Delaney is hilarious, as we all suspected. At the year mark, I didn’t want to set the unrealistic expectation for myself that I would document every month, but I am absolutely setting the goal of documenting every quarter and in between with random thoughts. I started an Instagram account for Delaney for her 2 year baby book (since, obviously, her one year took me AGES because  I didn’t do it live). I post once a day and it’s the best way to keep myself up to date and documenting cute, small moments for her and us to remember!

Over the past few months, she’s changed so much. There is so much about our life that has turned upside down in a great way with her age. I really can’t believe how grown up she’s becoming and it’s painful to see how fast it’s all flying by, but she is so much fun that it’s all worth it to see what she does next.

Since her birthday, she stopped nursing, she still drinks from a bottle, she takes just one nap, she consistently sleeps through the night, she eats with a fork (well, when she actually eats), she dances, she runs and jumps on the couch, she plays music, she uses our cell phones as her boombox, she throws tantrums and gets extremely frustrated very quickly, she loves books (especially Go Dog. Go! and Where’s Spot?), she’s freakishly obsessed with dogs and seems to believe there’s one lurking in the hallway of our building (sadly, there isn’t), she loves daycare and her teacher Jinitra especially, she sleeps on a mat at daycare and is moving to the toddler room soon, she throws her head back and laughs at people’s conversations or her own “jokes”, she’s destructive and loves to knock things down, she likes to take other kids’ snacks everywhere we are, she has gibberish conversations and talks with her hands, she loves the Children’s Museum (especially the Arthur room), she really loves ramps still, and she’s starting to care about TV (mostly if there’s a dog or animal on it).

At her 15 month appointment, she weighed 22 lbs 4oz (61%), was 31in tall (67%) and her head is 46cm (64%). She’s doing great and I can hardly tell the difference between her and her older friends…the age gap is starting to close which is great for us! She says hat, hot, help, mama (means food usually), dada (means Mom or dog usually), woof, panting noises, ba (bottle). She signs for her giraffe gerard with a hugging motion and sways back and forth and signs for more, eat, help, water, milk, fruit, all done, thank you, please, and blows kisses.

We love our Laney Girl! Other nicknames include The LG, Laney, Laney Girl, and to Jordan, Laney Bae.

While working on bringing together the jumble of posts I’ve written over the last year, I realized I’ve talked primarily about myself and my own thoughts on parenthood. This is natural, obviously, since it’s my personal blog and I’m writing from my own experience.

The most important player in this parenting game, however, has been Jordan. I am only who I am because he allows me to be (for the good and the bad). My “problems” as a Mom are trivial and I know that. My worries and fears for our girl are based on the certainty that she is fine, she is healthy, and we as a family are doing well. This is because of him. Jordan is the best husband and best father I could have ever dreamed of. He is obsessed with our girl (for better or for worse) and she is equally obsessed with him. I couldn’t be more proud of him – particularly thinking back on the first hour of parenthood when he looked at me with more fear in his eyes than I’ve ever known him to feel. We were terrified and for the first time, he processed (if ever so slightly) how much a baby was going to change our life.

He was born to be a father of girls and I knew that before we were married. His calmness, his sweetness, and his incessant patience for the ridiculous (read: me!) ensured that he can counterbalance even the craziest girl out there. This is in no way to say that boys aren’t insane – they are – and I’m certain that in many ways, they are more difficult. For Jordan, it was more that having a girl meant having another one of me. We both knew while I was pregnant that no matter what the gender of this baby, it was going to be exhausting. She moved all the time, kicked like a maniac, and was stubborn as a bull arriving 12 days late. Jordan is seasoned in handling the difficult – he’s been by my side for half my life now (whoa) so I was sure he’d handle her just fine.

Aside from his calmness, Jordan is just the most helpful, loving co-parent out there. I couldn’t have dreamed of someone more naturally helpful – from the first days of tracking how long Delaney was nursing or what kind of diaper she had to the current trials of waking up with her half the week or washing her hair (which is an event). The traditional marriage role barriers are broken with Jordan and there’s no one else to thank aside from him. People say annoying things to me like, “Wow, you’ve trained him well” and that couldn’t be farther from the truth (or more sexist and offensive, really). Jordan is a great, helpful parent because he chooses to be and because he sees our relationship as a partnership when it comes to not only Delaney, but everything else.

For these things and more, I’m so thankful to call him my husband and I know for certain that Delaney is more than thankful to have him as her Dad. We love you!

Most resolutions involve doing more, being better, and accomplishing something more impressive than last year. For me, I should probably do all of those things but at this point in my life, I won’t be able to until I start caring less about BS.

I’m highly sensitive and becoming a mom has made me even more sensitive. Not only do I have to analyze and read into all the things people say or do around me, I now also have to do the same for Delaney (and by have to, I mean I just do because it’s my nature).

I want to protect her and make her feel loved and special at every moment. I want to raise a good human who gives back to the world around her and appreciates all the incredible things she has in her life. I want to raise a self-sufficient member of society who isn’t afraid to take risks and stand up for herself. I want her to be compassionate, sweet, bold, fearless, careful, loving, well-mannered, humble, and happy. And as I think of all my wishes for Delaney, I come back to all my wishes for myself. These are my wishes and goals. I want all of these things for both of us. My thoughts and emotions feel jumbled and I don’t know who I’m supposed to be, what I’m good at, or how to identify as someone other than the Mom I’ve become this past year.

I focus so much on what other people say and what other people do. I yearn for strong relationships with almost everyone in my life and put a ton of effort (often more emotional effort than physical) into making sure I’m liked. This is the thing. I yearn to be liked and that is ridiculous. I don’t like everyone and everyone shouldn’t have to like me but no matter how much I tell myself this, I can’t seem to handle it.

This year, I want to be confident in my relationships because I have a lot of great ones. For those relationships that feel hard, I want to let them settle as they are. For those relationships I miss, particularly the most important one of all between me and Jordan, I want to use the extra time and effort I’ll be saving from those others. I want Delaney and Jordan to get my best self despite how cliche that sounds. I want to prioritize the three of us, prioritize my health (when I am fit, I am happy), prioritize my identity and whatever I decide to make of it, and above all else, I want to care less about the BS. It wastes so much valuable time of mine and for no good outcome.

It took us an entire year, but with the help of the Children’s Hospital sleep clinic and our pure will, we did it! Delaney started sleeping through the night on November 12, 2015. It has been seamless for over a month now, which is just incredible!

Here’s what we did and I hope we can learn from this next time. I’m also adding here, advice for myself for next time of what not to do.

1. Consolidate time in bed. This was essentially our “diagnosis” from the specialist. While we were doing a good job of putting Delaney down for bed and naps at consistent times, we were offering too much time for sleep and/or crying. For months, we would put a fussy Delaney down for sleep and let her cry, because sometimes after 20-30 minutes of crying she would fall asleep. But, when she didn’t, I’d take her out of her crib and walk her in the stroller to let her take a nap. It would take anywhere from 5-45 minutes of walking for her to finally pass out, at which point she would sometimes sleep for more than an hour. This created a serious issue of her not having enough “wake time” between naps or bedtime and according to the doc, this was the primary issue. Another thing that happens when you are so desperately tired is that you are irrational overnight. When Delaney would wake up, we started bringing her into bed after letting her cry for more than 30-45 minutes because then none of us were sleeping. This taught Delaney that is she cries long enough, she will eventuall get what she wants. Makes sense but when you are tired, you just need sleep and I don’t blame us! Finally, Delaney seemed to need to go to bed at 7pm, which was working for a while as she slept between and was less grumpy when she got 11 hours of sleep or so. The problem was that she never slept completely through the night on this schedule for more than a couple days at a time…ever! To solve this, we made a new schedule.
2. Schedule, Schedule, Schedule.From the very beginning, we knew this was the smoking gun when it comes to getting your baby to sleep – but just because we had a schedule, doesn’t mean we had the right schedule. Putting the baby to bed at the same time for naps and bedtime is obviously the most important thing, but really, it’s the importance of wakeup time that made the difference for us. We bumped Delaney’s bedtime to 9pm and woke her up at 6:30am, every single day no matter what. The first week was torture. None of us slept at all and Delaney cried SO MUCH. It was horrible. But we stuck to it and eventually it started regulating. With this, we also put her down for naps at 9:30 and 2:30. On the days she cried, I let her cry for 15 minutes and if she didn’t fall asleep by then, nap was over! Also, torture but we did it. She was swollen and miserable for almost a month. It slowly got better and then terrible, and then we moved to the other room! We slept on an air mattress for a month in the family room.
3. Drop Feedings. When Delaney would wake up in the middle of the night, it got to the point that I’d nurse her. Duh, I know this is a bad idea but oftentimes, it’s all she needed to calm back down and go back to bed. After a while, however, she always needed something more. A little longer being held, another feeding, maybe some time laying in bed with us. It was crazy and it spiraled out of control because we were SO FLIPPING TIRED. To do this, we offered milk in a bottle – 3oz, then 2oz, then 1oz if she was resistent. Then, we offered water in the bottle. Just a little if she really needed soothing. Eventually, we cut it and had to let her cry. Fortunately, with the schedule, this all ended up really solving itself but cutting back on these feedings a separating the association was helpful.
4. Consistency. We made major efforts in the cry it out method for months. In fact, it turned out that this actually hurt our efforts in getting Delaney to sleep because we would let her cry for more than an hour (often), but eventually, we’d give in and I’d feed her or bring her into bed because come on, we were going crazy with no sleep! The problem is that she eventually associated the need to cry for long amounts of time with eventually getting what she wanted. “If I cry for two hours, she will feed me.” I underestimated her intelligence and it backfired. You can’t decide to crack down on a certain rule after you’ve given into it so many times. We often had the rule of, “If she wakes up after 4am, I’ll feed her because she must be hungry but if it’s 12 or 2, we’re letting her cry.” At the time, this really did seem to make a lot of sense. But in retrospect, it was absolutely insane. The baby doesn’t know what time it is and she doesn’t care! If she sometimes gets a feeding when she wakes up, she’s going to expect it every time.
5. Giving her space. We always gave Delaney a few minutes before “rescuing” her from her crib. But, when we got serious about the sleep, we left the physical room. For most people, this isn’t an issue because you have a nursery that your child sleeps in – but we don’t. We are in a 1br and we had nowhere else to put her. So, we left and set up the air mattress in the family room. For an entire month (crazy, I know), we slept on this. We inflated at night and deflated in the morning – but we slept! Who knows if this actually made a difference, but while she figured out her schedule, us being out of the room seemed to help.
6. Minimize Associations. Pacifiers, bottles, nursing, etc. are all great in the beginning but create problems. Luckily for us, Delaney dropped her paci while teething and we offered her a lovey (stuffed duck, now giraffe) that she slept with for comfort. The nursing was her biggest issue and something that I’m sure I’ll find is a concern next time too – but if you can drop those overnight feedings with the help of a more consolidated sleep schedule, you’re likely better off. This is obvious but worth noting.

For people whose kids don’t sleep, I would say that the schedule is the most important thing. Sucking it up with a sleepy, moody baby for a while is worthwhile if you eventually get to sleep through the night. Sleep deprivation is absolutely horrid and it will most definitely drive you insane. For our next kid (not coming anytime soon, nice try!), I hope we can learn from what we’ve done with Delaney. Even though it took forever, I’m really proud of us for going through what we did and surviving. You really don’t get it unless you’re in it and I will rightfully defend us and our crazy obsession with her sleep schedules to anyone and everyone who encountered us. Do what you need to do to get sleep – and try not to make too many enemies in the process.

It’s been a wild month for Delaney with lots of changes in our home including a running baby, new childcare arrangements and even less sleep than ever before. I can’t believe we’re still talking about sleep, but alas, we are. We’ve been admitted to Children’s Hospital’s sleep clinic and have been following a new sleep training plan. This is another post in and of itself but it’s certainly been a primary focus the last month!

But back to Delaney, she’s awesome when we’re not trying to make her sleep! Her sense of humor has yet again surprised us as she 100% understands when she’s being funny (or misbehaving) and looks for our reactions (which we’re working on NOT giving her…easier said than done). She’s going to be a tough one and in many ways, it’s terrifying but I’ve always said we’d rather have a strong willed child than one whose too easily taken down. Let’s hope she stands up to challenges of all sizes throughout her life — and not just her parents:)

Here’s what’s new:

• In addition to being chased, Delaney reacts and runs away when we call her name sternly (mostly when she’s eating something she shouldn’t)
• She eats EVERYTHING she shouldn’t. The weirdest and most stress-inducing habit she’s forming is finding hair all over the place. Between her and I, we might as well have a labrador shedding its winter coat around here…it’s disgusting.
• She hides behind things like the curtains and jumps out – laughing
• Belly laughs when tickled or attempted
• I think we’re officially claiming she has a first word and it’s “Bye!” with a big, dramatic wave
• She picks up any type of phone, real or fake, and makes a noise in the tone of “Hello?” She’s not saying any actual word but loves mimicking this
• She pulled herself up for the first time and can gracefully get back down to sitting!
• Had her first non-breastmilk liquids and it’s been quite the challenge trying to figure out what she’ll drink vs. what she’ll have a negative skin reaction to…a little overwhelming but I don’t think she has an actual allergy
• Went down the slide all by herself for the first time – loved it. She is frighteningly obsessed with putting herself in danger and we’re working on her understanding she can jump off of things that are high up. She’s very confident in her abilities but sometimes, a little too much!
• She is getting her fourth top tooth taking her tooth count for 6!
• Dances by holding on to a chair or anything and bouncing while sticking out her bum. She is hilarious and starting to get a handle on her rhythm.

We love Delaney more than anything we could have ever imagined. She’s so much fun to be around and we can’t wait to see her continue coming into her own. Cannot BELIEVE she’s almost 1!