Is Anthony sleeping through the night at 6 months?

Anthony had his 6 month check up Monday. He took the shots like a champ, cried for a few minutes and then forgot about them. There are two pediatricians in the office we take him too. A man and a woman, this visit we saw the female doctor who seems to be stricter than the man doctor. I was a bit worried, because I knew she was going to ask me if he's sleeping through the night. When she saw him at his 2 month visit she said he should be sleeping through the night, so I knew she would not be happy to hear that he still wakes up not once but twice a night. But hey, at least he sleeps in his own bed, right? When I told her she said I am a lot more patient than she is and I should invest in some ear plugs and give this baby some tough love. I internally dismissed what she was saying, because I know that I can't listen to him cry, it gets me every time, the most I can let him cry is a few minutes. So yes I realize all of this is partially my fault, but it wasn't until she said that HE needs the uninterrupted sleep for growth and development that I decided to seriously try. Here is how it has been going.

Sunday night (before the doctor visit)

8:30 put to bed.

8:30-9:30 in and out of the room several times to put paci back in mouth until he finally falls asleep.

10:00 awake and crying again, Todd and I are trying to watch a movie (fools gold*) so I bring him down and let him sleep while I hold him. (because it's the easy thing to do)

11:00 sound asleep in my arms for the past hour, put him back to bed.

11:15 awake and crying, pick him up and hold him again, while we finish the movie.

11:30 put him to bed, he cries, we shut the door, ignore him and he falls asleep after a couple minutes. I go to sleep too.

1:30 baby awake, feed him and put him back to bed.

3:30 up again, give paci

4:30 up again, feed baby, back to bed.

5:30 I have to get up for work. (now I know why I am so tired, and Tony takes such good naps during the day)

Monday night (our first try at tough love)

8:30 put Tony to bed.

8:45 he starts crying, give paci and set timer for 15 minutes, watch The Bachelorette with the volume way up so I don't have to hear him crying.

8:54 sound asleep! Only 9 minutes, but it felt like forever.

He woke up again at 1:30 and 5:30 to eat and I gave in because I had to work in the morning and was too tired.

Last night

8:30 put Tony to bed and he starts crying right away. Set timer for 15 minutes and ignore crying.

8:45 still crying, send Todd up to console him. Todd gets him out of bed and brings him downstairs and says, "he doesn't want to go to sleep, he is so cute, don't make him do it." (I know we have no one to blame but ourselves for this problem we have created.) I take him back upstairs put him in bed and he starts crying again. Set timer for 15 minutes and within 6 minutes he is sound asleep.

10:30 pm, he wakes up, I decide to feed him since I am still awake and then make him sleep the rest of the night.

4:30 am, wakes up to eat, goes back to sleep until 8:50 am! Wow, what a treat for me.

I know it doesn't sound like much progress, but trust me 6 hours of uninterrupted sleep is huge.

In other baby news, he is perfect, alert, interactive and very happy. Still wont bear weight on his legs, but the doctor assured me that I do not need to be concerned, even though all his other baby friends that are younger than him can do it. (I know you shouldn't compare babies, but sometimes you can't help it).

He can sit up for a few seconds on his own before he topples over. So I went ahead and made the appointment for some professional pictures. We're going to take them at the beach, I can't wait to see how they turn out.

And in pool news...

We went to a friends pool at her condominiums this past Sunday and got yelled at by someone who lives there. She didn't think we lived there, which is a requirement to use the pool, I told her I had a pool pass (not technically lying, because my friend who does live there, gave me her pass to use). I think it may have helped me in my argument for my own pool. When we got home, I asked Todd, hypothetically, if we were to get a pool where would we put it? He entertained my question by going outside and saying where he thought it should go. Hypothetically of course since we're not actually getting one ;) Then we came inside, and while I was feeding Tony dinner, Todd was on the computer, I assumed looking at stocks like he usually does. But then he says, "we should get one like this." To my surprise he was looking at swimming pools, and the one he picked out was awesome, and way cooler than anything I would ever imagine asking for. It had a hot tub that was connected to the pool and overflowed into the pool over a rock wall. So of course we're still not getting a pool, but I definitely think he's warming up to the idea.

For those of you who wonder how I find time to blog, this is what we do sometimes after breakfast.

He watches Baby Einstein, while I blog. I can get about 20 minutes of computer time before he loses interest in the TV. Notice he has outgrown the bouncer seat, so I have to prop it up with a pillow.

*Fool's Gold was a big dissapointment. They filmed the movie in Australia, the same time we were there visiting in October 2006 and even in the same town we were at. We never spotted Matthew McConaughey, but he was around and in town when we were there. The scenery pictures are exactly from where we were, but in the movie they are not in Australia.