That is a king sized bed, by the way. My kid is TALL.
And after the bum change is over...
Toddler zoned out in front of Sesame Street. Freaky. But he seriously loves that show.
Showing posts with label Changing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Changing. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
So What Wednesday
So what if I change Noah's morning (and usually poopy) diaper on my bed in front of Sesame Street every day. If I change it on his change table, 4 times out of 5 he is crying and wiggling and trying to turn over. Because really, diaper changes suck.
Monday, May 9, 2011
Worst Bathtime EVER (and 1 year appointment)
oh. my. gosh.
That was, without a doubt, the worst bathtime EVER.
Noah was screaming like he was possessed by demons. Like he was being tortured. He was clinging to me so tight, wrapping his arms around my neck and his legs around my body, burying his head into my neck. It was AWFUL.
I felt terrible, but he really needed a bath. He didn't have one yesterday, and he had sunscreen all over his face, arms, legs, and in his hair. He really needed a bath. After we got him out Justin had to moisturize him as best he could as his clung to me like a little monkey, crying his head off.
Getting his diaper on was also awful. He would not let go of my neck. It was hard enough to get him on the change table because he was trying so hard to wrap his legs around my body. I laid him down and leaned over top of him so he could keep hugging me tight, and Justin desitined his bum and tried to diaper him. A few times Noah pushed me away so he could desperately sign to nurse, and then he'd pull me back in. If I could have I would have nursed him while he was lying on the table, but he still needed his pajamas on, and they and his sleepsack were lying on our bed, where I always nurse him at bedtime.
It was awful. I hope that never happens again. He did conk out while I was nursing him, though. Maybe he was really overtired, leftover from yesterday.
Today was also Noah's 12 month doctor's appointment. What's that you say? He's almost 14 months old?
I know. But Noah was sick 3 times in the month after he turned 1, and I didn't want to take him to the doctor and to get shots when he was sick. Then today was the soonest I could get in.
My doctor's office opens back up after lunch at 2pm, but I couldn't get an appointment until 2:30 (if I wanted a 2pm appointment I couldn't get in until a full week later). Since they should only be booking 2 people every 15 minutes, it'd be ridiculous if they were already running very behind at 2:30, right? Well, I waited in the waiting room for 45 minutes, and then again in the exam room for 10 minutes.
Unfortunately, Noah was in a crappy mood before we even left our house. He did fine while we waited in the waiting room, since there were a bunch of old people paying attention to him. But once we got into the exam room Noah was pissed off, and all he wanted to do was leave. He kept trying to get out the door. He cried when the nurse tried to measure his height, and cried when she measured his head. Then when the doctor came in Noah was all "Get the heck away from me," and cried with everything he did. Listening to his chest, checking his ears... forget the shots. He has never cried like that.
Noah is not a crybaby. He often doesn't cry at all when he gets hurt. If he does cry, it's not normally for very long. But he was so upset about these shots. I held him while he got them, and he would occasionally look at the doctor accusingly, with giant tears running down his face, but the rest of the time he spent clinging to me, head buried in my neck, crying his eyes out.
He was so upset that I nursed him afterward. It was the first time he needed it after shots. All his other shots he cried for about 30 seconds after just the second shot, but not at all after the first one. Not this time. He was still kind of crying while I was nursing him afterward. And he didn't show any signs of popping off the boob. The doctor had been gone a couple of minutes, and finally I said, "Noah, do you want to go home?" He grunted while he was nursing, to mean yes, and so I said "Well, if you stop nursing we can go home and see Daddy." So he popped off and pointed to the door, and we were out of there. It was our worst doctor's appointment ever.
Today has not been a wonderful day for that poor little guy. Hopefully tomorrow is better.
That was, without a doubt, the worst bathtime EVER.
Noah was screaming like he was possessed by demons. Like he was being tortured. He was clinging to me so tight, wrapping his arms around my neck and his legs around my body, burying his head into my neck. It was AWFUL.
I felt terrible, but he really needed a bath. He didn't have one yesterday, and he had sunscreen all over his face, arms, legs, and in his hair. He really needed a bath. After we got him out Justin had to moisturize him as best he could as his clung to me like a little monkey, crying his head off.
Getting his diaper on was also awful. He would not let go of my neck. It was hard enough to get him on the change table because he was trying so hard to wrap his legs around my body. I laid him down and leaned over top of him so he could keep hugging me tight, and Justin desitined his bum and tried to diaper him. A few times Noah pushed me away so he could desperately sign to nurse, and then he'd pull me back in. If I could have I would have nursed him while he was lying on the table, but he still needed his pajamas on, and they and his sleepsack were lying on our bed, where I always nurse him at bedtime.
It was awful. I hope that never happens again. He did conk out while I was nursing him, though. Maybe he was really overtired, leftover from yesterday.
~~~~~~~~~
Today was also Noah's 12 month doctor's appointment. What's that you say? He's almost 14 months old?
I know. But Noah was sick 3 times in the month after he turned 1, and I didn't want to take him to the doctor and to get shots when he was sick. Then today was the soonest I could get in.
My doctor's office opens back up after lunch at 2pm, but I couldn't get an appointment until 2:30 (if I wanted a 2pm appointment I couldn't get in until a full week later). Since they should only be booking 2 people every 15 minutes, it'd be ridiculous if they were already running very behind at 2:30, right? Well, I waited in the waiting room for 45 minutes, and then again in the exam room for 10 minutes.
Unfortunately, Noah was in a crappy mood before we even left our house. He did fine while we waited in the waiting room, since there were a bunch of old people paying attention to him. But once we got into the exam room Noah was pissed off, and all he wanted to do was leave. He kept trying to get out the door. He cried when the nurse tried to measure his height, and cried when she measured his head. Then when the doctor came in Noah was all "Get the heck away from me," and cried with everything he did. Listening to his chest, checking his ears... forget the shots. He has never cried like that.
Noah is not a crybaby. He often doesn't cry at all when he gets hurt. If he does cry, it's not normally for very long. But he was so upset about these shots. I held him while he got them, and he would occasionally look at the doctor accusingly, with giant tears running down his face, but the rest of the time he spent clinging to me, head buried in my neck, crying his eyes out.
He was so upset that I nursed him afterward. It was the first time he needed it after shots. All his other shots he cried for about 30 seconds after just the second shot, but not at all after the first one. Not this time. He was still kind of crying while I was nursing him afterward. And he didn't show any signs of popping off the boob. The doctor had been gone a couple of minutes, and finally I said, "Noah, do you want to go home?" He grunted while he was nursing, to mean yes, and so I said "Well, if you stop nursing we can go home and see Daddy." So he popped off and pointed to the door, and we were out of there. It was our worst doctor's appointment ever.
Today has not been a wonderful day for that poor little guy. Hopefully tomorrow is better.
Monday, April 18, 2011
13 Months
At 13 months old, here is what Noah is up to:
-I'm guessing he weighs about 21.5lbs, but I didn't get him weighed today
-He is about 32-33 inches long (when comparing him to other kids who measured 31.5 inches, he is visibly taller than them by at least an inch, but we haven't been able to get a good measurement of him ourselves).
-He wears size 3 Pampers Cruisers during the day, size 4 Baby Dry at night, which he often leaks through.
-He still nurses 10+ times a day, and signs for it a lot more often that that!
-He signs for "nurse" and "water". I don't really do any other signs consistently.
-He is still about 75-50% breastfed, with solids making up the other 20-25%. He has gotten more picky this month, and will spit out any vegetables he puts in his mouth. He loves meats and fruits, and most starchy foods (potatoes, stuffing, etc). But he is no longer a fan of vegetables. This would bother me more, but since he is still breastfeeding I'm not at all worried about any picky eating habits because he is getting more nutrients from breastmilk than he would from vegetables.
-He doesn't eat much "baby food" anymore. Not because he won't, but because we just usually feed him from what we're eating since we never know how much he will eat. We have a ton of purees and baby oatmeal left though. I'm not totally sure what we'll do with it.
-He enjoys a balance of being fed and feeding himself. He's not totally in one camp or the other.
-He wears 18 and 24 month clothing, depending on what it is. For example, he wears 24 month footless sleepers, but 18 month footed sleepers. He wears some 18 month onesies, some 24 month onesies. It just depends on the piece. The funniest/weirdest thing is that he fits in 6-9 month shorts, but the waist on them is kind of big on him. I thought he would wear them last summer, but they never ended up fitting him. I tried them this year... almost perfect! I wonder if it's the brand?
-He still has just 8 teeth, the four top and four bottom. He hasn't gotten a new tooth since he was 8 months old.
-He currently has his 10th illness, another cold.
-He goes to bed at about 8pm (sometimes early, but sometimes closer to 8:30), sleeps until sometime past 5am, nurses, and goes back to sleep again until who knows when. It's totally hit and miss with how long he sleeps, but I don't get him out of bed until close to 7:30am.
-Bedtime has been later this month because Noah is in an awkward transition from 2 naps down to 1 nap. He is increasing the length of his daytime naps (generally to about an hour to an hour and 15 minutes), but slightly decreasing his amount of total sleep in 24 hours, so his nighttime sleep has been shortening. I'm actually liking the later bedtime. I'm in less of a rush in the evenings to get dinner cooked, eaten, and Noah bathed and in bed. We have more time to be a family. It's nice.
-We're having a hard time fitting 2 naps in everyday. About half the time he only takes one nap a day, the other half he takes two naps. This depends on what time he wakes up in the morning. If he gets up at 7am, he'll definitely have 2 naps. If he gets up at 8am, whether he has two naps would depend on how early he's able to get to sleep for his first nap, and then how long he sleeps for (this nap is almost always about 1 hour). If he wakes up at 8:30, he definitely only has one nap. If he only has one nap, his awake period before bed is usually about 7 hours, give or take. Sometimes he is 100% fine with this, sometimes he is kind of cranky. This occasional crankiness is why we haven't just made the leap to one nap.
-(By the way, I don't consider this transition to be a sleep issue at all... it'll work itself out soon I'm sur - probably within the next month - and until then we are just playing it by ear. I don't mind at all. His nighttime sleep and daytime sleep are still doing well).
-He is almost running now!
-He is very careful, and almost never hurts himself.
-When he goes to climb the stairs, he opens the baby gate at the bottom, walks through it, climbs up the first stair, turns around, closes the baby gate fully, and then proceeds to climb all the way upstairs. He needs the gate to be shut first. It's funny.
-He is really good at picking up his basketball, walking across the room, reaching the ball over his head, and scoring a basket.
-He still "talks on the phone" by putting the phone (or an object that resembles a phone) all the way behind his head and "talking." He also hands us the phone to talk, too.
-He's still very cuddly, and loves to hug and kiss Mommy. He also loves to hug and kiss babies of any age. He is such a little sweetie-pie.
-I am still his number 1 favourite person, and I'm who he wants when he cries, but he is getting friendlier to other people that he knows and is slightly less of a Mommy-suck.
-He still loves to play in the curtains. He breathes really excitedly, giggles, and pops his head out with a huge smile when I say "Where's Noah?!"
-He loves to walk around with a blanket over his head and giggle.
-He still loves to lounge around on the floor and lay his head on pillows.
-Diaper changes are still torture. I've discovered that actually belting him to the change pad works to keep him on his back, though (with the belt thats attached to the change pad, not an actual belt). So I just have to deal with the screaming, which I can handle. I often just change his bum when he walking around to avoid the hassle.
-He is understanding so much language now. He follows many directions and points to objects and pictures when we ask where they are.
-His expressive language is still the same. Besides babbling and gibberish, he says "Uh oh," "Dis," "Dat," "Mama," and "Dad" or "Dada".
-He loves to "read". If he is allowed, he will pull every book off his bookshelf and still flipping through them. If he is allowed, he will also eat every book on his bookshelf. His favourite book for us to read to him is still Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? He gets a huge smile on his face when we start it.
-He continues to happily allow me to shower while he is awake, and plays in the bathroom while I'm doing so. This is going better (for me) since I reorganized the cupboards and drawers. There's less for him to pull out and toss around, now. (This is a new development since shortly before 12 months... before this I was always having to shower while he was sleeping or else he would scream his head off).
There's 13 months for you! I can't believe Noah is 13 months old already. It seems so old to me. And I can't believe I'm on time with this update! I better post it now before a week suddenly passes...
-I'm guessing he weighs about 21.5lbs, but I didn't get him weighed today
-He is about 32-33 inches long (when comparing him to other kids who measured 31.5 inches, he is visibly taller than them by at least an inch, but we haven't been able to get a good measurement of him ourselves).
-He wears size 3 Pampers Cruisers during the day, size 4 Baby Dry at night, which he often leaks through.
-He still nurses 10+ times a day, and signs for it a lot more often that that!
-He signs for "nurse" and "water". I don't really do any other signs consistently.
-He is still about 75-50% breastfed, with solids making up the other 20-25%. He has gotten more picky this month, and will spit out any vegetables he puts in his mouth. He loves meats and fruits, and most starchy foods (potatoes, stuffing, etc). But he is no longer a fan of vegetables. This would bother me more, but since he is still breastfeeding I'm not at all worried about any picky eating habits because he is getting more nutrients from breastmilk than he would from vegetables.
-He doesn't eat much "baby food" anymore. Not because he won't, but because we just usually feed him from what we're eating since we never know how much he will eat. We have a ton of purees and baby oatmeal left though. I'm not totally sure what we'll do with it.
-He enjoys a balance of being fed and feeding himself. He's not totally in one camp or the other.
-He wears 18 and 24 month clothing, depending on what it is. For example, he wears 24 month footless sleepers, but 18 month footed sleepers. He wears some 18 month onesies, some 24 month onesies. It just depends on the piece. The funniest/weirdest thing is that he fits in 6-9 month shorts, but the waist on them is kind of big on him. I thought he would wear them last summer, but they never ended up fitting him. I tried them this year... almost perfect! I wonder if it's the brand?
-He still has just 8 teeth, the four top and four bottom. He hasn't gotten a new tooth since he was 8 months old.
-He currently has his 10th illness, another cold.
-He goes to bed at about 8pm (sometimes early, but sometimes closer to 8:30), sleeps until sometime past 5am, nurses, and goes back to sleep again until who knows when. It's totally hit and miss with how long he sleeps, but I don't get him out of bed until close to 7:30am.
-Bedtime has been later this month because Noah is in an awkward transition from 2 naps down to 1 nap. He is increasing the length of his daytime naps (generally to about an hour to an hour and 15 minutes), but slightly decreasing his amount of total sleep in 24 hours, so his nighttime sleep has been shortening. I'm actually liking the later bedtime. I'm in less of a rush in the evenings to get dinner cooked, eaten, and Noah bathed and in bed. We have more time to be a family. It's nice.
-We're having a hard time fitting 2 naps in everyday. About half the time he only takes one nap a day, the other half he takes two naps. This depends on what time he wakes up in the morning. If he gets up at 7am, he'll definitely have 2 naps. If he gets up at 8am, whether he has two naps would depend on how early he's able to get to sleep for his first nap, and then how long he sleeps for (this nap is almost always about 1 hour). If he wakes up at 8:30, he definitely only has one nap. If he only has one nap, his awake period before bed is usually about 7 hours, give or take. Sometimes he is 100% fine with this, sometimes he is kind of cranky. This occasional crankiness is why we haven't just made the leap to one nap.
-(By the way, I don't consider this transition to be a sleep issue at all... it'll work itself out soon I'm sur - probably within the next month - and until then we are just playing it by ear. I don't mind at all. His nighttime sleep and daytime sleep are still doing well).
-He is almost running now!
-He is very careful, and almost never hurts himself.
-When he goes to climb the stairs, he opens the baby gate at the bottom, walks through it, climbs up the first stair, turns around, closes the baby gate fully, and then proceeds to climb all the way upstairs. He needs the gate to be shut first. It's funny.
-He is really good at picking up his basketball, walking across the room, reaching the ball over his head, and scoring a basket.
-He still "talks on the phone" by putting the phone (or an object that resembles a phone) all the way behind his head and "talking." He also hands us the phone to talk, too.
-He's still very cuddly, and loves to hug and kiss Mommy. He also loves to hug and kiss babies of any age. He is such a little sweetie-pie.
-I am still his number 1 favourite person, and I'm who he wants when he cries, but he is getting friendlier to other people that he knows and is slightly less of a Mommy-suck.
-He still loves to play in the curtains. He breathes really excitedly, giggles, and pops his head out with a huge smile when I say "Where's Noah?!"
-He loves to walk around with a blanket over his head and giggle.
-He still loves to lounge around on the floor and lay his head on pillows.
-Diaper changes are still torture. I've discovered that actually belting him to the change pad works to keep him on his back, though (with the belt thats attached to the change pad, not an actual belt). So I just have to deal with the screaming, which I can handle. I often just change his bum when he walking around to avoid the hassle.
-He is understanding so much language now. He follows many directions and points to objects and pictures when we ask where they are.
-His expressive language is still the same. Besides babbling and gibberish, he says "Uh oh," "Dis," "Dat," "Mama," and "Dad" or "Dada".
-He loves to "read". If he is allowed, he will pull every book off his bookshelf and still flipping through them. If he is allowed, he will also eat every book on his bookshelf. His favourite book for us to read to him is still Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? He gets a huge smile on his face when we start it.
-He continues to happily allow me to shower while he is awake, and plays in the bathroom while I'm doing so. This is going better (for me) since I reorganized the cupboards and drawers. There's less for him to pull out and toss around, now. (This is a new development since shortly before 12 months... before this I was always having to shower while he was sleeping or else he would scream his head off).
There's 13 months for you! I can't believe Noah is 13 months old already. It seems so old to me. And I can't believe I'm on time with this update! I better post it now before a week suddenly passes...
Saturday, March 26, 2011
1 YEAR OLD!
I am getting really bad at posting these on time.
At 12 months old, here is what Noah is up to:
-He weighs 21lbs even, totally naked, on March 14 (he was 21lbs 11oz with his clothes and diaper on, which I then weighed, and they were exactly 11oz).
-He is still about 31.5 inches long.
-He wears size 3 diapers during the day, size 4 at night, which he often leaks through.
-He still nurses 10+ times a day, and signs for it a lot more often that that!
-He still has just one formal "meal" of solids - mostly purees - at dinnertime. The rest of the day he snacks on various things, usually what I'm eating, as he wants them.. He's still about 90% breastfed, with solids making up the other 10%.
-He wears 18 and 24 month clothing, depend on the piece. For example, he wears 24 month footless sleepers, but 18 month footed sleepers. He wears some 18 month onesies, some 24 month onesies. It just depends on the piece.
-He still has just 8 teeth, the four top and four bottom. He hasn't gotten a new tooth since before he was 8 months old.
-He goes to bed at about 7:30pm, sleeps until sometime past 4:30am (sometimes as late as 6:30am), nurses, and goes back to sleep again until about 7:30am, give or take. The time changed a couple of weeks ago, and I don't think I'm interested in shifting everything the entire hour. I think I'll keep bedtime at 7:30 for the spring and summertime.
-He has two naps a day, ranging from 30 minutes to an hour. The first nap is about 3 - 3.5 hours after he wakes up, and the second nap is about 3.5 hours after he wakes up from his first nap. He can handle awake periods that are a lot longer, with no problem, but we have to fit in both naps so I make sure he gets down on time.
-He is fully walking, all over the house, turning corners, going in circles, waving objects in the air... it's so cute, but it makes me sad!
-He loves to throw balls (and anything else), play with his baseball bats, score points on his basketball hoop, hit his baseball off his Little Tikes Talking T-Ball tee, and practice stick handling with his mini-sticks and hockey puck.
-He "talks on the phone" by putting the phone (or an object that resembles a phone) all the way behind his head. It's sooo cute!
-He's still cuddling with us a lot, which we obviously love!
-He still loves to give Mommy kisses (sometimes Daddy, sometimes other babies, and once even Gramper!), but he's not as obsessed with it as he was at 11 months. I've found it comes in waves, ever since he started bakc at like 7 months old.
-He's still a mommy suck, but he is getting a little better about his separation anxiety. I don't always have to be in the same room as him if other people are around.
-I can now shower with him in the bathroom with me and he doesn't scream! Instead he stands at the side of the tub and throws shampoo bottles, toys, and one time even a magazine, into the tub with me. This is a very welcome development. Not the toy-throwing, but the lack of screaming while I'm showering.
-He loves to play in the curtains. He breathes really excitedly, giggles, and pops his head out with a huge smile when I say "Where's Noah?!"
-He is still lounging on the floor like a lazy toddler, rolling back and forth and just enjoying being a goof.
-It is so hard to change his diaper. He often starts screaming, and won't lie on his back. I've taken to trying to change him while he's walking around. Every diaper change is a dreaded battle. Thank goodness he doesn't poop very often.
-It's always hard to know exactly how much an 12 month old understands, but we know for sure he knows the meanings of: Mom, Dad, nurse, up, night-night, hug, kiss, no, this, book, "say hi," "say bye," and "lean back". He demonstrates understanding of those words through his actions. I'm guessing he knows a lot more, but I can't tell.
-He says "Uh oh," "Dis," "Dat," "Mama," and "Dad" or "Dada". It seems like he says all these things in the right settings, but he also uses them at other times, so I don't know if he's really using them as words or just sounds.
-He loves to "read" (flip through his books independently) His favourite book for us to read to him is Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? He gets a huge smile on his face when we start it.
Well, it happened. My baby turned ONE. Over a week ago.
It makes me so happy, and it makes me sad. I love each new stage that Noah goes through (well, I guess not every stage), but it makes me so sad that I can never experience his infant-ness again. People tell me to have another baby, and while I'm happy that I will (hopefully) experience another baby (or two), it's still not baby Noah. And that's what I want. To experience baby Noah again.
With that being said, I feel like being a mom just keeps getting easier and more enjoyable. The past year of my life has been phenomenal, and I couldn't be happier. Nothing in my life has ever been as 'worth it' as being Noah's mom has been. I love that kid to pieces!
At 12 months old, here is what Noah is up to:
-He weighs 21lbs even, totally naked, on March 14 (he was 21lbs 11oz with his clothes and diaper on, which I then weighed, and they were exactly 11oz).
-He is still about 31.5 inches long.
-He wears size 3 diapers during the day, size 4 at night, which he often leaks through.
-He still nurses 10+ times a day, and signs for it a lot more often that that!
-He still has just one formal "meal" of solids - mostly purees - at dinnertime. The rest of the day he snacks on various things, usually what I'm eating, as he wants them.. He's still about 90% breastfed, with solids making up the other 10%.
-He wears 18 and 24 month clothing, depend on the piece. For example, he wears 24 month footless sleepers, but 18 month footed sleepers. He wears some 18 month onesies, some 24 month onesies. It just depends on the piece.
-He still has just 8 teeth, the four top and four bottom. He hasn't gotten a new tooth since before he was 8 months old.
-He goes to bed at about 7:30pm, sleeps until sometime past 4:30am (sometimes as late as 6:30am), nurses, and goes back to sleep again until about 7:30am, give or take. The time changed a couple of weeks ago, and I don't think I'm interested in shifting everything the entire hour. I think I'll keep bedtime at 7:30 for the spring and summertime.
-He has two naps a day, ranging from 30 minutes to an hour. The first nap is about 3 - 3.5 hours after he wakes up, and the second nap is about 3.5 hours after he wakes up from his first nap. He can handle awake periods that are a lot longer, with no problem, but we have to fit in both naps so I make sure he gets down on time.
-He is fully walking, all over the house, turning corners, going in circles, waving objects in the air... it's so cute, but it makes me sad!
-He loves to throw balls (and anything else), play with his baseball bats, score points on his basketball hoop, hit his baseball off his Little Tikes Talking T-Ball tee, and practice stick handling with his mini-sticks and hockey puck.
-He "talks on the phone" by putting the phone (or an object that resembles a phone) all the way behind his head. It's sooo cute!
-He's still cuddling with us a lot, which we obviously love!
-He still loves to give Mommy kisses (sometimes Daddy, sometimes other babies, and once even Gramper!), but he's not as obsessed with it as he was at 11 months. I've found it comes in waves, ever since he started bakc at like 7 months old.
-He's still a mommy suck, but he is getting a little better about his separation anxiety. I don't always have to be in the same room as him if other people are around.
-I can now shower with him in the bathroom with me and he doesn't scream! Instead he stands at the side of the tub and throws shampoo bottles, toys, and one time even a magazine, into the tub with me. This is a very welcome development. Not the toy-throwing, but the lack of screaming while I'm showering.
-He loves to play in the curtains. He breathes really excitedly, giggles, and pops his head out with a huge smile when I say "Where's Noah?!"
-He is still lounging on the floor like a lazy toddler, rolling back and forth and just enjoying being a goof.
-It is so hard to change his diaper. He often starts screaming, and won't lie on his back. I've taken to trying to change him while he's walking around. Every diaper change is a dreaded battle. Thank goodness he doesn't poop very often.
-It's always hard to know exactly how much an 12 month old understands, but we know for sure he knows the meanings of: Mom, Dad, nurse, up, night-night, hug, kiss, no, this, book, "say hi," "say bye," and "lean back". He demonstrates understanding of those words through his actions. I'm guessing he knows a lot more, but I can't tell.
-He says "Uh oh," "Dis," "Dat," "Mama," and "Dad" or "Dada". It seems like he says all these things in the right settings, but he also uses them at other times, so I don't know if he's really using them as words or just sounds.
-He loves to "read" (flip through his books independently) His favourite book for us to read to him is Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? He gets a huge smile on his face when we start it.
Well, it happened. My baby turned ONE. Over a week ago.
It makes me so happy, and it makes me sad. I love each new stage that Noah goes through (well, I guess not every stage), but it makes me so sad that I can never experience his infant-ness again. People tell me to have another baby, and while I'm happy that I will (hopefully) experience another baby (or two), it's still not baby Noah. And that's what I want. To experience baby Noah again.
With that being said, I feel like being a mom just keeps getting easier and more enjoyable. The past year of my life has been phenomenal, and I couldn't be happier. Nothing in my life has ever been as 'worth it' as being Noah's mom has been. I love that kid to pieces!
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
10 Months Old
Here is where Noah is at at 10 months old:
-He's 31 inches tall, 100th percentile.
-He weighs 20lbs 5oz naked (after a good nursing). That's about 35th percentile, and almost a pound gain in less than a month!
-He is 5th percentile for 'weight for length'
-His head circumference is 19 inches..
-He wears size 3 diapers during the day, and size 4 diapers at night (we just switched to size 4s the night before he turned 10 months because of night-leaking).
-He wears 18 month clothing. His sleepers, onesies, and shirts fit perfectly, his 18 month pants are a little bit long.
-He has 8 teeth, the four top and four bottom.
-He nurses every 2 hours or so all day long (two nursings during each awake period), and once overnight. He nurses 7-8 times in a 24 hour period.
-He has one meal of solids (mostly purees) at dinnertime, and throughout the day he might have little nibbles of what I'm eating. I'm careful about what he has, but I don't follow a specific '3 day wait' rule anymore.
-He is obsessed with fruit. If he sees a piece of fruit and isn't allowed to eat it, he has a little hissy fit.
-He's still constipated pretty much all the time. We have only a couple of normal poops in a month.
-After a long break, he's starting to show a little bit of interest in the sippy cup, although he is really terrible at getting water out of it. he chews more than sucks. But at least it's water in there! He seems to love the taste of water now, whereas it disgusted him a few months ago.
-He goes to bed at 7, has one night nursing sometime after 4am, and wakes up around 7, sometimes later if he has a long awake period around 6am and ends up falling back asleep.
-He has 2 naps a day, each usually 30-40 minutes long (although sometimes he'll have an hour long nap). He's not on a strict schedule, and his naptimes start anywhere between 10-11am, and 2:30-3:30pm.
-He stands unassisted for far longer periods of time, far more frequently. His record is several minutes.
-He can stand up from a squatting position without holding on to anything, and can squat down slowly and gracefully from standing without holding on to anything.
-He's a much better cruiser now, and walks with his walker really well. However, on the hardwood floors he has a tendency to let it get ahead of him and ends up looking like he's charging through the house on a rampage.
-He's been hands and knees crawling and pulling up to stand for 3 months.
-He's been climbing stairs for at least a couple of months, but he's really fast at it now.
-If he loses something under the couch he'll crawl over, lay on his tummy, peer under the couch, and reach for the object.
-He waves "Hi!" when we say "Say 'hi'!" He lifts his arms when we say "Up!" and understands the word "No," but doesn't always listen to it (these are several months old). These are the 3 "commands" that we can tell 100% for sure that he understands.
-He still babbles a lot and says things like Dada, Dad, dat, dis, deh, that seem like words, but I'm not sure if he is really intending them to be words. He likes to imitate singular sounds we make like fff, sss, tthh, but not really any combinations of letters.
-Just started babbling "Mamama" again after a long break. I don't think he's calling me "Mama" though.
-He's still pointing a lot to things he wants or places he wants to go.
-His new fascination is with light switches. He loves to turn lights on and off.
-He puts objects in containers and balls into the holes they're supposed to go into.
-He plays with his "talking" toys a lot more purposefully now. Instead of mashing his hands around on things in an excited way, he carefully presses specific buttons to hear specific words and noises. It's need to see him become so purposeful in this area.
-We have this framed print in our house that has the line from the hymn: "All things bright and beautiful, all creatures great and small, all things wise and wonderful, the Lord God made them all." Noah LOVES it, and always points to go over to it. When we start reading it to him (we point to the words as we read them) he gets this huge adorable smile on his face, and sometimes starts giggling. It's so cute!
-He started dropping toys off his high chair tray all the time shortly after he turned 9 months. He would do this occasionally before but I always ignored it. Then Daddy made a FUN GAME out of it *rolls eyes and sighs*, so I'm trying to break him of this habit.
-He loves it when I spray water in his mouth with a spray bottle. He laughs and opens his mouth for it again and again. His face is hilarious. A squinty wince, with his mouth wide open... so cute.
-He's figured out how to undo the bottom of our top-of-the-stair gate, and he gets really ticked off that he can't pull it all the way open.
-His pincer grasp is about the same as last month. Not amazing, but not bad.
-He detests the playpen (immediately starts screaming if he's put in it), and doesn't like being in his jumperoo. So basically, he's a free man all the time. Therefore, I can't shower unless he's sleeping. I can't vacuum unless he's in the sling (or my husband is home).
-Diaper changes are still a big battle, but this past month he has added a freak-out everytime we lay him on the change table. Sometimes he'll cry the entire time he's being changed. It's ridiculous, really.
-He hugs and kisses Mommy (with a wide open slobbery mouth) all the time. He's been kissing me for months, but this month he started kissing Daddy! He'll only kiss his ear, though, because Daddy's face is too scratchy:) I find that hilarious. The few times he's tried to kiss his cheek or mouth he came away with an injured, disgusted look on his face. It cracks us up!
-He is an enormous Mommy-suck. He is so attached to me I can hardly even describe it. He cannot be distracted or dissuaded if he wants his Mom, and he wants his Mom often. After seeing any display of this Mommy-suckyness, people agree that if I were going back to work when my maternity leave is technically over in 2 months, he honestly might never recover. I am the be-all and end-all in his life, and if I disappeared I honestly think he might will himself to die.
A typical day in our house at 10 months old might look like this:
7:00am - Wake up
7:30am - Nurse
9:30am - Nurse
10:15am - Sleep
11:00am - Wake up
11:30am - Nurse
1:30pm - Nurse
2:15pm - Sleep
3:00pm - Wake up
3:30 - Nurse
5:00 - Nurse
6:00 - Dinner (solids)
6:40 - Bath time
7:00 - Nurse and bedtime (plus 1 night feeding)
That's what a typical day MIGHT look like, but we are by no means on a schedule and the timing of things can be different everyday. If a nap goes long, or he wants to nurse sooner or later, or he does seem to want to sleep... everyday is different. The one basically consistent part of our day is the wake, nurse, nurse, nap, nurse, nurse, nap, nurse, nurse, dinner, bath, bedtime (with nursing). Lately Noah has been nursing to sleep for his naps more often just because that's when his feeding happens to land. And I'm not a nazi about not letting him fall asleep nursing. I try to have him fall asleep in a variety of ways throughout the week so that he has "versatility." I want him to be able to fall asleep nursing, rocking, on his own, or in the car.
Now that Noah is down to 2 short naps a day I have even less time to get things done around the house. I use his first nap to shower (I have to finish getting ready while he's awake, usually), and his second nap I use to try and relax and eat something, since I don't have time to do that during the rest of the day. I do most of my chores when Justin is home because it's way easier to clean my house without Noah strapped to my body or trying to climb my legs.
We seem to have had a month off from teething, which has been nice. And it's been nice going down to 2 naps, which we did right at 9 months, even though that usually means I have less baby-free time. It's just been a lot easier to do other things now that Noah has awake periods of at least 3 hours, and can usually stay awake (and be happy) for 4 hours or more if we're out doing something.
Noah's 10th month has been lots of fun. It's crazy watching him grow up so quickly, and I can't believe he's going to be a year old so soon! I should start thinking about his birthday party...
-He's 31 inches tall, 100th percentile.
-He weighs 20lbs 5oz naked (after a good nursing). That's about 35th percentile, and almost a pound gain in less than a month!
-He is 5th percentile for 'weight for length'
-His head circumference is 19 inches..
-He wears size 3 diapers during the day, and size 4 diapers at night (we just switched to size 4s the night before he turned 10 months because of night-leaking).
-He wears 18 month clothing. His sleepers, onesies, and shirts fit perfectly, his 18 month pants are a little bit long.
-He has 8 teeth, the four top and four bottom.
-He nurses every 2 hours or so all day long (two nursings during each awake period), and once overnight. He nurses 7-8 times in a 24 hour period.
-He has one meal of solids (mostly purees) at dinnertime, and throughout the day he might have little nibbles of what I'm eating. I'm careful about what he has, but I don't follow a specific '3 day wait' rule anymore.
-He is obsessed with fruit. If he sees a piece of fruit and isn't allowed to eat it, he has a little hissy fit.
-He's still constipated pretty much all the time. We have only a couple of normal poops in a month.
-After a long break, he's starting to show a little bit of interest in the sippy cup, although he is really terrible at getting water out of it. he chews more than sucks. But at least it's water in there! He seems to love the taste of water now, whereas it disgusted him a few months ago.
-He goes to bed at 7, has one night nursing sometime after 4am, and wakes up around 7, sometimes later if he has a long awake period around 6am and ends up falling back asleep.
-He has 2 naps a day, each usually 30-40 minutes long (although sometimes he'll have an hour long nap). He's not on a strict schedule, and his naptimes start anywhere between 10-11am, and 2:30-3:30pm.
-He stands unassisted for far longer periods of time, far more frequently. His record is several minutes.
-He can stand up from a squatting position without holding on to anything, and can squat down slowly and gracefully from standing without holding on to anything.
-He's a much better cruiser now, and walks with his walker really well. However, on the hardwood floors he has a tendency to let it get ahead of him and ends up looking like he's charging through the house on a rampage.
-He's been hands and knees crawling and pulling up to stand for 3 months.
-He's been climbing stairs for at least a couple of months, but he's really fast at it now.
-If he loses something under the couch he'll crawl over, lay on his tummy, peer under the couch, and reach for the object.
-He waves "Hi!" when we say "Say 'hi'!" He lifts his arms when we say "Up!" and understands the word "No," but doesn't always listen to it (these are several months old). These are the 3 "commands" that we can tell 100% for sure that he understands.
-He still babbles a lot and says things like Dada, Dad, dat, dis, deh, that seem like words, but I'm not sure if he is really intending them to be words. He likes to imitate singular sounds we make like fff, sss, tthh, but not really any combinations of letters.
-Just started babbling "Mamama" again after a long break. I don't think he's calling me "Mama" though.
-He's still pointing a lot to things he wants or places he wants to go.
-His new fascination is with light switches. He loves to turn lights on and off.
-He puts objects in containers and balls into the holes they're supposed to go into.
-He plays with his "talking" toys a lot more purposefully now. Instead of mashing his hands around on things in an excited way, he carefully presses specific buttons to hear specific words and noises. It's need to see him become so purposeful in this area.
-We have this framed print in our house that has the line from the hymn: "All things bright and beautiful, all creatures great and small, all things wise and wonderful, the Lord God made them all." Noah LOVES it, and always points to go over to it. When we start reading it to him (we point to the words as we read them) he gets this huge adorable smile on his face, and sometimes starts giggling. It's so cute!
-He started dropping toys off his high chair tray all the time shortly after he turned 9 months. He would do this occasionally before but I always ignored it. Then Daddy made a FUN GAME out of it *rolls eyes and sighs*, so I'm trying to break him of this habit.
-He loves it when I spray water in his mouth with a spray bottle. He laughs and opens his mouth for it again and again. His face is hilarious. A squinty wince, with his mouth wide open... so cute.
-He's figured out how to undo the bottom of our top-of-the-stair gate, and he gets really ticked off that he can't pull it all the way open.
-His pincer grasp is about the same as last month. Not amazing, but not bad.
-He detests the playpen (immediately starts screaming if he's put in it), and doesn't like being in his jumperoo. So basically, he's a free man all the time. Therefore, I can't shower unless he's sleeping. I can't vacuum unless he's in the sling (or my husband is home).
-Diaper changes are still a big battle, but this past month he has added a freak-out everytime we lay him on the change table. Sometimes he'll cry the entire time he's being changed. It's ridiculous, really.
-He hugs and kisses Mommy (with a wide open slobbery mouth) all the time. He's been kissing me for months, but this month he started kissing Daddy! He'll only kiss his ear, though, because Daddy's face is too scratchy:) I find that hilarious. The few times he's tried to kiss his cheek or mouth he came away with an injured, disgusted look on his face. It cracks us up!
-He is an enormous Mommy-suck. He is so attached to me I can hardly even describe it. He cannot be distracted or dissuaded if he wants his Mom, and he wants his Mom often. After seeing any display of this Mommy-suckyness, people agree that if I were going back to work when my maternity leave is technically over in 2 months, he honestly might never recover. I am the be-all and end-all in his life, and if I disappeared I honestly think he might will himself to die.
A typical day in our house at 10 months old might look like this:
7:00am - Wake up
7:30am - Nurse
9:30am - Nurse
10:15am - Sleep
11:00am - Wake up
11:30am - Nurse
1:30pm - Nurse
2:15pm - Sleep
3:00pm - Wake up
3:30 - Nurse
5:00 - Nurse
6:00 - Dinner (solids)
6:40 - Bath time
7:00 - Nurse and bedtime (plus 1 night feeding)
That's what a typical day MIGHT look like, but we are by no means on a schedule and the timing of things can be different everyday. If a nap goes long, or he wants to nurse sooner or later, or he does seem to want to sleep... everyday is different. The one basically consistent part of our day is the wake, nurse, nurse, nap, nurse, nurse, nap, nurse, nurse, dinner, bath, bedtime (with nursing). Lately Noah has been nursing to sleep for his naps more often just because that's when his feeding happens to land. And I'm not a nazi about not letting him fall asleep nursing. I try to have him fall asleep in a variety of ways throughout the week so that he has "versatility." I want him to be able to fall asleep nursing, rocking, on his own, or in the car.
Now that Noah is down to 2 short naps a day I have even less time to get things done around the house. I use his first nap to shower (I have to finish getting ready while he's awake, usually), and his second nap I use to try and relax and eat something, since I don't have time to do that during the rest of the day. I do most of my chores when Justin is home because it's way easier to clean my house without Noah strapped to my body or trying to climb my legs.
We seem to have had a month off from teething, which has been nice. And it's been nice going down to 2 naps, which we did right at 9 months, even though that usually means I have less baby-free time. It's just been a lot easier to do other things now that Noah has awake periods of at least 3 hours, and can usually stay awake (and be happy) for 4 hours or more if we're out doing something.
Noah's 10th month has been lots of fun. It's crazy watching him grow up so quickly, and I can't believe he's going to be a year old so soon! I should start thinking about his birthday party...
Monday, January 17, 2011
Moving Up to Size 4
For the past week Noah has been leaking overnight. Just a small patch through his onesie and onto his sleeper. I had decided that I would wait and see if it was a consistent thing before I moved him up a diaper size for overnight. 4 out of 5 nights he leaked. Last night I decided to try size 3 Pampers Cruisers. We usually use Baby Dry, and I've been happy with them, but we have a whole bunch of size 3's left (like, a thousand), and they fit Noah fine. Plus Cruisers are a little bit bigger than Baby Dry's, and they have "Dry Max" (which I was never thrilled with in the Swaddlers), so I was hoping that that combination would hold in the leaks.
It was way worse. The entire front of his left pajama leg was soaked. SOAKED. He has never leaked even close to that bad with the Baby Dry's. He has only had a little wet patch near the edge of the diaper. And he is usually in bed a good hour longer than he was last night. (This is just another piece of evidence for me that Cruisers are not worth the extra money. I've always preferred Baby Dry.)
So tonight, on the eve of his 10 month birthday, we have moved up to Size 4 Baby Dry's for overnight.
I didn't think this would happen so soon. For awhile there after we sleep trained (shortly before 8 months) Noah's diaper was way less full overnight. Some mornings he would get up and wouldn't even NEED a diaper change right away (although he always got one). I think it's interesting that his diapers are filled to the brim now that he's 10 months. It seems counter intuitive to me. I would have assumed he would be taking in less breastmilk at nighttime, not more. Sometimes I weigh his diapers just out of curiosity, and these diapers that he's leaked out of have been as heavy as 15 ounces!
I also think it's weird how he never ever leaked overnight, and then suddenly it started happening every single night. I would have thought it would be a more gradual thing. Not nothing and then BAM all the time.
Anyway, we're in size 4s overnight now. They're gloriously huge on him. Here's hoping it holds everything in and I won't have to buy expensive overnight diapers.
(By the way, I have tried Huggies overnight on several occasions and they have leaked everytime.)
It was way worse. The entire front of his left pajama leg was soaked. SOAKED. He has never leaked even close to that bad with the Baby Dry's. He has only had a little wet patch near the edge of the diaper. And he is usually in bed a good hour longer than he was last night. (This is just another piece of evidence for me that Cruisers are not worth the extra money. I've always preferred Baby Dry.)
So tonight, on the eve of his 10 month birthday, we have moved up to Size 4 Baby Dry's for overnight.
I didn't think this would happen so soon. For awhile there after we sleep trained (shortly before 8 months) Noah's diaper was way less full overnight. Some mornings he would get up and wouldn't even NEED a diaper change right away (although he always got one). I think it's interesting that his diapers are filled to the brim now that he's 10 months. It seems counter intuitive to me. I would have assumed he would be taking in less breastmilk at nighttime, not more. Sometimes I weigh his diapers just out of curiosity, and these diapers that he's leaked out of have been as heavy as 15 ounces!
I also think it's weird how he never ever leaked overnight, and then suddenly it started happening every single night. I would have thought it would be a more gradual thing. Not nothing and then BAM all the time.
Anyway, we're in size 4s overnight now. They're gloriously huge on him. Here's hoping it holds everything in and I won't have to buy expensive overnight diapers.
(By the way, I have tried Huggies overnight on several occasions and they have leaked everytime.)
Saturday, December 18, 2010
9 Months Old
At 9 months old, here is where Noah is at:
-On December 23 (9 months and 5 days) he weighed 19lbs 6oz (totally naked). This is about the 25th percentile.
-He's 30.5 inches tall, which is about 100th percentile
-His head circumference is 19 inches (48.3cm), which is 100th percentile.
-He wears size 3 diapers.
-He wears 12 and 18 month clothing by Carter's (my yardstick). The 12 month clothing is on the verge of being too small. Most of the 18 month clothing is a little too big. We're in the awkward in between stage, since he's 30.5 inches and that's the max height for 12 months and min height for 18 months.
-He has 7 teeth, but his 7th tooth has not grown very much since it popped through.
-He's a very good eater, according to everyone who watches him (they all make comments). He's accepting of so many foods, he opens his mouth well, hardly any food gets on his face... just a good eater.
-He points to everyone and everything with his tiny pointer finger. And he "shows" you things by holding them up in your direction. "See?? Look at my toy!!"
-His pincer grasp is getting better. He picks things up between his thumb and forefinger, it's just not necessarily the tip of his forefinger. He could still make improvement in this area. But he doesn't get a ton of chance to practice, and was only presented with the opportunity about a month ago, so I can't really blame him.
-He's still exclusively breastfed (no bottles or cups) except for a dinner of solids, and the occasional snack or taste of food during the day. Most days he doesn't need anything until dinner, though.
-He nurses usually every 2 hours during the day. More right now, since I've trying to build my milk supply back up after having the flu for 4 days.
-He is 100% swaddle free, and has been since a few days after he turned 8 months.
-He sleeps very well at night, usually about 11 hours total. He usually starts nursing to sleep at 7:15, although if he doesn't fall asleep I can put him in bed awake and he'll only cry for about 30 seconds before going to sleep. He sleeps 9 to 11 hours straight (usually around 10 hours), then nurses and goes back to sleep for a bit. If he wakes up before 4, I don't get him up to nurse, because I have found that he will STILL wake up sometime in the 4-5:30 range even if I nurse him at 3:45. He falls back asleep very well if he wakes up in the middle of the night. In the morning he has no consistent wake up time, but he usually does have a period of wakefulness in the 6-7am range, we don't turn on the lights or get him out of his crib until 7am, so if he wakes closer to 6 he often falls back asleep for a bit.
-Naps are still crap. A usual day has three 30 minute naps. We started a half-hearted attempt at nap training, but I'm not very consistent. It's bad, I know.
-I think he may need to go down to 2 naps a day, because I'm finding it harder and harder to get him to fall asleep before the 3 hour mark. The problem is that two half hour naps a day is not enough for any child.
-He still uses a soother every time I rock him to sleep, but if he goes to sleep on his own he spits it out (because of crying) and doesn't put it back in. So he only needs it if I'm rocking him.
-He had his fourth haircut today.
-He had his 4th illness this past week, a stomach bug, but was over it very quickly thanks to breastfeeding. No such luck for me.
-He's very capable, physically. He started full-time hands-and-knees crawling and pulling up 2 months ago, so you can imagine how good he is at it now. He's a great climber, too.
-He's getting better at cruising, but isn't amazing at it.
-He waves!
-He's back to social coughing again - A LOT. He was doing it way back at around 5 months, but my Dad got him back into it a few weeks ago when he copied him every time he coughed. He thinks it's hilarious.
-He's very talkative and babbles incessantly, but hasn't connected any words with any actual objects yet. As far as we can tell, the only word he truly understands is "Up."
-This month he started making an adorable scrunchy face. He does it often, when he's smiling, whining, whenever. It's so cute.
-When we click our tongues he copies us, and thinks it's the greatest.
-He never goes in his jumperoo or exersaucer. He prefers to play with the toys while standing next to it. Whatever!
-He loves to play peekabo in the mirror, and to watch you make faces at him in the mirror. This isn't new (he's loved the mirror for a long time), but he's just really really enjoying it this month.
-He still enjoys his jolly jumper, but we don't put him in it very often. He jumps way too high and hard, and the spring slams shut really hard and he continues to fly past the point where he should have stopped. It's not dangerous or anything, but sometimes he doesn't like the jolting he gets when that happens.
-He has separation and stranger anxiety, but it's not too bad at the moment. It seems like it's really bad when he's teething.
-Bathtime hasn't been tons of fun this month. Some days he hates the actual bath (for whatever reason), some days he's fine. But everyday is a huge struggle getting him undressed, giving him his vitamin D, getting him dried off, lotioning him (his skin has very dry spots, so he needs to lotion) desitin-ing his bum, diapering him, and getting him dressed again. He will flip over and bear crawl away so fast (he doesn't like the cold ceramic tile, so he bear crawls... lol). And he's so strong now, there's really nothing we can do about it. Justin pretty much has to pin down his upper body while I deal with the diaper. After that I can dress him as he's sitting and standing. But getting the diaper on is HARD.
This past month has had ups and downs. Noah reached his peak of separation anxiety this month, and I had many days (some entire weeks) where he was literally glued to me. I couldn't even stand up without him freaking out. As a SAHM, this gets very tiring. I couldn't get anything done, my house was a mess, and I couldn't even go to the bathroom without bringing him with me. Since he hardly naps, the only time I wasn't concentrating on him was at night when he was sleeping. It got tough after several long days.
I may have connected increased separation anxiety with active teething, though. It seems to get worse when he's actually cutting a tooth, and he cut 4 teeth in the past month, including his two front teeth (which are rather large, and I assume painful to cut). Unfortunately none of his teeth cut at the same time, so it meant a lot of painful days for him.
Noah has also reached the lowest of valleys in napping habits. 3 naps a day, all less than 30 minutes. This is frustrating, and I haven't been very good about nap training. There are several reasons for this. One, I don't enjoy listening to him cry, and oh-boy does he cry when I nap train. Two, for the past couple of weeks (since I decided to nap train) I've had a very hard time figuring out his optimal awake time, which is key if I'm not "putting" him to sleep. He's seemed to need awake times of at least 3 hours, but I can't fit 3 hour awake times plus 3 half hour naps PLUS the time it takes for him to fall asleep on his own into our day (3 naps means he has 4 awake times). It seems to be a time of transition, so maybe my efforts will go better if I cut him down to 2 naps a day.
Furthermore, we both got sick again this month with the stomach flu. I was laid up for 4 days, and today, day 6, I'm still not feeling great. Being a nursing mom with the stomach flu really sucks.
There have also been good times this month. Like when I connected the separation anxiety/crankiness with teething and was able to give him Motrin to avoid him being miserable all day long. Like the seriously improved night time sleep that has given me my evenings and nights back - uninterrupted! I've also been sleeping pretty good for the most part. Very few nights do I lie awake for hours on end, although I do still wake up upwards of 6 times a night - and this is medicated sleep, people. That's how bad a sleeper I am. But not being rudely awakened by a crying baby 10 times a night is a joy that every mother should experience. And that being your NORMAL? It's fantastic.
There have also been GREAT times this past month. The hugs and kisses and cuddles from my wonderful son. The fun games of copy cat that make him smile sooo big. Chasing after his skinny little naked body as he bear crawls out of the bathroom before bathtime so he can go out and happily play with his toys and stand naked at his baby gate. Seeing him relax on Daddy's lap in the rocking chair by the front window, watching the snow. Him really being so happy and well behaved after the teething was over. Being complimented over and over on what a cute, cheerful kid he is. Listening to Christmas music, and singing Silent Night to Noah before he goes to sleep. Just enjoying this wonderful time of the year and being sooooooo thankful that our miracle baby is here to share it with us.
I just can't even put into words how incredibly in love I am with Noah. He is the perfect baby for us, the only baby for us. I honestly can't imagine how empty our lives would be if he wasn't here. And all the challenges and tiring days don't for a second make me wish anything was different. He completes my life. I had this big hole, and now it's overflowing because of this most perfect child.
I am so full of thankfulness and love, I feel like my heart could burst. I freakin' LOVE my kid, and I love my life, and I can't imagine things being any different. THANK YOU God, for blessing us with Noah.
(PS - did you know a post can only have at most 20 labels, and those labels can only have a maximum of 200 characters? I only know since I surpassed that and needed to delete some of my labels on this post. What is the purpose of that limit? Let people label as much as they want!!)
-On December 23 (9 months and 5 days) he weighed 19lbs 6oz (totally naked). This is about the 25th percentile.
-He's 30.5 inches tall, which is about 100th percentile
-His head circumference is 19 inches (48.3cm), which is 100th percentile.
-He wears size 3 diapers.
-He wears 12 and 18 month clothing by Carter's (my yardstick). The 12 month clothing is on the verge of being too small. Most of the 18 month clothing is a little too big. We're in the awkward in between stage, since he's 30.5 inches and that's the max height for 12 months and min height for 18 months.
-He has 7 teeth, but his 7th tooth has not grown very much since it popped through.
-He's a very good eater, according to everyone who watches him (they all make comments). He's accepting of so many foods, he opens his mouth well, hardly any food gets on his face... just a good eater.
-He points to everyone and everything with his tiny pointer finger. And he "shows" you things by holding them up in your direction. "See?? Look at my toy!!"
-His pincer grasp is getting better. He picks things up between his thumb and forefinger, it's just not necessarily the tip of his forefinger. He could still make improvement in this area. But he doesn't get a ton of chance to practice, and was only presented with the opportunity about a month ago, so I can't really blame him.
-He's still exclusively breastfed (no bottles or cups) except for a dinner of solids, and the occasional snack or taste of food during the day. Most days he doesn't need anything until dinner, though.
-He nurses usually every 2 hours during the day. More right now, since I've trying to build my milk supply back up after having the flu for 4 days.
-He is 100% swaddle free, and has been since a few days after he turned 8 months.
-He sleeps very well at night, usually about 11 hours total. He usually starts nursing to sleep at 7:15, although if he doesn't fall asleep I can put him in bed awake and he'll only cry for about 30 seconds before going to sleep. He sleeps 9 to 11 hours straight (usually around 10 hours), then nurses and goes back to sleep for a bit. If he wakes up before 4, I don't get him up to nurse, because I have found that he will STILL wake up sometime in the 4-5:30 range even if I nurse him at 3:45. He falls back asleep very well if he wakes up in the middle of the night. In the morning he has no consistent wake up time, but he usually does have a period of wakefulness in the 6-7am range, we don't turn on the lights or get him out of his crib until 7am, so if he wakes closer to 6 he often falls back asleep for a bit.
-Naps are still crap. A usual day has three 30 minute naps. We started a half-hearted attempt at nap training, but I'm not very consistent. It's bad, I know.
-I think he may need to go down to 2 naps a day, because I'm finding it harder and harder to get him to fall asleep before the 3 hour mark. The problem is that two half hour naps a day is not enough for any child.
-He still uses a soother every time I rock him to sleep, but if he goes to sleep on his own he spits it out (because of crying) and doesn't put it back in. So he only needs it if I'm rocking him.
-He had his fourth haircut today.
-He had his 4th illness this past week, a stomach bug, but was over it very quickly thanks to breastfeeding. No such luck for me.
-He's very capable, physically. He started full-time hands-and-knees crawling and pulling up 2 months ago, so you can imagine how good he is at it now. He's a great climber, too.
-He's getting better at cruising, but isn't amazing at it.
-He waves!
-He's back to social coughing again - A LOT. He was doing it way back at around 5 months, but my Dad got him back into it a few weeks ago when he copied him every time he coughed. He thinks it's hilarious.
-He's very talkative and babbles incessantly, but hasn't connected any words with any actual objects yet. As far as we can tell, the only word he truly understands is "Up."
-This month he started making an adorable scrunchy face. He does it often, when he's smiling, whining, whenever. It's so cute.
-When we click our tongues he copies us, and thinks it's the greatest.
-He never goes in his jumperoo or exersaucer. He prefers to play with the toys while standing next to it. Whatever!
-He loves to play peekabo in the mirror, and to watch you make faces at him in the mirror. This isn't new (he's loved the mirror for a long time), but he's just really really enjoying it this month.
-He still enjoys his jolly jumper, but we don't put him in it very often. He jumps way too high and hard, and the spring slams shut really hard and he continues to fly past the point where he should have stopped. It's not dangerous or anything, but sometimes he doesn't like the jolting he gets when that happens.
-He has separation and stranger anxiety, but it's not too bad at the moment. It seems like it's really bad when he's teething.
-Bathtime hasn't been tons of fun this month. Some days he hates the actual bath (for whatever reason), some days he's fine. But everyday is a huge struggle getting him undressed, giving him his vitamin D, getting him dried off, lotioning him (his skin has very dry spots, so he needs to lotion) desitin-ing his bum, diapering him, and getting him dressed again. He will flip over and bear crawl away so fast (he doesn't like the cold ceramic tile, so he bear crawls... lol). And he's so strong now, there's really nothing we can do about it. Justin pretty much has to pin down his upper body while I deal with the diaper. After that I can dress him as he's sitting and standing. But getting the diaper on is HARD.
~~~~~~~~~~
This past month has had ups and downs. Noah reached his peak of separation anxiety this month, and I had many days (some entire weeks) where he was literally glued to me. I couldn't even stand up without him freaking out. As a SAHM, this gets very tiring. I couldn't get anything done, my house was a mess, and I couldn't even go to the bathroom without bringing him with me. Since he hardly naps, the only time I wasn't concentrating on him was at night when he was sleeping. It got tough after several long days.
I may have connected increased separation anxiety with active teething, though. It seems to get worse when he's actually cutting a tooth, and he cut 4 teeth in the past month, including his two front teeth (which are rather large, and I assume painful to cut). Unfortunately none of his teeth cut at the same time, so it meant a lot of painful days for him.
Noah has also reached the lowest of valleys in napping habits. 3 naps a day, all less than 30 minutes. This is frustrating, and I haven't been very good about nap training. There are several reasons for this. One, I don't enjoy listening to him cry, and oh-boy does he cry when I nap train. Two, for the past couple of weeks (since I decided to nap train) I've had a very hard time figuring out his optimal awake time, which is key if I'm not "putting" him to sleep. He's seemed to need awake times of at least 3 hours, but I can't fit 3 hour awake times plus 3 half hour naps PLUS the time it takes for him to fall asleep on his own into our day (3 naps means he has 4 awake times). It seems to be a time of transition, so maybe my efforts will go better if I cut him down to 2 naps a day.
Furthermore, we both got sick again this month with the stomach flu. I was laid up for 4 days, and today, day 6, I'm still not feeling great. Being a nursing mom with the stomach flu really sucks.
There have also been good times this month. Like when I connected the separation anxiety/crankiness with teething and was able to give him Motrin to avoid him being miserable all day long. Like the seriously improved night time sleep that has given me my evenings and nights back - uninterrupted! I've also been sleeping pretty good for the most part. Very few nights do I lie awake for hours on end, although I do still wake up upwards of 6 times a night - and this is medicated sleep, people. That's how bad a sleeper I am. But not being rudely awakened by a crying baby 10 times a night is a joy that every mother should experience. And that being your NORMAL? It's fantastic.
There have also been GREAT times this past month. The hugs and kisses and cuddles from my wonderful son. The fun games of copy cat that make him smile sooo big. Chasing after his skinny little naked body as he bear crawls out of the bathroom before bathtime so he can go out and happily play with his toys and stand naked at his baby gate. Seeing him relax on Daddy's lap in the rocking chair by the front window, watching the snow. Him really being so happy and well behaved after the teething was over. Being complimented over and over on what a cute, cheerful kid he is. Listening to Christmas music, and singing Silent Night to Noah before he goes to sleep. Just enjoying this wonderful time of the year and being sooooooo thankful that our miracle baby is here to share it with us.
I just can't even put into words how incredibly in love I am with Noah. He is the perfect baby for us, the only baby for us. I honestly can't imagine how empty our lives would be if he wasn't here. And all the challenges and tiring days don't for a second make me wish anything was different. He completes my life. I had this big hole, and now it's overflowing because of this most perfect child.
I am so full of thankfulness and love, I feel like my heart could burst. I freakin' LOVE my kid, and I love my life, and I can't imagine things being any different. THANK YOU God, for blessing us with Noah.
(PS - did you know a post can only have at most 20 labels, and those labels can only have a maximum of 200 characters? I only know since I surpassed that and needed to delete some of my labels on this post. What is the purpose of that limit? Let people label as much as they want!!)
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
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.
-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.
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
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.
-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.
Friday, August 6, 2010
Oh. My. Gosh.
The worst thing happened this morning. While I was burping Noah he did an enormous poop that I just knew was going to go up his back. I immediately held his sleeper away from his body and looked down the back of it. Sure enough within seconds there's a whole bunch of poop seeping out the top of the diaper. I'm trying hold him steady with one arm, hold his sleeper away from his back with the other hand, and I'm trying to undo the snaps at the front of the sleeper with my teeth so I can take it off before any poop ends up on it.
He proceeds to puke all over himself and me, but I can't do anything about it because all my hands are busy. I start knocking my elbow against the wall and yelling for Justin (he's in the garage on the other side of the wall that I'm knocking my elbow against). Justin comes in and helps me take off his sleeper. No poop gets on it. Yay.
I cover Noah's lower back with toilet paper before I lay him down on the change pad so that poop won't get all over IT. I put some toilet paper over his poopy penis so that he won't pee all over everything. Usually I use a washcloth for this, but I didn't want to get poop on the washcloth.
I'm not really paying attention to anything but Noah's bum. It was a HUGE poop. Like, a 9 wipe kind of poop. Noah is being really good, making happy noises and chewing on something.
His bum is finally clean and I say "You're such a good boy, Noah!" and look up to his face...
HE'S CHEWING ON HIS PENIS TOILET PAPER. WHICH IS COVERED IN POOP.
I immediately dug all the toilet paper out of his mouth and nursed him right away. It was really the only thing I could do. I was laughing my head off, but feeling like the worst mother! My kid was chewing on poop!
He proceeds to puke all over himself and me, but I can't do anything about it because all my hands are busy. I start knocking my elbow against the wall and yelling for Justin (he's in the garage on the other side of the wall that I'm knocking my elbow against). Justin comes in and helps me take off his sleeper. No poop gets on it. Yay.
I cover Noah's lower back with toilet paper before I lay him down on the change pad so that poop won't get all over IT. I put some toilet paper over his poopy penis so that he won't pee all over everything. Usually I use a washcloth for this, but I didn't want to get poop on the washcloth.
I'm not really paying attention to anything but Noah's bum. It was a HUGE poop. Like, a 9 wipe kind of poop. Noah is being really good, making happy noises and chewing on something.
His bum is finally clean and I say "You're such a good boy, Noah!" and look up to his face...
HE'S CHEWING ON HIS PENIS TOILET PAPER. WHICH IS COVERED IN POOP.
I immediately dug all the toilet paper out of his mouth and nursed him right away. It was really the only thing I could do. I was laughing my head off, but feeling like the worst mother! My kid was chewing on poop!
Saturday, July 24, 2010
4 Month Changes
Noah is 4 months and 1 week
I can't believe the changes Noah makes every week. I've realized that I'm not blogging about them enough, and I need to start doing that again because I love going back to my old posts and remembering how things used to be. I can't even believe things used to be so different.
-Noah is doing such a good job in his exersaucer. He actually grabs at the toys on it now, and will try and move the monkeys around on their arch. His favourite toys seem to be the lizard that plays music and has lights and those monkeys. He loves those little monkeys for some reason. The only issue with the exersaucer is that he can't put any of the toys in his mouth. He tries though! He'll lean forward really far and try to mouth on the lizard. It's funny. It's also funny how his legs shoot out backward and it looks like he's in a take off position and is about to rocket out of the exersaucer. We have it on the second highest height aleady. I hope he doesn't grow out of it too quickly!
-A couple of weeks ago we got Noah a Baby Einstein Around the World playmat. He loves it. For awhile he only grabbed Tina the Tiger (a vibrating toy... he loves vibrating toys), but he's started to grab at other toys on the arches now too. He smiles and laughs up at the lights and songs on the globe, and kicks his feet in a fit of joy. It's HIlarious.
-Today I was shaking a bottle of iron supplements at him and he was concentrating so hard on trying to grab it. Over and over again he grabbed that bottle and then would lose his grip and it would fall. I was also moving it all around watching him track it. It was so cute! (Just for the record, obviously I would never leave my child alone with a bottle of iron supplements. It was just a useful toy at the time!)
-Yesterday Noah rolled over twice in a row again. He still rarely does that, so it's worth mentioning! I think maybe part of the lack of rolling is that most of his tummy time occurs on our bed. Maybe it's too squishy for him to roll easily?
-Lately Noah almost never pees or poops during a diaper change. He hasn't done either for at least a month. Yesterday he was on his playmat having a good time, so I decided to just go get a diaper, wipe, and washcloths (penis cover) and change his bum right there. Of course he pees. On the playmat. After not peeing during a diaper change for FOREVER.
-Everytime Noah gets in the tub for his bath, he pees. I think it's the temperature change. It makes me laugh everytime.
-I mentioned before that Noah seems to be going through a phase where he doesn't really like his bath. He ADORED it for a long time, and even if he was upset, going in the bath made him happy. For the past week or so he seems less than thrilled with it. I'm trying to wash his hair and face last instead of first (using a fresh washcloth) because those seem to be his triggers. We also try using his Fishe Price singing puppy which he LOVES) or a soother to distract him. Last night the soother worked like a charm, but you can only use it when he's OUT of the bath because he'll spit it into the water. We'll see what works tonight.
I can't believe the changes Noah makes every week. I've realized that I'm not blogging about them enough, and I need to start doing that again because I love going back to my old posts and remembering how things used to be. I can't even believe things used to be so different.
-Noah is doing such a good job in his exersaucer. He actually grabs at the toys on it now, and will try and move the monkeys around on their arch. His favourite toys seem to be the lizard that plays music and has lights and those monkeys. He loves those little monkeys for some reason. The only issue with the exersaucer is that he can't put any of the toys in his mouth. He tries though! He'll lean forward really far and try to mouth on the lizard. It's funny. It's also funny how his legs shoot out backward and it looks like he's in a take off position and is about to rocket out of the exersaucer. We have it on the second highest height aleady. I hope he doesn't grow out of it too quickly!
-A couple of weeks ago we got Noah a Baby Einstein Around the World playmat. He loves it. For awhile he only grabbed Tina the Tiger (a vibrating toy... he loves vibrating toys), but he's started to grab at other toys on the arches now too. He smiles and laughs up at the lights and songs on the globe, and kicks his feet in a fit of joy. It's HIlarious.
-Today I was shaking a bottle of iron supplements at him and he was concentrating so hard on trying to grab it. Over and over again he grabbed that bottle and then would lose his grip and it would fall. I was also moving it all around watching him track it. It was so cute! (Just for the record, obviously I would never leave my child alone with a bottle of iron supplements. It was just a useful toy at the time!)
-Yesterday Noah rolled over twice in a row again. He still rarely does that, so it's worth mentioning! I think maybe part of the lack of rolling is that most of his tummy time occurs on our bed. Maybe it's too squishy for him to roll easily?
-Lately Noah almost never pees or poops during a diaper change. He hasn't done either for at least a month. Yesterday he was on his playmat having a good time, so I decided to just go get a diaper, wipe, and washcloths (penis cover) and change his bum right there. Of course he pees. On the playmat. After not peeing during a diaper change for FOREVER.
-Everytime Noah gets in the tub for his bath, he pees. I think it's the temperature change. It makes me laugh everytime.
-I mentioned before that Noah seems to be going through a phase where he doesn't really like his bath. He ADORED it for a long time, and even if he was upset, going in the bath made him happy. For the past week or so he seems less than thrilled with it. I'm trying to wash his hair and face last instead of first (using a fresh washcloth) because those seem to be his triggers. We also try using his Fishe Price singing puppy which he LOVES) or a soother to distract him. Last night the soother worked like a charm, but you can only use it when he's OUT of the bath because he'll spit it into the water. We'll see what works tonight.
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Quick Thoughts From Day 6
Noah is 6 days old (sadness... I miss when he was 12 hours old!) and I wanted to post some quick updates and thoughts:
-My full milk supply came in within 48 hours after birth, and I spent Days 2-3 soooo engorged I finally broke down and pumped. The night beforehand the pain was soooo horrible. My breasts were literally like two 10 lbs bowling balls pulling on my skin. It hurt to move my arms, and it felt like I had rocks in my armpits. Meanwhile, Noah wouldn't eat as often because he was too full from the actual milk, so he wasn't hungry.
-Noah has the cutest "suspicious" expression where he wrinkles his brow and looks at us like "You've got to be kidding me." This expression was particularly hilarious when my milk came in and my boobs got HUGE, because he looked from my boob to my face, to my boob, to my face, as if to say "Um, that is not what I've been eating from for the past 2 days! You want me to get that in my mouth???"
-Noah loves to be swaddled, and we use our swaddlers constantly. He is so cute when he comes out of them when he's sleepy, because his arms and legs stay straight as boards:)
-Our first diaper change at home we were tag teaming it. As soon as I took the penis-protection off to get the new diaper on, a huge stream of pee shot up in the air, all over the change table, my hands, his adorable going home outfit... even the wall and the blinds! What a powerful little guy!
-8-10 diapers a day? Try 15-20! We went through 70 diapers in 4 days. 75% of the time he poops and/or pees in the middle of a change, often right onto a fresh diaper. Or onto the top of the old diaper (not so easy to clean).
-Noah poops at least 10 times a day. I don't think we have any risk of jaundice!
-I love his little squeaks and moans.
-I love how his sweet milk breath smells exactly like apples:)
-I love how when I burp him on my shoulder, he leans his head back with a round, open mouth, and he stares into my face. He often falls asleep like that, and it's so sweet.
-I love how I lost 25 lbs in 5 days. It's interesting, since I only gained 16 lbs with my pregnancy. My belly is almost completely flat too, and my stomach muscles are started to work again. When I suck in, my belly actually sucks in too! I highly recommend the belly bandit. Justin was saying to me how I just look like this skinny girl with really huge boobs. Not how I thought I'd look 6 days after delivery!
-My full milk supply came in within 48 hours after birth, and I spent Days 2-3 soooo engorged I finally broke down and pumped. The night beforehand the pain was soooo horrible. My breasts were literally like two 10 lbs bowling balls pulling on my skin. It hurt to move my arms, and it felt like I had rocks in my armpits. Meanwhile, Noah wouldn't eat as often because he was too full from the actual milk, so he wasn't hungry.
-Noah has the cutest "suspicious" expression where he wrinkles his brow and looks at us like "You've got to be kidding me." This expression was particularly hilarious when my milk came in and my boobs got HUGE, because he looked from my boob to my face, to my boob, to my face, as if to say "Um, that is not what I've been eating from for the past 2 days! You want me to get that in my mouth???"
-Noah loves to be swaddled, and we use our swaddlers constantly. He is so cute when he comes out of them when he's sleepy, because his arms and legs stay straight as boards:)
-Our first diaper change at home we were tag teaming it. As soon as I took the penis-protection off to get the new diaper on, a huge stream of pee shot up in the air, all over the change table, my hands, his adorable going home outfit... even the wall and the blinds! What a powerful little guy!
-8-10 diapers a day? Try 15-20! We went through 70 diapers in 4 days. 75% of the time he poops and/or pees in the middle of a change, often right onto a fresh diaper. Or onto the top of the old diaper (not so easy to clean).
-Noah poops at least 10 times a day. I don't think we have any risk of jaundice!
-I love his little squeaks and moans.
-I love how his sweet milk breath smells exactly like apples:)
-I love how when I burp him on my shoulder, he leans his head back with a round, open mouth, and he stares into my face. He often falls asleep like that, and it's so sweet.
-I love how I lost 25 lbs in 5 days. It's interesting, since I only gained 16 lbs with my pregnancy. My belly is almost completely flat too, and my stomach muscles are started to work again. When I suck in, my belly actually sucks in too! I highly recommend the belly bandit. Justin was saying to me how I just look like this skinny girl with really huge boobs. Not how I thought I'd look 6 days after delivery!
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