The Bay and some pieces of big news

Well, I posted on Facebook for the first time in over a year, but I decided to post a new photo here that wasn't in my post! I just couldn't get the lighting right in Emilie's photo, but the one here with both George and Emilie seems charming and special, so I decided to go with editing that one! It takes about 5 to10 minutes (sometimes more) per photo to edit, and that's just a lot of time, so I have to be very selective.

A lot of things have happened recently that have been major, so I'll go threw them!

The first is my mom is planning to move in with us while her boat sells! It's a big change, and with them tacking on live-aboard fees with her already expensive boat, she's moving the boat to her broker's marina, which in exclusively non-liveaboard. However her price will be $15 per foot instead of $20 since she's selling with them and the $250 extra worth of live-aboard fees will be washed away! She already has one potential perfect match buyer, so we'll see how "quick" it sells. The buyers only problem was that it had one bathroom (ridiculous in my opinion), and I'm sure after she views all the other boats, she'll come running back to Baby Beluga (mom's boat), because they just had too much in common and she was gawking at how awesome it was the whole showing. We'll see.

The second piece of news is that I have weaned Emilie from night time nursing. I am finally getting sleep at night, and Emilie herself is able to finally sleep through the night! My back and neck were just hurting so much from feeding her at night, sometimes all through the night with me never even getting back to my bed most nights! I took the middle ground to the "cry it out" approach, which was offer comfort and love, cuddles and water, but no breast milk. I prepared through the whole day before the first night came, telling her that milk is for the day but that at bedtime/nigh-night time there was no mama milk. The first night was the hardest. She cried going to bed, but I was firm so she finally let up after a good struggle. Then when she woke up at night, it was a struggle too with trying to find the best way to distract her (rational thinking brain is dead at night, expect explanations to die hard! I did give a few threats of either cuddling or leaving though. I also told her she WOULD get milk, but in the morning), and figured out that a vivid imaginary story worked best (no singing for her!), but it took about an hour of story telling before she even fell back asleep. The story I told her was about a baby bunny with big brown eyes and a pink bow in a floppy ear, named Mimi, who met a mother Robin who had three eggs in her nest at the top of a tree. Emilie loves the book, "Are you my mother?" so it worked. I had to add a lot more though since it took about an hour (probably less, but it felt like it) of telling her stories. I went into a lot of math and rhythmic story telling. I also emphasized how much the mothers in the stories loved their babies to help Emilie feel that love a mother has for her baby. Nursing has been a way Emilie has felt love, so naturally I was worried she would feel abandoned and unloved. She has an angry and feisty nature about her, so I wanted to make it as easy and love-filled as possible. Loving words and tones helped. I guess I'm a little more sensitive than some, but really, the world needs more love, especially our own children!

The next day after the first night of no milk, I did the same thing with emphasizing how nice it was to have milk in the day time, and re-emphasized how there's no milk at bedtime/night. Emilie feel asleep in bed almost immediately since we went to bed late. That second night was almost as hard as the first but not as quite, and I ended up telling the story in half the time this time before she fell asleep.

Last night, the third night, turned out to be amazing, as Emilie slept through the whole night! The only downside is that she's now waking up at 6am sharp since the second night, instead of being kept to sleep with milk till 8am. It was so nice though! In my opinion, it's totally worth it. Solid sleep waking up at 6am is better than struggling all night back and forth between beds! Anyway, not only am I being kind to myself, but I'm being kind to her. Emilie will now be able to sleep through the whole night! We still breastfeed in the day and during nap time, but we both enjoy it and we both enjoy nursing so it's fine to continue! I love nursing Emilie, but what I don't like is my neck and back hurting trying to sleep while breastfeed throug night. At first, it's a necessary thing to do, but I was just waiting for the right time for her to stop nursing at night. It's always a difficult thing, but I'm happy we've established it.