating on the cycle of making it to a minimum 2.5 hour mark if not the three hour mark for the ability to get in "full/quality feeding" and only being awake from anywhere to 45 minutes-1.5 hours (which he's never awake that long) and then napping for 1hr-1.5hour! in the midst of all of that, we decided it would probably be best to make the transfer to his bed, since he is about to out grow the bassinet (again, another tear). so, last night was the first and he did really well. me=not so well. all i could do was stare at the video monitor for the first 40 minutes i was in bed. as if, i was providing his oxygen or something and him being away was going to be detrimental. he did great.

Early in the evening he was going down for his last nap and wasn't wanting it, but by all his cues, i knew he needed it. After sitting at the bottom of the stairs, in all reality, for probably 2 minutes listening to him cry, i went back into his room, put in his pacifier for the nth time, and then he passed out, for about an hour and forty minutes. At 9:30p he woke and was ready to eat for his late night feeding and was back to sleep by 9:50p. I told uncle zac, that was visiting, i needed to go to bed so i could get as much sleep as possible. he said he needed to get some sleep as well. so after he left, i crawled into bed just a little after 10p. like i said, i could only stare at the monitor for a while and not sleep. but somewhere around 11p i drifted off to dreamland, although i kept randomly waking to check on him. dan got home from work around 1:40a, right after beckett had woke. i wasn't going to feed because he had a really good feeding before he went to bed and i knew he was capable of lasting longer, i mean he used to when we weren't even trying. i went downstairs, he was crying a little (which is definitely healthy but heart-breaking), i put his pacifier in his mouth and then he was out like a light. he woke at 4:30a and i decided i wasn't going to let him go any longer without feeding, he ate like crazy and i could tell he was a full one. he went back to sleep the second i put him in his crib! he became restless at 6:30a and so i went to put his pacifier back in (thank god for that thing, which i realize is something we might have to deal with later) and then dan went down once to put it back in and then he slept until 8:30a. i fed him again and as i type he is fast asleep. i feel like we aren't spending a lot of time together right now but i know it is for his own good in the long run. i want him to have healthy sleep habits the rest of his life, and a healthy developing brain. since he doesn't know how to do it, he is relying on us to teach him. i know things will get easier once he realizes it is routine. hopefully, it won't take long!!! I love you with all my heart little man. may we, (mainly I) cherish every "last" we have together and enjoy every "first" we share! Sweet dreams, happy eating and playtime!!!

see, he is sad to leave his bassinet also.

growing boy.

and to think one day he won't fit in this. (don't even want to think about that)

first morning waking in his own bed.

thanks uncle zac for my flying lambs, my mobile is fun to watch.