As spring time nears I thought it appropriate to blog about a few of the habits that River has put to rest and the new habits that are beginning to bloom in all their glory... good and bad. Luckily, they have mostly been good!Things past:
- The days of clothes sized for 3 months and younger. Now he fits into 6 month clothes and sometimes even 9 month clothes!
- Having to be bounced or rocked to sleep. When we lost the bouncy chair to bouncy fatigue I was very afraid of what nap times and bedtime would be like. It seemed to us as though he was incapable of sleep without some sort of repetitive movement to lull him to sleep. However, what we found is that a swaddle and a pacifier were all he needed. Sometimes he doesn't even need the swaddle or the pacifier... but more on that later.
- Okay, it's later! Heavy reliance upon the pacifier is a thing of the past. He now prefers his thumb. Even when I do give him his pacifier at bedtime or nap time, whenever I check on him a few minutes later, he has ditched the pacifier and shoved his thumb in his mouth.
- Happy peaceful teething :'( Now that tooth #2 has joined the club he often gets crankier during the day and the only thing that seems to help is to hold him and walk him around. I would venture to guess that within the past week or so I have walked several miles all within the walls of our small house.
- Breastfeeding. This has been a tough one for me. Unfortunately, I had to abandon night feedings because he took too long (sometimes close to 2 hours) to take an entire feeding. Then I had to abandon some daytime feedings while I was at work. Put that all together and EVERY feeding started to take too long (1 hour +). So after innumerable tears I turned the torch fully over to Playtex, Dr. Brown, and Soothie.
- Sleeping on his back. Now, almost 100% of the time when I check on him while he is sleeping I find him on his tummy. As a matter of fact the other day he was having an unusually difficult time falling asleep for a nap. As usual I had put him in his crib on his back (Back is Best!) with a pacifier. About 2 minutes after I put him in the crib he started fussing. So I put him on his tummy and made sure his hand was close enough to access his thumb should he want it. Sho'nuf he was practically asleep before I walked out of his room.
- I saved the best for last... And I announce this cautiously for fear of jinxing us... But, midnight feedings are a thing of the past! River now sleeps 10-11 hours consecutively! Words cannot describe how wonderful it has been. It has only been a couple of weeks that I've had uninterrupted sleep and already I've begun to wonder how I made it 5 months without it!
Out with the old, in with the new!
3 comments:
Great post! he's SO cute I could eat him up! You seem to be loving motherhood! how wonderful!!!
Oh River and Nadia are so alike in many ways!! I LOVE the pics - such beautiful eyes and such a beautiful smile!!!! COngrats to River on sleeping 10-11 hours. WOOHOO! Nadia didn't start that until 6 months and I agree I wondered how I survived so long without it! Nadia has been sleeping 11-12 hours for 2+ months now and it's heavenly... She never liked the paci but is definitely a thumb sucker and definitely prefers sleeping on her belly and she's VERY fussy when teething (even for her first tooth although she got 2 at once). And I too shed tears, many of them, over stopping b/fing. Well hopefully we'll both get to experience that again with another little one some day in the future. Did your milk really come in well for awhile there? I was wondering what happened in that regard after the "milk making blues" post prior to him being born.
I figured that at my peak milk production River was getting 2-3 oz. from me each day. So no where near what I would have been able to produce had I given birth to him.. or even to the 50% of normal that the lactation consultant thought I might be able to reach, but I didn't use the medication she recommended I just used the herbs that I got from you. I think the medication is the way to go if it is your first time b/fing and you want to produce as close to a full supply as possible. I just wasn't comfortable taking a med that was banned in the US. Really, what I wanted most was the bonding opportunity and I was able to achieve that for at least the first 4 months of his life :)
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