Adventures in Night Weaning -Night 1

I am not tired. I am beyond tired. Baby Wins, Mama Loses. If there was a word that meant exhaustion x a million, that's what I am. Maybe debilitated is a good word. I cannot function from the nightime hourly nursies my 1-year-old seems to "need." I walk into walls, I look like crap, house looks like crap and no one has clean socks.
As a proponant of the anti-cry-it-out method, this whole idea of night weaning has me a little freaked out. But I am at my last rope; hanging on by a tiny piece of thread. I thought I would give night weaning a try and update y'all on the nightly progress. If there is any!
Just to be clear, I am not weaning baby; not at all. I plan to nurse her forever as she is my last baby. And as a disclaimer, sleeping through the night (STTN) is a developmental milestone, not something that you can "train" your baby to do. I am just trying to end the hourly night nursings and with that, hopefully, Indigo may want to sleep for longer stretches at night. Hopefully.
I'm willing to try Dr. Jay Gordon's method of night weaning. It is a 10-night process.

In love with Dr. Jay Gordon
Dr. Jay Gordon is not a guy who would steer us wrong. he's not Dr. Weissbluth - that jerk who lies to mamas telling us to ignore our babies cries. I hate Dr. Weissbluth - ass-hole. No, Dr. Jay is like us. (and I am secretly in love with him.) He supports long-term breastfeeding, co-sleeping, and baby-wearing and all the things that go along with attachment parenting.  I wish Dr. Jay was my doctor. He does NOT recommend night weaning the first year, as babies under 1 still need night nursies.

Losing It

Let me tell you that I am a walking dead mama. I wish my baby could understand that tired mamas don't take their kids to the park as much as well-rested mamas, tired mamas don't take kids to the zoo as much as well-rested mamas, tired mamas don't have as much patience as well-rested mamas. I'm so tired that I cry at the drop of a hat; I am desperate. And I have 3 older kids (who all STTN) to be a good mama to.

I am not desperate enough to stop co-sleeping or leaving baby alone to cry-it-out, but I feel like I need to take some sort of action. I am only human. And no, praticing attachment parenting does not have to include martyrdom.
Will night weaning help Indy to STTN? I do not know, but I need to take action.

First 3 Nights of Dr. Jay Gordon's Night Weaning Method
So the first 3 nights of Dr. Jay Gordon's gentle night weaning method go like this...Choose your most important 7 hours of sleep. I chose 11pm to 6am -the un-Godly hours. If baby wakes before or after that 7-hour timeframe, you just nurse and cuddle as usual. If baby wakes up between the hours of 11 and 6 (yeah, right "IF" -haha), for the first 3 nights, you nurse for a short time and don't let baby fall asleep at the breast and cuddle, hug, rock until she falls asleep. Do this for 3 nights and repeat whenever she wakes.

May need to Repeat Night One
Okay, Night 1 was last night and I don't think I did it right. I was so tired, I didn't know what year it was, let alone practicing a night weaning method. She actually didn't wake before 11pm, but at around midnight. I nursed her and stopped before she fell asleep, just like Dr. Jay said. She was soooo mad! I hugged, rocked, and cuddled with her, but she was not having it. I think after 15 minutes, I ended up nursing her to sleep. So I may need to repeat Night 1 again tonight with a little more dedication. I will keep you all updated night by night and hopefully Indigo will have some progress...and I will get some sleep!

Just wanted to remind all you Fort Collins Mamas to check out the tab up top:
"Today in the Fort"

 It's updated every day with our weather, how to dress your kiddos for school, what's on the PSD lunch menu, library storytimes, and more fun ideas of things to do with your kids!  

Black Ops Zombie Party

So I woke up early today to finish Jack's birthday cake for his sleepover tonight. I am now tweaking the cake's theme to not just a zombie cake (He wants everyone to come dressed as a zombie), but to a Black Ops Call of Duty (his favorite Wii game) zombie cake. i decided to make the zombies out of modeling chocolate, I'm not much of a sculptor, so luckily, if a leg falls off, it will be perfect because it's a zombie!

Saggy Cake Problem
So at 6am, I was melting some green chocolate and made the modeling chocolate by adding corn syrup. It had to sit for an hour, so I continued onto rolling out fondant (storebought this time) and covered the top tier. I put the top tier on and the bottom cake was not looking good.  I ignored the bottom sagging cake and cut out the top zombie out of fondant.

Indigo had a rough night, so of course I was the one feeling like a zombie, so thanks to my sweet hubby, I was able to take a 20-minute power rest. As I was laying there, my mind was racing about how I was going to fix the saggy cake, decorate the playroom, clean the house, and make the snacks.

Last-minute Change of cake
So with T-minus 4 hours until the party starts, I decided to change the entire structure of my cake because now the lower tier was major sag central. I really wanted this cake to look good.  With 3 1/2 hours until the little zombies arrived, I ran to Michael's with some ideas. I got some letter cutouts and a little more decorator icing.

I decided a Rice Krispie cake would hold up better with a cake on top and I could make that pretty fast. So that's what I did! I finally got to the fun part of sculpting the zombie to look just like the war zombies from the game, complete with brains protruding and holding a small lego gun (the only non-edible) and finally finished the cake with T minus 35 minutes and then cleaned like a mad woman until the zombies arrived.

Time to Clean
Not that the kids would care if cake crumbs and fondant pieces were all over the floor, but there was going to be parents dropping off, so I did need the house to look kind of clean. And I was looking like crap too - perfect for a zombie party, but I was the Mom, not a zombie, so i took a quick shower and dressed in my favorite Mom gear -flowered print button-down and my new Banana Rep jeans -which are a size 2, I must say. Please don't be jealous, first of all I think BP sizes run big and my breastfeeding daughter nurses like 24/7 and sucks everything out of me and because of this, there is no consecutive sleep more than 2 hours in my life right now -I digress, sorry). So I managed to clean and look like a normal Mom just as the doorbell rang with our first zombie guest! Whew!

I left the playroom decorating up to the boys and they did a great job. They set up the black light, hung the skull mural, and put up the orange flicker lights.

So Much Fun
The boys had a total blast! Dan hosted the whole party because I was just spent from the preparations. He did a bonfire with marshmallow toasting and a cool midnight lantern send-off. They jumped on the trampoline wearing glowsticks to the wee hours of the night. Our neighbors must love us.  They played Wii games, watched a comedy zombie movie, which was probably too scary, but Dan watched it with them, reminding the boys that it was just a movie. They were scared, but totally loved it.  I heard lots of screams and laughs from the playroom, but needed to take care of the girls.

And hey, we only had one kid vomit at about 2am, but I think it was just from too many sweets. It's morning now and that same boy is shooting Jack's big brother with a Nerf gun, so I'd say he's just fine. Nobody got there PJs on and I can bet there was no teeth-brushing either, but they had a blast.

Morning time with VERY tired zombies
I'm now about to start some homeade waffles for the boys and will be reminding their parents that they should definately take a nap today as I'm not sure anybody actually slept. The boys absolutely loved the black ops zombie cake and most importantly, Jack loved it so much and he had the best time with his favorite buddies at his 9th birthday black ops zombie sleepover party!