How to: Help Your Breastfed, Co-Sleeping Baby Sleep Better

Earlier today, I shared this story on the Facebook page of a breastfeeding support group I participate in, and I've received positive feedback so I thought it might be useful to post on my blog  My hope is that other families who co-sleep, nurse to sleep and experience frequent night wakings that are soothed back to sleep only by nursing can gently encourage their little ones to sleep longer. I'm not a medical, sleep or lactation professional - this is simply what has worked for us and I'm sharing it in hopes that it might work for you too.

  

Given others here have been very helpful in giving me advice on breastfeeding related concerns, I thought I should share how sleeping is going at our house (two wakings last night in ten hours and a similar stretch of nights last week before the onset of the nine month growth spurt) in the event that some of the the things that worked for us might work for some of you too in similar situations (baby waking every two hours or much less looking for a nipple to soothe back to sleep).

Our son sleep regressed from waking once a night at 2:30 am to waking every 30 minutes or less at four months. Slowly he's gotten better (every 45 minutes, every hour, every hour and a half, every two hours and now every three or more hours).

I searched online everywhere, but couldn't find clear advice on how to help a breasfed baby who nurses to sleep and who co-sleeps to sleep better while continuing to nurse to sleep for bed in the first instance and co-sleep. So I spent a lot of time observing him sleep and watching what happened when he woke up. It was clear that he would always stir and move at the end of his sleep cycle, which is the only time he would wake up. So I knew if we wanted him to sleep longer than that, he'd need to be able to stir and then go back to sleep without a nipple in his mouth.

Here's what we did to gently guide him to sleep better:

1. I have always offered the breast upon waking, so I continued to do so because this is his routine. However, I started by unlatching him during the most difficult waking of the night for me (normally the one between 11 pm and midnight) after his sucking had slowed and his eyes were closed. I would always hold him close (which he likes) and say "shhhhh" as I did this. Sometimes he would cry for a few seconds and then go to sleep, other times he seemed to already be asleep and other times he would cry so much I'd need to relatch him. If I relatched him, I let him suck until he fell off the breast. I think this helped him be able to sleep since he was drowsy but not fully asleep and gained confidence in his ability to fall asleep on his own.

2. My husband would take a shift at night during one or more of the wakings most nights. He'd walk, pick him up, sing etc. (whatever he had to do) to get our guy back to sleep. If he wasn't asleep within 30 minutes or he didn't stop crying, I stepped in and nursed him back to sleep. But he most definitely learned through this process that he could fall asleep with Dad. This was helpful since he now often rolls over to Dad for a back rub (see how we started to include this in the night routine below) at night when he wakes or stirs.

3. I combined nursing at night with a gentle head rub (which I found calming for both of us) or back rub. This way the gentle head rub or back rub became part of the falling back to sleep routine, and we could then (many times) use this to put him back to sleep without needing to nurse. We did the same thing with lullabies, so they became a way to put him to sleep as well.

4. I always fed him if it had been three hours or more since his last feeding (the typical amount of time he goes between feeding during the day). I also saw he slept longer when I nursed him on both sides. So I started to unlatch, roll him over my chest and relatch him on the other side after about 15 minutes. The rolling across the body woke him just enough for him to feed a little more. This has helped avoid frequent wakings due to hunger.

As we more frequently put him back to sleep with a little back rub or song, we saw he was sleeping longer. I think this is because those activities required a greater ability on his part to fall asleep on his own. Last night, I watched him for more than three hours. He sat up a number of times, rolled over etc. but each time he went right back into a deep sleep without calling for me. It was amazing. In January I never thought we'd get there. I hope some of these tips help.

Raising a Foodie: At 7 and 8 Months

I am very pleased to note that Thomas now (often) eats three meals a day. I wasn't sure this would ever happen a few weeks ago.

In mid-March, Thomas caught a lingering cold and he entirely lost his appetite. Literally the boy refused food, aside from a few (very small) mid-afternoon meals, for weeks. We continued to offer fruit, vegetables and meat two or three times a day and celebrated every time he accepted a bite. I tried baby led weaning too, in case he was expressing a preference to feed himself instead, but nothing seemed to work. I kept reminding myself that when I'm sick I rarely want to eat, so this was likely what was going on with our little man. I kept sane knowing that he was getting plenty of breast milk and was continuing to gain weight.

However, after all signs of illness subsided, it occurred to me that Thomas might also be overfed. He does after all nurse all night long (literally! I've woken up at night and he's already been latched!). After confiding in a few other moms, one with a similar baby (a frequent night feeder) shared that her nutritionist recommended she nurse only to sleep for naps and bed, and then (at eight months, which is the age Thomas is now) offer food and water throughout the day. I tried it, and all of a sudden Thomas started eating! Before that we'd been nursing every three hours, which is what's generally recommended, but for babies who nurse at night might be too much if establishing solids is a priority for the family. For those super curious, this means I nurse Tom to sleep for a nap at 8:30/9:00 am, again for a midday nap, and then late afternoon before supper (around when he often takes a mini nap when we're out in the car/stroller/carrier). He then cluster feeds for an hour or so before dozing off for the night (which happens anywhere from 5:30 pm to 8:30 pm, depending on how long his late afternoon nap lasted).

Having Tom eat three meals a day was very relieving. But the quantity of food he was consuming at these 'meals' remained slight.

But we've found a (hopefully temporary) solution to that too!

Oh a whim, I bought a Baby Gourmet pouch (I had never (well aside from a few jars of pureed chicken) given my baby jar food before), and he loved it. When offered Baby Gourmet, Thomas went from passively accepting a few bites to literally standing in his high chair and jumping up with his mouth open to accept the food. It turns out Thomas thinks mama is a bad cook (I really didn't think you could mess up purees that bad!). I still have a freezer full of organic, homemade purees that I hope to move back to, but for now we're munching on pre-made organic purees.

To wash down those meals, and when outside on a warm day, we offer Thomas water from a regular cup. He loves it so much that he reaches for everyone's water glass when they're having a sip. He can't get enough. This is a habit that I'm so happy to encourage! 

Musings on Where to Raise Our Family

Greg and I are from the bookends of this country - St. John's and Vancouver. When we decided to leave Edmonton, we thought long and hard about where to go because both of our hometowns were appealing to us. In the end, access to policy work and an affordable (and colourful) real estate market won out and we packed our bags for St. John's. We moved into a little salt box in Fort William, and soon upgraded to a Victorian row house in Georgetown. With our son's arrival, we're continually rethinking the use of our space and our living arrangements. We have plenty of space for our family, but sometimes wonder if a little more or a little less would be better. We keep our eye on real estate listings in our 'next step' neighbourhoods -- Churchill Park, 'Elizabethtown' (aka North of Elizabeth) and Larch Park. And we debate whether a new city entirely might work for us in the future.

I love raising Thomas around my family and want very much to spend lots of time in Vancouver as well. But I also want him to see the world. Right now, I'm obsessed with committing to spend three or four weeks each year in a different foreign destination (my short list of destinations includes New York, Berlin, Copenhagen, Reykjavik, London, Paris and San Francisco). These experiences would be different than a typical vacation because we'd rent a flat and focus on adopting the daily life of a family there, not racing from tourist destination to tourist destination while staying in a hotel. This way, Thomas can see the world but also know the joys of having family close.

I think making other sacrifices - remaining a one car family, not buying a larger home, not buying a cabin - are worth it to have these sorts of experiences. How did you decide where to raise your child/children? Photo via Children with Swag.

Anticipation

With our playroom waiting on a few postal deliveries before completion, I'm in the anticipation phase. I'm imagining all the fun we'll have in that room playing with a car mat, drawing pictures and playing on the floor with wooden blocks.

Images via Weekday Carnival, Trula Kids and Wee Textile.

Question: Do you give Easter Presents?

Like everyone, Greg and I both brought our own sets of assumptions about any number of things to our new roles as parents with the arrival of Thomas. One of the first times that we noticed a difference in our assumptions was during our Easter planning. For Thomas, I expected Easter to include (though obviously not this year as he's too little) chocolate eggs and a present from the Easter Bunny, while Greg expected it to include chocolate and an egg hunt. Does the Easter Bunny bring presents to your house? Beyond birthdays and Christmas (if you celebrate it), on what other special occasions, if any, do you give gifts to your children? Valentine's Day? The Last Day of School? Thanksgiving? Upon returning from a work trip? I'm so curious!

While we're happy to give gifts to our son regularly and for no reason at all, we're keen to minimize the occassions where others in our family and near to us feel pressure to give gifts to our little man. Instead, we've asked them to make donations to our local food bank in his honour (we did this for his Christening and plan to do so again for his first birthday). Once Thomas is older, we'll ask him whether he wants to continue the food bank tradition.

As we look forward to this next holiday, I'm excited to think about how we can put our own stamp on Easter and make it something special and unique for our family and our son. Image via The Foodie's Kitchen.

How to: Deal with a Baby Who Doesn't Sleep Through The Night

I've grudgingly accepted that Thomas doesn't sleep through the night (after MUCH prodding from my husband who has long accepted this). We've decided that sleep training won't work for us (at least right now) so we're co-sleeping and have found that this arrangement works best for us. Thomas sleeps tucked next to me or Greg, and wakes every two hours (or less or sometimes (very rarely) more). Sometimes we sing him back to sleep (Away in a Manger and Twinkle Twinkle Little Star are his favourites), sometimes saying "shhhhh" and rubbing his belly works too, but most times I nurse him. He's back to sleep and I am too, within minutes of waking, and often with minimal tears. He starts the night in his crib, after being nursed to sleep in our den around 7 pm, and then the first or second time he wakes we normally head to bed with him. Before getting to this point, we've experienced (in order):

• a baby who slept swaddled in a bassinet that was next to our bed and woke less and less until eventually he slept through the night (once) and normally woke once a night between 1 and 2 am;
• a baby who slept in sleep sac in a crib in his nursery and woke a few times a night;
• a baby who slept in a crib but woke regularly and who became increasingly difficult to put back down upon waking without lots of tears; and,
• a baby who co-slept with mama beginning at 6:30 or 7:00 pm every night (Greg would normally lie with me and we'd watch DVDs together until nodding off somewhere between 9 and 10 pm).

It took a long time (about six months) for us to come to our present arrangement - a combination of crib and co-sleeping that finds a happy baby at night and in the morning, a (decently) well rested mom and dad, and some time at the end of the day just for Greg and me.

Throughout these arrangements, two things have helped dramatically:

1. If you nurse sitting up - play the TV lottery. Before heading to bed, check the late night TV offerings of your favourite channels and note the best show on at every hour. When baby was little (this worked really well when Thomas was 3 or 4 months and used to nurse for up to 1 hour straight at night, once a night), I'd motivate myself to get out of bed by recalling the best show on at that time and then watching it while nursing. I'd purposely skip my favourite shows in the day in hopes that I'd catch them on reruns that night. It worked. If Thomas happened to wake in time for me to catch the latest episode of Project Runway, I'd feel excited to get out of bed.
   
2. If you're co-sleeping and have mastered nursing while lying down - stop looking at the clock. The nights I ask Greg to tell me the time every time Thomas wakes are the worst (as in 'baby, why are you awake every hour?' or 'baby why have you woken three times and its only midnight?'). When I don't know what time it is, I can assume he's slept for hours and I rarely recall how many times he woke in the morning.

Of course, the greatest motivation for me to wake up at night is to calm or assist Thomas in whatever issue he's experiencing that's causing him to wake (room too bright, sleeper damp, soiled diaper, hunger etc.), but from one tired mom to another, I can say that sometimes an additional trick or form of motivation can be welcome.

Raising a Foodie: At Six Months

Like many aspects of parenting, I began with one set of intentions regarding feeding our son and have modified as reality has sunk in. A friend recently divulged that she had hoped to raise a foodie baby, but has since found out that her little one is less keen on variety than she'd expected. I imagined the same and have met a similar fate (a baby more keen on breast milk than solids), but with a few modifications I can happily say that Thomas has taken to solids more easily than seemed would be the case when we first began a few weeks ago.

To prepare to begin solids, we gathered with the following gear:

• A beautiful Stokke Tripp Trapp that we received as a present - About a week before we began infant cereal, we started sitting Thomas in his high chair. This way he could watch us eat more closely and begin to be socialized into eating meals, before he actually had to do it himself. We found he responded positively to sitting with us at the table with this type of high chair, as opposed to sitting away from the table in a high chair with its own tray. There's a great round up of high chairs here.
• Nylon bibs, including a fun Dr. Seuss patterned one that was a gift - Being able to wipe down the bibs after each meal has been very handy.
  
• A place mat with suction cups to protect our dining room table that we set out in front of Thomas' high chair.
  

If you're making your own baby food, which I recommend, I suggest stocking your kitchen with the following:

• A submersion blender - This makes pureed foods the smoothest in my experience, which is perfect for starting off. Later on your can try a regular blender or food processor to make your food.
  
• A fine mesh sieve - I push thicker purees through this to remove any particles that might make the food harder to swallow for my six month old. It helps remove any seeds or pulp that might remain after pureeing.
  
• A set of little spoons and bowls
• Ice cube trays to freeze pureed foods
  
• Mason jars to thaw your puree cubes
• A fun lunch bag to tote baby's eating supplies when out and about (I love ours)
• A steamer basket or sieve that fits inside your regular pots
  

Before starting, I read a booklet given to me by my public health nurse regarding feeding your six to twelve month old. I supplemented this information with a fantastic book - Cooking for Baby.

Here's a brief overview of what's worked for us:

• We started with organic rice cereal mixed with water for breakfast, which didn't go over well, so I tried mixing it with breast milk, which was much preferred. However, pumping an ounce or two of fresh breast milk for each meal didn't seem feasible for me in the long run, so we soon moved on to a barley cereal that was designed to be mixed with water only (meaning it's a little creamier than the organic type). This was my first concession - I had wanted my son to eat only organic cereals, and here we were a few days in reaching for the mainstream variety. This was more successful, but we were still only managing a few small spoonfuls per feeding each morning.
  
• So I decided to skip cereals and breakfast all together and we switched to an early suppertime meal instead (normally about 4:30 or 5:00). Here's why: Thomas isn't a great sleeper and he nurses about every 2 hours all night long, so he's not really all that hungry in the morning. He goes much longer in the day without feeding (every 3.5 to 4 hours) so introducing a meal an hour and a half or two hours after his mid-afternoon nursing has been more effective. I always follow supper with a nursing afterwards.
  
• At six and a half months, and now that supper time is a consistent 1.5 - 2.5 tbsps of food (before adding liquid to thin), we've moved back to breakfast and have had more success. I've noticed that Thomas is still waking at night, but now can be calmed and put back to sleep without nursing occasionally (simply saying 'shhhhhh' and rubbing his belly for a minute or two has started to work).
  
• I plan to increase the size of breakfast (now 1/2 a tbsp) to 1 tbsp by seven months, and will then work on introducing "lunch", which I am hoping will be consistent by the end of eight months. So basically, I've set a goal of consistently having one meal per day at six months, two meals per day at seven and three meals per day at eight. I'll begin some baby led weaning then too.

In terms of the order of introducing foods, this is what we've done -- rice cereal, barley cereal, avocado, sweet potato, zucchini, butternut squash, chicken, pears and peas. I'll be adding lentils and apples next. If a food was disliked, I've thinned it out and each time this has improved Thomas' desire for it. We started with 1 tbsp of cereal and reduced to 1/2 tbsp for breakfast, and feed 1 -2 ice cube sized portions of food for supper.

I'd love to hear about your experiences in introducing solid food to your little ones. xo

Favourite Baby Names

So, it seems like everyone I know is having a baby, has recently had a baby or is planning/hoping to have a baby soon (so are the late-twenties and thirties, I suppose). While I love finding out if my friends have had a boy or a girl, I'm actually most curious to learn what they've named their joy. I think naming another human being is fascinating.

Once we knew we were having a boy, we knew his name would be Thomas, since we'd agreed upon that long before conceiving, and had even referred to a potential son to family and friends as 'Thomas'. So, choosing a name was super easy. However, I don't think it will be so easy next time around since we're wavering on our name for a daughter (Audrey) and second son (Daniel).

In addition to Audrey and Daniel, here are some other names I love. How about you?

For girls - Elodie, January, Caroline, Thecla

For boys - Nicholas, Ian, Jonas, Alastair

Photo via Children with Swag.

Modern Motherhood Survival Guide

What didn't begin as a 'mommy blog' has often become one, because here on Horizontal Stripes I've enjoyed sharing my life and things I've learned with you, my dear readers, and one of those most recent developments has been becoming a mom. In case you're curious, I've packaged my recent posts on motherhood into a "Modern Motherhood Survival Guide". You can read all my posts here on topics such as entertaining at home with a baby, and preparing your closet for maternity leave and pregnancy. You can read even more posts about babies here.

I'll be adding to this Guide in the coming days, weeks and months, with posts about baby registries, fine dining with a tot, raising a foodie, traveling with baby, coming up with alternative childcare arrangements, and more. I do hope you'll check back! And as always, I'd love to hear about your experiences in parenthood through the comments. Please don't be shy to say hi! xo Image via The Sartorialist.

Tips on Raising a French Baby

French women may be more stylish and slim than us Canadians, but do they also raise better behaved children? Pamela Druckerman is an American expat living in Paris who recently published Bringing Up Bébé: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting (which was also published in the UK under the title, French Children Don’t Throw Food: Parenting Secrets From Paris). Her observations pull out some of the ways French moms remain calm and poised, while toting around well-behaved children and maintaining an intimate relationship with their spouses. Her findings (which are genius by the way!)?

• French moms teach their kids to say bonjour. It seems so simple, but encouraging children to greet friends and strangers makes them less self-absorbed and more aware of their place as social beings in a community.
  
• French moms don't look for kids' menus. If you don't want your child to eat only pizza and chicken fingers, open them up to a wide variety of foods early on. All restaurants are child-friendly if your child is taught to appreciate and explore food like an adult, which begins by leaving 'family restaurants' and taking your little ones to 'adult restaurants' from an early age.
  
• French moms allow their children to be independent. They pause before rushing in to the nursery at night when their baby cries, so as to see whether the baby can learn to transition from one sleep cycle to the next on their own.
  
• French moms trust their children to cuss. Children are taught one swear word -- caca boudin (meaning poo sausage) -- and are trusted to use it appropriately. This teaches discretion from a young age and prevents young children from using adult swear words.
• French women emerge from pregnancy as women, not just moms. Becoming a mom seems all-encompassing in Canada, but in France women remain women, which allows an individual identity apart from the role of mother to be maintained.
• French parents think date night is a bizarre idea. Every evening is a time for adults in a French home.
  

I can't wait to pick up a copy of the book! Images of Jane Birken via Domestic Reflections.

Valentines

Have I mentioned that I know a circle of very fabulous moms? I'm talking women that run half marathons, mentor young girls through the Guiding movement and submit PhD dissertations while on maternity leave. Meanwhile, I'm just getting to a place where I can consistently do the dishes in a day while caring for my son.

This week, a few of us swapped valentines from our kids as mementos for memory boxes and scrapbooks. To my horror, I was the only mom with store-bought cards. All the others had beautifully handmade cards that clearly took a lot of time to construct. It was hard not to feel deflated (being competitive is one of my negative traits).

Upon reflection, I might never be a mom who seems to be able to find the time to make homemade valentines (I don't think I've made a homemade card since elementary school), but I have found a middle ground -- free DIY printable valentines! Here is a great roundup of free DIY printable valentines for personal use. Instructions for the Valentine above can be found at Alpha Mom.

Backyard

Our yard is an adult space (think manicured bushes, pebble walkways and a slate patio, and no grass), so making our large two level patio as baby friendly as possible for Tom this summer. is a priority. Sure we have two lovely playgrounds (including one with an outdoor pool!) within 5 minutes walking distance of our home (yay for living in an urban neighbourhood)!, but we also want Tom to enjoy being closer to home occasionally.

The upper level of our deck, which is accessible by patio doors from our kitchen, will be the perfect space for the boy to play while we bbq, so we're going to buy a wooden gate system to make the space safe and outfit the deck with some weather resistant foam mats to prevent splinters and bumps.

I'd also like to hang a swing from the upper level of the patio so that it is accessible on the lower level (I love this baby swing!) and to buy a standing hammock for us to take naps in the shade together. This bench would also be the perfect cheerful addition to our space.

When Tom's older, I hope he has a tree house (but that's a plan for a larger home and a bigger yard). Do you dream about making changes to your outdoor living space now that you have a child?

Q: Will you tell your child that they have a RESP?

One of the first things we wanted to set up for Thomas financially when he was born was a Registered Education Savings Plan. Greg and I both paid our way through our undergraduate and graduate degrees with scholarships, earnings from summer and part time jobs, and assistance from our families. Thankfully we didn't have to take out student loans, but many of our friends did (and are still paying them off) so we know the challenges they can create. We wanted to make sure Thomas had a little socked away to assist with his savings in case our financial situation when he's ready for post-secondary doesn't allow for us to contribute, and to ensure that the money we can contribute now has an opportunity to grow through investments before that time.

Living where we do, our provincial government and federal government both offer financial assistance towards raising a child for the first year ($2200 total) and first six years ($7,200 total), respectively. We've decided to put all this money directly in the RESP and top up the remainder of the yearly space ($2500). Now that this is all sorted out in a tidy monthly contribution plan, we're wondering whether (and how) we should tell Thomas that he has it. The company that holds our investment sent us a certificate to show Thomas when he's older that states he is the holder of a RESP. Until receiving it, we hadn't given any thought to when and how we might tell him that he holds this investment. After discussing, at least given what we know now, we think we'll tell him when he's finishing high school and (hopefully) making his plans for further education. We don't want him to think of it as a free ride, and want to encourage him to seek out scholarships and employment opportunities to help make his education plans come to fruition as we did. What do you think? If you have a RESP for your child or expect to open one soon when do you plan to tell them about it? Photo via Queen's University (one of my alma mater).

Solids

As we prepare for Thomas to begin on solids in a few weeks, here's my roundup of must-have baby food supplies.

Stokke Tripp Trapp / Boon 2-in-1 Feeding Spoon / Kids Konserve Nesting Trio / Klean Kanteen Sippy Cup / Lifefactory Sippy Cup Lids for Weego Bottles / Mimi the Sardine Messy Bib / The Wean Machine / Built NY Lunch Tote

New Parent Must Haves

As Thomas approaches six months (gasp!), I look around his nursery and our home, and am surprised by the things that I find infinitely useful (jumperoo purchased second hand on the cheap) and useless (no scratch mittens that never fit my son's big hands). I am always thinking about how we can pare down our baby gear, while also ensuring that we're prepared for every stage that's to come. It's a challenge simultaneously wanting to always be prepared AND keep my possessions to a minimum. Like many new moms, I love momfilter. Of course, they had this great post on the one (or two) item(s) that parents cannot live without. What is your must have for raising a baby? It's random, but I couldn't live without Sir Bubbadoo Burping Cloths. Seriously. As someone with an abundant supply (aka leakage issues), disdain for wearing a bra to bed (the horror!), and a boy who loves to feed in bed at night, these cloths are the perfect replacement for nursing pads. I think they should be on every breastfeeding mom's must have list.

Q: How Many Children Do You Hope to Have?

This afternoon while chatting with some friends after a nice snowy winter walk (joy!), the topic of having more kids (we're all 1+ at this point) came up. Our answers were varied: maybe, no, yes (soon) and yes (in the future). Greg and I seriously wax and wane on this daily (the amount of sleep we've had the night before seems to be a contributing factor), but I suspect we'll have another some day and we also give serious consideration to adopting. Our life doppelgangers have four kids all within a five year span (or thereabouts), but I'm not sure that's in the cards for us.

How many children do you have? Do you hope to have more? If you have more than one, any recommendations on the ideal age spacing? Is there a magic number? Picture via Nienie Dialogues.

Q: Will your children share a room?

I grew up with my own bedroom, but my little brother often slept in my room with me. We'd stay up late secretly listening to my mom chat on the phone or talking to each other. I knew friends who shared a room with a same-sex sibling though, which I thought (probably until my mid-teens) would be a lot of fun.

We presently have a three bedroom house, and use one of those rooms as a tv den (I adore retiring upstairs in the evening to our private family space, and being able to nap in bed and overhear Greg and Thomas playing next door in the den in the early mornings). If we have a second child and still live in our present home, we debate moving ourselves into the tiny nursery and giving our kids our master bedroom (which would have plenty of space for two single beds, dressers and play space). What are your sleeping arrangements?

Image via Apartment Therapy.

What We're Reading: Hug Time

Thomas' first word was hug. Well, technically he babbled hug, but we're choosing to remember it as his first word. Before T was born, I wondered what his first word might be and assumed one of the usual suspects - mama or dada. When hug popped out one day while out little family was relaxing in our living room, Greg and I looked at each other gobsmacked -- Did Tom just say hug?? Sure enough, a few minutes later he said it again. These days hug is part one his vocal repertoire alongside kiss and hi. I like to think we have a very affectionate and friendly boy on our hands. Given that I'd emailed our entire family exclaiming that T had proclaimed his first word, when my brother saw this book -- Hug Time -- he told me he knew he had to give it to Tom as a present. We love it. It is a perfect reflection of the kind and loving boy we're striving to raise.

If you have children, what was their first word? What was your first word? I'm so curious! xo

Popsicle Sticks

For bigger kiddos, these DIY popsicle stick magnets look super fun to construct. This mom loves how graphic they look. Practical and abstract art that's kid friendly? I'm sold. DIY via Pure and Noble. Found via Modern Parents Messy Kids.

Santa

This little man wrote his first letter to Santa Claus. Curious to read?

Dear Santa,

Merry Christmas to you, Mrs. Clause and the elves.

I hope it is ok that I call you Santa. My Japanese cousin Kira tells me that your name is Hoteiosho. My Italian cousin Izzy tells me that your name is Babbo Natale. My French cousin Ceona tells me that your name is Pére Nöel. My Daddy, when speaking to me in German, tells me that your name is Weihnachtsman. I’ve also heard you called St. Nicholas, Father Christmas and Kris Kringle on the radio. I thought I had a lot of names – Thomas, Thomas Walter, TW, Tom, Tommy, Tom Tom, Timund, Tienike, Teemonica, Won Yeung Tee, Angel Boy, the Littlest Sweet Pea, and Chicklet!

I’m very excited to celebrate my first Christmas with my family. Over the past few days they have been bringing me up to speed on the meaning and celebration of Christmas. Having just joined the Christian church formally last week, I have to say hearing all about Christmas is a pretty exciting welcoming.

I’m looking forward to celebrating the birth of Baby Jesus by gazing at all the twinkle lights on lamp posts and house eaves, listening to carols, dressing up in festive colours for my play dates with my friends Gabby, Rebecca, Robert, Hudson and Jude, and supervising my family’s decorating of our tree.

My Mommy tells me it is customary to write you with some ideas for presents for you to bring down our chimney for me. This sounds so generous to me so I want to thank you in advance.

When you’re working in your shop, I would really like it if you could please set aside some colourful board books for me to read with my Daddy, soft woolen toys to cuddle with in my lounger and some wooden clutching toys and rattles for me to play with my Mommy. Thank you for thinking of me. Mostly, however, I hope you set aside some toys, warm clothes and food for all the people who go without throughout the year. I like to bring pasta, soup and beans to the food bank in my neighbourhood to do my part, so I’d really appreciate it if you could make a donation there too.

I am sure you’re getting tired with all your preparations for the big show on Christmas Eve. I hope you have a long nap planned to recuperate on Boxing Day. I like to nap every morning in my Mommy’s arms so perhaps that will help you recharge as well.

Santa, it was lovely to meet you at the downtown parade on Sunday in your fancy float, and I’m excited to meet the main man – Baby Jesus – at our nativity pageant on Christmas Eve. I’m going to invite Baby Jesus over for a play date so he can mingle with my friends. I also think he’ll enjoy playing on my baby gym. I’ll also make sure I give Mommy time to bake you some gingerbread cookies to munch on when you stop at our house. I can’t attest to how they’ll taste though since I’ve only ever eaten breast milk and vitamin D drops. You’ll know it is our house because we have a bright yellow door. I’ll be the baby sleeping through the night upstairs in my crib.

Love your new friend,

Thomas