I can't even believe my baby is 8 months old. He's been outside of me for as long as I knew he was inside of me (I found out I was pregnant on July 19th and he was born on March 18th - his EDD was March 29). Where oh where has the time gone??
Here's what Noah is up to at 8 months old:
-He weighs 18lbs 12oz (less than 50th percentile)
-He is 29.5 inches (about 95th percentile)
-He is 10th percentile for weight for height... just a little stringbean.
-He wears 12 month and 18 month clothing.
-He wears size 3 diapers (most Pampers BabyDry).
-He has 4 teeth, three from when he was 5 months old and one he just got in the past week. I think he may be working on his top-right-middle tooth, too. We'll see!
-He is still exclusively breastfed (except for solids at dinner; he still has never had a bottle), and he is getting to be a very cuddly nurser again.
-He eats about 4oz of solids before bedtime, but during the rest of the day it's just breastfeeding. He has finally ingested a small amount of liquid (1/3 pear juice, 2/3 water) from a "sippy cup" (a silicone spout sort of thing, not a true sippy cup). He's usually not that into it, though.
-Most solids still constipate him. So far the only safe foods are pears, prunes, peaches, and butternut squash. Peas, carrots, rice cereal, bananas, apples, apples and apricots, sweet potato, and sweet potato and turkey all constipate him. It's very frustrating, because it takes forever to unplug him again, and it makes it very difficult to introduce new foods. I think the fact that we keep having to switch back to strictly pears and prunes is starting to make him a bit pickier. He was at a point where he loved everything we offered him, but I don't know anymore.
-We just started Oat cereal in hopes that it won't constipate him.
-He's going to sleep at night usually between 7 and 7:30.
-He sleeps amazingly well at night after a very short bout with CIO. He pretty much sleeps 10 to 11 hours straight (with an outside range of 9.5 to 11.5), nurses, and then usually goes back to bed, depending on how long that stretch was (if it was 11.5 hours, he usually won't fall asleep again). He is usually awake when I put him back in his crib, but that seems to be the only time during the day and night that I can lay him down in his crib, walk away, and he'll often drift off to sleep, even if it's 45 minutes later.
-Bedtime routine is boob, solids, bath, boob, bed. He falls asleep nursing nearly every night.
-He has 2 or 3 naps a day.
-His normal awake time is about 2.5 hours. Sometimes as short as an hour and 15 minutes, and often he has a stretch of 3 hours or more in the evening.
-His naps are still crappy most of the time. In an entire week he maybe has 2 or 3 naps that are about an hour long. The rest are all 30-40 minutes.
-He's still rocked to sleep with a soother for all his naps. I've tried letting him CIO for naps, but the crying is usually much worse than it was at nighttime when we used CIO, so I don't feel he's ready to go to sleep independently for all his naps.
-He is still swaddled at nighttime, but we recently have stopped swaddling for naps. I think it's going okay.
-He sleeps on his tummy even when he's swaddled. I thought this was just the worst thing until I remembered that when I used to sleep on my tummy (before being pregnant and nursing... I haven't slept on my tummy in a very very long time) I would always sleep with my arms straight down at my sides. So it's not like it's uncomfortable.
-Everytime we go to get him out of his crib he's standing up waiting for us. It's one of those things I always dreamed of about being a mom:)
-He crawls on his hands and knees exclusively. He started doing this right at 7 months, and had ditched army crawling completely by 7.5 months. The only time he'll army crawl is if he's trying to get under something that's too low to crawl under.
-He pulls up to standing using everything (even just a flat wall) and can sit down again on his own. His crib is on the 2nd lowest setting. He no longer needs someone to sit behind him when he's standing in case he falls, because he pretty much never falls. He doesn't even lean on the things that are supporting him. He just needs a hand on something to steady himself.
-He can just sit there in a squatting position, not holding on to anything.
-He can stand on his own - without holding on to anything - for a few seconds at a time. His record is about 5 seconds. This is by no means something he has mastered, though.
-He is understanding object permanence and looks for dropped objects.
-He has seperation anxiety and stranger anxiety. Fun fun!:)
-If he wants to be picked up and you are across the room, he will whine and crawl over to you and use your legs to stand up until you pick him up.
-He gives me lots of kisses everyday. He's started to "talk" while he does it, I think because when I kiss him I often am going "Muah, muah muah, muah." He's started to open his mouth, plant it on me, and go "Ahhhhhh." He doesn't kiss anybody else, usually, but yesterday he gave his friend Aubrey (3 weeks older) a kiss on the cheek, "Ahhh" and everything..
-He likes to sit in the bumbo on the kitchen counter while I cook.
-He babbles lots and sometimes purposefully imitates the sounds we make ("bat"). His most common sound is "Dada."
-He laughs his head off when Justin turns the ring stacker upside down, spins it like a top, and says "BING!"
-He doesn't get his soother much during the day, so he's falling out of love with it. When he does get it during the day, he plays with it more than he sucks on it.
-He still does the head-tilt thing, but it's becoming less frequent than it was a month ago.
-He loves our cats, but they do not love him. It makes me not love them.
There it is! Happy 8 months, my sweet little Noah! The past 8 months have been the best and happiest 8 months of my life.
Showing posts with label Constipation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Constipation. Show all posts
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Gluten Wars
Today my dear husband and I fought. Over what I consider to be the most ridiculous thing.
Back story. As we all know, Noah gets constipated from nearly everything. As a result, he has been off rice cereal (since it has a reputation for constipation) for over a month. He hasn't had any other type of cereal because his father is incredibly stubborn. He wishes we all ate a paleo diet (meats, vegetables, fruit, nuts, seeds, AND THAT'S IT). He hates grains, and he especially detests gluten. He saw rice cereal as a compromise, since he didn't even want Noah to eat that. But he wouldn't let me feed him the "Add Water" kind because of the extra milk ingredients in it. I had to get the "Add Breastmilk or Formula" kind. (I'm not sure what all the cereals are like in the U.S. because my friend goes across the border to buy hers - way cheaper - and the ingredients are different even though it's by the same company. But here in Canada those two kinds of cereal have vastly different ingredients).
Well, perhaps it was a compromise, but it was an unsuccessful one, since Noah couldn't tolerate it.
I have gone along with this gluten-free thing for awhile, but Noah has not been getting the additional iron he needs because he is exclusively breastfed (no formula) besides the dinner of fruit and vegetables he gets at night. The iron in breastmilk is the best absorbed iron you can get from ANY source - including meat. About 50% of the iron in breastmilk is absorbed and utilized by the baby, as compared to 4% of the iron in formula.
That's great. But once the baby starts eating solids, the iron is breastmilk is no longer as well absorbed because it starts to bind to the molecules in the solid food. So while I'm not totally on board with the whole BABY NEEDS MORE IRON AT 6 MONTHS thing, I do agree that sometime in the second half of the first year baby should start to receive more iron supplementation.
Noah is 8 months old. So I do some more research on the benefits of continuing to keep him gluten-free for awhile longer. I see none. There ARE benefits to being totally gluten-free, but I have no intention of keeping Noah gluten-free his entire life (if it were totally up to my husband, he would be, but it's not). So I may as well introduce it now in a controlled setting.
So yesterday I decided - and informed Justin - that I was going to start Noah on Oat cereal. It's not as high in gluten as wheat, but it will provide extra iron and possibly not make Noah constipated like the rice cereal. Justin disagrees with the idea. I tell him I don't care. He says "I really don't have any say in this, do I?" I say "No."
End of story?
Not quite.
Today I go out and buy the Oat cereal (and the only option is the "Add Water" variety). And some Sweet Potato Whole Wheat Puffs. And some vegetable Mum Mums.
Justin looks in the grocery bags and discovers these purchases.
He pretty much acts like he wants to divorce me.
He fails to notice (or care, once it's pointed out to him) that I purposefully did not buy anything with any SOY ingredients whatsoever, since soy is like majorly unhealthy (it's not even allowed to be sold as a type of baby formula in Australia), and basically like giving my baby boy an estrogen supplement.
My husband is usually very happy and friendly and smiley. But he stopped talking to me for awhile tonight.
And just to rub it in (not intentionally) he had to FEED Noah that dreaded gluten-containing, milk-ingredients-containing Oat cereal.
Honestly, this "fight" was going to have to happen at some point, whether it's at 8 months or 12 months. No matter when I introduced gluten, it was going to cause a commotion in our house.
Hopefully it's worth it and Noah doesn't get constipated.
Back story. As we all know, Noah gets constipated from nearly everything. As a result, he has been off rice cereal (since it has a reputation for constipation) for over a month. He hasn't had any other type of cereal because his father is incredibly stubborn. He wishes we all ate a paleo diet (meats, vegetables, fruit, nuts, seeds, AND THAT'S IT). He hates grains, and he especially detests gluten. He saw rice cereal as a compromise, since he didn't even want Noah to eat that. But he wouldn't let me feed him the "Add Water" kind because of the extra milk ingredients in it. I had to get the "Add Breastmilk or Formula" kind. (I'm not sure what all the cereals are like in the U.S. because my friend goes across the border to buy hers - way cheaper - and the ingredients are different even though it's by the same company. But here in Canada those two kinds of cereal have vastly different ingredients).
Well, perhaps it was a compromise, but it was an unsuccessful one, since Noah couldn't tolerate it.
I have gone along with this gluten-free thing for awhile, but Noah has not been getting the additional iron he needs because he is exclusively breastfed (no formula) besides the dinner of fruit and vegetables he gets at night. The iron in breastmilk is the best absorbed iron you can get from ANY source - including meat. About 50% of the iron in breastmilk is absorbed and utilized by the baby, as compared to 4% of the iron in formula.
That's great. But once the baby starts eating solids, the iron is breastmilk is no longer as well absorbed because it starts to bind to the molecules in the solid food. So while I'm not totally on board with the whole BABY NEEDS MORE IRON AT 6 MONTHS thing, I do agree that sometime in the second half of the first year baby should start to receive more iron supplementation.
Noah is 8 months old. So I do some more research on the benefits of continuing to keep him gluten-free for awhile longer. I see none. There ARE benefits to being totally gluten-free, but I have no intention of keeping Noah gluten-free his entire life (if it were totally up to my husband, he would be, but it's not). So I may as well introduce it now in a controlled setting.
So yesterday I decided - and informed Justin - that I was going to start Noah on Oat cereal. It's not as high in gluten as wheat, but it will provide extra iron and possibly not make Noah constipated like the rice cereal. Justin disagrees with the idea. I tell him I don't care. He says "I really don't have any say in this, do I?" I say "No."
End of story?
Not quite.
Today I go out and buy the Oat cereal (and the only option is the "Add Water" variety). And some Sweet Potato Whole Wheat Puffs. And some vegetable Mum Mums.
Justin looks in the grocery bags and discovers these purchases.
He pretty much acts like he wants to divorce me.
He fails to notice (or care, once it's pointed out to him) that I purposefully did not buy anything with any SOY ingredients whatsoever, since soy is like majorly unhealthy (it's not even allowed to be sold as a type of baby formula in Australia), and basically like giving my baby boy an estrogen supplement.
My husband is usually very happy and friendly and smiley. But he stopped talking to me for awhile tonight.
And just to rub it in (not intentionally) he had to FEED Noah that dreaded gluten-containing, milk-ingredients-containing Oat cereal.
Honestly, this "fight" was going to have to happen at some point, whether it's at 8 months or 12 months. No matter when I introduced gluten, it was going to cause a commotion in our house.
Hopefully it's worth it and Noah doesn't get constipated.
Sunday, October 31, 2010
Odds and Ends
-After my last post on Thursday Noah had a big poop on Friday AND on Saturday morning. Soft ones. Wonderful:) Nothing since then, so we'll see how the butternut squash we introduced on Saturday agrees with his digestive system.
-We ignore halloween in this house, so I have nothing there for you.
-We ignore halloween in this house, so I have nothing there for you.
-I went to our new nephew Josiah's baptism today. He was born October 5 and I just met him today on October 31. He is still ssoooo newborn-ish (I almost think he's more newbornish than Noah was at 1 day old, even though Noah was 11 days early and Josiah was 7 days late), so I don't feel like I missed out on that stage. I am in love with him:
-In the 5 hours we spent travelling in the car today Noah only slept for 15 minutes and that was ONLY because I did something very illegal... shhhh. Then I had to hold him for over an hour while he napped after the church service. It was 11:30 and he's been up since 6:30 with only 15 minutes of napping. It was loud as HECK and Noah kept waking up and I would have to bounce him back to sleep. We had set up the pack 'n play to put him in but I was never able to put him down because he kept waking up.
-What is with other parents having no consideration for you trying to get your child to sleep? I was in the supposedly empty church nursery trying to keep Noah asleep while parents were letting their children run up and down the hall right outside screaming their heads off. Even after Justin told them I was trying to get Noah to sleep, one guy's reply was "That sucks!" and he kept encouraging the kids to run and scream right outside the door. He has a child younger than 1 1/2 and his wife is 6 months pregnant... I would love to retaliate some day, but I understand the importance of SLEEP for a baby. Plus women kept bringing their toddlers into the nursery to change their diapers while I was trying to let Noah sleep. There were a million places they could have gone to change their kids' diapers, why do it in the nursery where there's a sleeping 7 month old to wake up?? I was so pissed off.
-I would love to post pictures, but it's too late at night. I'm so bad about posting pictures on my blog!
Thursday, October 28, 2010
ARRRRRG
Noah is STILL CONSTIPATED. It's Thursday. I last discovered he was constipated on Sunday. And he's still plugged up.
This is really cramping my style. It's making him miserable. Which is making ME miserable. Last night he went to bed at 8 (we've been slowly moving his bedtime later to move his wake up time later in anticipation of the time change) and he was up at 9:30, 11:30, 3:45, and 6am. He needed rocking and cuddles at 9:30 and 11:30, I fed him at 3:45, and then 6am was complicated. He fell asleep with the rocking and cuddles, but not until I'd been doing it for 25 minutes. Then he woke up about a minute after I put him down. I had just crawled into bed and gotten so cozy and he started crying again.
Yes, I swore. Out loud. To myself. And dragged myself out of my cozy bed out into my cold house to get my crying child.
So I nursed him to sleep again and he was sleeping by about 6:55. He slept until 8 or 8:15 after that. I can't remember. But of course I didn't go back to sleep.
So I slept from about 10:15 to 11:30, 12:15 to 3:45, and 5:30-6:00. 5 hours. I guess that's not bad, but considering the sleep debt I've been building up for the past 7 months and how exhausted I am and how cranky Noah is getting, it's not enough.
And Noah seems to have forgotten that he's 7 months old and he's back to only taking 30-35 minute naps again. Three a day. Boo.
This is really cramping my style. It's making him miserable. Which is making ME miserable. Last night he went to bed at 8 (we've been slowly moving his bedtime later to move his wake up time later in anticipation of the time change) and he was up at 9:30, 11:30, 3:45, and 6am. He needed rocking and cuddles at 9:30 and 11:30, I fed him at 3:45, and then 6am was complicated. He fell asleep with the rocking and cuddles, but not until I'd been doing it for 25 minutes. Then he woke up about a minute after I put him down. I had just crawled into bed and gotten so cozy and he started crying again.
Yes, I swore. Out loud. To myself. And dragged myself out of my cozy bed out into my cold house to get my crying child.
So I nursed him to sleep again and he was sleeping by about 6:55. He slept until 8 or 8:15 after that. I can't remember. But of course I didn't go back to sleep.
So I slept from about 10:15 to 11:30, 12:15 to 3:45, and 5:30-6:00. 5 hours. I guess that's not bad, but considering the sleep debt I've been building up for the past 7 months and how exhausted I am and how cranky Noah is getting, it's not enough.
And Noah seems to have forgotten that he's 7 months old and he's back to only taking 30-35 minute naps again. Three a day. Boo.
Monday, October 25, 2010
Midwifery Skills
Today I play the role of midwife to my 7 month old son. Again. Three times in the past 24 hours I have held his legs back and coached him through his poops as he cries in agony. The last one was more than just a little nugget (although it was still totally dry), so hopefully that which plugs him up is on it's way out.
Poor little thing.
Poor little thing.
Sunday, October 24, 2010
Constipated AGAIN
(7 months 1 week)
Noah is constpated again. Again.
I was thinking this was happening because his last poop was Wednesday and now it's Sunday and he didn't poop in this whole time, even though he's been eating about 3 ounces of baby food every evening in addition to all his breastfeeding. That is a lot of food to consume without pooping.
Finally, this morning (Sunday morning) he started crying and crying while he was playing and I could just tell it was his "I'm constipated!" cry. I laid him on his back and held his knees up to his chest (I feel like a widwife) while he cried and cried and tried to push his poop out.
All he got out was a small, hard, dry, nugget. It didn't leave any residue on his bum or on his diaper. It was that dry.
All he's had to eat since his last regular poop was sweet potato & turkey (probably hardly any turkey in it), pears, and prunes. When he had his last regular poop he had been eating pears and prunes, so he probably got constipated from the sweet potato, which is SUPPOSEDLY easy to digest. Like rice cereal is supposedly easy to digest. Whatever.
I never thought introducing solids would be so hard on Noah's system. I thought it would be challenging because he wouldn't like them (and it took him a couple of weeks for that) but I didn't figure he'd get all constipated. I'm not really sure what I should do. I think I'm just going to go back to only giving him some pears, prunes, or peaches in the evening. Pooping foods.
In the meantime we'll have some challenges trying to get him to clear his system, which will probably take several days again. Yipee.
Noah is constpated again. Again.
I was thinking this was happening because his last poop was Wednesday and now it's Sunday and he didn't poop in this whole time, even though he's been eating about 3 ounces of baby food every evening in addition to all his breastfeeding. That is a lot of food to consume without pooping.
Finally, this morning (Sunday morning) he started crying and crying while he was playing and I could just tell it was his "I'm constipated!" cry. I laid him on his back and held his knees up to his chest (I feel like a widwife) while he cried and cried and tried to push his poop out.
All he got out was a small, hard, dry, nugget. It didn't leave any residue on his bum or on his diaper. It was that dry.
All he's had to eat since his last regular poop was sweet potato & turkey (probably hardly any turkey in it), pears, and prunes. When he had his last regular poop he had been eating pears and prunes, so he probably got constipated from the sweet potato, which is SUPPOSEDLY easy to digest. Like rice cereal is supposedly easy to digest. Whatever.
I never thought introducing solids would be so hard on Noah's system. I thought it would be challenging because he wouldn't like them (and it took him a couple of weeks for that) but I didn't figure he'd get all constipated. I'm not really sure what I should do. I think I'm just going to go back to only giving him some pears, prunes, or peaches in the evening. Pooping foods.
In the meantime we'll have some challenges trying to get him to clear his system, which will probably take several days again. Yipee.
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.
We Have Poop!!
A regular poop has made it's appearance in Noah's diaper!!!
I was starting to get seriously worried about this constipation thing. Both yesterday and today Noah cried his little head off passing a hard, dry little nugget of poop. He hasn't had anything but pears and prunes for over a week and a half, so I was getting concerned that he might never unblock himself and I might have to give him an enema or something.
Then this evening he was sitting and playing and he started to fuss. Not crying, just whining, like he usually does when he poops. When he shifted I heard a suspicious sound and LOW AND BEHOLD he had a big runny mess in his diaper. I just about cried tears of joy. It was RUNNY!!!
It took awhile, but we have solved our poop problems. For now. We'll stay away from the rice cereal for awhile. Easier for me, anyway. Justin doesn't want me to feed him the "Add Water" stuff, so I was having to pump everyday and it was a serious pain in my rear.
Tonight, in celebration, Noah ate Sweet Potatoes and Turkey, and some Pears and Prunes (both were mixtures). He has had sweet potato before, but not turkey, so I thought we'd change it up. He LOVED it! Maybe he was just hungrier than normal, but he was lapping that stuff up like there was no tomorrow. No fiddling around, no being silly, just open mouth, swallow, open mouth, swallow. He ate almost half the jar and then two tablespoons of prunes and pears.
I decided to give the Sweet Potatoes and Turkey a try, since he was eating them so well. Oh. Em. Gee. It tasted like PUKE! I honestly almost gagged. I don't even understand how it could taste so bad seeing as it's sweet potatoes, water, and turkey. All good things, how bad could it be? Really bad. I don't understand how he enjoyed it so much. It made the prunes and pears (a mixture I don't particularly enjoy) taste like ice cream.
Blech.
I was starting to get seriously worried about this constipation thing. Both yesterday and today Noah cried his little head off passing a hard, dry little nugget of poop. He hasn't had anything but pears and prunes for over a week and a half, so I was getting concerned that he might never unblock himself and I might have to give him an enema or something.
Then this evening he was sitting and playing and he started to fuss. Not crying, just whining, like he usually does when he poops. When he shifted I heard a suspicious sound and LOW AND BEHOLD he had a big runny mess in his diaper. I just about cried tears of joy. It was RUNNY!!!
It took awhile, but we have solved our poop problems. For now. We'll stay away from the rice cereal for awhile. Easier for me, anyway. Justin doesn't want me to feed him the "Add Water" stuff, so I was having to pump everyday and it was a serious pain in my rear.
Tonight, in celebration, Noah ate Sweet Potatoes and Turkey, and some Pears and Prunes (both were mixtures). He has had sweet potato before, but not turkey, so I thought we'd change it up. He LOVED it! Maybe he was just hungrier than normal, but he was lapping that stuff up like there was no tomorrow. No fiddling around, no being silly, just open mouth, swallow, open mouth, swallow. He ate almost half the jar and then two tablespoons of prunes and pears.
I decided to give the Sweet Potatoes and Turkey a try, since he was eating them so well. Oh. Em. Gee. It tasted like PUKE! I honestly almost gagged. I don't even understand how it could taste so bad seeing as it's sweet potatoes, water, and turkey. All good things, how bad could it be? Really bad. I don't understand how he enjoyed it so much. It made the prunes and pears (a mixture I don't particularly enjoy) taste like ice cream.
Blech.
Sunday, October 17, 2010
Worst Night EVER
Last night was Noah's worst night ever. In his entire 7 months of being alive he has not had such a terrible night. Not even when he was a newborn, or when he was really sick with a cold and woke up choking all the time.
I had to rock or nurse Noah back to sleep no fewer than 15 times. He only slept longer than an hour at a time ONCE the entire night. Every single time he woke up he was in a full blown panic, screaming his face off. It was ridiculous!
He went to bed at 7 and normally doesn't get any more than 11 hours a night, but he slept until 8:15 this morning (after me putting him back to sleep for the billionth time) because he missed out on so much sleep last night. The fact that I was able to get him back to sleep at 7:30AM really tells me a lot!
I'm not even sure what's causing these terrible nights, anymore. Everything and anything is coming to my mind. Is it the constipation? Is it separation anxiety? Is he starting to despise being swaddled? Is the nightlight in his room too bright? Is he hot? Is he cold? Is it a growth spurt? Is he teething?
The reason I think it might be separation anxiety is because of how he'll totally lose his mind. If he's lying in his crib semi-awake and I'm right there stroking his face and kissing him, he could be completely calm and if I walk away to let him fall asleep on his own, (something he used to be okay doing after a feeding in the middle of the night if he was still awake) he immediately panics.
The reason I think it might be something else is because sometimes when I'm holding him he is STILL crying. It must be a combination. I really don't know what to do though, because none of us are getting any sleep (except Justin; he can sleep through anything) and that's really not good for any of us. Especially Noah. I'm afraid of him getting so overtired he just cannot sleep. Which is another option in my list of things I think might be wrong.
I don't think it was the constipation last night (although the horrible night the night before was from constipation, I believe). Noah had the happiest, most cheerful day he's had in awhile, with no crying or straining. No pooping either, but that's normal for him. So if it was the constipation pain waking him up last night and he never did end up pooping, he should still be struggling with it, and he's not.
I don't think it's teething because he's not fussy during the day.
I don't think it's a growth spurt because he's 7 months old... I don't think there's a 7 month growth spurt. Plus he doesn't always want to eat when he wakes up. He'll comfort nurse sometimes, but more often than not I have to actually rock him back to sleep.
It actually might be a milestone thing. He's right on the verge of really crawling, not just army crawling (hands and knees are moving forward in sync, just not consistently), and he's figuring out how to get into a sitting position from a lying down position. He's done this several times in the past few days. The thing is, he's swaddled at night. So is that why he wakes up screaming? Because he wants to practice his moves and is bound up tight like a mummy??
All I know is that this can't continue. It's worse now than when he was a newborn. He was NEVER like this as a newborn. Sure, he got up every hour or two all night long, but he just ate and went back to sleep. I could handle this much better if he would do that now.
The problem is I absolutely refuse to let Noah cry it out. I think even a supporter of CIO would realize that my child cannot do that if they were here. He doesn't just cry, he gets hysterical. And since he's starting OUT hysterical with these night wakings, I can't let him keep going like that.
I'm not counting on a good night tonight, but I sure could use one! Even if he would just get up every two hours I would appreciate it over this 40 minute business. I'm really trying to not get anxious about it though. What happens happens, and we'll deal with it as it comes.
I had to rock or nurse Noah back to sleep no fewer than 15 times. He only slept longer than an hour at a time ONCE the entire night. Every single time he woke up he was in a full blown panic, screaming his face off. It was ridiculous!
He went to bed at 7 and normally doesn't get any more than 11 hours a night, but he slept until 8:15 this morning (after me putting him back to sleep for the billionth time) because he missed out on so much sleep last night. The fact that I was able to get him back to sleep at 7:30AM really tells me a lot!
I'm not even sure what's causing these terrible nights, anymore. Everything and anything is coming to my mind. Is it the constipation? Is it separation anxiety? Is he starting to despise being swaddled? Is the nightlight in his room too bright? Is he hot? Is he cold? Is it a growth spurt? Is he teething?
The reason I think it might be separation anxiety is because of how he'll totally lose his mind. If he's lying in his crib semi-awake and I'm right there stroking his face and kissing him, he could be completely calm and if I walk away to let him fall asleep on his own, (something he used to be okay doing after a feeding in the middle of the night if he was still awake) he immediately panics.
The reason I think it might be something else is because sometimes when I'm holding him he is STILL crying. It must be a combination. I really don't know what to do though, because none of us are getting any sleep (except Justin; he can sleep through anything) and that's really not good for any of us. Especially Noah. I'm afraid of him getting so overtired he just cannot sleep. Which is another option in my list of things I think might be wrong.
I don't think it was the constipation last night (although the horrible night the night before was from constipation, I believe). Noah had the happiest, most cheerful day he's had in awhile, with no crying or straining. No pooping either, but that's normal for him. So if it was the constipation pain waking him up last night and he never did end up pooping, he should still be struggling with it, and he's not.
I don't think it's teething because he's not fussy during the day.
I don't think it's a growth spurt because he's 7 months old... I don't think there's a 7 month growth spurt. Plus he doesn't always want to eat when he wakes up. He'll comfort nurse sometimes, but more often than not I have to actually rock him back to sleep.
It actually might be a milestone thing. He's right on the verge of really crawling, not just army crawling (hands and knees are moving forward in sync, just not consistently), and he's figuring out how to get into a sitting position from a lying down position. He's done this several times in the past few days. The thing is, he's swaddled at night. So is that why he wakes up screaming? Because he wants to practice his moves and is bound up tight like a mummy??
All I know is that this can't continue. It's worse now than when he was a newborn. He was NEVER like this as a newborn. Sure, he got up every hour or two all night long, but he just ate and went back to sleep. I could handle this much better if he would do that now.
The problem is I absolutely refuse to let Noah cry it out. I think even a supporter of CIO would realize that my child cannot do that if they were here. He doesn't just cry, he gets hysterical. And since he's starting OUT hysterical with these night wakings, I can't let him keep going like that.
I'm not counting on a good night tonight, but I sure could use one! Even if he would just get up every two hours I would appreciate it over this 40 minute business. I'm really trying to not get anxious about it though. What happens happens, and we'll deal with it as it comes.
Saturday, October 16, 2010
Constipation Station
Last night was awful. Noah went to bed really well at 8 (later than normal because of a late nap) and stayed asleep for a couple of hours. At 10 he cried bloody murder and needed a soother. Then at 12:30 he cried bloody murder and needed to nurse back to sleep because he was crying and bending his knees up to his chest while I tried to rock him. That clearly wasn't working.
Then at 2:30 he was crying really hard again but he wouldn't eat. Everytime he got my nipple in his mouth he would do 3 suckles and then pull off once he got any milk. So I tried to get him back to sleep with a soother and rocking. He was really tired, but he was in too much pain and just kept crying really hard. Justin and I were at a total loss of what to do. Eventually shortly after 3am I unswaddled him and then he just passed out in my arms pretty much as soon as I did that (he was sleepy like a newborn). But he's not used to sleeping unswaddled, so I had to lie down with him in my arms instead of putting him in his crib. But then I didn't sleep a wink because I can't sleep with a baby in my arms!!
He slept like that until 5, and then woke up and thought it was playtime because he was in bed with me and wasn't swaddled. So I had to go get another swaddler (at this point we were on our fourth and last one because of the number of times he was swaddled and unswaddled already that night), swaddle him back up, and nurse him. LUCKILY he fell asleep nursing even though he wasn't very hungry. I was so thankful, because I really didn't think he would go to sleep again. I put him in his crib at about 5:30 and he slept until 7.
If you're keeping track, I slept from about 11:00 to 12:30, then 1:45 to 2:30, then 6:15-7:00, then 7:30-8:20 (Justin got up with him). That's not even 4 hours. And it's extremely fragmented. And because I'm nursing I don't ingest caffeine. Which makes it suck a lot more.
Today was awful. Noah was crying off and on the whole day for seemingly no reason (although I knew it was because he was trying to poop). I was massaging his tummy and bicycling his legs, but it didn't seem to help. I even put a vaseline-covered q-tip in his bum, because I read in multiple places that that can stimulate the bowels of a constipated baby and make them poop. I know that sounds so weird, but I was desperate! He was so miserable!
The first time it didn't do anything but I tried again a few hours later, along with putting a warm wet cotton ball in him bum crack (apparently something else that works). A couple of minutes later he started crying really hard again so I kept him lying down and kept his legs bent up to his chest because he kept trying to straighten them. He was crying so hard, but when I realized he was actually pooping (very slowly) I had to keep him like that so that he could get it all out, because he was holding it in for so many days.
I don't think he got it all out, but he got a better portion than his two tiny poops on Friday. Poor little guy. Pooping shouldn't make you cry and sweat.
Then at 2:30 he was crying really hard again but he wouldn't eat. Everytime he got my nipple in his mouth he would do 3 suckles and then pull off once he got any milk. So I tried to get him back to sleep with a soother and rocking. He was really tired, but he was in too much pain and just kept crying really hard. Justin and I were at a total loss of what to do. Eventually shortly after 3am I unswaddled him and then he just passed out in my arms pretty much as soon as I did that (he was sleepy like a newborn). But he's not used to sleeping unswaddled, so I had to lie down with him in my arms instead of putting him in his crib. But then I didn't sleep a wink because I can't sleep with a baby in my arms!!
He slept like that until 5, and then woke up and thought it was playtime because he was in bed with me and wasn't swaddled. So I had to go get another swaddler (at this point we were on our fourth and last one because of the number of times he was swaddled and unswaddled already that night), swaddle him back up, and nurse him. LUCKILY he fell asleep nursing even though he wasn't very hungry. I was so thankful, because I really didn't think he would go to sleep again. I put him in his crib at about 5:30 and he slept until 7.
If you're keeping track, I slept from about 11:00 to 12:30, then 1:45 to 2:30, then 6:15-7:00, then 7:30-8:20 (Justin got up with him). That's not even 4 hours. And it's extremely fragmented. And because I'm nursing I don't ingest caffeine. Which makes it suck a lot more.
Today was awful. Noah was crying off and on the whole day for seemingly no reason (although I knew it was because he was trying to poop). I was massaging his tummy and bicycling his legs, but it didn't seem to help. I even put a vaseline-covered q-tip in his bum, because I read in multiple places that that can stimulate the bowels of a constipated baby and make them poop. I know that sounds so weird, but I was desperate! He was so miserable!
The first time it didn't do anything but I tried again a few hours later, along with putting a warm wet cotton ball in him bum crack (apparently something else that works). A couple of minutes later he started crying really hard again so I kept him lying down and kept his legs bent up to his chest because he kept trying to straighten them. He was crying so hard, but when I realized he was actually pooping (very slowly) I had to keep him like that so that he could get it all out, because he was holding it in for so many days.
I don't think he got it all out, but he got a better portion than his two tiny poops on Friday. Poor little guy. Pooping shouldn't make you cry and sweat.
I called telehealth today (a government hotline where you can talk to registered nurses) to see what they said about Noah's constipation. I just wanted to know if I should give him a glycerin suppository. I got a man, and he was so useless. I've called twice before and been satisfied, but this guy was a complete tool. I told him all the information: exclusively breastfed baby, just introduced a small amount of solids (about 2 tablespoons, max) once a day about 2 weeks ago, solids introduced were rice cereal, banana, sweet potato, and pear. Since last Saturday he's only done two small, pretty dry poops - on FRIDAY, and he's been crying pretty hard off and on for several days, which is very unlike him. He was suggested all the "typical" foods for constipation (prunes, pears, peaches, plums, peas, etc). Well, first of all, my child hardly eats any solids, so it's not like I can just change up his diet and feed him these foods all day long. It would probably make things worse. Second of all, you're only supposed to introduce one new food every 3 to 5 days. I'm not going to throw a whole bunch of new foods at once at my constipated 7 month old!
He also suggested fruit juice. I told him there's no way Noah would drink fruit juice; he refuses any liquids that don't come out of my boobs. Besides, he's 7 months old; I'm not exactly keen on giving him juice! Especially when he's taking in less breastmilk anyway right now (either that or I'm making way more) AND he wants me to give him all these solids. So I told the guy fruit juice is out, Noah would never ever take it. He acted like this was the end of the world. He was like "You really should try and find a way to get him to take it." Well buddy, it's not happening. Then he told me, "That's something you should talk to your doctor about. You don't want your baby to be dictating that sort of thing and not allowing you to give him a bottle or a cup."
Um, EXCUSE ME? HE'S 7 MONTHS OLD. He's a breastfed baby of a stay-at-home mom, who is going to continue to be a stay-at-home mom beyond his first year of life. I have no burning desire to spend hours and hours away from him, and absolutely no desire to wean him from breastfeeding anytime before he's a year old, maybe even later. At some point he will drink from a cup, but there is no reason for my particular child to have to take a cup or a bottle at 7 months old. I don't need to talk to my doctor about this, you idiot! Do you know NOTHING about breastfeeding?
Apparently not, because he asked me how many ounces Noah has drank in the past 8 hours. Hmmm, let me check the dial on my boobs... HE'S BREASTFED YOU MORON! I don't know how many ounces he's had!!
He also told me to call back if Noah cries while he's pooping (I already told you this was happening, retard), and if he goes 3 days without pooping (I already told you he just went SIX days and then only pooped a miniscule amount. Basically just a large shart. What don't you understand?)
Men are idiots.
As I close this long blog post, I leave you with two pictures of Noah's reaction to a sippy cup:
He shudders just looking at it. He hadn't even put it in his mouth when I took these pictures. He tried it the first time I gave it to him, and HATED it. Now everytime he sees it he has that reaction.
HILARIOUS. You should see the video.
Friday, October 15, 2010
Boo on Rice Cereal
We are done with rice cereal.
Noah is constipated. I never thought it would happen, especially since he wasn't even getting half a serving of rice cereal per day and is exclusively breastfed besides that. But he's definitely constipated. On Monday, October 4th he did a teeny tiny poop that wasn't very soft. Then we saw nothing until Saturday the 9th when he did a ginormous and painful poop, which was soft. I didn't think much of this, because he is always an infrequent pooper (once every 3 or 4 days, usually), and Saturday's poop was pretty soft (although not at all watery).
Then there was nothing at all until today, Friday the 15th. Today he has been trying and trying and only getting out two small, dry poops. He's crying when he's trying to pass them (which also happened on Saturday with his ginormous soft poop). It's so sad.
If it wasn't for the dry poops I wouldn't think he was constipated, because he often goes long times without pooping. I did think it was weird this whole time though, because he's been eating solids most nights for the past almost 2 weeks. Probably 9 out of 13 nights, or so. I thought he should be pooping more.
Poor baby. I feel bad for him, and I really hope he can get it all out soon! If he gets any solids from now on it'll just be real foods. None of these baby cereals. Rice is the only gluten-free baby cereal, and it's constipating him even in small amounts. Justin and I don't want to feed a 7 month old gluten; it's very gut-irritating. So baby cereals are out. And no more bananas or apples. We'll stick with pears for now when we feed him, and maybe add in peaches or prunes.
He doesn't have solids everyday anyway. And he hasn't been able to keep up with my milk supply the past few days, so he has just been nursing. Normally by mid to late afternoon he finally drains both my breasts at once (as the amount of milk in them decreases over the day), but the past few days he hasn't even drained one of my breasts even once throughout the day. So we've skipped the couple of tablespoons of solids he's been having most night. Breastmilk is far more nutritious, I'm not going to waste precious stomach space with solids that aren't as good for him.
Apparently this is fairly common for breastfed babies when they start solids, because their tiny tummies are used to the very easily digestable and absorbable breastmilk. I guess Noah's tummy isn't ready to move on. That's okay. I'm not really, either. :)
Noah is constipated. I never thought it would happen, especially since he wasn't even getting half a serving of rice cereal per day and is exclusively breastfed besides that. But he's definitely constipated. On Monday, October 4th he did a teeny tiny poop that wasn't very soft. Then we saw nothing until Saturday the 9th when he did a ginormous and painful poop, which was soft. I didn't think much of this, because he is always an infrequent pooper (once every 3 or 4 days, usually), and Saturday's poop was pretty soft (although not at all watery).
Then there was nothing at all until today, Friday the 15th. Today he has been trying and trying and only getting out two small, dry poops. He's crying when he's trying to pass them (which also happened on Saturday with his ginormous soft poop). It's so sad.
If it wasn't for the dry poops I wouldn't think he was constipated, because he often goes long times without pooping. I did think it was weird this whole time though, because he's been eating solids most nights for the past almost 2 weeks. Probably 9 out of 13 nights, or so. I thought he should be pooping more.
Poor baby. I feel bad for him, and I really hope he can get it all out soon! If he gets any solids from now on it'll just be real foods. None of these baby cereals. Rice is the only gluten-free baby cereal, and it's constipating him even in small amounts. Justin and I don't want to feed a 7 month old gluten; it's very gut-irritating. So baby cereals are out. And no more bananas or apples. We'll stick with pears for now when we feed him, and maybe add in peaches or prunes.
He doesn't have solids everyday anyway. And he hasn't been able to keep up with my milk supply the past few days, so he has just been nursing. Normally by mid to late afternoon he finally drains both my breasts at once (as the amount of milk in them decreases over the day), but the past few days he hasn't even drained one of my breasts even once throughout the day. So we've skipped the couple of tablespoons of solids he's been having most night. Breastmilk is far more nutritious, I'm not going to waste precious stomach space with solids that aren't as good for him.
Apparently this is fairly common for breastfed babies when they start solids, because their tiny tummies are used to the very easily digestable and absorbable breastmilk. I guess Noah's tummy isn't ready to move on. That's okay. I'm not really, either. :)
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