Ah, the bliss...

The day we left the hospital with JJ, I was wheeled out with that tiny, perfect little creature sleeping in my arms, and a total stranger took it upon herself to shatter my moment with a snarked "You'll sleep again... someday." Hyuck hyuck.  

JJ slept wonderfully last night. Went to bed after his bath, was out cold by quarter past 7, and barely stirred when Daddy and I came to bed at 10:30. We did a dream-feed, and he didn't wake me up again until 6!  GO, my little man, GO!!!

And today? He has, at this moment, been asleep for 110 minutes straight and still going. Not a peep. After two weeks of having to be nursed back down mid-nap, this is bliss.  Utter bliss.

Of course, it probably just means he's done cutting this particular tooth and the next one will start being a problem by Monday at the latest. LOL

But in the meanwhile, I am enjoying the energy level that comes with a full night's sleep, and the ability to get stuff done during a solid nap.

Do y'all know what I got done in the last 110 minutes? Laundry. Dishes. Tidied up the living room. Solo potty break. Paid the bills (that's right, ALL of the bills for February are p.a.i.d. PAID.) Ate a hot meal in peace.  Oh, right... and posted here!

That's what my son did for me today. And he's only 14 months old. He has never been left to cry alone, he's never been scheduled, he just is who he is and sleeps well when he's comfortable, fed, clean, and happy, just like us grown folks. Take THAT, snarky hospital stranger lady. :P Put that in your experiential cynicism and smoke it. HAH!!

In other news, we got our taxes filed, and discovered that we'll be getting enough in our refund to buy JJ his mattress and make up for John's lost hours through March, longer if he can find a different job that is willing to accommodate his class schedule.  One huge sigh of relief, lemme tell ya.  Soon as that refund hits, we are hitting the mattress store and getting one wiggly 25 pound toddler-boy his own dang bed.  It's going right in alongside ours for now, but the point is that everybody will have plenty of room to sleep comfortably again.  (Though I somehow suspect that I'm still going to wake up with JJ's head buried in my armpit!)

One of these days... I'm going to figure out how to get our with-holdings set up just right so Uncle Sam gets exactly what he's entitled to and no more, and funnel what would normally have been taken into a savings account so it makes money for US throughout the year. Don't laugh, it can be done, my momma did it, and I am GOING to figure it out.

*sigh* Maybe I'll take that H&R Block class after all...

Epic Cuteness Brought to You by Naptime

After chasing this little monster out of the bedroom (he snuck in while I was grabbing pictures), I bring you...





Epic Cuteness

 After falling asleep HARD come nap time, little mister stirred and cried less than an hour in. *shudder*  Trust me, this child needs 90 minutes at a bare bones minimum, 2 hours is a lot better, so you'd best bet I scrambled right in there!


(Oh, the pack&play in the background? Yeah, that's no longer his bed, as of about a week ago. I couldn't handle lifting twenty-five pounds of toddler in and out of that thing anymore!)

Apparently scrambling has its advantages. He was looking directly at me when I opened the door, smiled, and immediately lidded his eyes and waited for me to lay down with him.  Got him nursing, and he was asleep again in under 5 minutes.  SCORE, right?  Wait for it, it gets better.


That raised arm? As he was drifting back to sleep, JJ grabbed my free hand, moved it to his hair and held it there until I started finger-combing those gorgeous soft waves. Then he wrapped both of those little arms around mine and laid there and suckled until he slipped off again.



I might just have to melt into a little puddle of gooey sappy OMG-how-is-my-heart-not-exploding toddler-love.

  

So... allergies are evil...

If we're FB buds, then you've seen my moaning and groaning the last couple of days.

Moaning and groaning is no longer sufficient.

Whiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiine!!!!!

(Btw, Word Check, I find it hilarious that only the last 42 characters of the above are considered to be misspelled.  A Hitchhiker's reference?  From Blogger's Word Check algorithm?  Seriously?????)

I am, not to put too fine a point on it, bloody miserable.  My eyes itch.  My sinuses are completely socked in, and as a consequence my ears ache from the pressure and my hearing is iffy at best.  My nose has not stopped running for two days, and I'm sneezing constantly.  The drainage is giving me a lovely alto register, but otherwise is making me most uncomfortable.

Otherwise I feel just fine, no body soreness or chills or fever, and even though I feel like I can't breathe, my actual respiration is largely unaffected, so I am quite content to lay this at the door of SUMMER ALLERGIES. *grumblekvetchmutter*

I'm drinking tea.  Hot tea.  In August.  Because it's the only way to stop my throat from making me want to reach in there and give it a good scratch.   Whiiiiiiiiine.   (Oh sure, now the whole word is wrong.)

And I'm out of the lemon zinger that does the best job.  Whiiiiiiiiiiiine.

And the baby wanted two naps today (at 9 am and 3pm), which means he's not going to be ready for bed for at least another four hours.  Whiiiiiiiiiiine.

And John's at work until 10, probably home around midnight.  Far too late to do me any good today.  Whiiiiiiiiiiiiiiine.


On the plus side (This shall not ruin my day, I am determined.) 

JJ has been in a relatively good mood for the majority of the day and has not protested being left with Grandma for brief periods while Mommy drinks some more tea.  Maybe I can convince him to play quietly while I take a bath and try to steam my face open.  (Wishful thinking, I know, but hey, a girl can dream, right?  Right.)

I made a GORGEOUS loaf of bread today, and I didn't even have to knead it at all.  It's light and fluffy and rich and chewy and all the yummy things that fresh homemade bread should be.  I splurged on a little real butter, because putting margarine on bread like this would be blasphemy.  BLASPHEMY, I TELL YOU!!  The only down side is that I need a taller narrower baking dish, because the dutch oven (only thing I have that will tolerate a 450º oven) has such a large diameter that the loaf came out about two inches deep and basically level on the top.  Kinda looked like a garden stepping stone.  The search begins. LOL

I've stumbled across a new-to-me archive of Highlander fanfiction, and the works I have found there are beyond excellent.  The ensuing reading has prompted my DuncanMuse to nudge (read: prod at swordpoint) my other characters into productivity once more, and writing doth occur during naps and evening silences.

We have renters in our old house!!  Yes, you read that correctly!  Renters that actually pay their rent, in full and on time, without needing to be nagged and begged and hectored!!  As a consequence we're starting to get caught up on our bills.  It's still going to be tight, but at least we're making progress now. Oh, and not only are said wondrous people going all out to clean and repair the place, but they want to buy it when the year's lease is up!  Meaning I will be able to sell it for what it's actually worth, vs taking a loss because the previous tenants trashed the house, get my investment out of it, and put that into our "Seriously, this is the last move EVER" fund.  (NO, we don't know where we're going yet, but we're most likely not staying here long term.)

It's cool outside for the first time in WEEKS.  I kid you not, weather.com said 65º.  I'm trying to decide between that bath and an evening walk in the drizzle.

Yes, JJ took two naps... but they were GOOD naps.  90 minutes and 2 hours respectively.  So even though he was a little cranky when I got him up (because 9 pm is late enough, thank you, I don't need him awake all night), he is now rested and happily playing in his p'np next to me while I type.  (Alert: More wishful thinking ahead.) Maybe, just maybe, once 9pm rolls around he'll go to sleep and actually SLEEP instead of waking me up half a dozen times during the night.

So really... all in all... not such a bad day.  Right?

Whiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiine!!!!! 

(And again... only the last 42 characters.  *facepalm*)

Helpless cooing in 3... 2... 1...

He so rarely lets me get the good snuzzle pics!

So you know those moments (hours... evenings...) where your child suddenly decides that all is right with the world, that 6:45 isn't such an unreasonable bedtime, decides to not only cooperate with the evening routine, but actively help you get it done and smile the whole time?  The rare and miraculous once in a blue moon evenings that tell you, yes, there IS a person in there, and yes, he IS learning, and no, he doesn't hate you for making him go to sleep when it's still light out?

We just had one of those.

In fact, the whole day has been incredibly smooth sailing, despite the atrociously early beginning thereof.

Yeah, JJ decided to get going at quarter past 5 today.  *groan*  Of course, it's tough to complain, because he also slept through from bedtime last night (almost 10.5 hours) with only one wake-up, and that was the post-bedtime top-off feed that I don't usually count anyway.  Once I realized that, well, I decided to stop being irritated about the 5am wake-up call.

Because of the early morning, it turned into a two-nap day, falling neatly into the ideal 2 nap day pattern, and baby was up for the afternoon at 2:30 on the dot, already awake when I went to go get him.

Ate his lunch (pureed squash ... but on toast fingers... yeah, I'm back to purées are EBIL, but that's another post)... drank some water...

Took a good half dozen sorta-maybe steps while clinging to my fingers...

Did NOT freak out during his evening play-time with Grandma (read: mommy's sanity-saving baby-free hour).  Normally he lasts about 40 minutes and then starts freaking out because Grandma is nice but she's NOT MOMMY!!!!

Sat (SAT) in his bath and played happily with his toys for fifteen whole minutes without making me constantly re-sit him.

(Here's the big one) REFUSED TO NURSE IN CLUTCH HOLD AND NURSED TO SLEEP IN CRADLE HOLD INSTEAD.  Y'all have no idea.  He is seven, almost eight months old, almost thirty inches long, and until a month ago was still exclusively nursing in clutch hold.  It's taken the last month to introduce it and for him to realize that it WORKS BETTER, so for him to actively refuse clutch is a huge big honkin' deal in the Nolan household!

So... seriously... who is this perfect little angel and what has he done with my child?????

He's sleeping now, and I'm waiting for the "Mooooooooooooooooooom, I'm still hungry!!!!!!!" cries to start, but I'm hoping a smooth day bodes well for a smooth night and it won't take too long to get him back to sleep.

ETA: Okay, so we're coming up on two hours since bedtime here.  At the hour mark I snuck into the bedroom, reeeeaaaaaal quiet-like, because I hadn't heard JJ fuss for his top-off feed yet.  And what do I find?  A peacefully sleeping baby who has flipped over on his tummy and clearly made it through the transition all. on. his. own.

One more bit of ultimate cuteness...

I can melt now, right?  Okay, just checking.  *melt*

Sleep Regressions SUCK!!!

It's official, my kid is the cutest kid ever. :P

That's his baby-mirror he's playing with... I recently figured out a way to attach it to his pack 'n play, so now I'm typically being woken in the morning by baby-giggles as he plays with his "friend"... infinitely preferable to being woken by "WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH", let me tell you.

Okay, so y'all probably remember my moaning and whining about the 4 month sleep regression.

The 8 month?  Yeah, it's worse.

He's back to waking up an average of three times a night, and this time adjusting his reflux meds didn't fix it.  HELPED, oh wow did it help (he was up to 5-6x a night again and I was one cranky momma!), but the remaining three aren't reflux related.  Totally different cry, that.  Now, if they were spread out, I could deal with it, but they're all clustered between about 2 am and 6.

*whimpers*


He's also trying to drop a nap.  Yeah, he wants to go down to one nap already, he's been trying for a month, but until today I just wasn't seeing enough to indicate he was really ready.  Oh, we tried a couple of times, and there have been a few days where everything lined up just right and one nap did the job, but most days he just hasn't been up to the 4-5 hour wake times needed to pull off one nap.

Sacked out in the new pack 'n play.

BUT... that first nap in the morning keeps sneaking earlier and earlier.  Today he was only awake for an hour and forty before he got cranky and hungry and passed out at the breast in four minutes flat.  I haven't seen that short of a morning wake time since he was still taking three 2 hour naps every day.  Aaaand then he refused to nap again until 1:45, and only slept until 2:30.  Used to be he had to be awake by 4pm in order to sleep at 7.  Then 3:30, and it's been 3pm for a while now... so he was about due to back it up another half hour.

So, I'm thinking since John's off work tomorrow, it'd be a good day to take a real stab at the single nap day JJ apparently REALLY wants.

Kid's gonna have to get used to our Ergo (thank you, miss Elora!!!), if he's gonna only take one nap, because I absolutely cannot be stuck on my butt entertaining him all day with only one break.  Can't.  Won't.  Nuh uh.  Negative, Ghost Rider, the pattern is full.

Even if he is the cutest thing ever.

Six months and counting...

It's too hot to work on the garden today (seriously, it was 75º and 55% humidity at 7am... no WAY am I going out there now), so I'm blogging this morning instead.

Don't y'all feel special.  *wink*


JJ turned six months old on Friday, and all y'all know what that means.

Time for another foot pic!

       Itsy bitsy bebeh...                        Six months old....

Wow.  And his feet are getting wider too.

So, in the last month, he's gotten really super good at sitting on his own, he's even started to stand using parental fingers as balancing aids.  No, I mean it.  He will stand up if you give him your fingers to hang onto.  He's figured out that he can grip my hand and use it to pat his beany-baby type toys, instead of just patting them himself.  It's extremely cute.

One picture I wasn't able to get (due to cameras & water generally not mixing well) occurred a few days ago.  It was brutally humid & far too hot in the house, and JJ took a twenty minute nap at what should have been bedtime, popped his eyes open, and REFUSED to go back to sleep.  I finally shrugged & said "Okay, let's go take a cool shower."  Did the job, but oh, y'all should have seen the look on his face when the water from the shower head was cold.

Utter.  Betrayal.

I, of course, laughed as I realized "Oh, that's right!  You've never bathed in water that wasn't warm!"

He favored me with a repeat of this fan favorite look.

Except this time it was more like 

"No kidding, Mom.  Real brilliant deduction there."

I'm going to be ordering a few mesh baby feeders for him in the next week or so... bunkin reached for my cheese this morning.  First time he's reached for food, up until now he's been after anything we drink, but that was the first time he's shown interest in food... so it's time to get the tools!  I'm thinking avacado, peas, green stuff mostly.  Gonna try to hold off on the sweeter stuff, carrots & the like, until later, don't want him getting a sweet tooth before he even has teeth!

It's also time to either change the toys on the swing mobile to something with stretchy legs, or swap out the swing entirely for the bouncer that's sitting in the garage.  Last week JJ figured out that he can grab the toys hanging from the mobile, and actually managed to pull one off the mobile entirely.  He keeps that up, he's going to break the rotator arms, so it's time to change to something he can't hurt.

He's starting to fight me on naps again.  *sigh*  Just when I got the two nap thing figured out.  Need to lengthen his first wake time, I think, stretch it out a little.  Of course, longer wake times mean I will likely have to resign myself to slightly shorter naps.  Darn it, I was enjoying two hour blocks to get things done twice a day!  LOL

Flip side is that he's much more tolerant of the bright sunlight than he was even a month ago, which means I can take him outside more as long as we stick to the shade.

But not today.  It's 85º,  heading for mid-90s, the humidity is rising, and the UV index is high enough I'd practically have to bathe us both in sunscreen.  

Pass.

"Stranger Danger", 3-2, and other news...

Anybody who has or is planning to have children has likely read about a few of the more common six month milestones.  Little man has hit a couple of them early, and I'm bored, so here we are. *wink*

Crawling's the big one, and while JJ is trying REALLY DANGED HARD, he's not quite there yet.  He's got the motion of arms & and the motion of legs, and he's got that he needs to push up with his arms and push forward with his feet, but he hasn't quite figured out how to coordinate it all so he doesn't smoosh his face into the mattress.  It infuriates the poor guy, and I'm sitting there biting my lip because the baby rage is just that hilarious.  *I will .... NOT... laugh... at my child...  with, yes.  At, no.*

Minnows is being extremely tolerant 

of JJ using him for a stability-assist!

Last Saturday (4/28), JJ abruptly decided that he no longer needed three naps every day.  Which, despite the fact that I missed it at first and tried for the next two days to coax him into taking a third full nap, is a relief.  My little guy needs a minimum of 90 minutes of continuous sleep in order to really be alert and happy and functional.  He doesn't get it, he is a GRUMPY BEAR.  Coordinating three naps of a minimum of 90 minutes each (and no longer than an hour and forty-five) left very little room in the day for getting anything else done, and getting out of the house was difficult to the point of not being worth the effort.  = Stir-Crazy Laura.  So, after deciding on Tuesday "Okay, bug, we'll try it your way and see what happens", on Sunday I am happy to acknowledge defeat.  Oh, he was super fussy the first day, but each day he gets a little happier, a little less screechy, a little less tired, and...

... (wait for it)...

HE HAS STOPPED WAKING ME UP FOUR FREAKING TIMES EVERY NIGHT.  We're down to one middle-of-the-night feed, somewhere between one and three in the morning depending on how many times he fussed up for food after bedtime, and that, friends, is a routine I can totally deal with.  I no longer feel the daily constant need to crash on the couch every time the baby is asleep.

He's also gone back to very quick transitions into sleep, thank God.  

I LIKE letting him nurse for the first 10-15 minutes of a nap... 

he is one limp baby going into the cosleeper!

I had to get some new binkies a week or so back, when I caught JJ trying to stuff his entire Soothie into his mouth.  Yes, I know, I mentioned that particular pitfall when I reviewed the Soothie.  So when I caught JJ doing exactly that thing, I took the Soothie away, gave him one of our less than preferred binkies as a temporary fix, and ordered him some more age-appropriate binkies from the same supplier... product review coming soon!

Last, but certainly not least, "Stranger Danger" has indeed reared its ugly head.  Now, John is having some trouble with the concept... when I mentioned it to him, he looked at me like I was a little bit bats and said "I don't really see how Grandma is a stranger..."  *shakes head*  He's a guy, he's literal like that... shoulda figured.  Anyway, JJ has pretty much decided that only Mommy and Daddy are acceptable, and does the Little Screech Owl thing (but mad/sad) whenever I leave him with Grandma, even for a few minutes.   (Rest assured, I still DO, if only because I need sunlight and sexytime every once in a very great while.)

What can I say... he's my little snug-a-bug!

*blinks* Is that sunlight?!?!

No, it hasn't been unseasonably gray and rainy here in the big city.

I've just been stuck in the bedroom for the better part of the last month.

Baby boy's reflux got super bad, we finally got him on meds, but it the last several weeks have been a slow progression of being held for naps, then sitting on the bed while he napped in the crib so I was instantly available when the 40 Minute Monster struck, and today...

Well.  Let me back up about 18 hours.

Last night little man got into bed about an hour later than he has been going down lately, due to poor timing with phone calls and such.  Nobody's fault, it just happened.

A very frazzled mommy snuck out of the bedroom, said "Hell with it, if he wakes up, he wakes up.  I'm gonna eat dinner at the table with my husband like a grown person."

JJ proceeded to shock the living daylights out of me and sleep like a rock until hubby and I went to bed around 10.

I think if the furnace hadn't decided to randomly turn the bedroom into a turkish bath at 2am, he might just have slept through the night.

SO ... this morning I had the same rested relatively happy baby that has been smiling at me for the past several days, and I decided to make the experiment.

I am tired of sitting in the bedroom (which has dark curtains) being a mole.  Kid's gonna learn to nap, darn it!!!!

So I snuck out after I put him down for nap #1.  To my surprise, he managed a fair hour & ten minutes.  Not the hour & thirty we've been working on, but he made it through the transition on his own!

Progress.

Nap #2... Again, I quietly shut my laptop and ease out of the bedroom, still humming "Baby Mine" as softly as I am physically able.

AND HE DID IT, FOLKS!  One hour and thirty three minutes, roughly, considering that he was awake but still quiet and happy when I stuck my head in to check, which means he had not been awake for more than two or three minutes, tops.





We are now attempting Nap #3.




...





...





Fifty minutes and counting, and not a peep from the bedroom.

Well, whattaya know.  I might have a prayer of getting him on some kind of routine after all.

Of Reflux and Its Treatment

Breaking up the Parenting Mindset posts for a quick update.

So, it's been a rough ... month... over here.  JJ's reflux kicked into high gear, he was again insisting on being held for the duration of all naps if I wanted him to stay down longer than twenty minutes, and he was suddenly waking every 2 hours all night long to take a full feed and go back to bed.  He didn't wake that often when he WAS a newborn!  I finally said ENOUGH, found a new doctor (the third), got her approved by our insurance, and took the kid in on Monday.  Five minutes of conversation and she shook her head and said "Colic???  No, you're absolutely right, he has reflux."  Baby boy is now on Zantac.  After the first dose, he took a two hour nap alone in his crib.  He only woke to feed once that night.  The next night he slept 10.5 hours straight.  As I am typing this, he is sleeping calmly three feet away.  A week ago the sound of the keyboard would have woken him instantly.

My precious baby suffered with near constant pain for three months, because I believed the doctor who said "It's just colic, he's fine, he'll grow out of it."  And then I believed my mother in law when she said "Any doctor you go to will tell you the same thing."  Especially after another family doctor and the doctor at the ER both did exactly that.  Three months.  Because I didn't trust my instincts and my research and make enough noise until his night sleep became as disrupted as his naps.

That's not on the doctors, folks.  That one's on me. I don't even want to think about the damage that might have occurred had the problem been something more serious.

New Mommy Lesson: If you KNOW down to the bottom of your soul that there is something wrong with your child, stick to your damn guns and keep at the doctors until someone gives you a real answer.  You don't have to be rude or obnoxious or in people's faces, just persistent.

I seem to remember a passage about a woman who came to visit a king every day, pleading her case, until he got so tired of hearing her that he fixed her problem just so that she would go away.

Persistence has its uses.

The end of an age...

It happens with every baby.

They get bigger.

They make us open up the rise on their diaper covers.  Strangely, having to open up the waistband three notches didn't bother me a bit, but two days ago when I realized I needed to open the rise a notch, I got all sniffy and nostalgic and "my baby's not quite so itty bitty anymore!"

They start to sit up and roll over and fight like crazy to stay on their feet.

He was sitting up in my lap, flopped over, and wiggled until he was comfy. 

They start to be able to go longer between naps.  A few days ago we decided to give up the 90 minute wake period, since it absolutely WAS NOT working anymore.  The first day was insanity incarnate, the second... eh, moderate fussiness but he took longer naps, and today?  Well, today has been pretty darned easy so far.

Shhhhh, you're gonna jinx it.

Hush up, you.  The secret to my sanity thus far has been taking joy in small victories.  :P

So JJ seems to be settling into a two hour wake period.  It's still a matter of watching the clock very carefully and anticipating his tiredness by about 10-15 minutes, but he's fighting me less and less for each nap, and we've gotten 3 nights in a row of 12 hours of night-time sleep.  Even when semi-wakings for nursing are taken into account.

We've also been forced to abandon swaddling quite abruptly.  *sniff* *tear*  We're getting to that time anyway, since JJ is working so very hard at turning back to tummy, and he's had tummy to back for a good two weeks.  A few mornings back I was awakened very early by an extremely MAD baby, and turned over to find that his diaper had leaked, and his SwaddleMe and sheet were both completely soaked.

Well, since we only have one SwaddleMe, and he can easily wiggle out of a swaddled blanket these days (even the big ones, plus it's too hot now anyway), we just brought him into the bed for the rest of the night.  There wasn't much "night" left, and he slept for several more hours, giving me the chance to grab this bit of Ultimate Cuteness.

"Baby ni-night", as captioned by a friend's little boy when posted to Facebook.

The loss of the swaddle also contributed to the short naps, confused activities, and general crankiness of baby's last three days, as he has been swaddled for virtually every sleep period for the last three months and twenty-six days.  (That's right, I'm counting.  *eyetwitch*)

The first day, as I mentioned, was nightmarish.  The first nap lasted for a grand total of five minutes, ending when I attempted to put JJ into his cosleeper without any kind of wrapping.  Those eyes popped wide open again and that grin appeared.  You know, the one that tells you any prayer you had of baby actually taking a nap just went up in smoke. 

As we closed on two hours later, I decided to try the "nursing nap" that had given me some success in month two. Got us both settled on the bed and just let the kid nurse to sleep, already lying down, and I just stayed put and took the nap with him, still no swaddle. Thirty-seven minutes.

Next round, we tried the baby-wearing approach.  Too hot for the Moby, so I improvised a sling out of one of his swaddle blankets.

Yay for repurposing!

This netted us... wait for it...

Thirty-EIGHT minutes.

I can hear the snickers in the peanut gallery.  Oh, yes, I can.  I had sharp hearing to begin with, being a Mom has only made it keener.  *glares balefully in the direction of all who dare giggle.*

Nap number four, he actually made it into the cosleeper, still without any wrapping, but at that point I was happy just to have him out of my arms for the forty-four minutes that he slept.  Hey, progress is progress, folks.

Needless to say we had a VERY CRANKY BEAR when Daddy got home.  But despite that, he only made me do one round of "I don't WANT to sleep!", and one early-evening wake cycle, before giving us a total of eleven and a half hours of night sleep.  No, it wasn't continuous, but neither did he wake up all the way to eat.  Just fussed enough to get my attention, get nip in his mouth, and voila, happy baby.

Yesterday was significantly better, I think largely because in desperation I came up with what has been dubbed the TOS.

No, fellow Trek Nerds, I do not refer to some futuristic swaddling innovation in Captains' Gold.

It stands for Transitional Open Swaddle.

And yes, I'm aware that he looks like Charlton Heston

a la "The Ten Commandments"

 had an unfortunate encounter with a trussed turkey.

It works, that's all I'm gonna say.  Plenty of fussing still, but yesterday he took three relatively easy-down naps, went to bed at 6:40, only gave me one post-bedtime wakeup, and exclusive of nursing wakeups, slept for almost twelve hours.  We haven't had that (aside from the occasional miracle) in weeks.

Today has been better still.  Aside from the fact that I'm tired from being woken up to nurse 2-3 times a night (which I'm not used to, he didn't used to do that), he hasn't fought the naps hardly at all, and isn't making me wait until he's crying-tired to successfully get him down.

The other thing that has helped is we've gone back to mostly bedsharing.  Once he has that first wake cycle and is asleep again, I've just called it a night and snuggled down with him.  This cuts down on how much I have to wake up in order to get him fed, and once he's outgrown the need for any type of swaddling at all, will hopefully lead to his being able to nurse at will without needing to wake me up.

I hope.

And yes, I hear the chuckles, BTDT mommies, with your experiential cynicism.  :P

Please not to be hating on teh new momma's naiveté.

Thank you.

Sleep... or food... Choices...

Baby boy decided to wake up twice during the night.  Both times right as my subconscious was finally convinced he was done and was letting me go to sleep.  Little parasite has learned to consistently break out of his swaddle.  Don't know what I'm going to do when he can turn over and it's not safe to swaddle anymore.

Midnight-ish... and then again at quarter past two.

My back is screaming.

He's down for his first nap.

Which I am going to allow to be as long as he wants it to be, eff this "don't let him sleep too long" horse poop.

I now have to decide whether to go get food... because I'm so hungry I feel a little sick... or lay down and go back to sleep myself, because my eyes feel gritty and I know I'm going to be a raging grouchypants this afternoon if I don't get at least another hour.

I feel like holding out a wrist a la Ender... "so feed it to me through a needle".

Excuse me while I pass out.

Oh, boy... here we go again...

Yesterday he ate like he was starving, went through fourteen (yes, I said 14) diapers, and took little 40 minute naps all day.

Today he is still eating like there's no tomorrow, but he is on his second nap.  His first was just over two hours, this one is making swift tracks for three (at which point I'm going to get him up so he doesn't wake up too hungry), and he's sleeping very soundly.  I folded a whole basket of laundry standing right next to the crib and he didn't so much as twitch.

That, my friends, signals... you guessed it...

Growth Spurt.

I just realized...

I'm being a complete and total wuss.  I have a three month old who slept six hours when he was four days old, progressed swiftly to seven hours, and has reliably slept for eight to ten hours at night for at least a month.

I seriously have no room to whine about his taking short naps during the day.

So this is me... not whining.... 

Riiiiiiiiiiiiiight.

Shush.  I do not recall inviting commentary from the peanut gallery.

Now... in the last week or so, the "firsts" have been coming one after another.

First giggle... February 20th.  I was tickling behind his ears and he gave me a real giggle. :)

First grab... February 21st.  It was his pacifier.  I had put him up to burp, brought him back off my shoulder, and found that he had his pacifier in his hand.  Picture me looking around frantically going "Camera, camera, camera ... HAH!"

Four days shy of three months!!

First time re-identifying a parent who has changed their appearance... February 24th.  John came home from work having gotten his hair cut and his mustache shaved. JJ took one look at him and started screaming. It took a good twenty minutes to convince him that yes, it really was Daddy.

First trip to the doc for an identifiable illness (as opposed to first-time mommy nerves)... February 25th.    Turns out he's got a UTI, poor baby.  But lots of nursing and some ointment and good sleep (In the Moby!!!), and today the fever is gone and he's been much happier today.

He is also been trying REALLY HARD to turn over, both back to tummy and tummy to back.  I am diligently shooting video when I see him trying, so hopefully I'll catch it on tape when he pulls it off.

And WOWSERS has he grown.  Over 10 and 1/2 pounds now, and check out his feet!

Twenty Days Old                                          Ten Weeks Old

Today... Three Months and One Day

John is determined the boy is going to take his college football team to state.

I suggest letting him figure put how to walk first.  LOL

Okay, now I know what people were raving about...

We had a really good week here in our little corner of the world last week.  John got paid, our renter coughed up the rent, and everything cleared the bank in a timely manner.  Consequently, I got to go shopping for baby stuff.

Mommy Dance!

I finally used the completion discount on our Baby Registry, and snagged quite a few very necessary items.     The first of these arrived yesterday, and JJ has taken to it so well that I just had to share.

The First Years Newborn Pacifier

Otherwise known as the Soothie... and they are not kidding.  This little gem has swiftly ousted all other pacifiers for acceptability.  We've tried Nuk, Playtex, and several others, and while a few have been tolerated, none hit all our points of ideal.  

The Ideal Pacifier  *drumroll*

* Baby takes it, doesn't lose it when relaxed but not yet asleep, and doesn't fuss or spit it out when he clearly is only sucking for comfort.  (JJ will refuse the breast when he doesn't want food.)

* Made in one piece to reduce germs and ease cleaning.

* No latex or other potentially issue-causing substances. ;)

* Promotes a good, deep latch and strong sucking so that it's use will not interfere with breast-feeding.

* Qualifies as orthodontic ... less likelihood of it screwing up his developing teeth.

* Safety  handle for easy removal ... yeah, it's seemingly a given, but you never really know, do you?

* Gender-neutral color = good, and must be cute!  Must not distract from teh cuteness of teh babeh!!  

The Soothie

* It took a little practice, but JJ quickly got the hang of holding onto the narrow nipple.  After going down for one nap with the Soothie, he immediately began rejecting all his other pacifiers, even the ones which had been previously acceptable.  He refuses it only if he wants to eat or isn't in a sucking mood at all, and when he wants it he actually yells if I take it away!

* One-piece design, can be boiled to sterilize.

* Medical grade silicone... pretty simple.

* The nipple is shaped ... here's a concept ... like a nipple.  Long and narrow instead of short and flat and bulbed like more traditional pacifiers.  This encourages baby to keep his tongue down and suck deeply and strongly, since it's not as easy to hang on to, and that helps to promote good feeding habits.   One nifty feature of the design is the hole down the middle... you can actually see what baby is doing inside his mouth!  The deep latch and strong suck reduces the air swallowed, and I noticed an improvement in JJ's latch at the breast (and consequent reduction in air swallowed during feedings = less gas!) within hours of introducing the Soothie.

* The symmetrical nipple shape means there is no "upside down" with this pacifier, so it's far less likely to create or exacerbate issues with the teeth and jaws.  Because it's a little harder to hang onto, it makes baby work a little harder, which is all to the good for the development of strong muscles in the mouth and throat.  The material is soft enough to give with the sucking motion, like the breast, but firm enough that little JJ is using it to soothe his cranky gums.  (Note: The Soothie is not for babies with teeth.  First Years makes a whole line of pacifiers that are age appropriate as baby grows.)

* While the one-piece design means that the Soothie lacks the traditional "loop" handle, that tab you see sticking out is surprisingly easy to grip and hang on to in a pacifier tug-of-war!  Those two holes are bigger than they look, and would easily accommodate the ribbon from a standard pacifier clip.  There is also the option of purchasing the Soothie as a Wubanub, a stuffed animal with the Soothie attached to its mouth.  The Wubanubs reputedly help teach baby to keep track of his own binky... might have to get one of these later!  (Note: While there have been reports of babies getting the entire Soothie into their mouths (thus creating a choking hazard), this really falls on the parents to pay attention... if you even think baby could fit the whole pacifier into his mouth, it's too small and needs to be replaced with a larger binky!)

* Green... nice and neutral!  And while some prefer flowers, cartoon characters, bright colors, and other such, I think the Soothie is adorable.

Even if it does make him look a bit like a sucker-fish!

All in all... I'm pretty sure it's got to be the perfect pacifier.  At least for us!

So... about that post

You know, the one I keep meaning to write.

Well, it's tough when you only have one free hand.

Get your minds out of the gutter, people! :p

Why only one free hand?

This would be why.

Lately he has decided that he will only take decent naps (2-ish hours as opposed to 10-15 minutes) if he is held the entire time.  Otherwise the mid-nap gas pains wake him right back up.  If he's being held, I can rock a little and shush a little, maybe toss in a quick chorus of Baby Mine, and he stays down.

And if I don't get at least 2 good solid naps out of him before 6 pm, he is a CRANKY BEAR in the evenings.

Happy baby with calm evening bedtime is totally worth being trapped on the bed holding him so he stays asleep.

So... yeah... about that post...

"WWAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!... Oh. Milk."

Okay, I'm crossing my fingers and hoping little man stays asleep long enough for me to post...

There he is... been down for a whole hour!!!

Nipple confusion, over-supply, under-supply, bottle preference, colic, reflux, all these and more have been bandied about between my husband and I over the last few weeks.  Somewhere around 3 weeks old, little JJ went from the most laid-back baby I've ever seen in all my born days to screeching banshee child.  Every waking moment, if he wasn't inhaling his milk, he was screaming.

We tried everything.   For a solid month.  All the doctors could say was "It's colic, he's fine, he'll grow out of it."   ARGH!!  Not what a mother wants to hear!  My baby was in pain, and the only thing I could do about it was try desperately to get him to either eat or sleep, neither of which he had any interest in doing.  

I've never been so stressed out & miserable.  

About two weeks ago, we discovered that the child who had been fighting and sometimes flat out refusing the breast for two weeks would take his milk just fine from a bottle.  In fact he did better with the bottle than at the breast... didn't swallow nearly as much air, burped easier, and slept better too.

Fantastic.  I'll pump.  I can do that.

Except I couldn't.  My little Medela Harmony is a wonderful tool, as is its heftier cousin, the Medela In Style Advanced.  Neither of them allowed me to express enough milk to keep JJ fed long term.  I kept up with him for the last two weeks, but just barely, and he was steadily gaining ground on me.  My production was coming up, but not fast enough, and the dreaded Formula was looming on the horizon... we even bought a box of Gerber Gentle as backup in case I couldn't get production up far enough.

I felt like the world's worst mother EVER.  

Then suddenly, three days ago, JJ decided he wanted to nurse again.  No warning.  I just woke up Saturday morning to find the little sucker (pun intended) firmly latched onto the milk bar, sound asleep.  I must have helped him, he's not even two months old, but I don't remember doing it, so yay for sleep-nursing!  Since then, all he's wanted to do was nurse.  Nurse nurse nurse nurse nurse.  To the point where he was literally sleeping at the breast.  I spent Saturday and Sunday sitting on our bed watching the first season of Ghost Whisperer (yes, I know it's cheesy, sue me, it's entertaining), and just swapping sides every time I started a new episode.   He's still a bit gassy, but the all-afternoon-&-evening attacks of the screeching banshee child have not yet resumed.  *crosses fingers*

He was bidding fair to do the same today, but finally went down about an hour ago and seems to be taking a decent nap.  If I get two hours of sleep out of him, I'll dance a jig in the living room, I swear.

The title of today's post?  No matter how loud the kid was screaming, if he tasted milk and that's what he was after, he would instantly lock onto whatever was in his mouth, be it tit or bottle, and go to town.  It's amazing how fast silence can descend in a house with a newborn.

Hmm... there has been cute stuff lately I've been meaning to post about....

Oh, right!  

All parents know about baby firsts.  Baby's first smile, birthday, cold, snowfall, etc.  Well, around six weeks we got baby's first "conversation".  He has been cooing and gurgling more and more lately, discovering new sounds almost by the day it seems, and one day when he cooed and I cooed... he cooed BACK!!!  He actually responded!  We went back and forth for almost three minutes that first time, and believe you me I squealed like a school-girl when he was done.  I picked him up and danced his little behind all around the living room.  His daddy thought I had lost my ever-loving mind.

Until last week when he did it for John too.  Then I got to stand there and grin while my husband did goofy things and made silly faces trying to get the baby to "talk" with him some more.

I don't expect I'll be letting John live that down any time soon.

Folks, I tried really hard to get it on video for y'all, truly I have, but little man sees that camera come out and he just stops whatever he's doing.  I did finally get him to smile on camera for me though... 

Whattaya think?  How handsome is my little dude!