Bobba: 7 months

Brownest eyes at this age of all my babies.  Isaac and Drew were older than 9 months when their eyes started looking brown.

Likes all mirrors like all babies do.

I started feeding little Bobba (a real nickname, not a typo) just after he turned six months at dinnertime only.  I started first with a banana in the mesh feeder where he can hold it and chew on it as the bits squeeze through the holes.  He loved it, then he hated it, then he loved it.  There was random and unexplained screaming in the middle there, but he seemed to have gotten over it rather quickly.  Then I introduced the following foods from baby food jars.  (I normally try to avoid the baby food that comes in a jar other than to grab in a pinch, but I really have my hands full and am allowing myself this luxury for the time being.  I'm hoping once things have been introduced individually I'll be able to swing making my own baby food (mostly from what we are already eating) but we'll see.  He seems to have a very strong gag reflex with any kind of thickness to the food.

banana
peas- I also put these in the mesh feeder sometimes
cereal
applesauce
pears
yogurt
carrots
blueberries
apricots
strawberries
parsnips (Yes, Germans have jarred parsnips!)
zucchini and potatoes- They were very thick and hard to thin out; he didn't like them at all.
mixed grain cereal

He's had no reactions to any foods.  Yay!  No allergies so far!  And a big YAY! for no milk allergy.

Bobby is sitting better, but not so well that I'd leave him sitting on tile floor with nothing behind him.  I do, however, leave him sitting on the rugs without the Boppy behind him.  He has made no improvement in rolling from back to front, and so he continues to sleep swaddled in the bassinet.  I did realize recently though while talking to a new friend about it that Genna was a late roller too and slept swaddled on her back in the Moses basket until she was around 9 months old.  My thoughts are that keeping him in such a small bed may not be the best thing for him.  So I am going to try to transition him to the small pack-n-play.  Judah's got dibs on the crib until August, so a pack-n-play is the best we can do for now.  I hate to move him when he is doing better at night now, and he's never ever slept in anything bigger than his bassinet, but I think it is best.  My other goal is to transition him out of the swaddle by starting with swaddling him after his bedtime story, and then moving him to my not-at-all famous invention of a one armed swaddle blanket (a refashion of a blanket sleeper.)
Bobby is so easily calmed.  Any of the children can usually cheer him right up if he fusses.  He is super spoiled having so many people to attend to his every need.  If he cries and a toy doesn't make it all better, everyone in this house knows to start singing, most of the time it's "Down by the Station."  He loves that song!  Most of the time they don't even have to finish the first line and he's already quiet and happy.  On the long car trip to Austria, he barely made a peep.  Isaac and Drew flanked him and did an excellent job of handing him new toys and singing to him.  Out of the 6.5 hours, he didn't even sleep close to half of the time, and yet I was able to sit, sew, and listen to the books on tape with the kids.

On the trip to Austria

Bobby is now enjoying playing in the Tupperware cabinet in the kitchen now.  He still loves his exersaucer, but he is growing out of the Bumbo and not enjoying the Jumperoo (ever) and the play gym (rarely.)

The biggest thing in the last week has been how he reacts when he sees me walk by when he has been playing happily.  He now cries for me if he hears my voice in another room or sees me walk by.  This is later than the other kids, as I recall.  I thought maybe he wasn't going to even do it, but here it is.  Separation anxiety.  Luckily, I have all those helpers!  Genna begs me to let her put him to bed which is often helpful if I am busy cooking or something.

Fat and Happy

"Why should I move when this is so comfortable?"

And another month bites the dust.  :(

Where does my angel sleep?

We outgrew our house, you see?  Eight people just don't fit well in a four bedroom house, especially when one of the bedrooms is small, one of the people is a two year old, one is a baby, and one is a mommy who is the lightest sleeper in the entire world.   So Bobby was in our room since it didn't make since to move Judah into the boys room when we were moving a few months after Bobby was born.  I really tried to just keep him in my room, but I wake up at every noise.  About a month in, I moved him and his pack-n-play around the corner to our master bathroom and cracked the door.  That's when he started sleeping through the night, not every night, but gradually more and more often.  When the movers came, we moved him into Judah's empty room.  Judah moved into the boys' empty room in a borrowed pack-n-play for that week, and the four big kids had a sleep over on mattresses in the girls' room.  Well, I had to ship Bobby's Moses basket and pack-n-play ahead so I kept the pad from his Moses basket and his bumpers.  I made him a little bed on the floor since he wasn't rolling yet.  However, he didn't seem to like it so much and was not sleeping as well.  So I made him a makeshift bed out of the suitcase and the pad and bumpers.  This worked well.

Then we got stuck at the airport and our flight delayed.  We ended up in a hotel for one night.  I didn't want to unpack my suitcase for just one night, so I put coats down in the tub with his Moses pad and bumpers.  Yes, he slept in the tub.  He was safe and we were all able to sleep better.

Then when we arrived in Germany at the hotel, he was back in the suitcase again.  This time, however, we put him in the closet.  This doesn't work as well since I can hear when he wakes up and makes noises since the closet has to be cracked for ventilation.  Usually he would just go back to sleep before I'd ever hear him if he was in another room.  It's still better than him being totally in the open because then we might wake him up when we are reading or getting ready for bed.

Then I bought a used European stroller that has a bassinet attachment.  So he is at least in a real bed even though he's still in the closet.  He gets his own room in a couple of weeks when we finally get to move in to our new rental house.  I don't know what he'll do with all that space.  I'm hoping he likes it.  A lot.  Enough to go back to sleeping through the night again, at least sometimes.  He's still a total angel right now though.  He's happy and peaceful almost all the time.

Sleep Regression of the Worst Kind

So starting on our vacation, Judah started sleeping less and less, but he was still going to sleep okay on his own like always.  The night before we left something happened that I still can not define with certainty and Judah started hysterically screaming about five minutes after I put him in his bed to sleep for the night.  I went in immediately because he NEVER does that...EVER!  The cat ran out from under his bed, but I figured that probably wasn't the cause because she stows away in there quite often and I go let her out before I go to bed when I notice her absence in our room.  A few times though she's stayed in there all night when I didn't notice.

Anyway, I could not figure out what was wrong and tried to calm him without picking him up as is my usual policy with babies who are not sick or hurt, etc.  I left the room and he became hysterical again so I decided I'd give him a few minutes while finishing getting Drew in bed.  He was still really crying when I finished with Drew so I went back in and tried rocking him and doing the last part of our bedtime routine with him again.  This worked and he went to sleep with just a little protest crying as I left the room.  As I said, we left for vacation the next day and he didn't have trouble getting to sleep at our friends' house.

We returned and the first night he went right to sleep in his own bed.  The next morning I had a doctor's appointment and he fell asleep on the way home.  When I tried to give him his regular nap later that afternoon, he protested the entire time.  I gave up thinking it had to do with him falling asleep on the drive.  The week went downhill from there each nap or bedtime getting worse and worse until I would go in and sit with him while he fell asleep (which wasn't long, but that's because he was completely exhausted.)  Then things got even worse and he started waking up in the morning earlier and earlier until it became not even morning when he was waking and ready for me to get him out of the crib.  When that time hit 3:30am, I decided that something had to be done to get him back to sleeping like my sweet boy always had.

I had tried a myriad of things, like talking him into it.  He's very verbal and understands a lot, but he was being very irrational (I know!  An irrational toddler is just unheard of!) and would not even listen to my rationalizing.  I tried giving him books in his crib or toys even.  We tried praying about it, for peace for him, during our regular routine prayers before bedtime and talking about being peaceful in his crib.  I even took him to the doctor to make sure there were no ear infections or hidden causes of this crisis in sleeping, which there were not.

Since all those things weren't working and sitting in there with him was making it worse and not better, I went with letting him cry it out.  Let's just say that he is a stubborn little guy.  Who knew he could fall asleep standing up over and over again for five hours, waking himself as his legs buckled.  He actually refused to lay down longer than I could have ever imagined.  He did begin to go to bed at night better after a few rough days with less than an hour of standing all the way down to returning to not crying and just going right to sleep when I laud him in his crib.  The whole next week he refused to nap though and stood during the whole nap each day.  Over the weekend I decided to try not offering a nap for two days and see if it would just break the cycle and it did.  On Monday afternoon, he finally took and afternoon nap.  I am hopeful it will continue.  He seems to be back to his normal, happy self again.

I was a complete mess with literally less sleep than when he was a newborn, so I am thrilled to be able to get some peaceful sleep again.  In the end, I've come to the conclusion that this is a combination of things that caused this problem.  Brian has been gone during the week days due to an out of town work obligation, and I have had a sitter come and help me out two evenings a week.  He seemed insanely clingy to me during this whole sleepless event and I think that was the main cause.  However, I think me continually going in to his room thinking I could handle this at his age (22 months) without doing a cry it out just made it worse.  I have never had to do cry it out at such an old age.  There have been sleep problems that have arisen with the other children after 18 months, but I have always been able to deal with them in other ways.  Who knew?  They are all so different!

We started "blanket time" finally.  I usually wait until they give up the morning nap and I realized that it's been a month since he gave that up and I hadn't started it yet.  I just feel like it helps move them towards being able to do quiet, alone "room time" which is something we really need with homeschooling, not to mention helping with obedience.

This was after Mass over a week ago when we were in the midst of the worst of the cry it out and/or sleep standing up.  He had been playing in a mud puddle and Brian thought his messy face was cute...even though it was a crying face.

Swaddling and Sucking

I am happy to say that he is a pacifier baby.  My last two boys were not and would never be comforted by a pacifier, but the girls loved them.  It is so helpful on car rides and at Mass when they are little.  He prefers the Soothie pacifiers, like the green one in this picture.

I think after a week of more rough nights than not, I *may* have figured out that he likes being swaddled with his arms up and hands by his face.  I always use the Miracle Blanket (not pictured) which holds their arms straight down by their sides.  It is a super snug swaddle that most babies prefer at first.  Isaac, however, did not like his arms straight because he sucked on his fists.  I didn't want to be hasty making this call because sometimes it just takes babies a bit to get used to it, but I tried it Wednesday night leaving out the straight arms part of the Miracle Blanket the second half of the night and he did much better.  Don't know if this will solve all problems, but we will see.  That is the only difference between night and day time (other than noise and lights) that I could come up with.  He falls asleep on his own during the day and sleeps so soundly, but at night he was struggling to get into a good sleep.

This is the Woombie that we are practicing using a couple times a day.  It allows a lot more movement than he was prepared for initially, but I think that he will quickly be ready for it.

16 weeks: sleep training in the middle of the night

Drew is 16 weeks now, but he's not 4 months officially until late next week. He doesn't have his 4 month check up until even later in the month, but I think he is over 18 lbs at the moment. In case you can't tell, he loves to suck on those fingers and hands!

Thursday night was the first day of nighttime boot camp for little Drew. I was hopeful since he has never been one to cry for long stretches at other times of the day, maybe a handful of times in his life. However, he is still pooping in the middle of the night regularly. My plan was to send in daddy for the middle of the night diaper change and swaddle if he woke.

Night One:
He woke at 10:00pm sharp for dreamfeed. I nursed him like I normally would.
He woke at 1:45am (not normal, never wakes this early.) Dad changes his diaper (poop,) swaddles him, and puts him back down. He cried on and off for just over an hour. He was back asleep before 3am.
He woke at 4:30am. We did not go in at all. He cried for about 30 minutes straight, took a 7 minute break and was back asleep by 5:20am.
He woke at 6am and I got him up and nursed him to start the day.
During the day on Friday, he was very tired and had trouble staying awake his normal time.

Night Two:
He woke at 1:15am and cried just long enough for me to wake up and hear him. He stopped and went back to sleep.
He woke at 3:34am. Dad changes his diaper (no poop,) swaddles him, and puts him back down. He cried for only 5 minutes and then was quiet for 10 and cried a couple more and went back to sleep.
I woke him at 7am to nurse and start the day.
During the day he stayed on his regular schedule nursing at 10, 1, 4, 6:30, and 10. (One minor change that wasn't his fault was a bottle of breast milk at 4 (by dad) of which he only took 1.5 oz and I nursed him at 5 when I got home since the second bottle attempt didn't go so well.

Night Three:
He woke at 3:34am again. Dad changes his diaper (poop,) swaddles him, and puts him back down. He cried for only a couple minutes and then went back to sleep.
He woke at 6:30am to nurse and start the day.
Mass cut his first nap short, but had a good second nap, a mediocre third nap, and a regular evening nap.

Night Four:
He slept through the night until just minutes before 6am which is good enough for me. And if the wind storm at 4am hadn't woken me up (and kept me up) when something hit the window, I might be a well rested mommy right now.
He did the same napping as the day before where he took three short naps and one long one (2nd nap.) He was very uncharacteristically cranky all day.

I am sure the middle of the night waking (and pooping) is far from over, but at least we are making progress and have a strategy that is working. I especially like that the strategy involves someone else getting up in the middle of the night besides me. :) Not sure that Brian feels the same way though.

15 Weeks Old (written last Tuesday)

Drew is getting stronger and stronger. He does little baby sit ups which are pretty funny looking. On his back, he can arch his back up and push with his legs, getting ready to roll from back to tummy, but it may still be a while. On his tummy, he can push his arms straight, one at a time and lift his legs way off the ground and he is starting to do the "airplane." His abs are far surpassing mine, that's for sure.

Christmas festivities really messed up his schedule and those nights that I didn't tell you about him sleeping through are long gone. He has been waking at 2:30/3am again. I am contemplating sending Brian in for the old diaper change and put back down while he is off work this week. I am trying to gear myself up for it because I think it needs to be done before her turns 4 months old and his schedule has to be changed and extended again. I am still undecided as of now.

Drew is definitely figuring out the fuss for attention thing. Having lots of people around him over the week made this worse because everyone goes running to a fussing/noisy baby and showers him with attention. He grunts and hollers until someone pays attention to him, at which time he immediately smiles as big as he can. At home, I don't ignore him completely, but neither do I go running at his every whim. Usually, it is just a boredom thing, and if I move him somewhere new he is happy again. When we homeschool, I sit near him to try and keep him quieter only because the noise is distracting to my little students and I don't like to have to "yell" over him to be heard.

His new toy experience of the week is busting out the excersaucer. He didn't love it the first couple of times and kind of just sat there, but then he started grabbing for things and he likes it more now. He is getting better at grabbing things and always tries to get them in his mouth if it will reach.

He is settling into somewhat of a pattern with his naps, not a great pattern, but at least its a pattern. Patterns help me not to get too frustrated even when it isn't the schedule I wanted for him. He is taking two longer naps in the morning and midday, followed by two 45 minute naps in the late afternoon and evening. I think once we move to the four month/four hour schedule this may end up evening out since he will be dropping the last nap and extending waketimes. With his four naps and dreamfeed, he is nursing 6 times a day. That makes 7 times in a 24 hour period when he wakes at night.

Did I mention this kid can drool?

Drew has developed a touch of Excema in the last week. It started only on his cheeks, elbows, and knees. Since then it has spread to his neck, feet, and a little spot by his mouth. I was using Cetaphil, but I found Hannah's old tub of Aquafor and am going to start using that instead. It is greasier, like Vaseline.

14 weeks

Drew rolled over twice this week from his tummy to his back. He is pushing up a bit and lifting up his legs to make himself rock from side to side. Most of the time his arm is in the way (which seems to always be the stumbling block for rolling) or he would be rolling all the time. His chubby-cuteness is irresistible to me. I wouldn't do anything all day but look at his cuteness and kiss his chubs if I could get away with it.

He is going to sleep on his own well, crying usually less than one minute. He does cry or fuss a bit during our bedtime routine, usually at the beginning of it when I am reading him a book. I just carry on, and he usually calms down and starts sucking on his fist at some point. He occasionally will close his eyes towards the end of the routine, but he wakes a bit when I lay him down and zip him up in his Woombie swaddle. As for the evenings, he is improving. He predictably wakes up and cries for 5-10 minutes about 45 minutes after bedtime and then goes back to sleep. He sometimes wakes up before I go get him for his dreamfeed right at 10pm, but if he does this he always has a dirty diaper then. He is still having days when he does mostly 45 minute naps, but he has catch up days as well. I think this will balance out with time, so I am not too worried about it. He seems to be happy most of the time to wake up and wait a bit to nurse if it is too early for another feeding. I usually don't wait more than 30 minutes, if that, so that we can stay on the sleep, eat, wake cycle. I admit I am a tiny bit superstitious about a baby's night time sleep. In my experience, the minute I tell someone that my baby is sleeping through the night, he invariably stops. So, what I will not do is say that Drew has slept through the night four times this week. I will not do it, so don't ask!

He is fast approaching the four month mark when schedules start to change. Ideally, we will move closer to a 4 hour schedule during the day, but we shall see. I am kind of nervous about this age since Isaac was doing so well until he hit that four month mark. (For Isaac, a lot happened that month too, and I am hoping it was all the chaos of dad leaving for a long trip, an overseas flight, and RSV that played a large part in that disruption.) Four months seems to be a dicey age all around though from what I have read. Genna started needing a little more guidance in her sleep training at that age, but I do not recall Hannah having any trouble at that age. Every child is different, and I thank God for that!

Cocoon Sleeping

For naps, Drew Bug sleeps in this cocoon called a Woombie. I like it because it zips up and is less laborious than other swaddle blankets. Brian and I got so sick of wrapping Hannah up 8 times a day and have tried ti avoid doing full swaddles for naps with the subsequent children. However, Drew seems to really need some kind of swaddle, and the Woombie is perfect for him and us. I do his naptime routine (read to, pray with, and sing to him) and lay him down to zip him up in his cocoon while he is still awake. Sometimes he is drowsy, but others he is not. I do not make this a requirement. The only thing I try to be consistent in is not letting him be actually asleep. If he does fall asleep, zipping him up jars him awake a bit. When I go to get him up from a nap, it is truly like a butterfly coming out of his chrysalis. I love it. the down side to this Woombie is that he is already almost too big for this one and there is only one more size to go to. The max weight for the next size up is 19 lbs and my boys usually hit that before 4 months. I have always swaddled my kids well past that age. I am going to get the next size up and hope for the best.

For night sleep, he sleeps in his Miracle blanket. I have used this blanket with all of my children. It is amazing! It takes them quite a while to learn how to get out of this which is it's best selling point. It is laborious if you have to do it 8 times a day, but not if you are only doing it 3 times a day. I have become quite fast over the last 7 years in wrapping babies up in this blanket. I unwrap him to nurse and change his diaper even though it isn't a necessity. I do it so he takes a full feeding. Also, I like that even if he is asleep when I am ready to put him back in bed, swaddling him jars him awake a tiny bit so he has to practice going to sleep on his own in his crib. Speaking of, you may notice that he sleeps in his Moses basket with a sleep positioner. I elevate the head of the Moses basket too to help with gas and spitting up. I think it helps him sleep better because he can't move around and it is more like the tight quarters he was used to in the womb. (Notice I don't do this during the day for naps. That is because he is a really good napper and doesn't need it. Plus, I want the transition to his flat spacious bed to be easier later when he is too big for the Moses basket.) I have his crib split so that half is set up for the night and half for the day.