In the quest for sleep

For most nights of the past two weeks, Josh has been getting up every couple of hours. I have not been this exhausted since before Christmas when Josh was less than six weeks old. The only difference is that I am working now, so I must get up at 5am and be awake all day instead of sleeping until Josh is up for the day and napping whenever he naps. Anyone who knows me well, knows that I cannot operate like this for too long. I'm doing my best, but it's very difficult. Just a few weeks ago, Josh was only getting up once at night, usually around 2 or 3am. That, Dave and I could deal with. We understand that Josh is young--he needs to get up and eat at night. But he doesn't need to be up as often as he has been lately.

To deal with this, we bought a book: The No-Cry Sleep Solution. We got it last night and I've already read about 2/3 of it. I really hope it gives us some new ideas for getting Josh to fall asleep and stay asleep. I'll keep you all posted!

Photos from today

Heard at the Perry House

"Weren't you under the impression that babies slept?"

Happy Anniversary to us!

At Grammy Ri's request

Captain Adorable

This weekend has been difficult. Since I've been back to work, I've been completely immersed in my weekends with Josh and completely filled with happiness of my adorable baby boy. This weekend has been different. I'm tired. Josh's sleep schedule has changed, as mentioned on Friday's post. Friday night I thought he'd sleep better with a clear bowel track, but now I'm wondering if he's teething--though it's very early so I'm skeptical. Last night I even broke down and gave him some rice cereal in a bottle of breastmilk and he was up 3 hours later hungry. I browsed some bulletin boards on babycenter.com (I website I've been visiting since I became pregnant--great source to find out what's "normal") and many moms have noted a change in their babies sleep patterns (these are all moms with babies born in November).

Predictions

Just as soon as I feel like something is going well, or at least predictably, it changes. Case and point: last week I wrote about Josh's sleep habits, how he was giving us the "long stretch" for about 5 hours. This week that has not occurred. In fact, Wednesday night was so awful--he was up about every 2 hours. This is how that night went: nursed him to sleep at 8pm, up at 9pm, eats until 9:45, crying for more food at 11:15, munches until midnight, up again at 1am to eat, he cried again at 3:15am and this time I could not get up. Dave got up and fed him a bottle. I got up at 5am to take a shower and get ready for work. Then Josh was up again at 5:30am. Lets hope this stage soon changes.

TMI Warning....
Something else that has continued is his habit of not pooping for several days followed by an explosive poop. Case and point again on that one today. He'd been irritable, even when we ran to Rockland/Thomaston to run some errands. He usually loves being in the car and the general public ooooing and ahhhhing over him. We visited Grammy Ri at the bank and a couple different times he stuck out his bottom lip---also his signal for "feed me"---and let out a huge wail. My heart melts when the lip goes out, then breaks when his high-pitched squeal of a cry comes out. Anyway, back to the poop story du jour, he'd just woken up from a tiny cat nap and I was trying to pay bills online. I sat him in my lap while he was waking up. He'd been awake for no more than two minutes when the first explosion occurred. Followed quickly by the second. I brought him upstairs to his changing table. Took the diaper off and just let him "let it all out" right there. I lost count of the many explosions that followed... maybe 4 or 5. After that he was much happier. Maybe he'll sleep better tonight. And with that, I will try to get some sleep.

Video!

We bought a video camera this weekend--the Sony DCR-SR82. Here's a video of Josh & daddy:

I'm cool

Thank you, Aunt B, for this adorable penguin outfit! This is the first time Josh has worn a 6-month outfit. It says "I'm cool" on the pocket and it has penguins, which Aunt B tells me are all the rage. And she'd know because she has a trend-setting nephew Austin. Josh is just so long that he needs the length of the 6-month outfit, but its really big for him everywhere else! He has so many cute 6-month clothes that you will soon see.

One thing I've noticed this week is that Josh's hair is getting longer and a little darker, or maybe it's just thicker, no its darker. His eyebrows look darker and longer too. His eyes look like they're getting more brown too. Grammy Ri is getting her wish of a brown eyed/brown haired little boy!

He's still doing okay at night. One night this week he was up every three hours. But most nights he only gets up once, usually around 3am after going to sleep between 8pm and 9pm. I gotta tell ya, its really annoying when everyone tells me that their baby sleeps so well, slept through the night at a really young age, etc.... I was thankful this past weekend when Rob and Amanda came over with Julia (who is such a sweetie!) and Amanda told me that Julia still, at twenty months old, gets up every hour or two at night. Technically, "sleeping through the night" is 5 hours, which he does. But I can't survive on 5 hours sleep!


I thought this pic above was really cute even though you can't see the penguins...


Josh trying to get milk from Dave.


Laying on the floor, looking at himself in the mirror on one of his toys.


Just to prove that he isn't always smiling...

Sunday

Before his bath

Three months

Josh is 3 months old! Since I did not start this blog at birth, I thought it would be nice to post some of my favorite photos of him since birth.



















Happy three months, Josh! It's been a wild ride so far but I wouldn't change a thing. You've changed so much and have so much more changing to do. I look forward to it all! You bring so much happiness to our lives.

In da hood

Tax Deduction

Yesterday afternoon we visited Grammy Ri and Grampa Padre (Devon's parents). Grampa Padre helped us with our taxes (mucho gracias!) and we watched the Superbowl until halftime, which was a lot of fun. The most fantastic news of the day was that we'll get enough of a tax return to buy a video camera!! Hopefully soon you'll see the video clips right here on the blog. Ahhh, another fabulous way to take in Josh's adorableness..... In the meantime, if you have any recommendations about which video camera to buy, please let me know! I've updated the "comments" section so that anyone can leave a comment without registering/etc.

Milestone!

This weekend has been so awesome! Josh has been 100% adorable and seems to have grown so much. He has learned to bring things--besides his fists--to his mouth (pic above) including toys and his burp cloth. I'm so proud of my little munchkin!

Honey Pot

This is one of the t-shirts that I just HAD to buy for Josh. One of my nicknames for him is "Honey Pot" so when I saw a shirt with a pot of honey, I had to buy it. I'm queer, I know.



Note: he's not lovin' the flash on the camera...

Twelve weeks

"Are those feet mine?"


It's been a busy week for us! Our weekday routine is taking shape. Josh has been inconsistent about the time that he wakes up for a feeding in the morning--in fact one morning I woke him up to nurse before I went to work. But he's always ready to eat when I get home from work. A lot of time is dedicated to making sure that he has breast milk when I'm at work. Evening are a flurry of trying to eat dinner quickly, clean bottles, prepare his bottles for the next day, and make sure my pump parts are clean. He's usually ready to nurse again and sleep by 7pm or 8pm. It's all worth it on Friday's when I can sleep in with him. If you don't hear from us during the week, don't take offense to it--we're busy!


Warning: TMI about Josh's bowels...
This morning, Josh and I ran to Augusta to run some errands. When we got home, he had a diaper explosion. He's been in this pattern of exploding (see story from 1.21.08) then not pooping for several days, then exploding again. He did this on Tuesday this week after holding his poop for 5 days and it took about 3 diaper wipes to realize he was going to need a bath and about a dozen more to get him clean enough to transport him to his tub. Dave and I have had more conversations about Josh's bowel movements in the past twelve weeks than I anticipated. I love parenthood.


PS - I bought a couple of ADORABLE t-shirts (anyone that was at my baby shower knows that I did not need to buy these but I couldn't resist...) this morning on our little jaunt to Augusta--I hope to be able to wash them ASAP and post photos hopefully this weekend. Check back soon!