The Bosens

  Hyrum sleeping just a few days after he was born

I have a question and I would appreciate your comments.  What I want to know: How old was your baby/child/children (or those of which you know) when they started sleeping through the night?  When I say sleeping through the night, I mean going to bed at bedtime and staying there, asleep, most nights until its time to get up the next morning.  Or has this never actually happened?  Or did it happen for a while only to be followed by a relapse of regular wakings?  Did your child reach this state (of sleeping through the night) on their own or did you use some sleep training method? 

Here is how things have gone for us if you are interested:

When Hyrum was a baby I assumed sleeping through the night meant going to sleep at night and waking to feed but then easily going back to sleep after his feeding.  So I counted myself lucky that he did so, waking every two hours but then going back to sleep.  But by the time he was about 8 months old it was getting really, well, exhausting.  He did get better around that time after some very stressful attempts at teaching him to go to sleep without me feeding him.  He eventually woke much less (I think one or two times) and would take a bottle.  I’m not really sure how old he was when he started sleeping through the night most nights.  I think it happened off and on until he was about two.

When we had our second baby, I assumed that my luck would be better and that as long as I followed the “expert” advice, my baby would start sleeping through the night much earlier.  Well, several times she got close and even slept through the night sometimes.  But it never lasted.  I had read that most babies sleep through the night by about 2-4 months old (which doesn’t seem to be true but I would like to find out) and I assumed that by the time she was 6 months for sure she would be sleeping through the night.  So I didn’t worry about it too much until that age got close.  But then it was rather stressful and frustrating when we tried to teach her to do so but instead she was back to waking many times (at least 4 times most nights). 

Well, she still isn’t sleeping through the night but she has gotten closer and will finally take a bottle of milk (she never would take formula) and let Adam help her at least sometimes.  As long as I get enough cumulative sleep and don’t have to get up more than 3 times it really isn’t too bad.  Two times is definitely better than three though.

I am writing this because I would like to know what others’ experiences are like and what age most babies or children really sleep through the night (not that this will really tell me about “most” babies but at least some others).  I think that if I hadn’t been worried about meeting an artificial deadline I would have avoided a lot of stress and worry, not to mention frustration and disappointment.  I wonder if this happens to other moms as well.

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I know I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again: our baby is growing up.  I still call her baby, (baby girl, Annie baby…).  I have really noticed the last few days how much she is not a baby.  She tries to be grown up just like Hyrum, or sometimes even just like her parents (for instance, sometimes she wants to sit on a big chair at the table instead of her high chair).  She’s still my baby even though she walks and, yes, talks.  Of course, Hyrum is also my baby and he talks in paragraphs, quite literally.  He has decided recently that he is a baby.  He tells me so and I indulge him.  Extra loves and cuddles are a good deterrent to undesirable behavior.  I think he’s also noticed (a long time ago) that the baby gets not only a lot of extra attention but also gets away with a lot.  The baby does something and everyone laughs and smiles and says “how cute” but then he does the same thing and gets in trouble for it.  But probably the best benefit for both of us in my thinking of him as a baby is the way you can just savor every moment with a baby and find yourself falling in love with them over and over.  You see how adorable they are and look right past the imperfections.

We were playing with the camera in the next pictures.

As for the one which can be called a baby, as I said she is talking.   She is 13 (almost 14) months old and we keep asking, “Did she just say what I think she said?”  Granted, some of the time she probably didn’t, but the crazy thing is how often she really does.  Some of the more entertaining or interesting things she says are:

“MY!" or “Miiiine!” which she says when she sees something she wants or especially when something she wants is taken away from her.

She says, screams or yelps “ow!” when she is upset, even though she’s not usually actually hurt.

“Bee-boo” or “ah-ooh” or a variation on this while putting her hands over her eyes or somewhere else on her  head and then pulling them away (peek-a-boo).

She tickles herself on under the arm and says something that vaguely resembles “tickle tickle.”

“Eye” means eye and light, both very interesting to her.

She just started to say “no” and she definitely knows what this one means.

She pulls up her shirt and says “buh buh” when asked where her belly button is.

Other words she says include dada, mama, uh oh, hi, bye (means bye and bite as in “I want a bite of that food you are eating”), “wowah” (flower), “dow” (down), “bah” (which means ball, bird, and maybe bottle), toe and other things of which I am less certain including some version of “Hyrum.”  I know it seems crazy, but she’s really saying these things.  And there is no question that she understands a lot of things as well.  A sweet thing that happened today is that I was trying to get her to calm down and take a nap and she just wasn’t settling down until I said, “You need to go to sleep now, Annie.”  She hugged her blanket and closed her eyes (and played with my hair), calmed down and went to sleep on my lap. 

Looking at the developmental milestones or expectations for her age I wonder if “they” would count all these as words like I do or if I misunderstand what they mean by “2 or 3 words.”  Either way it is really fun!  Sometimes I have moments of wishing she would slow down or pause at this age.  She is at such a fun age!  But I try to just enjoy it and be glad I don’t have to worry about her being delayed.

The weather finally got hot enough to get out the kiddie pool today.  Hooray for warm weather!

What Hyrum does when you tell him to smile for the camera. 

And Annie playing peek-a-boo.

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*Sorry this is really long. It is mostly for myself—to document our fun week.

**First, for my promised explanation for my last post: Adam was on a business trip this week and I wanted to show him my haircut, especially how it looks when it is styled right.  I don’t like announcing that sort of thing to the world (that he isn’t home) until after the fact. But before he had to leave…

Last week we had our first ever official staycation. Adam took the week off of work and he was able to do so and only miss 3 days because of the holiday and Friday being a “Friday off.” We started the week off with my birthday and a family celebration. We had family over and Adam made pizzas for everyone. They were yummy, as was all of the other food. Thanks It was a very nice birthday. Thank you to everyone for making it special and helping me celebrate.

Then on Monday, we went to Lagoon in the afternoon. It was very fun, especially considering that only Hyrum went on any rides. We were able to get in for free and only paid for a few tickets to let Hyrum try a few rides.   It was nice to just walk around and be together and watch Hyrum have fun. Hyrum loved the boat ride (the little girl next to Hyrum in the picture isn’t Annie—you can tell since she actually has a lot of hair).  And once he saw the car ride he begged us to go back to it until we finally did. Then he tried to airplane ride and just had to go on it again. The biggest hit was the water fountain near the front of the park. Once we knew we were going to be leaving we let the kids play in it (its the kind that is meant for kids to run through and get soaked). Hyrum actually took quite a bit of encouragement. He didn’t want to get his clothes wet. Annie, on the other hand, was a different story. I didn’t want to let her just run out into it since I thought she would fall down or get lost or otherwise need me to run in and rescue her. So I held her hand and really had to work to keep her from running out into the middle and getting both of us completely drenched.

Tuesday we went swimming. It was a little cold, especially considering it was an indoor pool, but still fun. Adam took Hyrum and Annie down the very tall water slide. I was a little nervous but he managed to keep their heads safely out of the water when it dumped them in the pool. Hyrum didn’t want to go down at first but thought it was fun in the end.

Wednesday we went to the zoo. Adam forgot to charge the battery for the camera so we don’t have pictures. (Correction: Adam says he did charge it, he just forgot to bring it. Sounds like something I would do.)  Annie enjoyed seeing all the animals. Hyrum wasn’t really all that impressed, but he did really like playing on the playground. We would say, “Look Hyrum! Do you see the {tiger, elephant, giraffe, etc}?” He would look for a few seconds and not care much. Mostly he was just upset that he couldn’t push the stroller wherever and whenever he wanted or ride the carousel.  But he loved playing with the swarms of kids in the playground. His favorite thing was the big snake slide. He kept telling us about how he and the other kids were “clogging the slide with a mouth.” The kids at the top were going down faster than the ones at the bottom could get out.

Thursday we drove up the canyon and had a picnic. Then we went for a hike to a waterfall. It was a beautiful area and nice to be in a quiet, peaceful place. After we got back to the car Adam wanted to find some lakes he had read about and so we drove a while more until we were almost to the very top of the mountain and hadn’t found them. It was a really nice day, aside from my fear of roads on the side of the mountain with really steep drop offs.

And Friday we went to the “castle park” and the kids had fun. Our favorite thing was the little house in the sand pile since it was so much cooler inside of it than out in the sun. Then we went out to dinner to finish our week of staycation.

Annie watching the sand sift through her fingers.

Annie thought walking through the tunnel was pretty exciting.  It was pretty hot as you can tell from her rosy cheeks.

She also really likes the tickle-your-tummy feeling in the swing for a few minutes.  Then she’s ready to get out.

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My hair has really been bothering me for a long time and I was way overdue for a haircut.  So I decided to be brave and try something new.  I’ve had long hair most of my life so I was a little nervous (I decided to cut off 10 inches), but I really like it so far.  Thanks so much Ali!  We’ll see if I can style it as cute as you did…

Here are some pictures.  I will explain why I am posting so many in a day or two, lest you think me completely vain.  Sorry, I had a hard time getting the focus and the frame right since I wasn’t behind the camera.

Hyrum helped me take some of the pictures.  Here’s a fun one with him, even though it isn’t the best of my hair.

From the front

I love the look of concentration on Hyrum’s face.  He was concentrating on pushing the button.

From the side

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