I don't think I've ever been so late with a monthly update. Noah turned 11 months over a week ago, so I'm going to keep these updates restricted to those things he was doing at that time. Some things have changed quite a bit in this past week.
At 11 months old, here is where Noah is at:
-He weighs 20lbs 9oz totally naked, but after a lot of nursings. That's about 25th percentile.
-He is 31.5 inches long, about 100th percentile.
-He is less than 5th percentile for weight for height (he has tall, slim parents - he can't help it).
-He wears size 3 diapers during the day, and size 4 diapers at night.
-He wears 18 month clothing. His sleepers, onesies, and shirts fit perfectly, maybe a little on the small side. His 18 month pants are a perfect length.
-He has 8 teeth, the four top and four bottom.
-He started signing 'nurse' at 10.5 months, and ever since then we've been nursing much more than every 2 hours. He often wants to nurse again 5 minutes after we just finished.
-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. He's still about 90% breastfed, with solids making up the other 10%.
-He goes to bed at about 7pm, sleeps until past 4am, nurses, and goes back to sleep again until about 7am, give or take. (This has changed since a couple of days after he turned 11 months... that post is still to come.)
-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 (he can make it to 4 pretty easily), and the second nap is 3.5 - 4 hours after he wakes up from his first nap.
-He is totally done with the soother, now. I take very little credit for this, although I recognize that my actions inadvertently got him to this point. He always needed it when he was being rocked to sleep. Then we had a few weeks where he was either nursed to sleep or put in his crib awake. I would give him his soother when I put him in his crib awake, but he never fell asleep using it. So after seeing if he still wanted it on several different occasions, I have come to the conclusion that he is definitely over it. It holds no appeal for him anymore.
-He's getting better at the sippy cup. Sometimes he'll drink a couple of ounces of water out of it in one sitting. He likes water now.
-He stands alone, takes a few independent steps (this was just an occasional thing still when he turned 11 months), cruises really well, speed crawls, and climbs.
-He loves to throw balls, play with his baseball bats, score points on his basketball hoop, and practice stick handling with his mini-sticks and hockey puck. His athlete father is so proud :)
-He's become extremely cuddly lately, often hugging us and laying his head down on our shoulders, draping himself over us, ect. He'll even fall asleep sometimes with his head laying on my shoulder, which he hadn't done since he was about 2 months old.
-He loves to give Mommy kisses (sometimes Dad gets one). He gives me probably a hundred open mouth slobber kisses each day. Sometimes he just seems overwhelmed with the need to kiss me. It's adorable.
-He's still a big mommy suck. He's getting a bit friendlier with other people (smiling, making faces, giggling), but will freak out if I start to walk away.
-He still has horrifyingly awful separation anxiety. He still can't handle if I'm not in his sight when we're at home, so I have to plan chores and things carefully. I can't even go to the bathroom without him.
-He just started doing this hilarious scrunchy face, sometimes doing it with a closed, pursed mouth, other times "showing off" his front teeth. He breathes really fast in and out of his nose when he does it. It's hilarious.
-He just started to lounge on the floor like a lazy toddler. Not for long periods of time, but before this he would never ever sit still or lay down during the day, but now he'll sometimes lay his cheek on the floor, or recline on some pillows in front of the TV (terrible... I blame Dad).
-It's always hard to know exactly how much an 11 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," and "say bye". He demonstrates understanding of those words through his actions. I'm guessing he knows a lot more, but I can't tell.
-He just started saying "Uh oh," but its often more of an "Uh uhhh" or an "Oooh oooh." Sometimes he does "Uh uh uh ohh." He mostly does this after he drops something and we say "Uh oh."
-He says "Dis," "Dat," "Mamamama," 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." He pulls out his books and sits and flips through the pages. His two teacher parents are thrilled:)
-We have this book called Who Do You See, and after "I see a bee" I say "buzzz" and he ALWAYS says "zzzzzzzz" as he strokes the bee. After "I see a lion" I say "Rooaaar!" and he sometimes gently goes "Raaaaa."
I'm sure there is much, much more I could say, but I am already 9 days late with this post. I am just going to finish it before I waste another day ruminating about it.
But, as a last thing, I have to say, Noah is becoming hilarious. His toddler personality that is beginning to emerge (although I still think 1 year olds are babies) cracks me up. I seriously could not love him any more. He is the most amazing thing that has ever happened to me, and I am incredibly, deeply grateful for him every second of every day!
Showing posts with label Soother. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Soother. Show all posts
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Monday, January 31, 2011
No More Soother?
I may have unintentionally weaned Noah off the soother.
For the past while I haven't been rocking Noah to sleep. I've either nursed him to sleep or put him in his crib awake. It just so happens that a nursing session always falls right before naptime, and if he doesn't fall asleep while he's nursing then I put him down awake. I used to give him a soother if I put him in his crib awake, but I stopped doing that a couple of weeks ago because he always seemed to spit it out before he even fell asleep.
Well, this afternoon his nursing session didn't happen to fall right before naptime, and by the time naptime came he was pretty hyper. I didn't want to just stick him in his crib all hyped up, so I tried giving him a soother and rocking him to sleep (I do want him to be able to fall asleep from me rocking him for when we're out somewhere else).
For about 5 minutes he was just being really goofy and silly with the soother. He was biting it instead of sucking on it,. Eventually he just spit it out, so I didn't put it back in. Then he actually relaxed and fell asleep in my arms without sucking on his soother. This is only the second time this has happened since he was a couple of months old! The last time was a total fluke, but this time it didn't seem like as much of a fluke.
He's still mildly interested in his soothers if he sees one, but I rarely give him a soother and when I do, he doesn't suck on it anymore. He just chews on it.
I wasn't intending to take his soother away. My only thing was that I didn't want him to be a soother kid, who always had one in his mouth or who NEEDED one to sleep. So I didn't offer it to him throughout the day unless he was uncharacteristically cranky or we were out somewhere and he seemed to want it. Other than that it was always a naptime/bedtime thing. After I started the sleep training, the soother seemed to become less and less necessary. If I'm teaching him to fall asleep on his own, why teach him to do it with a crutch like a soother? Besides, him falling asleep on his own usually involves a little fussing (and occasionally a minute of crying), so the soother falls out and he never replaces it on his own, even though he knows how. Obviously he didn't need to suck to fall asleep. And since I've been nursing him to sleep or putting him to bed awake, he seems to have almost forgotten what to do with a soother.
The last time I remember him spending much time with a soother in his mouth was in December. I don't think he has used one at all in January. This kind of snuck up on me. And I'm not sure if I'm happy about it. On the one hand, some parents have horror stories about trying to get their kid off the soother. And I didn't want to have a 2 year old who still used one. On the other hand, it was cute! It made him still seem like a baby. I liked his sweet face with a soother in his mouth.
I'm kind of sad. However, it has just occured to me that this no-soother thing may have contributed to him taking hour long naps more frequently. I should be grateful.
So why am I considering trying to get him to want to suck on a soother again??
For the past while I haven't been rocking Noah to sleep. I've either nursed him to sleep or put him in his crib awake. It just so happens that a nursing session always falls right before naptime, and if he doesn't fall asleep while he's nursing then I put him down awake. I used to give him a soother if I put him in his crib awake, but I stopped doing that a couple of weeks ago because he always seemed to spit it out before he even fell asleep.
Well, this afternoon his nursing session didn't happen to fall right before naptime, and by the time naptime came he was pretty hyper. I didn't want to just stick him in his crib all hyped up, so I tried giving him a soother and rocking him to sleep (I do want him to be able to fall asleep from me rocking him for when we're out somewhere else).
For about 5 minutes he was just being really goofy and silly with the soother. He was biting it instead of sucking on it,. Eventually he just spit it out, so I didn't put it back in. Then he actually relaxed and fell asleep in my arms without sucking on his soother. This is only the second time this has happened since he was a couple of months old! The last time was a total fluke, but this time it didn't seem like as much of a fluke.
He's still mildly interested in his soothers if he sees one, but I rarely give him a soother and when I do, he doesn't suck on it anymore. He just chews on it.
I wasn't intending to take his soother away. My only thing was that I didn't want him to be a soother kid, who always had one in his mouth or who NEEDED one to sleep. So I didn't offer it to him throughout the day unless he was uncharacteristically cranky or we were out somewhere and he seemed to want it. Other than that it was always a naptime/bedtime thing. After I started the sleep training, the soother seemed to become less and less necessary. If I'm teaching him to fall asleep on his own, why teach him to do it with a crutch like a soother? Besides, him falling asleep on his own usually involves a little fussing (and occasionally a minute of crying), so the soother falls out and he never replaces it on his own, even though he knows how. Obviously he didn't need to suck to fall asleep. And since I've been nursing him to sleep or putting him to bed awake, he seems to have almost forgotten what to do with a soother.
The last time I remember him spending much time with a soother in his mouth was in December. I don't think he has used one at all in January. This kind of snuck up on me. And I'm not sure if I'm happy about it. On the one hand, some parents have horror stories about trying to get their kid off the soother. And I didn't want to have a 2 year old who still used one. On the other hand, it was cute! It made him still seem like a baby. I liked his sweet face with a soother in his mouth.
I'm kind of sad. However, it has just occured to me that this no-soother thing may have contributed to him taking hour long naps more frequently. I should be grateful.
So why am I considering trying to get him to want to suck on a soother again??
Thursday, November 18, 2010
8 Months Old!
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.
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.
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.
Monday, October 18, 2010
Sigh of Relief
Last night was a much better night, thank goodness. Noah was asleep at 7pm and slept until 9pm when he cried for cuddles. He fell back asleep still lying in his crib with me leaning over him and cuddling his face with my face and his body with my hands. He didn't need his soother!! He didn't need me again until 4am when he ate. Then he woke up around 6:30 but stayed relatively quiet until 7 when we got him out of bed.
I slept okay. He made whimpering noises several times throughout the night, and everytime he did I bolted out of bed and ran across the hall. The two nights before I had to get to him right away or else he was so far gone it was hard to get him back to sleep. But last night he just made a couple of whimpering noises and then fell back asleep on his own until 4.
I'm very thankful for the better rest! I'm still tired though. I should start considering a 7:00 bedtime along with Noah!!
I slept okay. He made whimpering noises several times throughout the night, and everytime he did I bolted out of bed and ran across the hall. The two nights before I had to get to him right away or else he was so far gone it was hard to get him back to sleep. But last night he just made a couple of whimpering noises and then fell back asleep on his own until 4.
I'm very thankful for the better rest! I'm still tired though. I should start considering a 7:00 bedtime along with Noah!!
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.
Monday, October 4, 2010
Slight Improvement Last Night
Last night was a slight improvement. Noah cried a few times at the beginning of the night, then got up to eat twice (around 2:15 and 5:15... weird how it's always around the same times) and then woke up for the day at 6:45. I was planning on bringing him into bed with me to see if he'd get more sleep (and so that I didn't turn any lights on until at least 7am), but Justin was up already and heard him making little noises, so he got him out of bed and changed his diaper. He wasn't making much noise at all, though, because I didn't hear anything and I was lying there awake.
He napped really crappy today, with two of his naps being shorter than 25 minutes and the other two being ONLY 30 minutes. However, he's been asleep for the night for 2 hours now and only woke up crying for his soother once an hour and a half ago. Here's hoping tonight is better. Or that he at least sticks to only two wakings!
He napped really crappy today, with two of his naps being shorter than 25 minutes and the other two being ONLY 30 minutes. However, he's been asleep for the night for 2 hours now and only woke up crying for his soother once an hour and a half ago. Here's hoping tonight is better. Or that he at least sticks to only two wakings!
Sunday, October 3, 2010
Terrible Nights Continued
Last night Noah slept in our room. With the exception of when we were on vacation and had no choice, Noah hasn't slept in our room since he was about a week and a half old. But last night was the third night in a row of horribleness (I know, not a word), so I was sick of going back and forth between our rooms. He started crying off and on after he went to bed, and finally just before 9 I told Justin if he cries one more time I'm just going to put him in the bassinet beside our bed. Sure enough, he was crying within a minute. So he went in the bassinet. It's been sitting there waiting for him for awhile, because I kept saying if he kept getting up I would just put him in there. I never did because I kept hoping that that time would be the last time.
So after he went in our room at about 9pm, he was fine until 11 or so. Then he woke himself up coughing and sneezing. I gave him a soother and he went back to sleep. He woke up coughing and sneezing again at 2. I tried the soother and it kept him from fully waking up for awhile, but at about 2:40 he woke up completely. I nursed him back to sleep and he was back in the bassinet at 3am. The same thing repeated itself at 5am until 5:45, when I nursed him back to sleep again. He went back in the bassinet just fine at around 6 and was sleeping and sighing away, and then suddenly at 6:25 he was crying again. The soother wouldn't work. So I picked him up and he fell asleep in my arms without any rocking, so I carefully laid down in bed with his head on the crook of my arm, and he slept until 7:30. I magically managed to snooze like that for about half an hour (amazing, for me).
I got very little sleep last night, as I spent most of the night trying to stop Noah from fully waking up (since the two nights beforehand letting him try and sort it out on his own for a few minutes was of absolutely no benefit). Plus Noah makes cute little vocalizations while he's sleeping, and those kept me awake. He doesn't grunt non stop like he did when he was a newborn (which was why he only spent a week and a half in our bedroom), but the sigh-like sounds he makes are enough to keep me awake even with two loud fans going in our room (I'm a terrible sleeper, in case you're new to this blog). I think I got a maximum of 3 1/2 to 4 hours of sleep the whole night, even though I went to bed at 9:15 and Noah didn't wake up until 7:30.
Anyway, since the bassinet was pushed right up against my side of the bed and I was listening to and watching him all night, I think I at least partly figured out why Noah's been getting up so much. I could hear him coughing from my room during the two previous nights when he was in his crib, but with him right beside me all night I realized that he's actually sick. He has a cold. AGAIN. Besides the frequent sneezing and coughing, when I laid my hand on his chest it felt very wheezy and congested. I could hear the congestion when he breathed through his nose, and when he got up this morning I had to wash his face because he had a thick layer of dried mucous under his nose. Today he had a very runny nose and was sneezing a lot.
He just had a cold 2 weeks ago. So this is either his third cold, or his second cold part two. I don't understand this. You'd think I have a formula-fed daycare baby instead of an exclusively breastfed baby of a stay at home mom. How does he get sick so often?! I think the "antibodies in breastmilk" thing is a myth.
Tonight he has cried twice and needed my assistance (aka a soother) once. I let him cry for 6 minutes that first time, hoping he would fall back asleep, but things only escalated. The second time he cried for a short time and then stopped. I was so happy, because I figured he was able to fall back asleep without a soother, but when I checked on him I saw that the soother was still in his mouth. He was crying for no stinkin reason.
Justin and I set the over/under for how many times he gets up tonight at 3. He says 3 or less. I say more. He's already cried twice. Even if we just count the number of times he needs me (rather than the number of times he cries) I still say it'll be more than 3.
I'm so tired.
So after he went in our room at about 9pm, he was fine until 11 or so. Then he woke himself up coughing and sneezing. I gave him a soother and he went back to sleep. He woke up coughing and sneezing again at 2. I tried the soother and it kept him from fully waking up for awhile, but at about 2:40 he woke up completely. I nursed him back to sleep and he was back in the bassinet at 3am. The same thing repeated itself at 5am until 5:45, when I nursed him back to sleep again. He went back in the bassinet just fine at around 6 and was sleeping and sighing away, and then suddenly at 6:25 he was crying again. The soother wouldn't work. So I picked him up and he fell asleep in my arms without any rocking, so I carefully laid down in bed with his head on the crook of my arm, and he slept until 7:30. I magically managed to snooze like that for about half an hour (amazing, for me).
I got very little sleep last night, as I spent most of the night trying to stop Noah from fully waking up (since the two nights beforehand letting him try and sort it out on his own for a few minutes was of absolutely no benefit). Plus Noah makes cute little vocalizations while he's sleeping, and those kept me awake. He doesn't grunt non stop like he did when he was a newborn (which was why he only spent a week and a half in our bedroom), but the sigh-like sounds he makes are enough to keep me awake even with two loud fans going in our room (I'm a terrible sleeper, in case you're new to this blog). I think I got a maximum of 3 1/2 to 4 hours of sleep the whole night, even though I went to bed at 9:15 and Noah didn't wake up until 7:30.
Anyway, since the bassinet was pushed right up against my side of the bed and I was listening to and watching him all night, I think I at least partly figured out why Noah's been getting up so much. I could hear him coughing from my room during the two previous nights when he was in his crib, but with him right beside me all night I realized that he's actually sick. He has a cold. AGAIN. Besides the frequent sneezing and coughing, when I laid my hand on his chest it felt very wheezy and congested. I could hear the congestion when he breathed through his nose, and when he got up this morning I had to wash his face because he had a thick layer of dried mucous under his nose. Today he had a very runny nose and was sneezing a lot.
He just had a cold 2 weeks ago. So this is either his third cold, or his second cold part two. I don't understand this. You'd think I have a formula-fed daycare baby instead of an exclusively breastfed baby of a stay at home mom. How does he get sick so often?! I think the "antibodies in breastmilk" thing is a myth.
Tonight he has cried twice and needed my assistance (aka a soother) once. I let him cry for 6 minutes that first time, hoping he would fall back asleep, but things only escalated. The second time he cried for a short time and then stopped. I was so happy, because I figured he was able to fall back asleep without a soother, but when I checked on him I saw that the soother was still in his mouth. He was crying for no stinkin reason.
Justin and I set the over/under for how many times he gets up tonight at 3. He says 3 or less. I say more. He's already cried twice. Even if we just count the number of times he needs me (rather than the number of times he cries) I still say it'll be more than 3.
I'm so tired.
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Boo
Well, we had 4 great nights in a row after we started the swaddling. Last night was not great. He was asleep by 7:30, and at 8:12 he started crying. I let him cry for a couple of minutes but the cry was different from that muted "sleep cry" that he often falls asleep on his own from. I didn't want to start giving him a soother multiple times a night again, so I tried to soothe him in other ways.
He was still sleeping and his eyes stayed shut, so I tried to comfort him without giving him a soother. I kissed his cheeks (which often calms him), stroked his head, picked him up and held him to my shoulder (he quieted, but he kept squirming, even though his eyes were shut), and then cradled him in my arms... that made it worse. So I just gave him a soother and he was fine.
Then he woke me up crying again at 11:15. He was more awake this time, so I just gave him a soother and kissed his cheeks and he went back to sleep. I, on the other hand, took a lot longer to fall back asleep.
Then he woke up crying again at 3:30. I fed him, he went back to sleep.
Then this morning he woke up at 6:40 and started crying quite a bit. I left him for 15 minutes because I was sooo tired and I hoped he would just go back to sleep. But by the time I went to him at 6:55 the crying was a lot worse. I always know that he's not ready to be up for the day by how he greets me. He didn't smile at all, he was just crying. So I gave him a soother again and kissed his cheeks... again. He eventually fell back asleep until 7:30, when he woke up crying AGAIN. But this time he was up for the day.
I really hope we're not getting into that again. Before I swaddle-weaned him I was always having to give him a soother because he would cry and cry in his sleep, but he wasn't hungry, so I didn't want to feed him. This would happen a couple of times before the time of night that he would get hungry. Then when I swaddle-weaned him he would need a soother a few times a night because he would roll over, and if he was still sleepy enough I would just leave him in his crib but give him a soother to help him fall asleep. But since I started swaddling him again, after I put him in his crib he has been good for at least 8 hours. I haven't had to go in to him once besides when he wakes up to eat after 8-10 hours. I REALLY hope we're not backsliding again.
I would like to break this habit, but I can't just not give him a soother. Both at 11:15 and 6:40 things just kept escalating as I left him. And I've experienced (and described) what things are like when I let them escalate. They get completely out of control and will stay that way for hours unless I interefere with my boobs.
I'm hoping it's just because of his shots yesterday. When I think about it, the last time he got like this it was after shots, too. Frickin shots. I HATE them. Because maybe it was just because of the shots that this starts, but then he gets used to it and it continues!!! I might have to start co-sleeping just so I can put a soother in his mouth without having to get up! lol.
Can I tape a soother to his face so it never falls out?
He was still sleeping and his eyes stayed shut, so I tried to comfort him without giving him a soother. I kissed his cheeks (which often calms him), stroked his head, picked him up and held him to my shoulder (he quieted, but he kept squirming, even though his eyes were shut), and then cradled him in my arms... that made it worse. So I just gave him a soother and he was fine.
Then he woke me up crying again at 11:15. He was more awake this time, so I just gave him a soother and kissed his cheeks and he went back to sleep. I, on the other hand, took a lot longer to fall back asleep.
Then he woke up crying again at 3:30. I fed him, he went back to sleep.
Then this morning he woke up at 6:40 and started crying quite a bit. I left him for 15 minutes because I was sooo tired and I hoped he would just go back to sleep. But by the time I went to him at 6:55 the crying was a lot worse. I always know that he's not ready to be up for the day by how he greets me. He didn't smile at all, he was just crying. So I gave him a soother again and kissed his cheeks... again. He eventually fell back asleep until 7:30, when he woke up crying AGAIN. But this time he was up for the day.
I really hope we're not getting into that again. Before I swaddle-weaned him I was always having to give him a soother because he would cry and cry in his sleep, but he wasn't hungry, so I didn't want to feed him. This would happen a couple of times before the time of night that he would get hungry. Then when I swaddle-weaned him he would need a soother a few times a night because he would roll over, and if he was still sleepy enough I would just leave him in his crib but give him a soother to help him fall asleep. But since I started swaddling him again, after I put him in his crib he has been good for at least 8 hours. I haven't had to go in to him once besides when he wakes up to eat after 8-10 hours. I REALLY hope we're not backsliding again.
I would like to break this habit, but I can't just not give him a soother. Both at 11:15 and 6:40 things just kept escalating as I left him. And I've experienced (and described) what things are like when I let them escalate. They get completely out of control and will stay that way for hours unless I interefere with my boobs.
I'm hoping it's just because of his shots yesterday. When I think about it, the last time he got like this it was after shots, too. Frickin shots. I HATE them. Because maybe it was just because of the shots that this starts, but then he gets used to it and it continues!!! I might have to start co-sleeping just so I can put a soother in his mouth without having to get up! lol.
Can I tape a soother to his face so it never falls out?
Friday, September 3, 2010
Operation No-Swaddle, Day 7
Day 7 of Operation No-Swaddle was our best day yet! We moved onto Phase 2 of our plan: swaddle around the chest with both arms free. I was a little nervous going into Phase 2, but Noah was a rockstar.
Nap #1 - Like the past few days there was a lot of fussing and back arching. I put him down to fuss it out for a couple of minutes. I can't remember if I did this once or twice, but while I was out of the room he hugged his puppy/blanket, sucked on his soother, and went to sleep. This nap lasted an hour and 20 minutes. Amazing.
Nap #2 - Was a repeat of nap #1, except that it only lasted for 40 minutes. Still, he put himself to sleep again. Amazing.
Nap #3 - I gave him the opportunity to put himself to sleep by putting him down when he was drowsy but calm. He didn't like this at all and cried quite a bit. I picked him back up and rocked him to sleep as he hugged his puppy/blanket and sucked his soother. I laid him down in his crib with no problems (he didn't squirm himself awake). This nap lasted an hour and 20 minutes - AGAIN!!
We had 2 long naps today! We haven't had that in AGES! And in the 6 days of swaddle weaning prior to today, we had only had 1 long nap (in about 20 naps, total).
I'd say this phase of the plan was a complete success. He's still fully swaddled at nighttime, though. I haven't had the guts to try an arm out. I really should. Too late for tonight, though. He's already in bed.
Nap #1 - Like the past few days there was a lot of fussing and back arching. I put him down to fuss it out for a couple of minutes. I can't remember if I did this once or twice, but while I was out of the room he hugged his puppy/blanket, sucked on his soother, and went to sleep. This nap lasted an hour and 20 minutes. Amazing.
Nap #2 - Was a repeat of nap #1, except that it only lasted for 40 minutes. Still, he put himself to sleep again. Amazing.
Nap #3 - I gave him the opportunity to put himself to sleep by putting him down when he was drowsy but calm. He didn't like this at all and cried quite a bit. I picked him back up and rocked him to sleep as he hugged his puppy/blanket and sucked his soother. I laid him down in his crib with no problems (he didn't squirm himself awake). This nap lasted an hour and 20 minutes - AGAIN!!
We had 2 long naps today! We haven't had that in AGES! And in the 6 days of swaddle weaning prior to today, we had only had 1 long nap (in about 20 naps, total).
I'd say this phase of the plan was a complete success. He's still fully swaddled at nighttime, though. I haven't had the guts to try an arm out. I really should. Too late for tonight, though. He's already in bed.
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Operation No-Swaddle, Day 4
Day 4 of Operation No-Swaddle was very different from the past few days. Once again he was swaddled with his left arm out. His first two naps were 35 and 30 minutes. Not long. His third nap was in my arms, since he unexpectedly fell asleep while he was nursing and I didn't want to wake him up by transfering him into his crib completely unswaddled. This nap occurred about 40 minutes earlier than it normally would have, but he conked right out. He looked completely adorable with his head back and his mouth hanging open, and I loved the snuggle time. This nap was 50 minutes long (I know, weird amount of time).
His fourth nap was completely different again. He was swaddled with his left arm out, but he was arching his back and crying. I tried everything in my arsenal, but after a couple of minutes I realized nothing was going to work. When that happens I do one of two things: a) I take him out of his room and lie him down on our bed in the bright light to distract him briefly and reset his system, or b) I lie him down in his crib to cry alone for a couple of minutes and then he appreciates my attempts at soothing him when I come back.
I went with option B. I left him to cry for a few minutes. When I returned his soother wasn't in his mouth, but as soon as he saw me he quieted down. I tried giving him his soother but his eyes remained wide open. I picked him up and sat in the rocking chair where we quietly rocked, but he showed no signs of falling asleep. I stood up and started bouncing him, and he started arching his back and crying again. So I returned him to his crib for a few minutes.
When I came back he was crying but he still had his soother in, amazingly. His eyes were closed, so I decided to try not picking him up. I just pinned his legs down with one hand (he kept slamming them down on his mattress), pinned his left arm down with the other hand, and kissed his cheek. Within about 45 seconds he was completely still and calm (how sweet is that??:), so I left the room. That nap lasted 45 minutes.
I'm still waiting on that long nap to tell me I can move forward with the swaddle weaning.
His fourth nap was completely different again. He was swaddled with his left arm out, but he was arching his back and crying. I tried everything in my arsenal, but after a couple of minutes I realized nothing was going to work. When that happens I do one of two things: a) I take him out of his room and lie him down on our bed in the bright light to distract him briefly and reset his system, or b) I lie him down in his crib to cry alone for a couple of minutes and then he appreciates my attempts at soothing him when I come back.
I went with option B. I left him to cry for a few minutes. When I returned his soother wasn't in his mouth, but as soon as he saw me he quieted down. I tried giving him his soother but his eyes remained wide open. I picked him up and sat in the rocking chair where we quietly rocked, but he showed no signs of falling asleep. I stood up and started bouncing him, and he started arching his back and crying again. So I returned him to his crib for a few minutes.
When I came back he was crying but he still had his soother in, amazingly. His eyes were closed, so I decided to try not picking him up. I just pinned his legs down with one hand (he kept slamming them down on his mattress), pinned his left arm down with the other hand, and kissed his cheek. Within about 45 seconds he was completely still and calm (how sweet is that??:), so I left the room. That nap lasted 45 minutes.
I'm still waiting on that long nap to tell me I can move forward with the swaddle weaning.
Operation No-Swaddle, Day 3
Day 3 of Operation No-Swaddle consisted of four 35-40 minute naps, which is a completely average thing for Noah to do. But that's also the exact amount of time that it takes for a sleep cycle to change, and it's how long a child often sleeps when they're being weaned off the swaddle. It's hard to tell how much this is affecting him.
Noah's arm squirms a lot less now when I put him in his crib than it did that first day (and some of the second). In that way he seems to be getting used to having it free. I'm not exactly sure what my next step will be. Should I keep one arm out but switch arms? That way he'd get used to having the other arm free. Or is that just prolonging the process because then he'd probably get used to having his left arm pinned again?
I think I'm going to wait until he sneaks in a long nap before I try both arms unswaddled. He did have that nap on Day 2 that was about an hour long, but I think I'd like to see him go to an hour and 20 minutes (for sure 2 sleep cycles) until I undo both arms.
Nighttime sucked last night. I couldn't fall asleep until after 10, then I got up at 2:45 for the bathroom. Noah woke up at 3 to eat, and it takes me hours to fall asleep when I get up in the middle of the night, so I was still awake (but getting really drowsy) when he started randomly crying at 4:30. I went in and looked at him and it was clear all he wanted was something to suck on. I gave him his soother (while loathing myself), and went back to bed. I then didn't fall asleep until sometime after 6, and then Noah woke me up at 7. I was awake from 2:45am until at least 6:15am. I guess I should be thankful for 5 hours of sleep, total, but somehow, I'm not. Catch me when I've been awake for more than half an hour and I might change my tune.
I hate his soother. I wish I had never let my mother introduce one to him. I was very hesitant to do it because then I'd have to wean him off of it, but she acted like it would be no big deal. And for awhile it wasn't. Having to use a soother to fall asleep isn't that big of a deal.
But waking up in the night and crying for a soother is not cool. He never used to do this. It's weird that he does now, because he never got his soother at night. He only got it during the day. And then suddenly he just started to wake up and cry and only want to suck. It happens more nights than it doesn't.
I've tried leaving him to cry himself back to sleep, but the crying escalates. And when he wakes up at these times, any soothing I can do without a soother makes no difference. All he wants is his soother.
Noah's arm squirms a lot less now when I put him in his crib than it did that first day (and some of the second). In that way he seems to be getting used to having it free. I'm not exactly sure what my next step will be. Should I keep one arm out but switch arms? That way he'd get used to having the other arm free. Or is that just prolonging the process because then he'd probably get used to having his left arm pinned again?
I think I'm going to wait until he sneaks in a long nap before I try both arms unswaddled. He did have that nap on Day 2 that was about an hour long, but I think I'd like to see him go to an hour and 20 minutes (for sure 2 sleep cycles) until I undo both arms.
Nighttime sucked last night. I couldn't fall asleep until after 10, then I got up at 2:45 for the bathroom. Noah woke up at 3 to eat, and it takes me hours to fall asleep when I get up in the middle of the night, so I was still awake (but getting really drowsy) when he started randomly crying at 4:30. I went in and looked at him and it was clear all he wanted was something to suck on. I gave him his soother (while loathing myself), and went back to bed. I then didn't fall asleep until sometime after 6, and then Noah woke me up at 7. I was awake from 2:45am until at least 6:15am. I guess I should be thankful for 5 hours of sleep, total, but somehow, I'm not. Catch me when I've been awake for more than half an hour and I might change my tune.
I hate his soother. I wish I had never let my mother introduce one to him. I was very hesitant to do it because then I'd have to wean him off of it, but she acted like it would be no big deal. And for awhile it wasn't. Having to use a soother to fall asleep isn't that big of a deal.
But waking up in the night and crying for a soother is not cool. He never used to do this. It's weird that he does now, because he never got his soother at night. He only got it during the day. And then suddenly he just started to wake up and cry and only want to suck. It happens more nights than it doesn't.
I've tried leaving him to cry himself back to sleep, but the crying escalates. And when he wakes up at these times, any soothing I can do without a soother makes no difference. All he wants is his soother.
Monday, August 23, 2010
Sleep Regression
I haven't really posted about this because I've been hoping it would turn around, but for the past month and a half Noah's nighttime sleeping has been going through a regression. From 2 months to 3.5 months he was an amazing sleeper. 8-10 hours straight EVERY night (I'd even venture to say it was more like 9-10.5 hours straight every night). 12 to 13 hours total each night. It was great.
At 3.5 months we went on vacation. It was 40 degrees with no air conditioning, so we couldn't swaddle Noah. Understandably his sleep regressed during that week. Since then, it hasn't gotten back to where it was.
It's not like it's horrible. He still only gets up once in the majority of nights. But in about a third of his nights he gets up twice. And now he usually gets up after 6-8 hours. A 10 hour straight night is a rarity. I'm very thankful when he makes it to 8 hours or more. I'm also very thankful when he only gets up once.
Furthermore, he only sleeps about 11.5 hours a night, now. He almost never makes it to 12 hours, and sometimes it's as little as 10.5 hours. He's also having more awakenings in the early part of the night (before 10pm) where he's not hungry and he doesn't want to cuddle. He's not even fully awake. All he wants to do is suck. We'll leave him to cry for 5 minutes to se if he'll put himself back to sleep. He sometimes will. But it often becomes clear that he will not be going back to sleep without intervention. I try just comforting him, but it doesn't work. The majority of these times, all he wants is a soother in his mouth.
Everytime I put that soother in I feel guilty. I don't want Noah to become dependent on a soother to sleep at night. He's already dependent for naptime, and cannot go to sleep without one. But I don't want to start having to regularly get up in the middle of the night to go put a soother back in his mouth.
But what else am I supposed to do? Nurse him everytime this happens? That's a lot more disruptive than sticking a soother in his mouth, and it could teach him to not go to sleep without nursing. I think a soother is the lesser of two evils there.
Before you suggest that he learn to self soothe with his hands, I'll address that. His hands soothe his need to have something in his mouth, but they do not soothe him back to sleep. We let him try that for a full week, and it doesn't work. In fact, if I even try to put him down unswaddled he will immediately wake up and not go back to sleep. And if I give him a soother when he's unswaddled he immediately goes for it with his hands and starts playing with it instead of keeping it fully in his mouth and sucking on it. He likes to touch the things that are in his mouth.
I'm not really sure what to do. I really don't think Noah is ready to be broken of his swaddle addiction. Besides, his hands don't put him to sleep. And if he's not swaddled, a soother won't work, either, because he'll just pull it out of his mouth and try unsuccessfully to get it back in.
I think I'm stuck. Hopefully he'll just fix himself. He was the one who made himself such a good sleeper in the first place.
At 3.5 months we went on vacation. It was 40 degrees with no air conditioning, so we couldn't swaddle Noah. Understandably his sleep regressed during that week. Since then, it hasn't gotten back to where it was.
It's not like it's horrible. He still only gets up once in the majority of nights. But in about a third of his nights he gets up twice. And now he usually gets up after 6-8 hours. A 10 hour straight night is a rarity. I'm very thankful when he makes it to 8 hours or more. I'm also very thankful when he only gets up once.
Furthermore, he only sleeps about 11.5 hours a night, now. He almost never makes it to 12 hours, and sometimes it's as little as 10.5 hours. He's also having more awakenings in the early part of the night (before 10pm) where he's not hungry and he doesn't want to cuddle. He's not even fully awake. All he wants to do is suck. We'll leave him to cry for 5 minutes to se if he'll put himself back to sleep. He sometimes will. But it often becomes clear that he will not be going back to sleep without intervention. I try just comforting him, but it doesn't work. The majority of these times, all he wants is a soother in his mouth.
Everytime I put that soother in I feel guilty. I don't want Noah to become dependent on a soother to sleep at night. He's already dependent for naptime, and cannot go to sleep without one. But I don't want to start having to regularly get up in the middle of the night to go put a soother back in his mouth.
But what else am I supposed to do? Nurse him everytime this happens? That's a lot more disruptive than sticking a soother in his mouth, and it could teach him to not go to sleep without nursing. I think a soother is the lesser of two evils there.
Before you suggest that he learn to self soothe with his hands, I'll address that. His hands soothe his need to have something in his mouth, but they do not soothe him back to sleep. We let him try that for a full week, and it doesn't work. In fact, if I even try to put him down unswaddled he will immediately wake up and not go back to sleep. And if I give him a soother when he's unswaddled he immediately goes for it with his hands and starts playing with it instead of keeping it fully in his mouth and sucking on it. He likes to touch the things that are in his mouth.
I'm not really sure what to do. I really don't think Noah is ready to be broken of his swaddle addiction. Besides, his hands don't put him to sleep. And if he's not swaddled, a soother won't work, either, because he'll just pull it out of his mouth and try unsuccessfully to get it back in.
I think I'm stuck. Hopefully he'll just fix himself. He was the one who made himself such a good sleeper in the first place.
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