Postpartum: Baby Food Maker Heaven, Sleep Training Purgatory

Carrot eating 6-month old

So, before I got pregnant, long before I ever met my husband, I had a baby food making fantasy. I imagined that I'd have this lush, organic garden in my backyard and that I'd pick ripe, fresh vegetables to steam and puree to make homemade baby food for my child. I'm happy to say that at least the latter part of this fantasy has become reality. No organic backyard garden, but I was gifted this awesome baby food maker, and I'd been dying to try it. Little boy turned 6 months 5 days ago, so I giddily whipped it out and fed the little guy pureed carrots as his first veggie. He's quite partial to them. Green beans...not so much.

We also finally got with the sleep training program and meted out some tough love last night. No more night feedings, let him cry with check-ins at 5 minute intervals. My husband was the one to do the check-ins because if I went in there, the baby would expect to nurse. We agreed that we wouldn't pick him up out of the crib, just shush him, pat him, try to get him to take the pacifier, say, "Mommy and Daddy love you, but nighttime is for sleeping," and then leave and close the door. It was pretty tough when he first started crying. But we stuck to it and eventually, he did go back to sleep. As the night wore on and he woke up again, my husband only had to go in twice until he settled back down. Eventually, he would wake up and whine, but then go back to sleep on his own. Tonight, I rocked him for a little bit after nursing him and when I laid him down in the crib he woke up. I thought he was going to cry like he normally does, but when I put the pacifier in his mouth, he just settled down on his own. Maybe that one night was all it took to teach him to fall back to sleep on his own. I was totally dreading the idea of sleep training, but once we did it because we were totally becoming #teamnosleep, it wasn't as bad as I thought. Better to get it out of the way now while we have time instead of waiting until the semester starts for both of us. We didn't get a ton of sleep last night, but I'm hoping for minimal check-ins tonight.