11 months old today!

Wow. Cooper is 11 months old today. It is just so crazy that he'll be a year old in just one more month.

So what have we been up to between 10-11 months? It has been interesting. We started sleep training and that was not going well so we consulted his pediatrician who told us to pause the sleep training and focus on eliminating night feedings - cold turkey! We did it - it was easier than I thought it would be and it improved Cooper's sleeping. He still wakes up 3-4 times though because he's dry and he gets sips of water and goes right back to sleep and sometimes it is because he needs a new diaper (usually just once per night). After a week of no night feedings we moved him (and me) into his room onto a floor bed to get him used to falling asleep and waking up in there. A week of that has gone by and it's time to resume the crib sleep training tonight. UGH. I'm dreading it. It's going to be a painful weekend but since it's a 4-day weekend for me and Bob is home too we need to do this now and hope that it succeeds. Please say a little prayer for us. Cooper has night separation anxiety issues - looks for us when he wakes up and screams if I'm not there with him. It's going to be rough for a little while but it's time. Poor baby (poor mommy too!).

Besides that, Cooper is developing quite the personality. His facial expressions are just priceless and Bob says I'm to blame for that. That's OK though - the child needs to be able to express himself until he develops a vocabulary. We've been teaching him sign language since about 5-6 months and so far he signs back for "all done" and then responds to other signs including "milk" and "eat" - smiling when he wants to say yes, or nodding no. He says "mom", "mama", "da", "dada", "dog", and yesterday he started saying "noooooooooo" (oh lovely!). ;)

We'll update this weekend on how the crib sleep training is going. Meanwhile, friends and colleagues have been offering up lots of survival techniques like "lots of wine" (check!), "get some earplugs" (check!) and "remember, it's harder on you than it is on him". (haha! I hope so!)