The Perks of Motherhood, Part 1

One of the perks of being a parent is being able to play 'dress up' with your baby and play 'photographer', yes?!?

Right?!?

Apparently Soren doesn't think so :-/

Man this kid can give looks to kill!

P.S. He's not so much a smiler for the camera anymore... unless I say 'poopy' or 'peepee'...such a boy!

P.P.S. Wish these would have been turned out a bit better, LOVE his smiles!:

Coincidental? I Think Not.

When I was pregnant with Soren, my family went on a vacation to the Wilderness Resort at Wisconsin Dells. I was super bummed about being 'limited' in my waterpark activities as I LOVE all things swimming pool and water rides. I did venture out and went on some hard-core water rides, and also went in the wave pool despite my better judgement. Comments from family left-and-right warned me that it would hurt him in-utero, but I was in-tune with my body and baby and could tell if it was time to quit.
I also attended prenatal water aerobic class and Soren would always be active while I was in the pool.

Now?


Water doesn't phase this kid one bit. Not only does he love the bathtub, he LOVES it when I take him swimming at our local YMCA swimming pool. I think we might have a swimmer on our hands...just like momma ;-)

Lots of Firsts

This week I feel like Soren took a huge jump in his development...I swear it all happened over the weekend I worked. Soren has now discovered his feet and loves playing with and trying to eat them. Soren also is sitting amazing well, and when laying on his stomach, he is beginning to push up and is working on pulling his legs under his body...we're gonna have a crawler before we know it! Also this weekend my sister watched him and I think he got alot of play in with his cousins...he slept 9 straight hours that night! He even kinda fussed just a bit on two occasions, but fell right back to sleep, I barely even remember waking up to it.

Here's a video from only a week ago when he was starting to sit, now he's a pro:


Last night when I changed his diaper, I noticed a really nasty diaper rash, and I was sure it was the dreaded yeast that I've read about. I was able to get him into the pediatrician this morning, and sure enough, it's the start of yeast. I also noted to her that it appears his legs were getting dry, so she recommended we use Eucerin calming creme. By tonight, his whole body is covered in a rash, and I have no idea what is causing it. It looks very similar to rashes I get from dry skin in the winter, and it wouldn't surprise me since we give him a bath every night. I just feel like it all came out of nowhere, which makes me now question if it's food-related, or the last 2 nights of new jammies that I mistakingly didn't wash first before putting them on him. Whatever is causing it, I hope it looks alot better tomorrow morning! I debated giving him a bath tonight, but decided to do an oatmeal bath then lathered him up. Also at his pediatrician appt., he weighed 16 lbs. 12 oz! She said length-wise he's growing out of his infant car seat and we need to get him into a convertible car seat soon... trying to figure out which one to get. My baby is literally growing every night and learning so many new things, it's exciting and heart-breaking all in one.

Here's another short fun one of him laughing and 'talking':

Anger & Resentment

Prior to starting my job, Soren would get 1 bottle of formula a day, and the rest I was able to nurse/breastmilk bottle feed. Since starting my job, my supply has decreased terribly. I am now only able to do about 1/2 of his feeds with breastmilk, and this makes me so angry and resentful towards work. I know all jobs are stressful, but my position is insane, I don't even have time to take lunch breaks in order to get all my work done, heck, even finding time to go to the bathroom is difficult! I pump once at work, which gives me 2- 6 hour spans, and am only pumping 3 oz. This last weekend, I only pumped one bottle worth for the next day. I have every right to take my times to pump during the day, but finding the space is an issue. Every day I run around the building, wasting time, trying to find a space to pump. It's stressful, it's losing out on precious time to work, and it's aggravating when I can't find a place. I've even begun to notice that at night times I'm running out of milk and Soren gets fussy because he's not getting much (granted he shouldn't need to eat several times at night anyways). My goal was to make it to at least 1 year, and do baby-led weaning. I'm SO not ready to say goodbye to bf'ing, my heart breaks just thinking about it. I'm going to start back up my supplements 3 times a day, but I know that if I can't keep up with the pumping at work, it will be useless. For many people, formula is no big deal, but for me it just doesn't feel 'right'. Nursing is our special time together, I feel angry that work is (in a round-about way) taking that away.

First time sitting

Soren's first day sitting (without falling over in a matter of seconds) was Wednesday, January 11th, at 6 months, 6 days! Now he's pretty much a pro, only falling over once in awhile. Here's some pics:

The Sleep Chronicles

So in the last post I promised I would write about Soren's sleep (or lack-thereof) and how it's been going. The first week of December when I started new employee orientation, Soren was an absolute champ. He slept from 9:30-6, just in time for me to get up and get ready to head to work. He didn't wake up once during that time, and he did it for 7 days. I really thought we had finally 'made it' to a time where I wouldn't be walking around daily with bags under my eyes and no-clue what I was doing for half the time. THEN we took four steps backwards. Soren would sleep from 9:30-2ish (4.5 hours), then was up every hour after that. Once he woke up I would bring him to our bed and nurse him like I had always done, but he would want to continue nursing for the remainder of the night it seemed. At his 6-month appt., his Ped. asked how he was sleeping. I told her I would rock him to sleep, and once he was asleep I would put him in his crib. Then shared how the rest of the night went. She said that some babies know how to put themselves to sleep, and others need to learn to do so with help. She said the problem was that I was waiting until he was fully asleep before putting him in his crib. She suggested I find a time between 6-12 months and completely 110% jump into a 'cry-it-out' sleep training method. I had never wanted to do this, and knew I could never listen to him cry for that long.

Last week, we hit a very bad wall. Soren was up at midnight, 2, 3,4,5,6, and 7. He did that for 3 nights straight. Prior to this I began to read "No cry sleep solution" and was wanting to start working on implementing some strategies at night. I went in when he woke, patted his back, "Shhhh'd" in his ear and said "night-night". If he started getting really upset, I would take him out, nurse him just to calm him down enough to the point that he was back asleep again, and then laid him back in his crib. It got him to go back to sleep, but then he was up every hour. At one point I made him cry it out, rubbing his back, picking him up to calm him down without nursing him, then laid him back down. Eventually he fell asleep but not without lots of tears on his and my part. He still woke up an hour later and there was no way I was going through that again. I brought him to our room and succumbed back to our nursing pattern in our bed.

This week I began by rocking him just a bit then laying him in bed at bedtime. A couple nights it was difficult, but *now* (fingers crossed) he can put himself to sleep at bedtime after our night routine. I even got him to do it without a pacifier! But the middle of the night stuff continues to be our downfall. We're also REALLY struggling with naps. He CANNOT sleep for more than 45 minutes at a nap. I go in there when I hear him really start to wake up, and he laughs and giggles. One main point of the book is that if babies don't get good, restful naps in during the day, they won't sleep well at night...and any nap under 1-hour doesn't really count because they don't get into a deep, restful sleep. So basically, his naps suck which means his nighttime sucks. I don't know how to get him to sleep longer, I don't know how to teach him to fall back asleep on his own. My head spins thinking about different routes to pursue and the pros and cons of all of them. I never really dove 100% into sleep training, foolish of me to start on a weekend when I was working. I think it's time to really make a plan and stick to it. I think it's great that I know he can put himself to sleep at night, we've been doing the same routine for many months now and I think that's why. But how do I keep him asleep? If anyone has any tips to share, please do, this momma is severely sleep-deprived!

6 Months!

At his 6-month well child check, Soren weighed 16 lbs. even, and was 26.5 inches long. We're very excited that Soren has moved up from 10% to 25% for weight, and still remains at 50% for length. Soren is now starting to wear his 9month/6-9month clothes. I *think* Soren's eyes are turning Hazel, neither Brian nor I have Hazel, but we'll see (yes, I know it's possible). He also has strawberry-blonde wavy hair. He got his first 'haircut' the day after Christmas when we were down in IA, just the little front piece snipped because it was getting close to going in his eyes.

Eating: Soren's been eating about every 2-3 hours by nursing/taking a bottle. After his 10:30 nap, he will get spoon-fed some oatmeal cereal mixed with formula, and either a fruit or veggie. We've sometimes done a dinner too, but it's hard to keep this consistent at the moment. So far Soren has had carrots (like), sweet potatoes (like), peaches (unsure of), bananas (like), avocado (really like), and butternut squash (dislike). We have been doing some store-bought baby food, but I plan to make mostly everything from here-on-out. We have peas and green beans in the freezer that I made a few months ago, but they didn't get pureed thin enough so I'm holding off on those. This week I made butternut squash and carrots, and still need to do yams, blueberries, apples, and a re-do on beans and peas. He is SUCH a great eater, except for the butternut squash today...hopefully he'll come around. Our pediatrician has recommended we start off with yellow veggies, then green veggies (mixing with yellow if he doesn't like them), so that's what we're doing at the moment. She also said to do both cereal and a fruit/veggies at a feeding, so he's getting both carbs. and vitamins. Sometimes we'll add in fruits since he can tolerate them. I'm finding the easisest way to make most of our foods is to buy a bag of steamer veggies, pop them in the microwave for a bit longer than the directions say, then throw them in the blender. Then I just spoon into ice cube trays for nice 1 oz. portions, then once frozen, I'll pop the cubes out and store them in freezer ziplocs. One bag of veggies cost us $0.99 and yields about 14 oz oz. of food, so basically for the price of the cheap store-bought stuff (not organic either), I'm getting three times as much for making our own, plus no preservatives, score!

Sleeping: Oh jeez, I'm gonna hold off on this and write a whole separate post on sleeping soon.

Development: Soren rolls consistently from tummy to back and back to tummy. He's also beginning to army-crawl, and can move about 5 feet in less than 5 minutes(I think it's time to baby-proof this place!). He's beginning to roll onto his tummy to sleep. He's not yet sitting, but we're working on this quite a bit with him. When placed in a semi-reclined position, he will often do a sit-up. Soren can hold things with both hands, and I watched him switch a toy from one hand to the other today. He is beginning to 'hold' his bottle with both hands and I can let go. Soren does not have a tooth yet but boy, it better come soon! He is chewing on his hands and everything that comes near his mouth! He is a very social baby, and loves to 'talk'. Mostly he likes to yell and squeal, he's one loud baby! He's beginning to make consonant sounds, including 'ma' which I guess is advanced for his age (according to pediatrician). We talk alot with him, and I may or may not be working on the word 'mom' extra-hard with him ;-). He's a very happy baby, really only cries if he becomes bored or is tired. We're pretty blessed to have such a great baby!

Likes: Soren enjoys sucking on his fist and fingers or anything that comes close to his mouth. He loves to jump in his jumperoo now, and also enjoys watching "Blue's Clues" or "Baby Einstein" while doing so (mommy and daddy love this time too!). He enjoys looking around and being upright. He still loves Sophie the giraffe. We really enjoy tickle time now too, he's pretty ticklish in his armpits and hip area, and we will lift him above our heads and 'tickle' him with our hair. Soren likes to touch faces and will pull at hair, necklaces, glasses, etc. We're working on getting him attached to an elephant lovie to aid in his sleep-training...he's kinda 'ehhh' about it right now.

Dislikes: Sleep-training and getting into his carseat (we may be moving him up to a convertible carseat soon, I think he likes to be able to look around, and in his infant seat, he can't see much).

Medical update: I *THINK* his reflux is pretty much gone. He still spits up, but I think the amount and frequency are pretty normal now. He is still on medication for it, but even a month ago it was still bad. His increase from 10% to 25% for weight is also indicative that it's getting better. Pretty soon we will be steam-cleaning our carpet and furniture ;-).

Now that we're starting to have a more consistent afternoon routine, here's what his day looks like:

8-9am eat, wake up
9-10:30 play
10:30- nebulizer, book, bottle/nurse, naptime
11:30- 'lunch'
noon- 1:30 play
1:30 bottle/nurse, nap
2:30-6ish play and eat
6- nurse/bottle, nap
7-8:30 play
8:30-9:30- bath, get dressed, bottle, book, bedtime

His nighttime is all screwed up due to working on sleep-training, but hopefully by next month's update we'll have a good routine down!

Boy, Oh Boy, Oh Boy

Look what Soren's discovered (Well, the PG-version anyways)
I know this is developmentally-appropriate and normal, but 6 months old?!?! Really?!?! Oh well, at least it makes him laugh, can't help but smile and laugh myself ;-). P.S. I'm debating about putting this under the label "developmental milestones"...yes?