Cleaning vs. Napping

Weston's been asleep for nearly three-and-a-half hours.  And I'm kicking myself right now for not napping myself.  Instead, I chose to clean the house while he napped.  Nate and I did the second floor yesterday, and today was the first floor--dusting, vacuuming, and washing acres and acres of wood floors.  I always have this debate as soon as he goes down for a nap--should I hop in bed, too, and get some much-needed sleep?  Or should I be my very own cleaning lady (because she isn't showing up on my doorstep any time soon)?

I'll be honest; we vacuum the kitchen about 3-4 times a week and the rest of the first floor maybe gets it twice a week.  But washing the floors??  I'm lucky if that happens more than once a month.  Everyday, I just take mental notes; "There's a smashed pea.  That oatmeal is going to cement itself to the floor.  That looks like yogurt."  I feel like Dudley from The Royal Tenenbaums.  "That cab has a dent in it.  Another dent here, and another dent here."











When I put him down this afternoon, I couldn't put off washing the floors any longer.  We finished about an hour ago, and he's still sleeping.  Nate even had time to create this for Weston to destroy as soon as he comes downstairs:

Clean floors waiting to be dirtied...

I've had time to catch up on some work email, write another blog post, and think about how I wish I were sleeping.  I've been running on very little sleep these past few weeks as we still try to figure out what time works for bedtime with his schedule at child care.  He's been waking up between 4:45 and 5:30 am this past week, and it's been pretty brutal.  Last week, I tried putting him to bed earlier, thinking that maybe he was overtired, and last night I started to try staying up later.  That seems to be working because he woke up at 6:10 this morning.  Quite a relief.  Oh yeah, and he's had a cold these past few days.  Did I mention that he's been biting, too?  Bit two kids at day care, and I've lost count of how many times I've been bitten (but I can still see some red marks).  Needless to say, it's been a rough week.

I suppose that lamenting about lost sleep is ridiculous.  Sure, a three-hour nap this afternoon would have been absolutely amazing.  But, the house is clean.  And there's always next weekend to nap, because I can assure you that I won't be washing any floors.

A little bit of shotgun bed head

Looking for a tortilla to make a "dee-ya"

Link up: 

And So It Begins

This past week has been traumatic for me.  Weston started going to child care on Monday, which is stressful enough as it is, but almost immediately following his first day there, he's developed MAJOR sleeping issues at night.  Major as in: crying for about 45 minutes before falling asleep (before he would just lay his head down on the pillow and go to sleep); waking up multiple times throughout the night crying hysterically; Friday he woke up at 2am and would not go back to sleep until 5am (and Friday was picture day at work for me and I looked like a crazy woman); and then for his most recent act of craziness...

HE CLIMBED OUT (or tumbled out) OF HIS CRIB LAST NIGHT.

He will be 16 months old in about 4 days.

Yes, his mattress is as low as it will go.

No, there isn't anything in the crib that he could get a leg up on.

Here's how it happened...He woke up sometime again around 2am last night, (after waking up at midnight) and I went in after letting him cry for about 10 minutes.  He clamored to be picked up, but I laid down on the floor and told him that it was time to sleep.  That didn't work as well as I was hoping, but he did calm down a bit.  As I got up to leave the room, he got really upset, but I left anyway, and walked back to our room to the sounds of him screaming.  I laid down on our bed, and no sooner than I started to tell Nate what went on above the intensifying screams of Weston, did I hear his little hands jiggling the door knob to his room.  Oh my God, he got out of the crib!  Leaping up out of bed, I went flying down the hallway, opened the door, and scooped him up.  He immediately stopped crying and showed no signs of any injury.

I have no idea how he got out--did he fall or did he climb down?  I didn't hear any thump.

Crib tents have been recalled, so perhaps it's time to switch to a toddler bed.  But he's so young!  I don't know how a bed is going to make this situation any easier.  At least if he wants to get out, the mattress is 10 inches from the floor instead of four feet.

Thankfully, I am married to a fine designer who happens to work for a company called BaserMatter.  Nate spent this afternoon designing a toddler bed for Weston (complete with his name laser cut on it!) and is now at the studio cutting it out on the CNC mill.  Hopefully, Weston will have a custom-made toddler bed to sleep in by tonight.

I'm not entirely sure what to do here.  I think perhaps pushing his bedtime earlier will help him sleep more soundly through the night.  He currently goes to bed between 6:30 and 7, but with all the changes that are going on, I think he's getting really tired.  He's napping while at child care, but I don't think it's been long enough.

Anyone else have experience with kids climbing out of their cribs or changes in sleep patterns after starting child care?

As promised...BaserMatter delivers before bedtime!!

Sick.

By some grace card that we've been dealt, Weston has been one healthy little dude for the past 14 months.  He's had a slight cold here and there, but nothing serious, other than the lead poisoning we've experienced (which, by the way, has gone down significantly to 10.6 μg/dL, so we're doing well).


All is good, until Wednesday.  I was on the phone with a friend around 4 pm, and he got super fussy and crabby all of a sudden.  I picked him up to quiet him down, and noticed that he was really hot.  I took his temperature and it read 102.3.  Yikes.  I gave him some Tylenol to bring the fever down, and it helped a bit, but he was very clingy, irritable, not really eating, and just wanted to be held.  More teeth??  Those one-year molars are a doozie...  He did okay that night with some more Tylenol, but woke up early Thursday and still had a really high fever.  That whole day, he kept putting his head down on my shoulder and was not like himself.  Oh, the whining!  He took two really good naps, but was still burning up every time the Tylenol or Ibuprofen wore off.  There were no other symptoms, and now I was beginning to suspect roseola after reading up on it.  I also remember reading a blog post from a friend whose daughter experienced the same thing as Weston.

I figured this whole illness would pass soon, and he'd be on the mend by Friday...

Not so much.  We actually ended up bringing him to the doctor on Friday afternoon because his behavior was so unusual--playing fine, but then frequently crying out as if he were in pain; not napping; eating very little.  His fever was down in the 100s, but fearing an ear infection, we took him in.

Of course, they couldn't find anything wrong with him other than a slightly inflamed throat, so we were told to keep doing what we were doing--alternating Tylenol and Ibuprofen, cool washcloths to bring down his temp, offering lots of fluids, and rest.  We put him to bed on Friday night with a dose of Tylenol.  At 12:30am, Nate was up playing online poker or something like that, and woke me up to the sound of Weston softly moaning and crying out.  We went in to check on him, and as soon as I took him out of his crib, I knew his temperature was going to be really high.  My little guy was cooking at 104.3.

I love my husband--we worked together to get him some Ibuprofen, water, cool washcloths, and we were able to bring his temperature down to 103, and he fell back asleep, but woke up again at 4:30.  Somehow, in his fever induced craze, he was able to put it together that waking up and crying in the middle of the night brings Mama in very quickly!  He fell back asleep for a little while, and the rest of the day on Saturday was a lot like the previous two days, except that I was getting more and more exhausted...  Let me say that dealing with a sick child is somehow quite similar to dealing with a newborn.

Sunday rolled around--nearly four days after the onset--and he had a rash covering much of his torso and neck.

Yup--roseola, a very common childhood virus, was the culprit.  He had a low-grade temperature, so that was improving significantly.  His appetite isn't quite back yet, and I think that has a lot to do with a sore throat, because he's hoarse.  It sounds super cute when he talks, but I know it's probably painful.  He also has some swollen lymph nodes on the back of his neck that will resolve in a week or so.


Here's to hoping that we can stave off any other illnesses for the rest of 2012!

A "Vacation"

Weston and I got back to Cinci last week after leaving about four weeks ago to drive to Wisconsin, spend time with family, and then hopping on a plane to Salt Lake City to visit my sister.  I had anxiety about traveling with a child (How's he going to nap?  Is he going to freak out on the plane, and I'll be that Mom that everyone wants to kill?  What if he refuses to take a nap at my mom's house?).  Some of it came true, some of it didn't, and the seemingly bad oftentimes had some good to it.

Con: He kept waking up at 5am at Central Time while we were in Wisconsin, no matter how early or how late we put him to bed.  Pro: I took advantage of his morning nap, and got to nap with him (like actually sleeping together in the same bed).  I haven't done that for a long time, and it was wonderful to cuddle with him.

Con: Airplanes suck.  The waiting, the cramped seats, Weston's inability to understand that he has to stay on my lap, etc. Pro: Other mothers are empathetic.  On our way back to Cincinnati from Salt Lake, we had an aisle seat in the back of the plane next to two other people.  Across the aisle was a woman, an empty seat, and a guy with the window seat.  As the number of people boarding was thinning out, the woman across the aisle turned to me and said, "Hey, it looks like no one else is going to take this seat.  Do you want to switch so that you have an empty seat?"  I looked at her like she was totally crazy for offering up her seat to me, and said, "Really??!??"  We switched under the agreement that I would "pay it forward" someday.  Absolutely!

Con: Camping with a little person is tough, especially if he's not used to it.  Weston didn't want to go to sleep the night we went--oh, the sounds of nature!-- and I finally got him to sleep at 10 pm.  He woke up at 5 am--oh, the sounds of nature!  Pro: The last time I went camping was on our 2010 Great Divide Route bike trip.  Living in a city, it's not likely that I get to stroll around at twilight, under the stars and a half moon, as hummingbirds buzz overhead.   It was totally peaceful, even as I was holding a sleepy baby, who now and again would catch a glimpse of the moon, point to it, and say, "Muh, muh."

In the tent

One Year Ago Today...

...I was a very pregnant woman.  It was also my "official" due date for Mr. Belvedere, whatever due dates mean.


If I had known last year what I know now, I would have done several things differently.  I certainly don't have regrets about the last year; I'm just armed with experience and information.


First of all, I would have slept more after Weston was born.  Women said to me, "Sleep when the baby sleeps," and I didn't listen to that very well.  Mistake.  Sleep deprivation is an ugly thing, and it doesn't help with the postpartum emotional roller coaster.  One nap during the day doesn't cut it when dealing with a newborn.


I also think moving out of state and starting a new job four months after having a baby isn't advisable.  Having a baby is traumatic enough--no sense in adding more chaos.  However, we were going to move anyway, and it was inevitable.


I can't really speak about what happened to my body after having a baby, other than it's not the same, and I can't really expect anything other than that.  I've said it before--clothes fit differently and everywhere is "mushier."  I'd love to get a membership to the gym again and go on a consistent basis, but somehow 24 hours in a day doesn't seem to allot for that at the present moment.


It's hard to believe how my life has changed in the past year, but I wouldn't trade it for anything.  Not even a flat belly.


By the way, here's my most recent favorite boy band:

How to Get Him to Sleep Through the Night

Oh my.  It only took me about 10 months to do it, but Weston's been regularly sleeping through the night for well over a month now.  I've read books, other's blogs, and all sort of things to figure out how to get him to stop waking up between 11pm and 2am to nurse.  Healthy Sleep Habits, Healthy Child is a great book (but very poorly written--the guy needs an editor) to understand the physiological part of sleeping.  It mentions that after 9 months, babies don't need to eat during the night.  My problem?  He was eating every time I offered, so I figured he was hungry.  And he's not a fat baby by any means, so the mother in me kept going in to feed him because on some level I was afraid he would waste away.

Here's how the habit forms...He nurses when I offer, so then he wakes up the next night because he knows that last night he got to eat when he woke up.  And Mom won't refuse.

Weston: 1.  Mom: 0

But, then I started to get the feeling that he wasn't really that hungry.  He would nurse just a little bit to fall back asleep.  Besides, he had slept through the night before on a handful of occasions.  That's when it sunk in that I had created this habit.

He was expecting me to be there to feed him when he woke up.  There were many times when we tried to let him cry it out, but after 45 minutes of listening to a hysterical baby at 2 am, I couldn't do it.  And then when I saw a broken blood vessel in his eye one morning afterward, I felt horrible.  I know, the cry-it-out method says to let them be, but I really couldn't do it.  We let him cry himself to sleep for nap, but that lasts all of 10 minutes.

The night we moved into our new house, this was my plan: when he cried, I let him do so for 5 minutes.  Then, I went into his room and instead of picking him up to comfort him, I sat down on the floor and put my head next to the mattress and calmly told him, "You can do it.  You can calm down."  He stood at the crib railings, wailing out of frustration, but after about 3 minutes, he actually sat down and put his head on my hand and continued to cry.  I kept talking to him quietly and then he gradually toppled over and laid down, still crying, but not entirely unwilling to give this whole new thing a shot.  Rubbing his back and telling him that I believed he could do it, I stayed in there until he fell asleep.

The next two nights were the same thing.  Then it started to get a little harder.  He wouldn't calm down as quickly and if he laid down, he would get up again and wail at the railings.  I had to keep believing in him and the fact that he could indeed do this (thank you to Bringing Up Bebe by Pamela Druckerman), and I would tell him that in a calm voice while trying to squeeze my arms through the crib railings as I would pat his back.

I'd say it was about a solid week of going into his room and "talking him down."  He had several nights of uninterrupted sleep, and then one or two more relapses, but since then, he's been sleeping from about 6:30 pm to 6 am!!  He still takes a morning nap and afternoon nap, too.

Now I need to figure out how to get me to sleep through the night...  Old habits die hard.

My Dirty Belly Button

My body has changed in ways that I couldn't really have predicted a year ago.  Yes, one of them has to do with my belly button.  However, none of the changes are so horrid that I can't come to grips with my body post-baby.  Here they are, in no particular order:

1. I never did get the full-on outie belly button, but it was definitely stretched out.  It's got a bigger diameter and I think it's slightly deeper.  That's why I mentioned my dirty belly button.  I never really had issues with things in my belly button before because it wasn't big enough to collect anything.  Now, it seems as though I have to pay special attention to cleaning this "new" body part.
2. Hair, hair everywhere...  I think my hair loss has finally calmed down--just in enough time for Weston to rip the remaining locks out of my head with his hands.  Some report that their hair gets thicker, curlier, straighter, or thinner.  I think mine is pretty much the same--there's just less of it right now.
3. Baby's got back...and hips!  I am within 5 pounds of my pre-preggo weight (can I get an AMEN for breastfeeding?).  However, I don't think that my weight is distributed in the same way that it was before baby.  Most of my pants fit, but they just fit differently.  A round of applause for my son's 95th percentile head circumference that shifted ligaments in my pelvis and altered my anatomy.
4. I'm not one to wear make up, but I think I need to invest in something that will lighten up the ever-darkening circles under my sleep-deprived eyes.
5. The muffin top that feels like a bowl of Jello...  This is the one that bothers me the most.  It's shrunk a little bit, but it's still there, like an artifact left over from a previous civilization.
6. Boobs...I am simply amazed at what the female body is capable of.  I've been the sole provider of food for my little man for over five months now and he's just about doubled his weight.  That's a lot of breast milk that's been produced, but at a price to the "factories."  It's okay--I wouldn't change the bond that he and I have for anything.  In fact, the only time that I think everything's okay with the world is when I'm nursing.

A Schedule? Yeah, Right.

I love reading stuff like this: "By four months, your baby is probably sleeping eight hours at night" or "Try to put your baby down around the same time every night" or "Keep nap times consistent."

I would love to experience all of that.  It'd be great if Weston would decide to wake up at 3am every night, nurse, and go back to sleep until 7am, play, take a 2-hour nap at 9am, get up at 11:30, eat, play and then nap again around 1pm for a couple of hours and then wake up in time for me to nurse him at 3:30 when I get home from work, take a quick cat nap before bath, eating and bedtime at 7pm.

But that never, ever happens.  Ever.

I can't figure out what bedtime works best for him--early (like around 6:30), or later, around 8pm.  A lot of it depends on what time he wakes up from his afternoon nap.  And he's never really consistent on how long he sleeps at night, either.  Last night he was up at 10pm, 1:30am and 5am.  The night before that he was up once at 1:30am.  I don't get it.  Today, he refused to nap until 10am, and then slept until 1pm.  He took a 30 minute nap at 5pm and was in bed by 7pm.

We try--really we do--to have a schedule.  Sometimes he just doesn't want to cooperate.

Ready for a walk in the Moby Wrap

Post-walk sleepy times

Wow.  None of the fabric in this picture matches.  But, baby doesn't care!

Yum, yum ,yum ,yum, yum

Happy Four Months!

I'd have official stats for you, but baby hasn't been for his four-month check up since we've moved.  Insurance at the new job doesn't kick in until next month, so we might have to visit the health department and get his second round of immunizations there.  Anyway, until I can get an official height and weight, Weston is 16 pounds, 14 ounces!  Holy crap.  It's still close to the 75% percentile curve that he's been following.  I have given up trying to measure his height because it's different every time.

Look at those thighs...

Weston's adjusting well to all the changes that have been going on.  Nate's done with a week of being a stay-at-home dad/ start-up business dude/ and unpacker of the apartment.  He generally looks exhausted and relieved at the same time when I get home from work.

I haven't worn my contacts in months

Baby has been sleeping pretty well at night, going to bed between 6:30 and 7:30 and sleeping for about 8 hours.  He's been getting up at 6am (and sometimes earlier!) and I have a pretty good feeling he doesn't really care what a weekend means to an adult.  That's fine. Having gone back to work, I relish every single moment I get to spend with him.  I love coming home from work and nursing him and then putting him down for a late afternoon snooze.  I even enjoy getting up at 3am to feed and cuddle with him.  He's super cute in the morning because he babbles and babbles and is super content.  I put him in his seat on the kitchen floor and he hangs out while I cook and eat my breakfast.

So close to sitting up all by himself 

Learning to pet Mabel gently and not grab at her fur

I'm not sure how I'm going to break his swaddle habit.  I feel like I should start on a Thursday night because it might be a little rough in the night sleeping department.  I think going cold turkey might be the best route, but who knows.  I bought the Miracle Blanket on a recommendation from another blogger mom (thanks, Melissa!) when Weston was almost 3 months old.  I cannot believe I waited that long to get one because they are the absolute best.  Weston was busting out of his swaddles regularly (and I am a damn good swaddler) at that point and I needed something that was akin to a straight jacket.  And the Miracle Blanket is just that--a warm and fuzzy baby straight jacket.  However, Weston is regularly busting out of that these days, so I think it's a good sign he's ready to be free.

Off to See Kentucky

We're hitting the road today--my mom, Weston and I.  It's going to be a crazy


We've arrived in Cincinnati, just north of Kentucky,


I've tried to post on the blog several times now, and I'm hoping that this time I'll actually get to finish!

As you can see, my mom, Weston and I have left Wisconsin, and are now staying in Cinci with Uncle JeffD, Nate's business partner.  I officially start work tomorrow, but we can't move into our apartment in Covington until August 31, so that's why we're here in Cinci.  Nate's back in Wisco and will be coming next week with the moving truck.

Happy in the car seat (a semi-rare occurrence)

This is the wackiest start to a school year yet.  My mom came with Weston and me because I have no childcare for him until Nate gets here.  She gets to be full-time grandma this week and next and watch him while I go back to work.  I'm very, very conflicted about going back to work.  This is a new job, new district, new age group, and new curriculum (and not to mention new accents).  Oh yeah, and I'm a new mom.  I keep wondering how in the hell this is all going to work out, especially the sleep thing.  He's been sleeping better at night, but with all the moving, driving, changing of time zones, and sleeping in unfamiliar places, Weston still isn't sleeping much longer than 5 hours straight at night.  He'll sleep for about 11 or 12 hours total, but that first stretch of sleep needs to get longer!!  I'm hoping that once we're in our apartment and in a quiet place, he'll be sleeping for 7 or 8 hours straight every night.

Note the car seat covered with a blanket in the bathtub
This is Weston's bedroom when we visit Uncle JeffD

Napping site when no one is in the apartment
(on top of Uncle JeffD's bed)

Weird.

I just remembered that I'm a mom.  I have a son.  And he's so friggin' cute.

What I Didn't Know About Being a Mom

1. Sleep deprivation It's hard to predict what happens to someone after days, then weeks, and then months of getting no more than 5-6 hours of consecutive sleep at a time.  In the beginning, I was afraid I wasn't ever going to be able to sleep.  Thankfully, that's not the case.  I have to admit, though, that it's difficult for me to fall back asleep after Weston sets new records for night sleep.  For example, when he slept 7 hours the other night, I got 6, and after nursing him, I was wide awake because I hadn't gotten that much consolidated sleep in forever!
2. Cutest baby Okay, so everyone thinks that their baby is the cutest, but really, ours is the cutest.  I don't know how other people think that they have the cutest baby because we clearly own the market on that.  I even ask Nate all the time--Isn't he the cutest thing you've ever seen?  He completely agrees with me.  I wasn't prepared for how firmly I believe that we have the cutest baby...
3. Breastfeeding gets easier It has to get easier or else no one would continue it.  There were a few times when I told Nate that I was done breastfeeding.  Thank goodness I wasn't serious.  I had mastitis when Weston was two weeks old, and then I had an over-active let down reflex which Weston and I struggled with for several weeks until my supply regulated.  For something that's so "natural," breastfeeding takes buckets of patience and energy.  I would say that it got easier for me right around 8 weeks.
4. I smell I'm serious.  I had heard stories and read stuff about women being overly pungent after having a baby, but I was not prepared for my own smell.  It's so ridiculous that I have to put on deodorant immediately after showering regardless of how well I wash.  One has to hope that this happens so that the baby can bond with its mother, but after ten weeks of stink, I'm confident Weston knows my smell.  Enough already.
5. Conflicting information I read every pregnancy book that came my way while I was pregnant.  I spent hours on the Internet reading about even more stuff that was going on with my body and with the fetus.  The information didn't differ much from one another.  After the baby came, I continued to read a lot about what was going on with him.  In fact, I might have read too much.  The problem is that all babies are different, and there are dozens of ideas about how to raise them.  I've read so many things about eating schedules, sleeping, napping, baby poop, diaper reviews, breastfeeding, and much of it differs from one source to the next.  It's quite frustrating, and I actually got worked up about it a couple of times.  It's much easier to just let it all go and have fun with the baby instead.
6. Going crazy over a schedule This relates to #5.  Because of all the stuff I've read and stories I've heard from other moms, I kept thinking that Weston was supposed to be on some sort of sleeping and feeding schedule that was predictable.  Truth is, he's not that predictable.  Patterns have emerged, but I can't pin him down to anything specific.  I am more concerned about getting him down to sleep in a timely manner than I am about feeding him, mostly due to the fact that I've discovered that he can't handle being awake more than 90 minutes.  So, I adhere to that principle and try to get him to sleep before he gets super tired and crabby.  I've noticed that he generally can go about 3 hours between feedings.  And by about 8 or 9 pm, he's ready for bed.  Other than that, we don't have a strict schedule.
7. Baby blues go away...and can come back  Sigh.  I already wrote about my version of the baby blues, thinking that they were over.  It's been my experience that they do go away and that things get better.  However, there are some...relapses.  I'm pretty sure that they have much in common with the quantity of sleep I'm getting.  Last week at 10 weeks postpartum, I had a horrible day.  I woke up feeling sad and pretty much cried the rest of the day non-stop.  I wasn't expecting it, and it caught me off guard.  It was kind of scary in the sense that I thought that I was never going to be happy again.  Of course, it passed, and I'm okay once again.
8. Other's baby stories Reading other blogs and stories of motherhood has helped me tremendously.  It's fun to hear what their babies are doing, but it's also helpful to hear about when things aren't going well.

The cutest baby

We need to invest in a kiddie pool

Traveling with Baby

Nate and I have been busy traveling this past week with Weston, and let me tell you, doing a road trip with an infant is no easy task.  I'm actually guilt-ridden about it.  We left last Friday night and drove to Davenport, Iowa around 7pm.  That trip was actually pretty easy because it was Weston's bedtime, and he slept most of the way after we stopped for dinner.  We got to Nate's mom's house, left him in the car seat, and he woke up around 3am to eat.

He enjoyed two days with Grandma Becca and Grandpa Brady, spending lots and lots of time outside.  He even went for several dips in the kiddie pool and loved it!  Because he spent so much time outside both days, he slept for 7 hours on Saturday night and 7 1/2 hours on Sunday night!!!!!  I couldn't believe it.  It was quite awesome.  He still isn't the greatest napper (he doesn't usually sleep for more than 30-40 minutes, and an hour is a good nap), but I'll happily take long nights of sleeping.

The trip from Davenport to Cincinnati was a different story...  We left Monday morning at 8am and got to Cinci at 6pm.  He slept okay in the car for the first half of the trip.  We stopped at an air-conditioned rest stop so that he could nurse and get some play time.  We sat under the shade of a tree for at least 45 minutes after he ate and played.  Then we got back in the car where he promptly fell asleep, but woke up about 30 minutes later.  He continued to wake up and doze off for the rest of the trip and cried lots.  It's so hard to watch him completely agitated and pissed off in the car seat.  I would gladly take him out of the car seat and play with him while Nate's driving (just like our parents did when we were little), but Nate won't let me break the law.

We're leaving tomorrow morning to drive to Chicago to visit my brother's family and to also have Weston meet my aunt and uncle on my dad's side.  I hope that this trip goes well.  I read a few tips on how to travel with an infant, and I think we're doing our best.  I would like to try to drive while he does his long stretch of sleeping at night, but that makes it tough on the drivers because we're driving while we should be sleeping.

Seven Weeks

Keeping up with the blog gets harder and harder!  There's a lot going on right now--we're getting ready to move this weekend and packing up with a baby around is pretty difficult.  Every time he goes down for a nap, I try to pack as much as I can.  I'm not sure if I'm going to continue the blog after we move...  There's nothing like a bad blogger. Besides, we'll no longer be in West Allis and I can't change the domain name of this blog.

One of my friends has three boys, the youngest of which is just over 2 years old.  She let me come over and take all 15 boxes of clothes for Weston!  He's set for the next couple years as far as clothes go.  It took us about two days to sort through everything and put the clothes in bags according to size, but I'm glad that we did it.

Note baby on top of the clothes pile

He's been smiling a ton lately.  I am anxiously awaiting his first laugh.  I'm also looking forward to another full night of sleep.  That last post about sleeping through the night was a total fluke.  He hasn't done that again, but that's okay.  He *usually* sleeps about 5 hours when he goes to bed.  Why are babies so unpredictable?  I still swaddle him when he goes to sleep, and I'm hoping for the best.

So true...so true

Sleeping and Swaddling

I can't believe this.  It's 6:40 am and I just put Weston back down to sleep after having put him down for bed at 10:30pm last night.  Is this a fluke?  Or the start of something awesome?  I'm wide awake having gotten nearly six hours of uninterrupted sleep myself--"a new lease on life."  I didn't go to bed until 11 or so, and I had to get up at 4:30 to hand express to relieve the discomfort of not having nursed for so long.  But I was able to fall back asleep for a little bit before he started stirring.  Even then, though, when I changed his diaper before feeding him, he wasn't really awake.  And when he fed, he didn't really open his eyes and promptly fell back asleep after he was done.

I'm not exactly sure what it was that led to this, but I'm really leaning toward the fact that I swaddled him after his bath and put him to sleep that way.  I don't usually do that for bedtime, but now I'm thinking that I will.  He also was awake quite a bit yesterday with two good naps and then several little cat naps including one in the Bjorn and one in the stroller for about an hour each.

Our little snoozing sailor

I don't know...I'm going to try it all again tonight and see what happens.  I keep reading about the importance of a bedtime routine.  I always get hung up on the fact that babies don't need a bath more than every other day (and even that can be too much), but if I want to make bath time part of the bedtime routine, then what to do?  I'm guessing that I can just draw up a tub of warm water and put him in there and not wash him.  He absolutely LOVES bath time, and it really calms him down.