Odds and Ends

-After my last post on Thursday Noah had a big poop on Friday AND on Saturday morning.  Soft ones.  Wonderful:)  Nothing since then, so we'll see how the butternut squash we introduced on Saturday agrees with his digestive system.

-We ignore halloween in this house, so I have nothing there for you.

-I went to our new nephew Josiah's baptism today.  He was born October 5 and I just met him today on October 31.  He is still ssoooo newborn-ish (I almost think he's more newbornish than Noah was at 1 day old, even though Noah was 11 days early and Josiah was 7 days late), so I don't feel like I missed out on that stage.  I am in love with him:

-In the 5 hours we spent travelling in the car today Noah only slept for 15 minutes and that was ONLY because I did something very illegal... shhhh.  Then I had to hold him for over an hour while he napped after the church service.  It was 11:30 and he's been up since 6:30 with only 15 minutes of napping.  It was loud as HECK and Noah kept waking up and I would have to bounce him back to sleep.  We had set up the pack 'n play to put him in but I was never able to put him down because he kept waking up.

-What is with other parents having no consideration for you trying to get your child to sleep?  I was in the supposedly empty church nursery trying to keep Noah asleep while parents were letting their children run up and down the hall right outside screaming their heads off.  Even after Justin told them I was trying to get Noah to sleep, one guy's reply was "That sucks!" and he kept encouraging the kids to run and scream right outside the door.  He has a child younger than 1 1/2 and his wife is 6 months pregnant... I would love to retaliate some day, but I understand the importance of SLEEP for a baby.  Plus women kept bringing their toddlers into the nursery to change their diapers while I was trying to let Noah sleep.  There were a million places they could have gone to change their kids' diapers, why do it in the nursery where there's a sleeping 7 month old to wake up??  I was so pissed off.

-I would love to post pictures, but it's too late at night.  I'm so bad about posting pictures on my blog!

ARRRRRG

Noah is STILL CONSTIPATED.  It's Thursday.  I last discovered he was constipated on Sunday.  And he's still plugged up.

This is really cramping my style.  It's making him miserable.  Which is making ME miserable.  Last night he went to bed at 8 (we've been slowly moving his bedtime later to move his wake up time later in anticipation of the time change) and he was up at 9:30, 11:30, 3:45, and 6am.  He needed rocking and cuddles at 9:30 and 11:30, I fed him at 3:45, and then 6am was complicated.  He fell asleep with the rocking and cuddles, but not until I'd been doing it for 25 minutes.  Then he woke up about a minute after I put him down.  I had just crawled into bed and gotten so cozy and he started crying again.

Yes, I swore.  Out loud.  To myself.  And dragged myself out of my cozy bed out into my cold house to get my crying child.

So I nursed him to sleep again and he was sleeping by about 6:55.  He slept until 8 or 8:15 after that.  I can't remember.  But of course I didn't go back to sleep.

So I slept from about 10:15 to 11:30, 12:15 to 3:45, and 5:30-6:00.  5 hours.  I guess that's not bad, but considering the sleep debt I've been building up for the past 7 months and how exhausted I am and how cranky Noah is getting, it's not enough.

And Noah seems to have forgotten that he's 7 months old and he's back to only taking 30-35 minute naps again.  Three a day.  Boo.

Slow Down, Boy!

As the saying goes, when it rains, it pours.

Today Noah turned into a little daredevil and started pulling up (and trying to pull up) on anything and everything.  Chair legs, baby gates, side of crib, side of pack 'n play, coffee tables... even this tiny flimsy little bucket we have that we keep little toys in.  It's not even a foot tall and it's bendy and he's flipping it over and trying to stand up using it as leverage.

He's also pushing himself up on his hands and feet, like he's about to bear crawl.  Literally I cannot even sit on my laptop while he plays on the ground anymore unless there's nothing anywhere near him that he can try and pull up on.  He bonked his head more times than I can count, today.

Where did my little baby go?  He's only 7 months and 1 week old, and he's crawling and pulling up independently... slow down, Noah!

At least I can hang on to his babyhood with the breastfeeding thing.  Since his body clearly isn't ready for solids we're still breastfeeding exclusively with a bit of fruit before bed.  If he was already eating 2 or 3 meals a day he would seem even older!!

He was so strange today.  He was either really really cheerful and smiley or he was crying (or on the verge of crying).  There was really no in between.  And he spent pretty much the same amount of time at both ends of the spectrum.  Tonight he was so fussy, was frantically gnawing on things, and kept bursting into tears during bath time (even though he shouldn't have been overtired).  I thought maybe he might be having teething pain, so I gave him some Motrin before I nursed him to sleep.  It was the easiest time I've ever had drugging him.  Here's the trick: swaddle him, so he can't push your hand away, and squeeze his cheeks so he can't push the medicine out of his mouth.  Worked like a charm!

All day when Noah wasn't being a cheerful stunt-baby, he wanted to be touching me, and was constantly crawling over to be picked up.  Speaking of being picked up, this is something I forgot to mention in his 7 month post.  Back at about 6 1/2 months he started to understand the word "Up" and actually act on it.  It is so cute.  I say "Up!"  and he reaches up if he's sitting or lying down.  If he's on all fours, he lays down on his belly and lifts his arms up to the sides and wiggles them around like he's doing the superman.  It's too cute!


Between the haircut, the real crawling, the pulling up, the decreased number of naps (from 4 to 3), and the lengthened nap times (we're getting one or two naps that are an hour long each day), it feels like in the past week Noah has gone through a month's worth of changes.

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This post is all over the place, as is my brain.  I haven't slept well the past couple of nights.  Two nights ago I went to bed at 10, and Noah got up already at 1:00am.  Instead of getting him right away I waited to see if he would fall back asleep on his own, since it was so early.  I waited 15 minutes and then he started actually crying, so I tried to rock him.  That made him cry harder, which meant he was hungry, so I nursed him.  After that I couldn't fall back asleep until sometime after 4:30.  Probably because I was "up" for longer than I would have been if I had just nursed Noah right away.  Then he woke up again at 5:45 - for the DAY.  So that was that. 

Then last night I was restless until Noah got up at 4am.  4:00 is a great time for Noah to get up to eat, so I'm not complaining about that.  But it didn't go so smoothly.  He ate, but he was acting kind of weird while he was eating. He kept popping off with his eyes closed and then opening his mouth for more. Over and over. Finally I just gave him a soother instead and went to his room to rock him because he was acting weird. His eyes were closed but he was moving his head all over.

After about a minute of rocking him suddenly he explosively pukes. It shoots the soother out of his mouth, gets all over me, all over him, all over the blanket between his head and my arm. He didn't really seem affected by it at first. His eyes were still closed, so even though his shoulder was soaked I was thinking I would just put him back in his crib anyway.

Then he opened his eyes. All bets were off. I had to put him in his crib, get a new swaddler and head blanket and set them out on my bed, get out a new sleeper and set it up on the change table, then I had to unwrap Noah and undress him in his crib, which of course made him think it was playtime even though I wasn't talking and all the lights were off. So I changed his bum (since he was naked anyway), put on the new sleeper, swaddled him in the new swaddler (which was PINK - borrowed from baby Aubrey - since the other ones were in the wash), and tried to nurse him back to sleep again.

He wouldn't go back to sleep nursing, so I ended up rocking him and walking him for forever before he fell back asleep. So he got up at 4:00 and I didn't get back to bed until 5:10. And then Justin was being noisy so I eventually had to kick him out of the bed. And then at 6:30 Noah was up for the day.


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I've mentioned on here that for months and months now Noah has been crying several times at the beginning of every night and needing me to cuddle him back to sleep.  Well, this seemed to get a bit worse after I rearranged his room.  He used to just need a soother popped in, but after the rearrangement he often needed to actually be picked up.  With the new arrangement the nightlight wasn't as covered as it was with the old arrangement, so his room was a bit brighter.  They (whoever "they" are) say that you sleep best in pitch darkness because your body's cells can detect light.  I agree with this, because I can't sleep worth beans when I'm not in pitch darkness.

So last night and tonight I have put a nightlight in the hallway, but turned off the nightlight in Noah's bedroom and then closed the door to his room so it's basically pitch dark in there.  And both last night and tonight Noah has made little whimpers a couple of times, but it never turned into crying.

To be fair, he didn't need me for the beginning of the two nights before these past two nights, either.  But he did actually cry during one of those nights.  He just managed to fall back asleep on his own after a minute.

I wonder if when he opens his eyes a little bit and sees NOTHING, he thinks his eyes are still closed and his body thinks he's still sleeping so he just shuts up and doesn't get into a full cry?  We'll have to see if this pattern continues.  Stay tuned...

Midwifery Skills

Today I play the role of midwife to my 7 month old son.  Again.  Three times in the past 24 hours I have held his legs back and coached him through his poops as he cries in agony.  The last one was more than just a little nugget (although it was still totally dry), so hopefully that which plugs him up is on it's way out.

Poor little thing.

Real Crawling!

Noah is 7 months 6 days

Alright, it's safe to say that we have a real crawler in our house!  Noah is definitely crawling on his hands and knees!!  He still alternates between that and the army crawl, but he can do more than just a couple of "steps" with the hands and knees crawl now, and he does it often. 

Such a big boy!! :)

Various Updates

Noah is 7 months 6 days

-Noah is starting to go even further with real crawling.  He'd done both hands and a knee before, or two knees and a hand, but yesterday he just started going hand-knee-hand-knee-hand-knee-hand-knee.  I think that's as much as he's done at once so far.

-He is really enjoying standing at his activity table and playing by himself.  Of course, Justin or I have to be there behind him for when he topples.

-He just got his third haircut today!  I really wanted it, but now that I've done it I wish I had let it stay a little bit longer.  I used a 3/4 for the top and 5/8 for the side.  5/8 for the side was fine, but I think next time I'll go with 7/8 for the top.  He looks like such a little boy.  Right now I'm watching him stand at his activity table by himself and with his new haircut and since he's so tall he almost looks like a toddler instead of a baby!

-He seems to have gotten the memo that he's 7 months old, because since that day he's been decreasing his number of naps and increasing his awake times.  Everyday has been 2 or 3 naps.  Like I predicted, he seems to have decided on his own that he wants longer awake periods because when I try to put him down after 2 hours he will not fall asleep.  Awake times are in the 2.5 to 3 hour range now.  Every day this week he has had one long nap (a long nap in our house is an hour), and a couple of days have had 2 long naps.  He seems to have fallen into a pattern of napping around 9am, 1pm, and 4pm.  Dare I say this?  It seems as soon as I blog about something he goes and changes things up!  He has never had any sort of reliable nap times (a reliable routine, yes, like awake 2 hours sleep half an hour, rinse and repeat, but a reliable concrete naptime, no.) so this is refreshing!
-His nighttime sleeping is still hit or miss.  It seems to be half and half whether he eats once or twice, and solids at dinner have no bearing on that. 

-Constipation has reared it's ugly head again for Noah.  Boo.


Not about Noah... and TMI:

-My dear husband and I have now "done the deed" 4 times since Noah was born, twice this weekend (I decided it was time to get out of this 'rut':).  It still hurts like a mofo - almost as much as 9 weeks post partum - and Noah is 7 months old!!  Did my OB try to close me up like a vault when he stitched me up?!  For heavens sake, this is ridiculous!  Is it ever going to get any better?  I feel revirginized every time.

Constipated AGAIN

(7 months 1 week)

Noah is constpated again.  Again.

I was thinking this was happening because his last poop was Wednesday and now it's Sunday and he didn't poop in this whole time, even though he's been eating about 3 ounces of baby food every evening in addition to all his breastfeeding.  That is a lot of food to consume without pooping.

Finally, this morning (Sunday morning) he started crying and crying while he was playing and I could just tell it was his "I'm constipated!" cry.  I laid him on his back and held his knees up to his chest (I feel like a widwife) while he cried and cried and tried to push his poop out.

All he got out was a small, hard, dry, nugget.  It didn't leave any residue on his bum or on his diaper.  It was that dry.

All he's had to eat since his last regular poop was sweet potato & turkey (probably hardly any turkey in it), pears, and prunes.  When he had his last regular poop he had been eating pears and prunes, so he probably got constipated from the sweet potato, which is SUPPOSEDLY easy to digest.  Like rice cereal is supposedly easy to digest.  Whatever.

I never thought introducing solids would be so hard on Noah's system.  I thought it would be challenging because he wouldn't like them (and it took him a couple of weeks for that) but I didn't figure he'd get all constipated.  I'm not really sure what I should do.  I think I'm just going to go back to only giving him some pears, prunes, or peaches in the evening.  Pooping foods.

In the meantime we'll have some challenges trying to get him to clear his system, which will probably take several days again.  Yipee.

7 Months Old!!

At 7 months old, here is where Noah is at:


-Noah weighs about 18.5lbs. He was 18lbs 12oz after just eating and with his diaper and sleeper on. His sleeper weighs 5 oz, a dry size 3 diaper weighs 1oz (and his was a little wet, so add at least an ounce). So subtract 7oz there. Even if you don't include the fact that he just ate, that brings him in at, say, 18lbs 5oz. We'll stick with 18 1/2lbs. That's about the 50th percentile.

-He is 29 inches tall, still. That's 100th percentile.

-He's about 10th percentile for "weight for height."

-He wears size 3 Pampers Baby Dry diapers.

-He wears all 12 month clothing and it fits him perfectly. Hopefully we can stick at this size for longer than we were in all the other sizes, since his growth seems to have slowed down due to his age. Every other size got less than 2 months of wear, but he's been in 12 month since he was 5 months. I think we'll make it past the 2 month mark!

-He has 3 teeth - two from when he had just turned 5 months and one he got just before 6 months.

-He's basically exclusively breastfed, still. No bottles or cups. We started solids at 6 1/2 months (rice cereal, bananas, sweet potato, and pears - just a tablespoon or two at night before bed) but he got very constipated so we stopped everything but the occasional tablespoon of pears or prunes (or mixed) once a day. It took him a week and a half for his poops to get soft again (at 7 months 2 days), so we'll see how solids go from here. No rice cereal, though.

-He nurses 7 or 8 times in a 24 hour period.

-He nurses about every 2 hours during the day, sometimes a little shorter depending on how he ate last, sometimes up to 3 hours. I'm not too concerned about timing because he only eats when he's hungry and he stops when he's not.

-We don't follow any sort of Sleep, Eat, Play schedule. Noah doesn't eat huge amounts at once, because once he's not feeling hungry anymore he wants to go play. So sometimes it's sleep, play, eat, play, sometimes it's sleep, eat, play, eat, sleep.... whatever works for us.

-He's very distractable while nursing and when he's done, if he's not feeling cuddly, he literally climbs off of my lap. But sometimes he lies there and we talk to each other and laugh. I love those times.

-He loves to play with my face while he's nursing, especially my mouth. When I bite his fingers he starts giggling around my nipple and loses his latch. It's so adorable. Except when he fish-hooks my lip. Ouch!

-He is still swaddled at night and for all his naps. Since the nights are cooler now I often double wrap him, once in his swaddler and then overtop with a giant receiving blanket. This keeps him warmer and he gets out of it less easily. The swaddler or receiving blanket on their own he gets out of in about 10 seconds flat when he wants to.

-He goes to bed between 7 and 7:45, depending on when he woke up from his last nap. It's usually closer to 7. He wakes up in the morning between 6 and 6:40, but we don't allow him to get out of bed before 7 because the time change is coming up and I do NOT want to have to get up with him at 5am! We just treat early wakings like it's still nighttime until we hit 7am.

-His nighttime sleeping is all over the place at the moment. Throughout his seventh month he's had a couple of great nights where he sleeps almost 11 hours straight, and he's had terrible nights where I'm up over and over. The worst was when I was up with him no less than 15 times one night. In general I'd say he sleeps 6.5-9 hours straight overnight and gets up to nurse once or twice. Probably 3/4 of his nights he eats only once. If he eats twice it's not that he's hungry, he's just kind of struggling with sleeping.

-For most of his seventh month he had four 30 minute naps a day with awake times of about 2 hours. I'm not interested in trying to do anything about this at the moment, and especially not before the time change (when trying to make it to his 7 oclock bedtime will be like staying up until 8 oclock to his little body. He's definitely going to need that fourth nap).

-He gets a soother for all of his naps, but I try not to give it to him much during the rest of the day unless he's really cranky. For awhile I tried giving him a soother more often during the day because I thought maybe it would help him fill his sucking needs so he wouldn't need it at night, but it actually seemed to do the opposite.

-He's a master at army crawling, and has been for over a month.

-He can crawl backwards on his hands and knees, and is almost crawling forward on his hands and knees as well. He can move an arm and a leg forward together, but gets confused after that.

-He can go from a lying down position to a sitting position all on his own, and has gotten pretty smooth at it.

-He's a very good sitter (obviously, since he can even get into that position on his own). But that's old news. He's been sitting for a couple of months.

-He started "walking" holding on to my hands again. He did this at 2 months, but then stopped doing it. He's started up again.

-He objects when you take a toy away and looks for a dropped object some of the time, depending on how interested he was in the toy or the object.

-He has some very babble-y days, and some more quiet days.

-He is starting to close his mouth more the past few days. I know that sounds weird, but when your child constantly has a kind of shocked look on his face (mouth open) and then starts keeping his mouth closed, it's kind of alarming. He seems so much more grown up!

-He recently started tilting his head all the way to the side to look at us and other things. It's so silly:)

-He is getting into everything. It's fun to watch, but it really is a pain. The most annoying part is how he likes to chew on cords, and makes a beeline for them from across the room. No matter how many times I remove him from the area and distract him with a different toy, within 10 seconds he's crawling back over to the cords.

-We had to put our top of the stairs gate up and get rid of all of our "decor" because Noah is such a crazy rascal. We have an open concept house, so baby proofing is challenging. We can't just block off one room and make it baby proofed. Upstairs our kitchen/dining room/living room is all one big room. And downstairs our family room is very difficult because of our entertainment unit and various cords that we're going to have to hide somehow.

-He enjoys crawling all over my lap when we're sitting on the floor.

-He likes to grab everyone's hair, especially Daddy's since Daddy actually lets him.

-He still loves his jolly jumper, but he jumps so high now that the spring snaps shut and he doesn't really like that.

-He loves to jump in your lap.

-He still puts absolutely everything into his mouth, more so than the other babies his age that we spend time around; they look at things before they put them in their mouths. Noah just puts them straight into his mouth.

-He loves other kids. I've forgot to mention this in previous months, but he absolutely loves other kids. Babies, toddlers, whatever. He finds them so interesting to watch and play with. His cousin Elijah, who's exactly a year older than him, is not a fan of this:)

-Sometimes he's cooperative when he's being changed, sometimes he's not. I rearranged his room this month so his change table is in different spot. He no longer has a curtain hanging right beside him that he can grab, so he's not quite as squirmy there. He's probably actually more cooperative now than he was a month ago.

-He loves peekabo, Itsy Bitsy Spider, and Head, and Shoulders, Knees, and Toes.

-He doesn't use his playmat ever unless he crawls onto it to chew on the toys while on his tummy.

-He almost NEVER lies on his back, except when he's sleeping.

-He slams his legs around less while he's sleeping, although he does do it. I don't have to pin his legs down after I lay him in bed very often anymore.

-He has started with the separation anxiety. What fun!


Our day is pretty much the same as it has been for the past two or three months. Noah gets up, gets his diaper changed, but isn't hungry for awhile so he doesn't eat for 30-60 minutes. We play upstairs for awhile until about 2 hours has passed, and then Noah goes down for his first nap. This is when I grab a quick shower. Since he only naps for 30 minutes I usually end up finishing getting ready with him playing on the floor of our bedroom.

For the rest of the day it's pretty much awake for 2 hours, sleep for 30 minutes. 3 or 4 naps a day, depending on if something happened to make a fourth nap too hard to fit in. Noah loves running around doing errands with me, and never fusses when we're out. He just loves seeing all the different sights and people. Still, we don't tend to run errands very often because his 18lbs plus our carseat that weighs probably 20lbs is a pain to get in and out of the van. So we only go do errands maybe once a week, if I can help it.

We have tea with Erin and Aubrey once a week (usually Wednesday) and often go visit Granny (my mom) and Grandper (my dad) if he's home in town once a week as well. We haven't been making it to church for awhile now because... well, that's a post on it's own.

Bedtime routine goes boob, solids (if he has them), bath, boob, bed. Whether he has solids or not makes no difference to how long he sleeps overnight, so if we can't fit them in without going to bed too late (since they take forever for Noah to eat) or simply because I don't want to give them to him because I have a lot of milk for Noah to drain before bedtime, then we don't worry about it. Daddy always feeds Noah his solids if he's home, but he goes back to the school to coach from 6:45-9:10 most nights, so he often isn't home for this.
Noah still loves his bath and that's always a nice time for us. After bathtime he gets swaddled up and then nurses right to sleep. Sometimes he'll pop himself off after 8 minutes, often I have to pop him off after 25 to 30 minutes. Then he goes in his crib, sleeping. If he wakes up after awhile it totally depends on him what I have to do. Sometimes he just needs a soother, sometimes he needs a cuddle while still lying down, sometimes I have to pick him up, and sometimes I actually have to rock him to sleep again.

There is no sleep training in our house because Noah doesn't have the temperament for it and it doesn't mesh with my parenting style. Plus, there are so many things that disrupt a baby's sleep (teething, milestones, growth spurts, hunger, separation anxiety, gas, constipation, throwing up, etc) I think I'd just get so frustrated whenever things didn't go perfectly because I had put so much effort into sleep training. I'd rather just go with the flow. We have great nights and we have bad nights, but most nights are somewhere in the middle. And that's okay.

I LOVE being Noah's mom. And I feel so blessed that I am a stay-at-home mom. It's not perfect. Yes, I miss adult interaction sometimes, but I do get together with people throughout the week, and my husband is home from 3 to 6:45 most evenings. And frankly, I was a teacher, so it's not like I had much adult interaction anyway! I'd much rather spend the day with my own child than with somebody else's children.

It's a lot of work being a SAHM. Your house gets a lot dirtier when you're actually there 24/7. I try to spend most of my time with Noah instead of running to household, so I actually end up doing a lot of my chores when Justin is actually home so that I don't have to leave Noah playing alone for hours while I clean the house or fold laundry. But it works for us this way. Noah gets to play with his mom or dad most of the time, Justin doesn't have to do any housework (although he does help with some things out of the goodness of his heart), and I get to spend a lot of time loving my child.

Both Justin and I are so glad I can stay home. It's a lot less money (I couldn't believe it when I calculated how much money we'd be clearing every month if I were to go back to work), but we are all a lot happier for it. I'm happier being the one who takes care of Noah (instead of someone else doing it), Justin is happier because he doesn't have to do half of the housework (he just does the "man chores" like cutting the grass and putting the garbage out to the road), and Noah is happier because he gets to be with me, in his own house, and gets to be on his own schedule in his own timing without trying to fit it in to the ideas of someone else. I couldn't imagine working and then trying to get all the household chores done in the small window of time that I'm actually home, instead of spending time with Noah. I would be extremely unhappy.

Life is great, and my sleeping is improved (although it's the sleep of the drugged). We're doing well at the 7 month mark.

We Have Poop!!

A regular poop has made it's appearance in Noah's diaper!!!

I was starting to get seriously worried about this constipation thing.  Both yesterday and today Noah cried his little head off passing a hard, dry little nugget of poop.  He hasn't had anything but pears and prunes for over a week and a half, so I was getting concerned that he might never unblock himself and I might have to give him an enema or something.

Then this evening he was sitting and playing and he started to fuss.  Not crying, just whining, like he usually does when he poops.  When he shifted I heard a suspicious sound and LOW AND BEHOLD he had a big runny mess in his diaper.  I just about cried tears of joy.  It was RUNNY!!!

It took awhile, but we have solved our poop problems.  For now.  We'll stay away from the rice cereal for awhile.  Easier for me, anyway.  Justin doesn't want me to feed him the "Add Water" stuff, so I was having to pump everyday and it was a serious pain in my rear.

Tonight, in celebration, Noah ate Sweet Potatoes and Turkey, and some Pears and Prunes (both were mixtures).  He has had sweet potato before, but not turkey, so I thought we'd change it up.  He LOVED it!  Maybe he was just hungrier than normal, but he was lapping that stuff up like there was no tomorrow.  No fiddling around, no being silly, just open mouth, swallow, open mouth, swallow.  He ate almost half the jar and then two tablespoons of prunes and pears. 

I decided to give the Sweet Potatoes and Turkey a try, since he was eating them so well.  Oh. Em. Gee.  It tasted like PUKE!  I honestly almost gagged.  I don't even understand how it could taste so bad seeing as it's sweet potatoes, water, and turkey.  All good things, how bad could it be?  Really bad.  I don't understand how he enjoyed it so much.  It made the prunes and pears (a mixture I don't particularly enjoy) taste like ice cream. 

Blech.

Sigh of Relief

Last night was a much better night, thank goodness.  Noah was asleep at 7pm and slept until 9pm when he cried for cuddles.  He fell back asleep still lying in his crib with me leaning over him and cuddling his face with my face and his body with my hands.  He didn't need his soother!!  He didn't need me again until 4am when he ate.  Then he woke up around 6:30 but stayed relatively quiet until 7 when we got him out of bed.

I slept okay.  He made whimpering noises several times throughout the night, and everytime he did I bolted out of bed and ran across the hall.  The two nights before I had to get to him right away or else he was so far gone it was hard to get him back to sleep.  But last night he just made a couple of whimpering noises and then fell back asleep on his own until 4.

I'm very thankful for the better rest!  I'm still tired though.  I should start considering a 7:00 bedtime along with Noah!!

Worst Night EVER

 Last night was Noah's worst night ever.  In his entire 7 months of being alive he has not had such a terrible night.  Not even when he was a newborn, or when he was really sick with a cold and woke up choking all the time.

I had to rock or nurse Noah back to sleep no fewer than 15 times.  He only slept longer than an hour at a time ONCE the entire night. Every single time he woke up he was in a full blown panic, screaming his face off. It was ridiculous!

He went to bed at 7 and normally doesn't get any more than 11 hours a night, but he slept until 8:15 this morning (after me putting him back to sleep for the billionth time) because he missed out on so much sleep last night.  The fact that I was able to get him back to sleep at 7:30AM really tells me a lot!

I'm not even sure what's causing these terrible nights, anymore. Everything and anything is coming to my mind. Is it the constipation? Is it separation anxiety? Is he starting to despise being swaddled? Is the nightlight in his room too bright?  Is he hot? Is he cold?  Is it a growth spurt? Is he teething?

The reason I think it might be separation anxiety is because of how he'll totally lose his mind. If he's lying in his crib semi-awake and I'm right there stroking his face and kissing him, he could be completely calm and if I walk away to let him fall asleep on his own, (something he used to be okay doing after a feeding in the middle of the night if he was still awake) he immediately panics.
 
The reason I think it might be something else is because sometimes when I'm holding him he is STILL crying. It must be a combination. I really don't know what to do though, because none of us are getting any sleep (except Justin; he can sleep through anything) and that's really not good for any of us. Especially Noah. I'm afraid of him getting so overtired he just cannot sleep. Which is another option in my list of things I think might be wrong.
 
I don't think it was the constipation last night (although the horrible night the night before was from constipation, I believe).  Noah had the happiest, most cheerful day he's had in awhile, with no crying or straining.  No pooping either, but that's normal for him.  So if it was the constipation pain waking him up last night and he never did end up pooping, he should still be struggling with it, and he's not.
 
I don't think it's teething because he's not fussy during the day.
 
I don't think it's a growth spurt because he's 7 months old... I don't think there's a 7 month growth spurt.  Plus he doesn't always want to eat when he wakes up.  He'll comfort nurse sometimes, but more often than not I have to actually rock him back to sleep.
 
It actually might be a milestone thing.  He's right on the verge of really crawling, not just army crawling (hands and knees are moving forward in sync, just not consistently), and he's figuring out how to get into a sitting position from a lying down position.  He's done this several times in the past few days.  The thing is, he's swaddled at night.  So is that why he wakes up screaming?  Because he wants to practice his moves and is bound up tight like a mummy??
 
All I know is that this can't continue. It's worse now than when he was a newborn. He was NEVER like this as a newborn. Sure, he got up every hour or two all night long, but he just ate and went back to sleep. I could handle this much better if he would do that now.
 
The problem is I absolutely refuse to let Noah cry it out.  I think even a supporter of CIO would realize that my child cannot do that if they were here.  He doesn't just cry, he gets hysterical.  And since he's starting OUT hysterical with these night wakings, I can't let him keep going like that.
 
I'm not counting on a good night tonight, but I sure could use one!  Even if he would just get up every two hours I would appreciate it over this 40 minute business.  I'm really trying to not get anxious about it though.  What happens happens, and we'll deal with it as it comes.

Constipation Station

Last night was awful. Noah went to bed really well at 8 (later than normal because of a late nap) and stayed asleep for a couple of hours. At 10 he cried bloody murder and needed a soother. Then at 12:30 he cried bloody murder and needed to nurse back to sleep because he was crying and bending his knees up to his chest while I tried to rock him. That clearly wasn't working.

Then at 2:30 he was crying really hard again but he wouldn't eat. Everytime he got my nipple in his mouth he would do 3 suckles and then pull off once he got any milk. So I tried to get him back to sleep with a soother and rocking. He was really tired, but he was in too much pain and just kept crying really hard. Justin and I were at a total loss of what to do. Eventually shortly after 3am I unswaddled him and then he just passed out in my arms pretty much as soon as I did that (he was sleepy like a newborn). But he's not used to sleeping unswaddled, so I had to lie down with him in my arms instead of putting him in his crib. But then I didn't sleep a wink because I can't sleep with a baby in my arms!!

He slept like that until 5, and then woke up and thought it was playtime because he was in bed with me and wasn't swaddled. So I had to go get another swaddler (at this point we were on our fourth and last one because of the number of times he was swaddled and unswaddled already that night), swaddle him back up, and nurse him. LUCKILY he fell asleep nursing even though he wasn't very hungry. I was so thankful, because I really didn't think he would go to sleep again. I put him in his crib at about 5:30 and he slept until 7.

If you're keeping track, I slept from about 11:00 to 12:30, then 1:45 to 2:30, then 6:15-7:00, then 7:30-8:20 (Justin got up with him). That's not even 4 hours. And it's extremely fragmented. And because I'm nursing I don't ingest caffeine. Which makes it suck a lot more.

Today was awful. Noah was crying off and on the whole day for seemingly no reason (although I knew it was because he was trying to poop). I was massaging his tummy and bicycling his legs, but it didn't seem to help. I even put a vaseline-covered q-tip in his bum, because I read in multiple places that that can stimulate the bowels of a constipated baby and make them poop. I know that sounds so weird, but I was desperate! He was so miserable!

The first time it didn't do anything but I tried again a few hours later, along with putting a warm wet cotton ball in him bum crack (apparently something else that works). A couple of minutes later he started crying really hard again so I kept him lying down and kept his legs bent up to his chest because he kept trying to straighten them. He was crying so hard, but when I realized he was actually pooping (very slowly) I had to keep him like that so that he could get it all out, because he was holding it in for so many days.

I don't think he got it all out, but he got a better portion than his two tiny poops on Friday. Poor little guy. Pooping shouldn't make you cry and sweat.

I called telehealth today (a government hotline where you can talk to registered nurses) to see what they said about Noah's constipation.  I just wanted to know if I should give him a glycerin suppository.  I got a man, and he was so useless.  I've called twice before and been satisfied, but this guy was a complete tool.  I told him all the information: exclusively breastfed baby, just introduced a small amount of solids (about 2 tablespoons, max) once a day about 2 weeks ago, solids introduced were rice cereal, banana, sweet potato, and pear.  Since last Saturday he's only done two small, pretty dry poops - on FRIDAY, and he's been crying pretty hard off and on for several days, which is very unlike him.  He was suggested all the "typical" foods for constipation (prunes, pears, peaches, plums, peas, etc).  Well, first of all, my child hardly eats any solids, so it's not like I can just change up his diet and feed him these foods all day long.  It would probably make things worse.  Second of all, you're only supposed to introduce one new food every 3 to 5 days.  I'm not going to throw a whole bunch of new foods at once at my constipated 7 month old!

He also suggested fruit juice.  I told him there's no way Noah would drink fruit juice; he refuses any liquids that don't come out of my boobs.  Besides, he's 7 months old; I'm not exactly keen on giving him juice!  Especially when he's taking in less breastmilk anyway right now (either that or I'm making way more) AND he wants me to give him all these solids.  So I told the guy fruit juice is out, Noah would never ever take it.  He acted like this was the end of the world.  He was like "You really should try and find a way to get him to take it."  Well buddy, it's not happening.  Then he told me, "That's something you should talk to your doctor about.  You don't want your baby to be dictating that sort of thing and not allowing you to give him a bottle or a cup."

Um, EXCUSE ME?  HE'S 7 MONTHS OLD.  He's a breastfed baby of a stay-at-home mom, who is going to continue to be a stay-at-home mom beyond his first year of life.  I have no burning desire to spend hours and hours away from him, and absolutely no desire to wean him from breastfeeding anytime before he's a year old, maybe even later.  At some point he will drink from a cup, but there is no reason for my particular child to have to take a cup or a bottle at 7 months old.  I don't need to talk to my doctor about this, you idiot!  Do you know NOTHING about breastfeeding?

Apparently not, because he asked me how many ounces Noah has drank in the past 8 hours.  Hmmm, let me check the dial on my boobs... HE'S BREASTFED YOU MORON!  I don't know how many ounces he's had!!

He also told me to call back if Noah cries while he's pooping (I already told you this was happening, retard), and if he goes 3 days without pooping (I already told you he just went SIX days and then only pooped a miniscule amount.  Basically just a large shart.  What don't you understand?)

Men are idiots.

As I close this long blog post, I leave you with two pictures of Noah's reaction to a sippy cup:

He shudders just looking at it.  He hadn't even put it in his mouth when I took these pictures.  He tried it the first time I gave it to him, and HATED it.  Now everytime he sees it he has that reaction.

HILARIOUS.  You should see the video.

Boo on Rice Cereal

We are done with rice cereal. 

Noah is constipated. I never thought it would happen, especially since he wasn't even getting half a serving of rice cereal per day and is exclusively breastfed besides that.  But he's definitely constipated. On Monday, October 4th he did a teeny tiny poop that wasn't very soft. Then we saw nothing until Saturday the 9th when he did a ginormous and painful poop, which was soft.  I didn't think much of this, because he is always an infrequent pooper (once every 3 or 4 days, usually), and Saturday's poop was pretty soft (although not at all watery).

Then there was nothing at all until today, Friday the 15th.  Today he has been trying and trying and only getting out two small, dry poops.  He's crying when he's trying to pass them (which also happened on Saturday with his ginormous soft poop).  It's so sad.

If it wasn't for the dry poops I wouldn't think he was constipated, because he often goes long times without pooping.  I did think it was weird this whole time though, because he's been eating solids most nights for the past almost 2 weeks.  Probably 9 out of 13 nights, or so.  I thought he should be pooping more.

Poor baby. I feel bad for him, and I really hope he can get it all out soon! If he gets any solids from now on it'll just be real foods. None of these baby cereals. Rice is the only gluten-free baby cereal, and it's constipating him even in small amounts.  Justin and I don't want to feed a 7 month old gluten; it's very gut-irritating.  So baby cereals are out.  And no more bananas or apples. We'll stick with pears for now when we feed him, and maybe add in peaches or prunes.

He doesn't have solids everyday anyway.  And he hasn't been able to keep up with my milk supply the past few days, so he has just been nursing.  Normally by mid to late afternoon he finally drains both my breasts at once (as the amount of milk in them decreases over the day), but the past few days he hasn't even drained one of my breasts even once throughout the day.  So we've skipped the couple of tablespoons of solids he's been having most night.  Breastmilk is far more nutritious, I'm not going to waste precious stomach space with solids that aren't as good for him.

Apparently this is fairly common for breastfed babies when they start solids, because their tiny tummies are used to the very easily digestable and absorbable breastmilk.  I guess Noah's tummy isn't ready to move on.  That's okay.  I'm not really, either.  :)

Sleep Issues, or Sleep Non-Issues?

If there's one thing I talk about most on this blog, it's Noah's sleep.  As much as I try not to be, I'm obsessed with it.  I think it's because I do too much reading.  On the one hand, I like to be well informed about child rearing.  On the other hand, reading about sleep makes me feel... confused.  And afraid.

I think Noah sleeps okay.  He's never been great.  During a very short period at the beginning of his life (I'm talking before 6 weeks hit) he took some good naps up to 2 hours in length.  However, during this time he was up nursing every hour or two all night long.  Then he became a much better nighttime sleeper all on his own, while at the same time becoming a terrible napper (30-40 minutes maximum).  This happened sometime before the 2 month mark.  (He literally has only four 2 hour naps since he was 2 months old, and he's now 7 months.  I kind of can't believe that, but it's true.)

For a long long time he never had a nap longer than 40 minutes, and never more than 4 in a day, but nighttime sleeping was fantastic; 8-11 hours straight every night, nurse, then back to sleep.  He got 12-13 hours total each night.  It was glorious.  Well, except that I slept like crap still and only got 4-5 hours a night, so I almost wished he would get up more during the night and then nap more during the day to give me some downtime.  Anyway, the only hitch during his nighttime sleeping at this time was that around 3 months old he started "sleeping crying" anywhere from 5 minutes to 2 hours after being put in his crib at night, and nothing we could do would soothe him except the boob.  Until one day I decided to just wait for 5 minutes and realized that he would stop crying after 3 minutes if we just left him alone.  Much better than an hour of crying in our arms before finally giving him the boob.  Much less disruptive.

Then the famous 4 month sleep regression occurred.  Naps were still the same, with the occasional long nap creeping in (long being an hour to an hour and 20 minutes), but nighttime sleeping was not as stellar.  We had to put a soother in several times a night, which had never happened before, and we were sometimes nursing twice a night instead of once.  However, there was a short period of time around 4 1/2 months that we could almost count on having one long nap a day.  That period lasted about 2 weeks.

Then around 5 1/2 months I decided to swaddle wean and he still needed me many times a night because he would roll over in his sleep and get very upset about it.  I was nursing twice a night pretty much every night, and Noah was getting up at 5:45 every morning.  I started swaddling again just before 6 months and things were great for a short time.  Then things got less than stellar, and nursing twice a night became a regular occurance again.

Right now we're at almost 7 months and we just went over two weeks without a single nap longer than 40 minutes.  However, today we had two naps that were just over an hour long, and one short 40 minute nap.  We've been dealing with shorter stretches at the start of the night, and the occasional night-waking-requiring-soother-insertion episode.  We haven't been at a consistent 8-10 hours straight since the 4 month regression.  It's more like 6.5 to 8 hours between feeds on a regular night (with the occasional soother-insertion).  However, a couple of nights ago we made it almost 11 hours, and went back to bed after nursing.

We've also been back to dealing with the early wake ups, which I thought were solved by the swaddling but were not.  For awhile there he made it to 7 or 7:30.  Then it was 6:45.  Then 6:30.  Then it was 6am everyday.  I started taking him into bed with me at that time so that I could possibly get him back to sleep (which I usually could after about half an hour of cuddling), and if not at least he wasn't crying and it could stay dark and quiet (so his biological clock might get the picture).  Then wakings started getting earlier, I think because he just wanted to be in bed with me.  So I quit doing that, instead leaving him in his room (luckily he's just been fussing, not screaming) and going in to put in a soother if he actually starts crying.  The ignoring seems to be working, as he is waking up a bit later (cross your fingers) and not crying right away when he does wake up.

Now this is the confusing part... I don't think we have what I would consider to be a problem.  I'm not into sleep training.  It makes me very uncomfortable as a mother, and since I'm not into it, everything I try is bound to fail.  I just can't stick with it.  I guess it's because I'm not desperate.  Things aren't great, but they're not terrible either.  I'm taking 24 hour gravol every night (which I think is only in Canada, but it's an anti-nauseant that makes you tired) and getting 6 or 7 hours of sleep a night, most nights, and I could get more if it weren't for my own sleep issues.

Noah nurses once or twice a night.  Yes, I'd be happier if it was always only once.  But it's not consistently twice a night.  It fluctuates.  It's probably once a night more often than it's twice a night.  And yes, I'd be happier if he would consistently sleep 8-10 hours straight at the start of the night.  But he still does sometimes.  However, he also sometimes only goes 6.5 hours.  And yes, I'd be happier if he never needed me to give him a soother after he's gone to bed.  But we have a lot of nights where that doesn't happen after I've gone to sleep.  And some nights it doesn't happen at the beginning of the night, either.  Tonight, for example.  Noah woke up crying, as often happens in the first couple of hours.  I waited for a few minutes, like I always do, and he actually fell back asleep on his own. 

It's when he does stuff like that that I get confused.  It's like sometimes he has the ability to self soothe, and sometimes he doesn't.  What's the difference tonight, when he could fall back asleep after crying without me giving him a soother, as opposed to last night at 11:30pm when he woke up crying and needed a soother?  Why does he sometimes need to nurse back to sleep after 6.5 hours instead of having a soother (when I know he's not actually hungry), and sometimes he can sleep 11 hours straight without eating or sucking at all?  Why is it that when I put him down in his crib and he briefly opens his eyes, half the time he just closes them again and goes to sleep and half the time he needs soothing?  My reactions to him are completely consistent, but he seems to be completely inconsistent.

I'm fine with how things are, except that all my reading always has me afraid.  I'm always afraid that things are going to keep getting worse and that I'll end up with a toddler who is a terrible sleeper.  Noah isn't a terrible sleeper now.  He's a totally normal baby.  But all the sleep trainers are such doomsayers that they all have me worried that Noah will never become a really good sleeper unless I do what they say I should do.  Which I'm just not comfortable with.  So then I feel like I might be sabotaging myself.

This is probably something I will struggle with in my mind until he is 3 years old.  I'm even considering delaying our attempt to make Noah a sibling, just because I don't want to have two children to soothe to sleep at the same time.

Although my mom said that none of her babies slept through the night until she had another baby (4 kids, all of them a year and 7 months apart).  And she rocked and nursed all of her babies to sleep.  Except me, who apparently hated being rocked and just wanted to lie in my crib by mself to fall asleep.  Who would have thought that baby would grow into the worst sleeper ever?

I'm just going to leave things the way they are, because they're fine.  I'm fine.  Noah's fine.  If it's not broke, don't fix it.  I just hope I can stop wondering and worrying all the time.  It's getting on my nerves.

Almost Crawling Pictures

Here are some pictures of Noah just about to crawl:

He's been pushing up like this for almost a month (since he turned 6 months), and it seems like he's going to really get going any day now.  Today (5 days away from 7 months) he moved both a knee and an arm forward, but then reverted to the old army crawl to get where he wanted to go.  Almost everytime he wants to go somewhere he first gets into the hands and knees position; he just can't quite seem to figure out exactly what he should do to move forward when he's like that.  So he rocks.

He is awfully proud of himself.  Probably because every time he pushes up there we praise him: "Yaaayy Noah!!  Such a big boy!!!  You're so strong!!"  He loves it.  All the praise has made it so that he pushes up on his hands and knees probably 100 times a day.  Literally.

Goofy face:

And sick of the camera and ready for a nap:

 

Almost 7 Month Pictures

This is my little rascal at 6 months 3 weeks old:

Such a happy boy!

I LOVE his dimples... he got the cheek one from me:)

Munching on apple:

This is his regular expression.  He always looks somewhat shocked:

Trying hard to smile for Mama, even though he's tired:

The smile is waning:

"Okay seriously, are we done??"

My child is just so darn cute:)

6 Month Pictures

I haven't posted any pictures in a month.  These were taken over 3 weeks ago when Noah turned 6 months:

He's on the couch, but nowhere near the back cushion.  At 6 months he needed no support to sit, whatsoever, and didn't even need to use his hands.

"What, Mom, am I doing it right??"

His first taste of sweet potato (at 6 1/2 months):

Despite the concerned expression, he actually liked them! 

Check out his teeth:

You can't see the third one as well, but it's to the right (your right) of his two bottom teeth.

I have more recent pictures that I'm going to try and post soon!

6 1/2 Month Updates Continued

I forgot a couple of things in my updates post:

-Noah is babbling up a storm.  He's added "baba" "dada" "yaya" to his vocabulary.  He's getting close to saying every consanant: b, c (hard), d, f, g (hard and soft), h, j, k, l, m, n, p, q (just like a k), t, v, y.  Wow, until I wrote that list, I didn't realize he's so close to saying all the alphabet sounds!  Of the consanants he's only missing f, r, s, x, and z.  He says his "ehh," "aahh," "uuhh," and long i sounds for vowels.

-He has added sweet potato to his repetoire of solids.  He loves it.  I think it's disgusting.

-Noah just gets solids before bedtime.  Solids aren't supposed to take the place of breastmilk, and he is perfectly happy to go 2 to 2 1/2 hours between feeds, and he's full after nursing so he doesn't want to eat anything else.  If I gave him solids about an hour and a half after nursing he would probably eat them, but then he'd go longer before nursing again, which would cut down on the amount of breastmilk he takes throughout.  He's just not a super hungry kid.  Plus my milk supply is really good up until the evening (your prolactin levels are lower in the late afternoon and evening, which makes you produce less milk), so Noah doesn't even empty both breasts at one feed until sometime in the mid-late afternoon (maybe he has a small stomach?).  If he was emptying both breasts earlier in the day I would probably think about adding a breakfast of solids.  For now we just give him probably 2-3 tablespoons of solids before bed.  He won't take anymore than that.

-Bedtime routine since he hit 6 1/2 months and started some solids has been boob, solids (either just rice cereal or rice cereal and a fruit or vegetable), bath, boob, bed.  I tried solids earlier, than boob, bath, boob, bed, but the solids first made it so that he wouldn't take the first boob unless it came at least an hour and a half later.  The second boob he'll still take at bedtime even though he's not hungry because after bathtime he knows it's time to go to sleep, and he loves nursing to sleep.

6 1/2 Month Updates

I've been meaning to write these updates to record Noah's milestones for a couple of weeks now, and I haven't had time.  I didn't want to shove them at the end of a post about his sleep.  So here they are!

-At about 6 months Noah started pushing up on his hands and knees (with a VERY proud smile) and rocking back and forth.  He continues to use his quick little army crawl to get anywhere, but I'm just waiting for him to start actually crawling sometime soon.

-Just after he turned 6 months Noah started going easily from a sitting position to being on his tummy and army crawling away when he wants to get something.

-He can crawl all over our bodies and pillows.

-He has gotten his third cold.  I think all this "to-do" about breastmilk having antibodies is a bunch of malarky!

-His sleep is regressing again (10 or 11 hours total, sometimes waking up twice to eat and other times for soothers), but he has some great nights where he sleeps 8 or 9 hours (or more) in a stretch.

-He started accepting some solids at 6 1/2 months pretty much on the nose.  He totally refused them before then, but now he'll swallow rice cereal, banana, and chew on nectarine (he LOVES nectarine).  He does not like applesauce.  I think it's too tangy for him.  He makes a sour face.  He also likes to suck on carrots (you should have seen the first time we tried this - he looked SO disgusted).  We haven't tried any pureed vegetables yet, mostly because I think he won't like them and then I'll have wasted the jar or my time making them.

-At about 5 1/2 months Noah became a beast to change.  It's like wrestling a bear.  He tries to roll over, grabs the curtains (I know, it's my own faul for having the change table next to the window, but there's nowhere else to put it!), un-does his own diaper as soon as I do it up, grabs the washcloth off his penis to eat it (I've pretty much given up on that whole thing.  He hardly ever pees during a diaper change anymore), straightens his legs when I want them bent and bends his legs when I want them straight, and grabs his diaper area (thank goodness he only poops once every few days, because it's very hard to clean his bum when I'm constantly having to wipe poop off his hands).  We make diaper changes as fast as possible.


I think that's all, folks!!  I'm having a little free time as Noah sits in his carseat in the garage watching Daddy train a client.  Don't judge me - he's much happier out there than he was inside playing with his toys!  He's getting fresh air, chewing on Sophie, and is entertained by the strong men!  We should have tried this before now.  I already cleaned the house today so I have a little time to myself until I have to put Noah down for another nap and then think about starting dinner.

Welcome to the Family :)

I am excited to have a brand new little nephew as of about 7:55pm, October 5, 2010.  Little Josiah Richard (7lbs 13oz) was born to my brother Nick and his wife Hilary.  He joins his 19 month old brother, Elijah.

Justin and I and Nick and Hilary all got married within a month and a half of each other.  Justin and I wanted to have kids right away, Nick and Hilary didn't know.  Nick and Hilary got pregnant the minute they got married (by accident), and gave birth to their second child 6 1/2 months after I gave birth to my first.  They are extremely fertile.

I'm excited to have another nephew.  Especially since he and Noah will be in the same grade, and Elijah, Noah, and Josiah are all close in age and can play together growing up.

Yes, all their names are biblical, and yes, they all end with the "ah" sound.  At least Nick and Hilary branched out somewhat with the name Richard (her father and my deceased grandfather).  Elijah and Noah have all biblical names: Elijah James, and Noah Samuel James (James is my dad, Samuel is the English version of my father-in-law's name, Salvatore). 

Awww, I'm really so excited to have 3 little boys running around being rambunctious.  Although Noah will probably be a little sports kid and Elijah and Josiah will be little farm boys.  Hopefully they'll find common ground!

Maybe now we'll all start having girls. :)

MUCH Better Night! Yay!

Last night Noah just cried for his soother once, 10 minutes after going in his crib.  He slept almost 9 1/2 hours straight, got up to eat at 4:38, went back in his crib just before 5, woke up coughing at 5:20, couldn't fall back asleep without nursing so I nursed him AGAIN, and then I kept him in bed with me and he slept until 7:20. 

I, on the other hand, was awake since before 4am because my boobs were so full after being used to nursing at 2am and 5am for four nights in a row.  I took an antihistamine to try and fall back asleep, but it didn't work, so I took another one at 5:07.  Then Noah woke me up, and when he stayed in bed with me he was sleeping very loudly (lots of cute little sighs) and I was very uncomfortable but afraid to move much because I didn't want to wake him up.  So I was EXHAUSTED but unable to fall asleep because of the noise and the discomfort.  It's okay though, I'm just glad Noah slept better!

He's been asleep tonight for an hour already and hasn't cried for his soother.  Yet.  If he doesn't, that'll be the first time in months that he hasn't semi-woken up wanting his soother after going in his crib at night.

Slight Improvement Last Night

Last night was a slight improvement.  Noah cried a few times at the beginning of the night, then got up to eat twice (around 2:15 and 5:15... weird how it's always around the same times) and then woke up for the day at 6:45.  I was planning on bringing him into bed with me to see if he'd get more sleep (and so that I didn't turn any lights on until at least 7am), but Justin was up already and heard him making little noises, so he got him out of bed and changed his diaper.  He wasn't making much noise at all, though, because I didn't hear anything and I was lying there awake.

He napped really crappy today, with two of his naps being shorter than 25 minutes and the other two being ONLY 30 minutes.  However, he's been asleep for the night for 2 hours now and only woke up crying for his soother once an hour and a half ago.  Here's hoping tonight is better.  Or that he at least sticks to only two wakings!

Terrible Nights Continued

Last night Noah slept in our room.  With the exception of when we were on vacation and had no choice, Noah hasn't slept in our room since he was about a week and a half old.  But last night was the third night in a row of horribleness (I know, not a word), so I was sick of going back and forth between our rooms. He started crying off and on after he went to bed, and finally just before 9 I told Justin if he cries one more time I'm just going to put him in the bassinet beside our bed. Sure enough, he was crying within a minute. So he went in the bassinet. It's been sitting there waiting for him for awhile, because I kept saying if he kept getting up I would just put him in there.  I never did because I kept hoping that that time would be the last time.


So after he went in our room at about 9pm, he was fine until 11 or so.  Then he woke himself up coughing and sneezing.  I gave him a soother and he went back to sleep.  He woke up coughing and sneezing again at 2.  I tried the soother and it kept him from fully waking up for awhile, but at about 2:40 he woke up completely.  I nursed him back to sleep and he was back in the bassinet at 3am.  The same thing repeated itself at 5am until 5:45, when I nursed him back to sleep again.  He went back in the bassinet just fine at around 6 and was sleeping and sighing away, and then suddenly at 6:25 he was crying again.  The soother wouldn't work.  So I picked him up and he fell asleep in my arms without any rocking, so I carefully laid down in bed with his head on the crook of my arm, and he slept until 7:30.  I magically managed to snooze like that for about half an hour (amazing, for me).

I got very little sleep last night, as I spent most of the night trying to stop Noah from fully waking up (since the two nights beforehand letting him try and sort it out on his own for a few minutes was of absolutely no benefit).  Plus Noah makes cute little vocalizations while he's sleeping, and those kept me awake.  He doesn't grunt non stop like he did when he was a newborn (which was why he only spent a week and a half in our bedroom), but the sigh-like sounds he makes are enough to keep me awake even with two loud fans going in our room (I'm a terrible sleeper, in case you're new to this blog).  I think I got a maximum of 3 1/2 to 4 hours of sleep the whole night, even though I went to bed at 9:15 and Noah didn't wake up until 7:30.

Anyway, since the bassinet was pushed right up against my side of the bed and I was listening to and watching him all night, I think I at least partly figured out why Noah's been getting up so much. I could hear him coughing from my room during the two previous nights when he was in his crib, but with him right beside me all night I realized that he's actually sick.  He has a cold. AGAIN.  Besides the frequent sneezing and coughing, when I laid my hand on his chest it felt very wheezy and congested. I could hear the congestion when he breathed through his nose, and when he got up this morning I had to wash his face because he had a thick layer of dried mucous under his nose. Today he had a very runny nose and was sneezing a lot.
 
He just had a cold 2 weeks ago.  So this is either his third cold, or his second cold part two.  I don't understand this.  You'd think I have a formula-fed daycare baby instead of an exclusively breastfed baby of a stay at home mom.  How does he get sick so often?!  I think the "antibodies in breastmilk" thing is a myth.
 
Tonight he has cried twice and needed my assistance (aka a soother) once.  I let him cry for 6 minutes that first time, hoping he would fall back asleep, but things only escalated.  The second time he cried for a short time and then stopped.  I was so happy, because I figured he was able to fall back asleep without a soother, but when I checked on him I saw that the soother was still in his mouth.  He was crying for no stinkin reason.
 
Justin and I set the over/under for how many times he gets up tonight at 3.  He says 3 or less.  I say more.  He's already cried twice.  Even if we just count the number of times he needs me (rather than the number of times he cries) I still say it'll be more than 3.
 
I'm so tired.

Worst Night in Forever

I'm not letting myself stress out about it, but last night was Noah's worst night since he was like, a month old.  With the exception of when he was 3 1/2 months and he was very sick with a cold and was up choking on mucous every time we laid him down.  But at least he was trying to sleep that night!  Last night: not so much.

He was asleep by 7:30, in bed by 7:40, up crying by 7:50.  He got a soother, but that wasn't enough, he needed kisses, too.  That was fine, I gave him kisses.  He fell asleep.  And stayed asleep for a bit.  But not for long. 

I went to bed at 9:15.  At 10:15 Noah was awake crying.  I gave him a soother.  He went to sleep.

At 11:15 Noah was awake crying.  I gave him a soother.  He went to sleep.

At 12:15 Noah was awake crying.  I gave him a soother.  He went to sleep.

At about 2:30 Noah was awake.  By the time I got to him both arms were out of his swaddle, so who knows how long he was awake for.  I reswaddled him and nursed him.  He was asleep and back in bed at about 3.

At 4:30 he woke me up making noise.  I didn't get up because he wasn't making much noise.  But by 5 he was fussing.  I went in, his arms were out of the swaddle.  I reswaddled him and gave him a soother, but he seemed very awake.  I waited for a bit, but he eventually started crying.  Justin and I discussed what I should do, and I just decided to try and fix every possible problem.  I changed his bum in case the full diaper was keeping him awake.  I reswaddled him in two layers (swaddler and then big receiving blanket) in case he was cold and that was waking him up.  Then I nursed him again.  He went to sleep and was back in bed at 5:45.  He slept until 7:30.  That was better than I was expecting, since his internal alarm clock wakes him up around 6:30 every single day (6:40 at the absolute latest).

Pretty bad night, eh?  The night before also was not great, but it wasn't as bad as that.  Two nights ago he was in his crib asleep by 7:40, crying for a soother at 8:40, then up to eat at 2am, then up for the day at 5:30am.  I tried to nurse him back to sleep and he did fall back asleep, but he woke up when I transferred him to his crib.  I didn't talk, change his bum, or turn on any lights until past 7am, but he didn't go back to sleep.

I realize that me giving him a soother when he wakes up crying is possibly making it so that he needs it more and more.  But I do wait until it's clear that he's not going to stop crying on his own and needs a soother.  And I'm not going to let him lie there and cry it out.  It goes against every instinct I have as a mother.  To be honest, I would rather start sleeping with him beside me so that I can give him a soother whenever he needs it instead of letting him cry it out.  I just can't do it.

There have been many nights lately that I've had the pack 'n play bassinet set up right beside my bed in case we have a bad night and I'm constantly getting up to give him a soother.  Last night was that exact night, but for some reason I just kept putting him back in his crib. I kept hoping that that time would be the last time he would get up for the night (it never was), and I didn't want him to disturb my sleep or Justin or I to disturb his sleep.  As it turns out I never did fall back asleep after he woke me up at 4:30.

We'll see how it goes tonight.  Something tells me we're in for another crappy one.  But like I said, I'm not letting it upset me.  I'm okay with nighttime parenting.  I'll deal.