My little boy is now 6 weeks old, and I just can't believe it. The only big changes I have made in his schedule are that in the evening I am putting him back to bed around 6:30 or 7pm and he sleeps until 7:30 or 8pm. (I was just letting him sleep wherever for that time which meant sometimes he didn't sleep at all.) Then I am letting him have a bit of waketime and putting him to bed for his night time sleep to begin at 8:45pm or so. (This is not ideal and will have to be moved up, but he is wide awake then and doesn't have to be up long before getting tired again.) For many nights he was crying on and off until his 10pm dream feed. I was even moving the dream feed up a bit when I felt like he wasn't going to get to sleep before then. I wasn't too worried about this since he sleeps so much and so well all the other times during the day and night. However, I can't keep him awake or he cries the whole time anyway with me holding him because he is so tired. Last night we tried having Brian do the bedtime routine and put him down at that time and it worked really well. He only cried on and off for less than 20 minutes. I will keep trying this as long as it keeps working.
His ideal waketime is around 45-55 minutes for most of the times. By 40 minutes he starts fussing or blinking and we start the bedtime routine.
This week I did some experimenting and found that Drew has an insane preference for my room and his room when he is awake. He is happily put down anywhere in one of those two places, but no where else in the house. My thoughts are that he is a baby that gets overly stimulated and overwhelmed easily. Bad kind of baby to be when you are born fourth into a family, if you ask me. I am not completely catering to this preference because he is going to have to learn how to deal with the chaos eventually, but it is good to know when I need him to be happy and on his own to put him in one of his safe zones. Knowing this about him means that he can have some practice being on his own a bit (i.e. not being held) and some practice with the chaos of the house too.
His big leap this week came in part due to my aforementioned experimenting. He finally enjoyed his play gym, as you can see in the picture at the top of this post. He even smiled at it. It is currently in my room since I was having no luck with it anywhere else. He also is super happy in the vibrating seat in the bathroom while I take my shower. I have caught him studying his hands this week. He also is calmed, initially at least, by my mere presence which is a first for him. When he sees me coming toward him, he calms and quits crying immediately. All these things mean he is growing up.
About the newborn stage, I love their tininess, their sleepiness, their smells, their lightness (I can carry them around with one hand,) their inability to move around and get into trouble, and their ability to sleep on the go. The hard things about newborns are the lack of sleep, lack of entertain-ability, their floppiness, and having to get them on a schedule. Each stage has it's good and bad points. Here's to looking on the bright side and loving every minute of the good stuff while it lasts!
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