Sleep-Training Continued and Homemade Baby Food

So today's been pretty eventful. First of all, the sleep-training is going well so far. It took Alex 50 minutes to fall asleep last night, but at least it wasn't longer, and it should get better with time. I woke him up twice to eat (1/2 hour before he got up the two nights before) and although he squawked both times when I went to put him in the crib, that was the only sound he made (assumably, he went right back to sleep). So that was good.

The first nap of today was not so good. Alex cried for the whole hour, but the book does say that it's harder to get the naps worked out and I know it's partially my fault because I put him down a half hour late, and he fell asleep in the car seat while we were walking around the store; the book says that falling asleep for even 5 minutes between naps can really cause problems with the baby getting to sleep for his next nap.

His second nap was better. I was planning to put him down at 11:30 a.m. (2.5 hours after he "got up" from his first nap), but he fell asleep in his high chair while playing with toys around 11 a.m. (it was kind of cute; he had his head lying on his left arm). So I quickly took him out of the chair, rushed him upstairs, and put him in his crib. I wasn't sure what would happen—if he would have the same thing happen as did this morning since he fell asleep before his nap—but I didn't even need to make a first check-in because he fell asleep before then (within 10 minutes). Yay! It was probably because he was so tired, but he could have still cried through the whole thing. So, so far things are going well with the training.

While I was at the grocery store this morning, I decided I would attempt making some homemade baby food. Stephanie, a coworker/friend, inspired me. I don't think I would have even thought about how I could make my own baby food if it weren't for her. After finding out she made her own, I looked into it online to find out some more details on how (what would we do if we couldn't just look things up on the Internet? I love it!). So it sounded simple enough, but I decided to start small. So I went to the produce section and found something cheap, which today was peaches (I think the only thing cheaper is bananas, and for those all you to do is mash them up). So I got three peaches.

Then when I got home, I looked up online (searching for how to cook peaches for baby food) and found out how you can cook them to preserve nutrients. I ended up baking them in halves, pitted, in water. They didn't give a specific time (just until tender), so I ended up cooking them 30 minutes. I think they could have used a little longer. Then, after they cooled a little, I peeled them, put them in the food processor with some of the water that was left over, and pureed them. Then I put them in ice cube trays to freeze with plastic wrap over top. And that was it. I got about 21 oz of food from the three peaches for about $1.50. Or I could have paid $1.80 for 10 oz of food. So it cost me less than half as much. It was a good experience, and I will likely try again, either using whatever is in season or frozen food.