A little tough Love

My goodness..he's finally asleep. I can't tell you how much this child fights sleep during the day!

This morning he was with a babysitter for a couple of hours so I could play the piano at church, and he was good until the last little bit. Then he got fussy and wasn't eating and his diaper wasn't dirty. I knew he was probably tired but would he go to sleep? Not a chance. So I fed him when I got there (after calming him down) and put him in the car seat and we drove home. En route, he fell asleep. Success! Except wait, he doesn't stay asleep for long once we get home. Sure enough, 5 minutes upon entering our house, he was awake again. I thought "hey, he's drowsy, maybe I can just take him out of the seat and rock him and he'll zonk out again". I was having success. I sang to him, he was relaxing. He actually tucked his nose inside of my shirt (I'm wearing a button down) and seemed to be just taking in my mommy scent. It was a nice moment. Then I put him down on the couch (belly down) and *BAM* he was awake again. Seriously child...I was starting to get annoyed.

So I made myself some lunch and let him fuss in his swing a little bit. After lunch we changed his diaper and I played with him, got him to giggle a bit, and then I fed him again. Keep in mind it had only been about 2 hours since his last feeding. He's not having a growth spurt. I'm thinking he's going to need to start solids soon because mommy's milk just doesn't seem to be satisfying him. Either that or he's teething and mommy's boob is the only thing that feels good on his gums (I doubt this is the case).

So he started to fall asleep again during the feeding. Success! Right? Wrong! I put him down on his tummy again and *BAM* we have an awake baby. At this point my patience is running dry. He was crying intermittently and I knew he was tired, but he just would not go to sleep. So I left him on his belly on the little couch where he usually takes naps, and decided to vacuum the living room. That worked when he was a newborn. Not this time. He was more interested in looking at what the heck mommy was doing.

So I finished the vaccuming and said "well hey at least I have a clean floor" and decided that I was not going to let him stay awake when I knew how tired he was. So I got out my laptop and strapped on my "tough love" attitude. He layed there and looked around at things quietly for a while (it's amazing how far this kid can hold his head up...I thought for sure he would roll off the couch at one point) and then he started crying so loud. But I was determined. I wanted to scoop him up and love on him, but I knew. After somewhere between 5 and 10 minutes of crying, there was silence. I looked over at him and he was zonked. Crashed. Totally out. He cried himself to sleep.

Now I have mixed feelings about the "cry it out" method in general, but I have to say that this time it worked. And it was the only thing that worked. I knew he wasn't in pain, I knew that he knew I loved him...he just needed to let himself go to sleep. And I'm so glad that a little tough love paid off in the end. Now the question is: how long will he nap? Hopefully for a good 3-4 hours. This is his first nap today (and probably his only one). He's due for about that long. Times to cross our fingers and see what happens!

UPDATE: 7:01PM
He slept until 6:30. Tough love works!

There were 4 in the bed...

...and the little one said "Roll over!"

It's true. Our 4 month old is rolling over more consistently now. The problem is, he still does it in his crib at night. Last night he went to bed early (around 8:30) and at around 11:30 we heard this high pitched SHRILL scream. He had apparently tried to roll over but the crib bumper got in the way so he was stuck up on his side. The poor thing probably had no idea how he got there and no idea how to get back to where he started! He tries to roll over on his own during tummy time during the day and when he's really exerting effort he makes this cute little "grunt" noise. Then his head flops down and he takes a few quick puffs of air (it's exhausting work!) and gets right back at it. Before we know it he'll be a pro. Then he'll be sitting up, and crawling, and standing, and walking, oh my! Or maybe he'll go right to walking. Yes. My boy is gonna be a pro in the area of mobility. He already scoots around the crib like it's a racetrack and has been doing that for quite some time. Oh what I have to look forward to!

Ugh

There are days when I attempt to live the life I used to live (you know, like...busy every second, never bored), and I fail. I fail big time. Because when you have a 4 month old, his needs come first. And this morning I tried to go to some garage sales with a friend (good to get out of the house, right?) and the little stinker fussed the whole time. I spent most of my time holding a pacifier in his mouth. It was ridiculous. Then when we got home I knew he needed a nap and it took all I could muster to get him down. And even more than I could muster to KEEP him down. Seriously, this kid is exhausting. Right now he's laying here beside me making cute faces at me and I'm debating, "Should I go to the bank?". I've needed to go for a couple days now. Anymore though, any time I put Caleb in his car seat, he lets out a very distressed cry. He hates the car seat. I can't blame him, it's not like he can move around much when he's in there. He's not supposed to be able to move, that's the point. He makes grunting noises and plays with the buckles and chews on the straps and I swear one day he's going to figure out how to bust out of there. Then we'll be in REAL trouble.

Greg will be home from work soon and maybe I can convince him to stay with Caleb while I run to the bank. Hopefully I can get there before they close at 7. In the meantime, it's me and Caleb and Frankie (our poodle) and the Cosby Show. *sigh* What a life I live.

Four Months!

On July 4th, Caleb turned 4 months old. And this afternoon I took him to the doctor for what they call his "well baby" checkup. He's 24.75" long and weighs 15 lb 8 oz. He's in the 50th percentile for his age, which means half of other kids his age are bigger than him and half are smaller. He's right where he should be, in my opinion.

Then he had to get some shots--not the highlight of either of our days. Caleb is a huge charmer--he smiles at just about everybody he meets. The nurse comes in and he flashes one of his killer smiles and she says "aaaw...I'm so sorry hunny...I really don't want to do this". Then she pulls out the needle and says "1,2,3 I love you" and in it goes. He whimpered a little bit and looked at his mamma with those precious pleading eyes and I held his hand and then the nurse grabs the second needle. Thankfully 4 shots can be injected with just two needles but man, that was two too many! Again the countdown: "1,2,3 I love you"...and then, the screams. This time Caleb man was PISSED (can I say that? cuz it's true). He screamed REALLY loud...and the nurse flinched...and I picked him up off the table and held him close and he gave the nurse a look of disdain (poor lady) and he calmed down a little bit. She left the room so I could get us all ready to leave. I put Caleb in his seat and he started crying so hard that no sound would come out. The poor kid, all I could do was "shhh" him and tell him it would be okay, and hold a pacifier in his mouth so he might find some level of comfort. This is the second time he's had shots. I definitely cried the first time, and this time I was pretty close to tears. It's those helpless pleading eyes that really grab me. Usually mom can make it better, but for this the only thing mom can do is hold him and tell him it will be okay. That's really hard on a mamma's heart!

The doctor is really close to my house, only a couple of blocks away. Usually when Caleb sleeps in the car it takes at least a 20 minute drive to knock him out. Not this time. Pretty much as soon as we hit the road, he was out. And usually Caleb wakes up shortly after we get home. Not this time. He napped in his car seat for about a half hour after I got back. This was blissful. I got to eat some lunch and talk to a friend on the phone and not have to worry about tending to my little one.

Then he woke up, still feeling pretty sleepy. I fed him and he went back to sleep and has been asleep now for about 2 hours. I think part of his screaming at the doctor was because he was so tired. He tends to be less tolerant when he's tired (sounds like most of the rest of us!).

Soon my husband will be home from work and I will be leaving to teach a couple of piano lessons. Then we will have our evening together with our little man, we'll go to bed and tomorrow will be a new day. Should be fun! Until next time.

A Little Laughter

So I thought you all would enjoy this little piece of heaven, compliments of my Caleb man. :-)

Cuteness

Two days ago, my baby boy laughed for the first time. It was the cutest thing EVER. Unfortunately I didn't get it on video (boo). And the way I rolled on the floor and kicked my legs in the air and squealed with excitement was pretty fun too. HEHE. In place of a laughing video, here are a couple of recent pics:

Here he is holding his head up after a good nap.

Some mommy and baby cuteness

Smiley in his swing

Puppy licks :-)

And my favorite: swing escape artist

Postpartum

Right after delivery and as I was almost finished with my stitches, the nurses brought Caleb over to me and let him lay on my chest, skin to skin. I was told that this is very important. I was surprised at how heavy he seemed to me. Maybe it was because I was so wore out from the whole ordeal. A lactation consultant was there and helped him hook up to my breast for his first feeding. There were very few problems. He latched on and started to eat. However, in the days and weeks following, his "thrust reflex" (the tongue going in and out of his mouth) got in the way and we couldn't get the poor child to latch for anything. Consultants tried everything--dropping a little sugar water on the breast to attract him to it, squirting formula in his mouth while he's close to the breast so he makes the association that breast=food. Nothing seemed to help. I also think my colostrum wasn't fully in until a couple of days after delivery. I'm sure that was part of his frustration as well.

One thing I quickly learned in the few weeks following Caleb's birth is that it IS possible to be given too much advice. While I'm sure the lactation consultants meant well, their advice really turned out to be more of a headache in the long run. The nurses gave me the option of taking care of Caleb in the nursery while I attempted to get some sleep at night. They brought him in two to three times each night for his feeding and basically left me there to figure it out. They said to call if I needed help but they didn't really know how to help anyway. So I was left there in a state of sleepiness with a crying and hungry baby to try and get him to latch and eat. Sometimes it was sucessful, sometimes not. The doctor was worried about the amount of a certain substance in Caleb's blood, called biliruben, which somehow prevents him from being jaundiced. They made a big deal about this because if he didn't eat enough then he would have a low biliruben level. This was worry number one for a scared and confused first time mom. They also told me he needed to eat every two hours and that if he was asleep I should wake him up. They reccomended cruel things like taking off his clothes, slapping his back, etc. These methods basically made him nice and mad and do you think he would settle down for food after that? Not a chance! Advice to any mommies-to-be out there: do NOT wake your baby up to feed him, especially at night. I promise, he will be okay.

We also got a breast pump from our sister-in-law. I had it with me in the hospital and tried pumping a little bit so we could feed Caleb using a bottle. Another word of advice to new moms: don't introduce the bottle to your little one until he's at least a month old. Caleb became a victim of "nipple confusion". Formula bottles have a faster flow than the breast. They don't require latching, and they're generally a lot easier to get food from. If the kid can get easy food from a bottle, do you think he's going to make the effort to get food from the breast? Not a chance! So we were up for a good four hour screaming match late one night after we got smart and decided we were going to cut the bottle completely. It was trying, but worth it. Now he's a breast feeding pro.

We didn't get smart about the words of advice we were going to follow until we talked to our sister-in-law. She has five kids, so her advice came from experience. It's not to say that doctors and lactation consultants don't have kids and/or experience, but sometimes I think they have an agenda. They stick to what "the books" tell them is the right thing to do, and really have a hard time catering to the needs of the individual child. I truly believe that only the parents know best and even as a first time mom fluttering to figure out how to tend to the needs of my new little bundle, I could have done better with just the words of my sis-in-law and left the doctors and consultants to their own.

Breast feeding was probably the biggest challenge I had postpartum, but there were a few other challenges as well. The first time I went to the bathroom in the hospital, the nurses came in to help. When I got up I became very light headed. So much blood is lost during the whole birth process that this seems to be a typical reaciton. It was kind of scary--I almost passed out. My face stayed a whitish color for a good couple of days. Also I had the shivers for about a week. I'd complain of being cold and Greg would say "but it's not cold in here". At least he'll know next time that I'm not being strange. And of course there's the general uneasiness of being a new mom, and trying to figure out how to care for my little one, etc. Plus I was incredibly emotional, and didn't have energy to do much even though I wanted to do everything. The ibuprofin helped for my vaginal pain (from the stitches), and thankfully I didn't have to take that for very long. The postpartum bleeding was annoying but only lasted about 7 weeks so I can't complain too much. And I haven't had a period since, also a plus side to breast feeding. :-)

So now Caleb is 16 weeks old and he brings so much joy to my life. I can't wait to begin writing in "real time" and share his many adventures with you. :-)