Sleep and Food Updates

Yes, the two most fascinating subjects known to man.

Sleep:  Overall, Jack’s sleeping is still vastly improved.  Most nights, he goes down at 8 (with a little crying, alas) and sleeps until I wake him around 11:30 to eat again.  Then he usually sleeps until 6:30 or 7:30!  It isn’t like that every night, of course, but enough that I feel like it’s a trend.  I am not sure when I will try and drop the 11:30 feeding; I suspect he’ll just wake up at 2 or 3 instead, and I’d much rather feed him at 11:30 and have him sleep a longer chunk.  This morning he even slept in til 8 with no wake-ups.. a minor miracle.

His napping is starting to go to two long ones per day, rather than one long and two short.  Usually he sleeps an hour to an hour and a half in the morning, and then 30 minutes to an hour in the afternoon.  Some mornings we’re out and about and he doesn’t get his nap til fairly late, and sometimes he just won’t take an afternoon nap at all, but overall his napping isn’t too bad.

(Of course, in the middle of typing this (9:30 PM) he woke up and I just went up and rocked him back to sleep!)

Food: Jack is still turning out to be a pretty good eater. The main thing he hasn’t liked so far has been lentils (cooked red lentils), but I sneak them into oatmeal and he tolerates them.  I hope he learns to like them because they’re good for iron and fiber.  Lately we’ve introduced pasta, salmon (just a few bites of plain cooked salmon), and hard-boiled egg yolk.  And he has finally learned how to pick up food and put it into his mouth, as of last week.  It was like he learned it overnight:  one day he couldn’t be bothered, and the next he was shoving Cheerios in his mouth.  He’s still not very good at it, but it’s a relief to have him be able to do some of the feeding.

I will probably go from two to three meals a day soon, but I have been putting it off.  Planning the meals for the week for myself and Chris has always been one of my least favorite chores, and now I get to figure out what he’s eating too!  Eventually of course he’ll eat at least some of what we’re having.  I am trying to get a little smarter and freeze some of the stuff I make, but most days I end up cooking oatmeal and steaming fruits & veg.

Once we move to three meals, I will probably try and cut down to 4 breastfeedings per day (one when he wakes up, one some time during the day, one before bed, and the 11:30 one).  Right now I’m doing 5-6.

He rarely has a bottle these days, and when he does (like last weekend when my sister babysat) he struggles with it.  Not sure what to do about that.  Generally it doesn’t matter, but it would be nice for when we’d like to have a babysitter!

He has his 9-month appointment next week, and they’ll check his iron levels.  He doesn’t get much formula, and I’ve been feeding him oatmeal instead of the iron-fortified rice cereal and just trying to get him his iron through food, but it might not be enough.

Compare and Contrast

Last Christmas

Last Christmas, I spent most of the day lying on an air mattress at my parents’ house.  I was on bedrest for a few days because I’d had some spotting.  I was really worried that something was wrong and that I’d lose the baby.

It turned out to be nothing serious (probably cervical bleeding) and everything worked out fine in the end.

I don’t miss being pregnant.  Don’t get me wrong, I am unbelievably grateful I was able to get pregnant, and really I had a pretty easy one overall.  I had some very painful sciatica in the 4th month, but it went away.  I had two spotting instances, but it turned out not to be serious.  Plus of course I had all the usual aches and pains and difficulties sleeping.  But really, none of that was a big deal.

The two hardest parts were the physical restrictions and the worrying.  My doctor didn’t even want me to go for walks in my neighborhood (too hilly) and it was hard to be so careful the whole time.  And I’m a born worrier, which is not particularly useful while pregnant.  I saw one article that said the miscarriage rate goes up for women who worry a lot.  Uh, good idea to publish that one, morons.. that’ll help ease our worries!

Trying out the Ergo carrier

The first semester I worried I would miscarry.  By the end of the second trimester, I was actually feeling pretty good, and hopeful it was all going to be fine.  Then I started spotting, and freaking out.  And during the third trimester I had just a strange, uncomfortable heaviness that I worried about.  I know, I know.. I was pregnant, of course I felt a strange heaviness!  But my descriptions of the feeling didn’t seem to be like anything anyone else I knew had.  It wasn’t Braxton-Hicks, because there was no starting and stopping.  It was just there all the time.  If I get pregnant again, I’ll know it’s just the way my body feels when pregnant, but at the time it concerned me.

All this to say:  this Christmas was completely different.  This Christmas, Jack was 8 months old, and had the time of his life playing with ribbons and wrapping paper, and getting lots of love from the rest of the family.  I could hardly believe it was real.  I teared up more than once, just so grateful that it all worked out and that we now have Jack, who I love more than I can say.

SAHM

That’s “Stay at Home Mom” for those not down with the lingo.  When I was a kid, I never dreamed I’d be a SAHM.  I wasn’t into babies.  I did babysit some, but it was usually older kids, who could, y’know, go to the bathroom by themselves.  I’ve always been more interested in a career.

In college and graduate school I continued to waffle on whether I’d ever want kids.  I thought it would be nice if I could just have them arrive at about the age of 5; that’s when I figured the fun part started.

I started to change my mind after my nieces were born, and I realized that babies could be interesting as well, and when I would babysit them, I realized maybe I could do the baby part after all.  When Chris proposed, I told him I wasn’t sure if I wanted kids or not, and if it was a dealbreaker, I’d understand.  It wasn’t until after we were married that I made up my mind for sure that I wanted kids.

I haven’t worked full-time for almost 2 years.  I quit my last job in February of 2007, partly because it was time to move on, and partly to see if that would help me get pregnant.  I got pregnant in July, and did some part-time consulting from October to March.

Right now, I don’t miss working.  I’m still not sure how long it will be before I go back to work, and what it is I’ll do when I go back.  I’m sure I will at some point; I don’t see myself being a SAHM for the next 18 years.  If I’m lucky, I’ll find some part-time work.

Sometimes I do wish for a change in routine.  Some days it seems like all I do is prepare food, feed Jack, do laundry, tidy the house, plan the meals, do dishes.. it would be nice to use my brain for something a little more challenging.  But right now, this is what I want.  I love being able to see Jack every day, to see how he changes, to lie on the floor and laugh and read books with him.  I’m very lucky to have that option.

I had a very satisfying career for 12 years, and I will have one again.

Sleep Update

Well.  Two nights ago Jack had his best night of sleep EVER.  He went to bed at 8 without crying (miracle!) and slept til I woke him around 11:30 to eat.  Back to sleep, and not a peep until 7:30!  Actually, he’s done great the last three nights.

The two weeks prior to Thanksgiving he did fairly well, but on Thanksgiving it all went to pot (the night my parents were here.  My aunt as well, but she’s deaf so she didn’t hear anything!)  At least my mom said later “Ok, now I know why you can’t sleep through it.”

We did make one change a few nights ago that I’m kind of embarrassed to admit:  we put Jack in a sleep sack.  Now, I have wondered before if Jack might be cold, but I didn’t think that was the issue for a number of reasons:  1) when it’s warm, he hasn’t slept any better; 2) the thermostat upstairs is always set fairly high at night, and it’s been the same for quite a while now, including the two weeks he slept fairly well; and 3) one night I dressed him in two layers of PJs and he screamed and cried til we took one of them off.  So, y’know, I really didn’t think it was being cold.

But the last three nights he’s had the sleep sack and done so much better..  well.. maybe he HAS been cold.  In which case, Hello, I am a terrible mother.  Or maybe it’s not being cold; maybe he just likes the extra comfy layer.  I know I like to have lots of covers.

Anyway, I am not going to say we’ve turned a corner, because every time I do, it gets worse again.  But let’s just say it’s been a nice few nights.

Swim Swim Swim

Yesterday we went to the pool for Jack’s first swim lesson.  I wanted to try it because a) I thought it would be something fun for us to do together and b) I want to get him used to being in the water.  I don’t care if he becomes a good swimmer, but I do want him to become a competent swimmer when he’s older, both for safety and enjoyment.

Anyway, it went very well.  We waded into the pool, and the instructor led us through various activities, songs, floating him on his back, having him reach up for toys on the edge of the pool, balance on a mat floating on the water, etc.  She took him part of the time, and twice put his face in the water and swam him towards me.  The first time he cried briefly after he came up, but the second time he didn’t cry; he just looked a bit surprised.  She also guided him down a small slide and then dropped him into my arms in the pool, which he liked.

We’ll definitely go back.

I’ve got a problem with my henway…

I accidentally weighed Jack the other day.  Well, first accidentally, and then on purpose.  As I mentioned a while ago, I stopped weighing Jack after his 4-month doctor’s appointment because I was making myself crazy.  He weighed just under 16 pounds at his 6-month appointment a month and a half ago, and I hadn’t planned to weigh him again til his 9 month.

But the other day I was going to weigh myself before my shower, and Jack was crawling around on the bathroom floor.  (I let him crawl around in the bedroom/bathroom while I get ready to take a shower, and then I put him in the Exersaucer.)  Anyway I pushed the button to reset the scale, and Jack crawled on to it, and to my surprise it said 19 pounds.  So I was curious enough that I weighed him the “proper” way, e.g. the way you weigh a cat (weigh yourself holding the cat, then just you) and it claimed he weighed 19.5 pounds.  Now, he was wearing his diaper and PJs, but still!  That seems like an awfully big weight gain to me.  Maybe I’ll weigh him next week at the mother’s group.

Must be all the solids he’s eating.  I’m feeding him twice a day and he is a little eating machine.  Who would have thought I would have a baby that loves food!  He sure didn’t get that from me.  Anyway, I know things change, and I’m sure we’ll find foods he doesn’t like, but I’m grateful he hasn’t been picky so far.