Sally Says

Psychic Baby

He must have been aware of my resolve. 

Charlie went to sleep at his regular 7 pm last night without a fuss.  He woke up crying at 7:40.  I suspect he was so tired at 7 that he fell asleep before his tummy was full.  I nursed him until he was almost, but not completely, asleep then put him in his crib.  He cried of course.  After 5 minutes, David went in to reassure him that everything was going to be OK.  He cried harder, but only for three minutes.  Then he slept.  He was out after less than 10 minutes.

He woke up at his regular 11:30.  It was one of his old-style, pre-November night wakings.  He woke up, nursed like a starving newborn for 20 minutes, fell back asleep easily, and let me move him to the crib immediately.  I didn't have to hold him for a long time to get him deeply asleep or anything.

He woke up again at his regular 3:30.  He nursed like he was starving for 30 minutes and then fell back asleep, but he was fitful.  I expected him to pitch a fit as soon as I tried to move him.  He popped up awake as soon as he hit the crib at around 4 am.  I figured I'd change his diaper (definitely needed it) and try to get him to sleep again one more time before resorting to letting him cry.  By the time he was freshly diapered he was 100% AWAKE, so I didn't even try.  I don't mind letting him fuss if I'm absolutely sure he's ready to sleep, but don't see the point if he's just not sleepy. 

So our day started just after 4 am, but at least there were no crying jags in the middle of the night.  I can live with that.  We'll see if tonight goes as well as last night.  I hope so.  The nice thing about the early start is that he'll probably make up for it with longer naps today.  That gives Tommy more time alone with me.

Go to sleep Charlie!

Does this look like a baby who's sleep deprived?  No?  That's because he's not...but I am. 

He's completely lost the ability to sleep at night.  I understand the cause.  He had back to back to back illnesses in November - first a cold, then roseola, then the throw-up fever (as Tommy calls it).  I held him at night whenever he was too sick to sleep comfortably.  He got used to it.  It makes sense that he would prefer to sleep in my arms, continuously nursing.  Plus, he's entered into the all-powerful separation anxiety stage.  Before all the illnesses he would nurse to almost-asleep then let me move him to his crib.  He'd blink at me a few times, roll over and go to sleep. 

Now he WANTS MAMA. 

"Ahhhh!  Pick me back up!  Let me have more milk!  Stop waking me up with this silly moving to the bed nonsense!"

I slept three hours in my bed last night, in two 90 minutes stretches.  This cannot go on.  Sleep training starts tonight.  I hate to do it since he's always been such an easy sleeper, but I've gone without good sleep for two weeks now, not counting the entire month of illnesses that kept me up with him most nights.  He's not sick anymore.  I don't think he's at the height of a painful bout of teething.    He's just decided he'd rather be with me than in his bed.  I don't blame him.  I just can't survive this way.

He's napping just fine and lets me move him as soon as he's done nursing during the day, so I know he's capable of getting back to that routine.  I don't mind getting up to feed or soothe him in the night.  I just want to be able to go back to bed after he's all calm and snuggly and ready to sleep.

Poor baby.  He's going to be so mad.  I hope he figures out what's going on quickly.  I think it took Tommy three or four nights to figure out the basics of going to sleep on his own.  It took a whole month after that for everything to fall into place, but we were simultaneously night-weaning him at 13 months old.  Luckily Charlie's younger than Tommy was, and I will continue to feed and soothe him whenever he wakes up in the night.  I just don't want to have to sit up with him after he falls asleep.

Aw, I know you just want Mama.  Sorry bud.  You'll have to go to sleep first.      

More Charlie pictures

I had the whole reading theme going yesterday, so I saved these for a separate post. 

He pulls himself up now, and has started the respected family tradition of chewing on the coffee table.

Teeth!

Eyes!

I'm a sucker for pictures of reading babies

Charlie has finally figured out that books are cool.  I just had to get him some new ones.  He hasn't really been very interested in the ones Tommy loved at this age.  He seems to be more tactile than Tommy was.  He likes touch-and-feel books and lift-the-flap books.  He likes books with photos of real babies.  He likes books with pictures of vehicles.  He points to all the wheels.

Happily reading

"What?  Can't you see I'm trying to read here?"

Lift the flap.

"Focus mother.  We're supposed to be reading, not taking pictures."   

He takes after me

Here are some pictures of Charlie from Sunday evening.  He was exhausted and had gotten a bit of sun at the pumpkin patch.  Everything was hilarious to him.  I think it's so funny when babies reach that so-tired-but-laughing stage. 

When he was a newborn we all said that he looked like me but had David's coloring, and that Tommy looks like David with my coloring.  As you can see in these pictures, I think Charlie has actually ended up with my coloring more than we thought.  He has a lot more red/pink undertones than Tommy does.  I think we're going to have to be more careful of Charlie in the sun, and many of Tommy's hand-me-down baby clothes are in colors that I couldn't wear and that don't look the best on Charlie either.  Also, Charlie's hair is taking on more of a golden-brown, almost reddish hue, closer to my grown-up color.  Interesting, huh?

 

   

A Pox

A pox!   A pox on whomever gave Charlie a cold.  He's miserable.  I'm miserable.  Curse you anonymous stranger!  Don't you know the poor baby can't sleep when he can't breathe? 

Well, actually, he could sleep as long as I was holding him in a semi-upright position and didn't move a muscle.  I just can't sleep very well that way.  Here's hoping tonight is better than last night.  It's 8:30 pm and Charlie's asleep in his crib so I'm going to bed too as soon as I finish this.

At least his cold prompted me to take him to the doctor to have a random migrating rash looked at.   My mother's worry-inducing cry of "shingles!" was a factor too.  Ordinarily I would have just laughed and said, "Not shingles!" but I was functioning on less than three hours of sleep today. 

He just has some eczema brought on by my ill-conceived attempt to use slightly cheaper diapers last month.  At least that's what we concluded must have started the whole thing.  Silly me, trying to buy the 2nd most expensive diapers instead of the absolutely most expensive ones.  He takes after me with the sensitive skin.  The doctor prescribed some ointment that should fix the problem, and I'm going back to using Dreft instead of washing his clothes with ours.  I gave up on the cheaper diapers a couple weeks ago.

To bed!

You spin me right round, baby, right round like a record, baby, right round round round.

Spinning in the computer chair makes him happy.

Teething does not. 

Note the drool.

He'd been wearing that shirt for all of 90 minutes when I took this picture.

I'm not sleepy Mama

Charlie's first fever

Charlie woke up with a fever around 4:30 this morning and didn't ever really go back to sleep until 4:00 this afternoon.  He's rarely awake for more than four hours at a time between naps, so he was a tired, feverish, unhappy little boy all day.  David had already decided to stay home today to nurse his own cold, so he was able to play with Tommy all day while I tended to Charlie. 

We did take him to the doctor, but he just has a virus, as expected.  It's his first fever, so we're all kind of learning how he deals with being sick.  Tommy used to just sleep a lot and scream in between sleeping.  Charlie whines and moans and fusses inconsolably and can't get comfortable enough to sleep.  He dozed for little 10 minutes stretches on my lap at various times today, but freaked out whenever I sniffled or shifted my hips or, heaven forbid, tried to move him to his crib.  I picked up some Motrin on the way home from the doctor and that seemed to work much better than the Tylenol I had been dosing him with.  He was asleep in his crib about 45 minutes after the first dose.  Hopefully the combination of Motrin and utter exhaustion will let him (and me) sleep tonight.  He's not actually THAT sick.  But he seems to believe he's dying so we'll coddle the poor little mite.

The calm before the storm.  He was watching us box up all his itty bitty baby things for Goodwill on Saturday and scooted himself forward enough to stick his feet through.

I'm sick Mama.

Bwahahahah!  She fell for it!

I can see where this is headed.

(Edited to Add: I don't mean to sound unsympathetic to the poor baby boy.  He has been really miserable today.  Those last three pictures were from Sunday when he wasn't sick.)

He really ought to be grumpier

Charlie was chewing on my shoulder as I carried him around this afternoon.  Eventually I noticed that there was blood all over my shirt.  Poor baby's gums were bleeding.  More teething!  Just what we needed!  (Of course, I documented it in a photograph.  Wouldn't you?)

Our hair is pretty close to the same color isn't it? 

Vampire Baby

See!  His teeth are not just a figment of my imagination.

I don't want to lie down to play!

************

We're doing pretty well over here.  Charlie hasn't slept longer than 2 hours at a stretch since last week, so that's making it rougher than it could be.  I think it's a combination of teeth and the six-month growth/developmental spurt.  Hopefully he'll be a sleepy baby again soon.  He's been pretty happy and good about napping during the day though.   

Tommy totally lost it this morning when he had to say goodbye to David.  He was so sad and pitiful.  He's figured out that David's leaving really early and not coming home until right before bath time.  Instead of sleeping until 7, Tommy's been forcing himself to get up as early as possible so he won't miss saying goodbye to David.  That makes him almost as tired and weepy all day as I feel.  Two days down, three to go, until we see Daddy for more than 10 minutes at a time again. 

Happy Baby

I took these pictures on Friday when Charlie was resolutely not napping.  He'd been awake for six hours by the time I took these and was happy and giggly and completely cheerful.  Tommy and I had taken him for a car ride to see if he would nap for us.  No nap, but he was very happy to have his small car seat back instead of the bigger one.  He zonked out about 20 minutes after I took these pictures.

Self feeding at six months

Operation no-more-pureed-baby-food began today.  It's a resounding success.  Charlie was soooo happy to have some real food to hold onto and gnaw on and suck on.

Cold plums feel great on my aching gums, are super juicy and come with a popular hands-free option.

We're still going to try to get a few spoonfuls of baby cereal into him each day so that in an attempt to avoid iron supplements, but other than that we're going to give him big hunks of fruits and veggies to start.  I'll prepare them so they're too big for him to choke on, steamed to a semi-soft texture when necessary, and just the right size for him to hold onto himself.

The end of this cucumber was almost dry by the time he was through with it because he sucked all the juice out.  He's like Bunnicula!

He's loving it.  I'm pretty sure he swallowed a bit of both the cucumber and the plum he's tried so far.  He's mostly just playing around with them and sucking lots of juice out of them though.  It's probably more calories than he got with the purees, since he spit out almost every mouthful.

I forgot to warn you all that the link to the Baby-Led Feeding website I mentioned yesterday is on a pro-breastfeeding website.  That means there are some pictures of mothers breastfeeding their children on there.  They're not graphic or anything, which is why I didn't think to tell you about it.  Consider yourself warned, though, if that sort of thing bothers you. 

Time to Baby Proof

Charlie rolled across the living room yesterday.  He was aiming for Tommy's sword.  It couldn't hurt him (I don't think), but one of the 15 million little tiny pieces from Tommy's other toys could.  Guess it's time to baby proof.

Forgot the Bib

Screeching

It's interesting to observe Charlie's efforts to fit into the family.  He's started screeching really loudly whenever David and Tommy are rough-housing.  I think he's trying to mimic the sounds they're making.  Last night David and Tommy were wrestling on the guest bed in Charlie's room and I was holding Charlie on my lap in the La-Z-Boy.  As soon as they started getting really wound up, he went from this quiet snuggly baby who was exploring my face with his fingers to an extremely excited, wiggly baby who was screeching at the top of his lungs.  If they got too loud, he's look to me for reassurance with an almost-scared look on his face.  I'd smile at him, then he'd break into a huge grin and go back to screeching.  It was rather overwhelming.  I think I'll have to create a quiet, girly sanctuary in my room for myself when Charlie gets big enough to jump onto the pile of boys too.