OMG, we have a REAL baby!

I don't know if this happens to all new moms, but lately the fact that we have a real live baby, and yes we are really living this life, hits me like cold water to the face.  He does all of these famous baby things, like sitting up, shaking rattles, smiling and babbling, grabbing my face, hugging/kissing, etc.  He's starting to show preferences and opinion.  Sometimes he doesn't want to play in his jumper, he'd rather roll around on the floor.  And sometimes he wants be held and bounced.  Sometimes he is thrilled to be kissed on, and other times he just wants that object 6 inches out of reach and could care less about me. 

All of these things make him more and more of a real person to me.  Our relationship is awakening by leaps and bounds this month.  As Gail put it, my heart is "tied to his."  I miss him when he goes down for the night and it will be hours before I see him again (I don't miss him much during his 30 minute daytime naps...).  I love seeing him hold a toy close to his face, analyzing and calculating.  Then just a second later, wave his arms wildly and suddenly topple sideways. 

Despite the many times he's given me hope of his naps lengthening, he still takes only 30 minute naps for the most part.  He usually wakes up smiling, so I am assuming he's getting enough rest.  So it may be til he's 12-18 months til he starts taking long ones.  I'm finally beginning to accept it and realize that the occasional 2 hour nap does not indicate the breaking of a new normal.  Sheesh.

Nighttime sleep is mostly good.  We have improvements to make, and we've started using that darned ol' sleep training to get there.  After cereal, a bath, and one last feeding, he is either zonked and I can put him in his crib immediately or I rock him for a few minutes first.  We shoot for between 7:00 and 7:30 bedtime.  He goes down really easy, and life would be a dream, but 45 minutes later he winds up.  Ryan would go in there and burp him and calm him down for a second, and then we'd let him cry himself back to sleep.  It is tortuous.  The first night was an hour and a half, with Ryan going in there periodically to turn him over, rewrap him, and give him back his pacifier.  The second night we were encouraged when he cried only 45 minutes.  The third night, he cried for 6 minutes.  Fourth night, for 2 minutes.  We thought we were home free on the 5th night, but he cried for an hour and a half again.  We realized I had forgotten to give him his acid reflux medicine, so we got him up and let him stay up so we could wait the allotted amount of time and then feed him one more time and put him back to sleep.  That was last week.

This week I'm working on being  ALOT more consistent.  I'm taking Weissbluth's advice finally (he has always been right for us, I don't know why I try to experiment a bunch before realizing this again and again).  After 4 months, babies can start adjusting their sleep rhythms to a clock schedule (before 4 months, its best just to watch and respond to their drowsy signals--but have a set bedtime always!)  The past 3 days, Declan wakes between 6:15 and 7:30 (I'm bad, I should be waking him up at 7!), he takes his first nap at 9-9:30am, then 11-11:30am, 1:30-2:00pm, then 4-4:30pm.  And of course bedtime is 7-7:30.  Sometimes I'm tempted to put him down early if he's being a grump, or keep him up if he seems more wakeful, but I am curious to see how a fairly rigid schedule works for him since we've never tried it very consistently so I'm standing firm!  Hopefully between that and the sleep training, he'll stay down after bedtime until his feeding around 2:30am.  And okay, a small part of me still hopes his naps will suddenly grow longer with routine...

I've changed up his feeding routine, too.  I was totally over-zealous with the solid foods thing.  He keeps them down so well and enjoys the cereal so much (plus the whole novelty of it) that I jumped ahead and gave him 2 feedings a day as cereal when you're supposed to start out with one.  I justified it because we started solids kinda late -- at almost 5 months.  I didn't really tie it together because it was gradual - his feedings grew shorter and fussier, but oddly, he wanted to eat more often (I still don't really understand that).  So last week I stopped giving him his mid-morning cereal and just kept the evening feeding.  Within a day, his nursing sessions were more prolonged and relaxed.  His "I'm hungry" and "I'm full" signals are not ambiguous anymore since instead of fussing 30 seconds into the feeding, he will nurse good and then stop, smile, and if I offer him more he will either do so or push away.  So I'm super happy with that.

He's still dealing with the reflux.  Last week I reached 4 weeks of dairy elimination and took him off of the Prevacid to see if things had improved.  After being off of the medicine for a day, the symptoms came rushing back and it was clear that dairy was not the culprit.  I am changing pediatricians, so maybe we'll get some fresh ideas and a GI specialist referral.  Our other pediatrician is an excellent and qualified doctor, it's just that he makes me feel stupid.  He's kinda snippy.  When I felt the Zantac was not working for us, I asked him about what I should do.  He just said, "Take him off of it."  And I was like... well, what about the reflux?  I felt like I was having to drag information out of him.  Anyway, I've always kind of thought that, and that last experience was just enough to make me think we might do better with another doctor.

Doing better all the time, for the most part.  Gotta go make some supper.  Another day gone, but it was a productive one (c:

5 Months Old: Cereal, and of course Sleep

Declan turned 5 months old last Thursday.  It's hard to believe he's already this close to 6 months!  We started him on rice cereal on November 6, 10 days before he turned 5 months old.  He loved it and he did so well! 

 

  He's sleeping better, going to bed at 7:30pm, getting up between 3 and 4 to eat, then going back to sleep until about 7:30am.  The past few mornings he's woken up with smiles and coos.  His naps are getting longer, too.

In the past week, he's gotten better at rolling back to front.  He seems to do well with both right and left rolling.  He'll sometimes sit up on his own for several seconds, but he usually gets interested in his feet and leans so far forward that he topples over.  So he's close, but not quite sitting up yet.

We've got two toys that he can bounce in.  A saucer-thing, and a Johnny Jump Up.  Once he started using these (the saucer at 4 months and the Johnny Jump Up at 4 months, 3 weeks), his core and leg strength developed rapidly.  Within days, he went from being slumped over in the saucer seat to sitting up straight and bouncing vigorously. Jumping is such a favorite activity now that he squirms when you hold him until he's standing in your lap and he'll jump, jump, jump, jump....

Day 1 in the saucer - needed a blanket for core support.

A month later - confident, strong, and loving it!

His hair is thinning out a lot, but he's still got some patches of really long, dark hair, and it's curly!  Under the dark hair, he's got some blond/light brown, thicker hair coming in.  I noticed a little bit of cradle cap about a week ago.  I put some tea tree oil on it, which I do not recommend.  I do think it helped, but the smell was so potent that I think it bothered him and I couldn't get it out without washing his hair - even still it filled his nursery and may have given him a headache - it gave me one!

Vocally, he's a little chatter box.  He'll babble, "Gah gah gah mmmmbah! Grrrrrr-aaaaaaaa-mmm Mam!"  He's also taken to grabbing our mouths and faces (sometimes gently, sometimes notsomuch), and he'll pull our faces to him so he can plant his open-mouthed baby kisses on it.  He's often very aggressive and serious about these kisses and they are accompanied by some growls or "mmm"s.  And I love, love when he wraps both of his chubby little arms around my neck and squeezes.  What an awesome kid!

We've introduced him to some loud noises lately.  I make his rice and oatmeal cereals at home with our Ninja blender.  I thought since I was going to be doing it every 3 days or so, he should be comfortable with the sound.  It took some holding and reassuring words, but he is now adjusted to it and it doesn't phase him.  Today I decided it was time that he got acquainted with the vacuum cleaner - especially with his growing independence and mobility - I will need to vacuum more often!  By counting to 3 before turning it on each time, he grew comfortable with it within a few minutes.  By the time I was vacuuming the 2nd room in our apartment, he was playing happily with his toys and ignoring the machine.

Mom says she thinks he's more into his toys than my siblings or I were.  He does love them and will play with them for much of his wake time.  Some of his favorites are a beanie giraffe that my boss' family gave him, a squishy red truck from work, toys attached to his saucer, a crinkly basketball, and a little music machine that my mom and sister brought him on their last visit. 

This past weekend, we noticed him getting his knees under his body and scooting backwards.  Maybe my mom's prediction is right - crawling by Christmas?