For our first family Easter together, we started off by going to church. Brian and the bell choir he directs played at the 3 morning services. We had some Easter breakfast at church, Soren especially loved the pumpkin muffins. After service we quickly packed the car the headed down to IA to visit Brian's family. We were able to make it down around 4pm and catch some family which was nice! We then stayed down in IA until today just hanging out and doting on Soren. I think grandma and grandpa are smitten ;-). Soren slept great the night before and Easter nights, he slept 7 hours straight and only got up once that night! Last night was another bad night, we'll see how tonight goes. He has been chewing on his finger alot today, I'm beginning to feel more confident that these setbacks lately are due to teething. We didn't snap a whole lot of pictures Easter morning as we were rushing to get out, but here's a few:
His Easter basket, included 'puffs', dollar spot books, teething rings, and play rings
Reaching for the book first :-)
At Gma & Gpa Johnson's house- he LOVED all the ceiling fans!
I know I didn't write an 8-month post, but it's been unreal how much Soren has learned to do and develop over the last 1-2 months! It's crazy!
Eating: Soren eats 3 'meals' a day now, and has 3 bottles during the day, then nurses at night. His meals usually consist of a a combo of fruit, veggie, protein, and/or carb. The pediatrician said he can eat normal food now except for ice cream and nut products. He LOVES vanilla yogurt, and will often have that with a fruit for breakfast. For lunch we've recently been doing deli meat or chicken breast, a carb (rice, brown rice, potatoes, oatmeal), and a veggie. For dinner, he'll have protein (yogurt/meat), fruit, and a veggie. Soren's pediatrician recommended we let him essentially 'play' with his food so he gets used to feeling and tasting different textures; she said that the more textures he's exposed to now, the better eater he'll be as he grows up. He's a great eater and will take pretty much anything you give him. However, since he's been teething, he hasn't been eating the best. He only eats 4 oz. bottles during the day normally, and when he's teething he'll do 3 oz. or less. He is mostly holding his own bottle now, but often gets lazy and has us hold it.
Sleeping: Oh jeez, still not great. We FINALLY were getting him to sleep 7 hours at a time consistently but then daylight savings and teething hit, and he now sleeps 5 hours, then is up every 1.5-2 hours. It's also getting difficult to get him down for his naps, he doesn't like rocking, and when we put him in his crib, he sits, then pulls up to the standing position which really wakes him up and keeps him stimulated. The last couple days, we've literally held him down with his paci in his mouth and rubbed his back and he was out in a minute or two. When he wakes up, he is instantly awake, bright eyed, crawling around, it's the weirdest thing and I'm slightly jealous ;-). So far he takes a morning nap and 2 afternoon naps. Over the last week or so, his naps have lengthened so he's sleeping for more than 30 mins. at a time. Sometimes we get 2-hour naps out of him, and it's glorious! We are beginning to do some crying it out with him, but we do go rub his back while he's crying and try to keep him in a laying down position in regular increments. He has no self-soothing skills yet and doesn't really have an attachment object to assist him in helping him fall back asleep, except for the paci. He doesn't know yet to look for the paci when he wakes up and put it back in his mouth. He wants to eat to fall back asleep and we are working on breaking that. It's hard at 2am to not just give in and nurse, but for now we're starting to take him off feed-to-sleeps at bedtime and naps. One day we'll get there, right?
Time for bed
What he *thinks* is a good idea instead of sleeping
Development: Soren has made leaps and bounds in the past month. I swear he learned to sit, crawl, crawl-to-sit, and pull to stand in 1.5-2 months time! I'm guessing he will likely be walking in the next month or two. He's developing some object permanence now and when we play peek-a-boo, he looks for us where we were hiding. He unfortunately does not stop for even a second when we say 'no', so that has been a real challenge, he'll just keep doing what he's doing, and sometimes he giggles. He is a pretty social little guy and has not yet developed stranger and separation anxiety, except with my brother's girlfriend (silly silly boy). His pincer grasp is starting to get better, he's also beginning to be able to get ger.ber puffs from the highchair tray to his mouth with some concentration and effort. Soren is also 'clapping' now and beginning to wave (though not yet consistently, and not to say 'goodbye'). He is also babbling alot and just started using the consonant 'm'. His first two words have been 'mum' and 'yum'...both when he's eating foods :-). He also babbles alot in the car if the radio is playing, I'd like to think he's singing, as he makes many different pitches and volumes. Overall, we are mostly forgetting that he was 1 month early and he seems to be caught up now.
Likes: Bath time, swimming, food, electrical cords, cat food and water bowls, our kitties, my parent's doggies, touching daddy's beard, playing tickle games, newpaper or any kinds of paper on the floor
Dislikes: Getting his diaper changed, clothes, being restrained, not being able to roll over, not being able to have things he wants, going out to eat (man, will family dinners in restaurants be put on the backburner for awhile!), teething
Soren weighs 18.5 lbs (25%) and is 29 inches long (75%)...he's a long-and-lean boy and pediatrician says he's perfect, especially considering he fell off the growth chart a while back. He's transitioning to 12-month clothes. The elasticized waist pants don't actually fit around his waist and he sports the 'pants on the ground' look often. Length-wise for pjs and pants, he's needing 12 month pants though.
Reflux update- we will SLOWLY be weaning Soren off the Prev.acid soon. We can either start now and have him weaned by 12 months or wait until his 12-month appt. then start. It will be a very slow weaning, because cutting cold turkey will make his reflux terrible, and for that, we are in no hurry! His spit-up is finally getting better, most likely due to him starting to eat more solids. He still does spit-up, but not too much in frequency or volume.
Soren's hair is really coming in now and is a bleach blonde color, sometimes strawberry blonde in natural lighting. We will likely need to get his hair trimmed soon. His eyes are very interesting, they're gray on the ouside with brown on the inside like bicycle spokes...very dark and beautiful! He now has 2 teeth (the first one came in on March 24th, the second came in a week later on April 1st) , and I imagine more are on their way!
Daddy has been a stay-at-home dad and both Soren and daddy are developing a strong attachment and liking to one another! The other day Brian was holding him and I tried to take him, and Soren turned and nuzzled his head into Brian! It's so fun for me to watch my husband as a fun-loving, caring, involved daddy! He really is the light of our lives and brings so much love and joy!
We're closing in on the last of our breastfeeding days and I am so very very sad. Soren's not ready to be done, and I'm not either. Unfortunately, my body seems to think otherwise. Because of the increasing demands at work and the inability to pump, my supply has dropped drastically. I could take all sorts of measures to increase my supply, but it would only be a band-aid fix to the larger issue of a hectic work schedule. Our other issue is that Soren is only taking 2 bottles during the day of 3-4 oz. now that he's eating many more solids. He's still nursing a ton at night but it's getting to be more and more as a pacifying measure than a feeding measure. It breaks my heart when he tries to nurse during the day and gets frustrated because there's not much that comes out. It also hurts because he clamps down and pulls as a last-ditch effort to get some milk. This breaks my heart, I'm so not ready for this. The closeness and the bond it has brought us is nothing short of amazing.
Overall, it was a great, low-key holiday
