First Meal!

My mom lent me a great book about baby's first foods and baby nutrition. I tried to read as much as I could (it's long, like 1,000 pages) before Isaac's first meal. It's called Super Baby Foods. I highly recommend it. It's got a few DUH/boring pages, but overall, very informative for people who want to give their baby a great start.
Anyway, Isaac just had his first meal of sweet potatoes mixed with breastmilk. He seems to like it and did great. We captured some fun photos on camera. Can't wait to start him on other foods, too. Foods over the next several weeks? Avocado, brown rice cereal, bananas, maybe some carrots. :)
YUMMMMM!!!! Here is the progression of the eating session.

Look What We Caught!

One day, when Isaac asks "Mom, Dad? Where do babies come from?" We will take out these photos, and simply tell him that you catch babies with a net.
hehe. Okay not really, but wouldn't that be the easiest, best scenario?

skeptical

This is what a baby should look like after a GOOD night's sleep :)
We saw Isaac's pediatrician last Wed. for his 4 month checkup. Everything went well, then he asked us about how his sleep was going. Weeelllll...he HAD been doing really well. Sleeping 7-8 hours a night for a few weeks toward the beginning of July. Then the weather got really hot and he started waking more easily. This led to him nursing in the middle of the night again...and so on and so on. So, his doc recommended that with us going back to work soon, we go ahead and try the Ferber method, AKA the CRY IT OUT method. I immediately cringed just hearing him say this. He has 8 children who he used this method on and he assured us that it would work. Here is how it's SUPPOSED to work.
night 1: cry for 1 and 1/2 hours. Parents soothe him with words and a quick pat/rub every 15 min. Repeat if baby wakes up during night. Sleep 8-9 hours without nursing or picking him up.
night 2: cry 1/2 hour and same as above.
night 3: cry 15 min and same as above.
night 4: right to sleep and same as above.
I had a horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach and I knew that this would be more torturous for Dave and I than it would for Isaac. I also felt that IF this was going to work, it would take twice as many hours and days. I felt like it was worth a try, though because if mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy - including my students when I go back to work!
So, here is how it went for us:
night 1: cry/scream for 1 hr and 20 min. Check on him every 7 min and soothe him.
wake up at 3:45 AM and cry for TWO BLOODY HOURS! Check on him every 10 min. This was SO VERY SAD and in the moment, I thought to myself, I rather be giving birth to a 9 pounder again than to listen to my baby cry like this without picking him up. I was NOT looking forward to night 2.
night 2: whimper for 1/2 hour and cry for about 5 minutes. Not bad. Slept through the night for 8 hours!
night 3: 30 seconds of crying. Woke up at 4 and cried for almost 1 hr (checking on him every 10 min.)
night 4: Fell sleep in 30 seconds again. Woke up at 2:30 and cried for about 10 min.
night 5: that's tonight! Fell asleep in 30 seconds.

I must say that I am pleasantly surprised. As hard as night 1 was, the rest has been much easier than I expected! The long term benefit is totally worth 1 night of trauma. YAY for solid sleep!