When I found out I was pregnant with our first child, one of the first things I started thinking of was names. I looked at clothes and I thought of names. To me, naming a baby is the first big parenting decision you have to make. It’s kind of a huge responsibility, right?

We always knew what we wanted to call our first son, but I wasn’t really sure about a middle name. I had no idea what I wanted to name a girl. I agonized over what we would name a girl.

For a boy or a girl, I just really wanted to avoid the top ten most popular names in the United States. I didn’t want a “weird” name, but I didn’t want the most common name in the kindergarten class. I had daily chats on the phone with my mom as we went through our family trees and thought of different name combinations for a potential little girl. And then we arranged different first and middle names around the boy name we’d chosen.

Of course, after all of the choices and time spent on deciding on a girl name, I found out I was pregnant with a little boy. We knew that we wanted to call him Hudson, but we decided to keep the name choice a secret. My dad’s name is Hudson and his mom’s maiden name was Hudson. I wanted to use a family name and I wanted to use a name that I loved.

We decided on John Matthew Hudson Carroll for his official name. I like four names for a boy. “John” was the name of a cousin I loved dearly, and “Matthew” is Todd’s first name. So we had our boy’s name all set. But then we had to keep it a secret.

We chose not to share the name because it was nice to have something for just us. It was also something we decided because I knew that as long as no one knew his name they wouldn’t criticize it. People have a tendency to say some really thoughtless things to expecting parents about their baby names of choice.

We figured that if no one knew the name, they couldn’t say anything negative. After the baby was born, would someone really tell you they hated your baby’s name after they’d met your baby and held your baby? It’s a lot harder to criticize a name when the sweet baby is sleeping on your shoulder, right?

For the most part, we never heard anything negative about Hudson’s name. But it didn’t really matter. We love his name and that’s all that matters.

When I found out I was pregnant again, I was all set to use our girl name. And then we found out we were having another boy. But I’d already named a boy and didn’t have another favorite boy name.

I knew I wanted a one-syllable name with four or five letters. I have no idea why. So I had a very short list of names that I loved that fit that criteria. And only one of those names started with an “H.” I had already put the letter “H” on so many little outfits, pillows, blankets, and cups that it made sense to use another “H” name.

But the trouble was that Todd was shooting down all of my baby name ideas, but like most men, he didn’t have any suggestions either. So… we were back to my list. And I wanted another “H” baby.

So we decided on Hayes. I was so excited about his little name. It took a longer time for Todd to get used to Hayes’s name. Because Hudson’s name was such an easy, quick decision, it was much harder for us to decide on a name for our second boy. We both just couldn’t agree.

Hayes’s middle name is Claxton, which is Todd’s mom’s maiden name. We love being able to use family names as much as possible.

We didn’t keep Hayes’s name a secret for long, and it was actually really nice when we let his name out of the bag.

I still have my girl name ready to go in case we ever have another baby. I love thinking about possible future baby names. And we have another boy “H” name just in case. You just never know when you might need it! (But not any time soon, I promise.)

How about you? Did you keep your baby names a secret? Did you have specific criteria when choosing a name? Do you have any baby names on “reserve” for future babies?

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I want to preface this post by saying that I am not an expert by any means. I did what worked best for my child and for me and this is how we did it. I’m not writing this post to ruffle any feathers– I’m just answering the questions that I’ve been asked over the last 2 years. Writing this was good for me, too, as I prepare to go through it all again.

In the last few weeks, I’ve gotten a few emails and requests to send our feeding  chart that we used for Hudson. It was a simple feeding chart that we printed off every day. I had an Itzbeen and didn’t love using it. I know there are iPhone apps you can use. But I am a pen and paper kind of person when it comes to keeping track of things like feedings, nap times, and diaper changes.

We followed the Baby Wise plan of “Eat, Wake, Sleep.” It was important that Hudson not fall asleep while eating so that he was able to get enough to eat, get full, and then fall asleep on his own after he had some time to burp and play… or just stay awake for a little while. We wanted him to fall asleep on his own and become a confident sleeper.

Hudson was on a schedule from the day he was born. The hospital nursery staff helped us get him on a feeding schedule of every 3 hours. They showed us how to keep up with feedings and diaper changes. He was breast feeding at the time, so we timed how many minutes he nursed on each side and wrote that down.

We stuck to the “every 3 hours” plan. If he woke up 10 minutes before he was due to eat, he waited 10 minutes to eat. If he was screaming, we found ways to calm him to hold him off until it was time to eat again.

I have included the chart that we used. The text in red is to tell you what to put in each blank. The text in purple is an example of how the chart might be filled out.

If you hopped over here from Pinterest, just click here to get a printable version of this chart! 

In the beginning, he was going 5 hour stretches during the night and we reached 12 hours by the time he was four months old. We were super happy with 8 hours, but Hudson kept sleeping longer and longer!

When we came home from the hospital, he slept in his crib. We did this for three reasons: 1.) TC wasn’t able to take any time off work and I didn’t want him to be up all night when I was up feeding Hudson, 2.) Our bedroom is upstairs and Hudson’s is downstairs. Post-delivery, I wasn’t able to climb stairs anyway, so I slept in the guest room and Hudson slept in his room on the first floor, 3.) I didn’t want to create a habit that I’d have to try to break later (him sleeping in the bassinet in our room), so we started out with him in his own room on the first day.

We have a video monitor. Without the video monitor, I’m not sure I could have survived having him in his own room. But I can see him whenever I want to through the monitor and it was a big help in those first few weeks.

I did rock Hudson in the beginning because he was my baby and I wanted to rock him. But around the time he was 4 weeks old, we stopped rocking him to sleep and would just put him down in his crib, swaddled, and pat him a few times and walk away.

A word about the schedule…

I would say that it was a flexible schedule. If we got off schedule, it wasn’t the end of the world. But I built my life around Hudson’s schedule in those first 6-8 weeks. Having a great sleeper was the most important thing to me at the time. So we didn’t go meet friends for lunch or run a bunch of errands during the day. I avoided having him nap in the car because I wanted him to know his routine and get it down before we started shaking things up.

I know everyone doesn’t feel this way, but it was just what worked for us.

Resources and books…

We got on schedule with the help of Baby Wise. We mastered sleeping with the help of The Baby Whisperer. And we mastered soothing Hudson when he was upset with the help of The Happiest Baby on the Block DVD.

Click on any of the links to order the books or DVD.

I am disabling comments on this post because I don’t want it to turn into a debate about the best sleep methods. But feel free to email me if you do have any questions.