You say "fascism" like it's a bad thing ...

Over the years, there have been a number of people who have claimed the title, "Sleep Nazi." One prominent one is Richard Ferber, a sleep expert commonly associated with "cry it out" sleep training. Now, I am not in the business of defending Nazis ... but in the case of Ezra's sleep, we needed someone who'd invade Poland if the mood struck, and not be all wishy-washy about it.

Ferber's method is designed to deal with "sleep association disorder," meaning the child comes to associate something (say, rocking, nursing, lying on a parent) with sleep ... and can't fall asleep without it. One result of that is that if he wakes up, as everyone does a few times a night, and the conditions that he fell asleep to aren't there anymore (i.e. he's no longer being rocked, fed, etc.), he really wakes the hell up. And wakes up his parents. And robs them of their sanity.

Ferber's spiel is "progressive waiting," where you put the kid down awake, let him cry, and check in on him at increasing intervals until he falls asleep. It's one of those things that makes hippie-dippy parents (with whom we have much affinity) gasp and cluck their tongues. The idea that you just leave your child to cry is anathema. And it scared the hell out of us too, frankly. But this weekend we did it. And I'll be damned if it doesn't work.

Ezra's sleep lately has been as chaotic as ever: he'd wake 2-3 times within the first hour or two of going down to bed. Then he'd wake again and again throughout the night -- sometimes 6 or 7 times altogether. His napping was equally unpredictable. So Friday night, with Ferber as our mighty guide, we put him down awake. We feared he would wail all night. In fact, he basically cried for about 35 minutes, then conked out for 4 hours. He got up to eat, then crashed for another 3.5. That, my friends, is progress. More than progress -- it was an outright breakthorugh.

Then last night (Saturday), we put him down at 9:00. He fell asleep with no crying whatsoever .. up for a brief feeding at 2:00 am, then down again tear-free. One more little meal at 6:00 am, and then slept til 8:00. Eleven hours, baby! We are dumbfounded. We're realizing we really must have been holding him back in some ways, because he's taking to the sleep training so well. It's so gratifying to see him figure out how to sleep on his own, without help from us ... then get himself back to sleep when he wakes. We're terribly proud. We definitely feel a touch guilty about the whole thing, but mostly we're thrilled that Ez is starting to get the sleep he needs and will be healthier and happier for it.

One contributing factor to the sleep success has been our newly-solidified bed-time routine. It usually consists of: bath, books, nurse, sack ... with some singing thrown in there somewhere. Here's a little sample of Ash regaling Ezra with "Die kleine Raupe Nimmersatt" ... also known as, The very Hungry Caterpillar, in German.

In other news, we also had some progress on the solid-foods front. We'd been giving him bananas with little success for about a week and a half now. Then Ash's Aunt Nicky suggested going back to good ol' rice cereal (aka gruel) mixed liberally with breastmilk. Last night we gave it a shot. Ez started opening his mouth for the spoon ... making something like chewing motions, and even swallowing a little bit. It was lots of fun, and thoroughly messy. I'm discovering that baby food sets like concrete if you don't clean it up within a few minutes.

Anyway, we're trying not to count our chickens about the sleep thing, but it's hard not to feel like we won the lottery. Thank you, Sleep Nazi!

Great gobs of love,

Gabe, Ash and Ez

Change we can believe in ...

There is much to report ... and not much time to do it this moment. Let's just say there have been major developments on the sleep front. 

I promise to post a full update in the next day or so. But for now, I couldn't resist posting this pic in the mean time. Tune in soon for a full account. 

Until then, 

Gabe, Ash and Ez

A Cursory Entry

The doctor's reassurances did nothing to assuage the worries of this weight-obsessed mommy. I managed to work myself up into believing I could no longer breastfeed and that Ezra was somehow slowly starving. It's always been a challenge to feed the boy - he's such a squirmy, active guy that he really only settles down to eat when he is about to drift off to sleep. But a call to a lactation consultant calmed me down. She explained that breast-fed babies' growth slows down around 3-4 months and that even though Ezra's weight gain was less than normal, it was still fine. And she gave me some small tips to help bulk him up. 

Saturday morning... the big weigh-in! I took him to the doctor's office and lo and behold, he'd put on 7 ounces in a week and a half. Not too shabby. He now is bumping up against 14 pounds. (We're approaching three times his birthweight. But then sometimes I stop to think that there are newborns out there that weigh 10 pounds. Amazing.)

Meanwhile, bananas are still not a hit. His Grandpa Mickey will be disappointed. Toes, on the other hand, taste quite delicious.

In the meantime, we've had him on an active social calendar. He went to his weekly playgroup on Friday (even though the mercury was still below zero - that's how we hard-core Chicagoans roll). Then on Sunday, we had our friends Leigh, Chris and Liliana over for crepes. Liliana is almost a month younger than Ezra and couldn't defend herself from his advances. He promptly rolled over and planted a kiss on her mouth! It had us all in hysterics.

Love,
Ash, Gabe and Ez

We have no bananas today.

We are now into the new year in earnest. 2009 will be the year of Ezra's first steps ... his first word ... perhaps his first swim and his first song. 

It is also the year of his first "solid" food. At our doctor's visit last week, he once again allayed our concerns about Ezra's weight. Mostly. It would be nice if the kid bulked up a bit, but he swears it's nothing to worry about. He did, though, suggest starting Ez on solids, recommending banana. 

Having just finally assembled the high chair that had become a piece of furniture in our bedroom for the last 6 months, we strapped the little guy in and attempted to shovel some chow in his mouth. Actually, it was a banana-breast milk smoothie (soon to be all the rage at Baby Jamba Juice). Let's just say it was a fun game. I'm not sure there was all that much nourishment involved ... or any, actually. We've been at it for about 4 days now, with little change. But it appears as if most human babies do eventually learn to eat, so we are optimistic he'll get the hang of it at some point. In the meantime, his parents are happy to eat the leftovers (without the dairy additive, that is). 

Last week we began our semi-permanent arrangement: I (dad) went back to work full time, Ash continued on her 3-day schedule, and Ezra has begun spending those days with his new "nanny," Najiba. I am still trying to think of something better to call her -- "nanny" sounds so yuppie. Babysitter? Caregiver? Infant custodian? We're working on it. 

Najiba's best quality is that she has inexhaustible supplies of patience. That is pretty crucial for looking after Ez, because he is one beautiful, charming, lovable pain in the ass. They seem to be getting on quite well. Leaving him there is not easy for us, but it hasn't been traumatic. It definitely helps that we know he's getting plenty of one-on-one attention. 

And no improvement thus far on the sleep, I'm afraid. We were all set to do some sleep training ... but have chickened out until we can get him eating a little better. At this point, it's a contest between our anxiety over his weight, and our frustration about his sleep. Anxiety vs Frustration -- the parenting smackdown. We'll let you know who wins. 

Very much love, 

Gabe, Ash and Ez

Pound for Pound

Apologies, dear readers, for the long delay! Ez (and his entourage) are back in Chicago after a soul-reviving trip to New Mexico. The rest of the trip was great... sunshine, snow, Christmas presents, Chanuka candles, green chile stuffed sopaipillas. That trip to the hot tub that Gabe wrote about in the last posting, though, never did happen. Our car got stuck 100 feet from the house and required hours of shoveling snow and even sprinkling kitty litter to get it going again. 

Somehow the spirit of Christmas gift-giving passed Ezra by completely. 

He slept through the whole thing. Maybe it's a good thing - we're hoping to keep him from getting too seduced by the whole Santa thing so he can maintain a Jewish identity, while still celebrating Christmas with the Gross 

side of the family... it's a delicate balancing act. 

Anyway, Aunt Katy the Photographer captured some great moments. We wanted to share a few (including one of Ezra staring, narcissistically, at his own images). 

We're preoccupied at the moment with quite a lot of stuff. On Monday, both Gabe and I go back to work (him full-time, me three days a week), and Ezra will go to his nanny's house. Through complete serendipity, our coworker said her previous nanny, Najiba, might be available. Turns out she was and she's great. So caring, great with babies - we feel incredibly lucky. But it's going to take some logistical gymnastics to get him there and pick him up in the morning (Najiba doesn't drive.) 

And then on top of that, I was dying to know his weight today so I took him to the doctor's office and had the nurse weigh him. Talk about a letdown - he only put on 8 ounces in a month. They say babies should put on at least a pound a month. We haven't had a chance to talk to our doctor about it yet. But it may be something called "foremilk/hindmilk imbalance" (who knew breastfeeding was this complicated??). That involves Ezra getting too much of the skim milk that comes at the beginning of a feeding and not enough of the fatty hindmilk at the end of the feeding. He tends to fall asleep while nursing, so that may be part of the problem. And it could also be the cause of his copious, green poops. We hope to get to the bottom of this quickly and start packing on the pounds again - be it with more breastmilk, formula or solids. 

Still, our dear little guy is as lively and curious as ever. And he just celebrated his 5-month birthday - happy birthday, Ezra James!