Gerrit: 5 Months

April 26, 2015April 26, 2015 nk3301 Comment

Sorry this is SO late! My laptop decided to stop working right before Gerrit turned 5 months old, and I was not about to try to work on a lengthy post on my cell phone. Still waiting on my laptop, but now that we’re in our house, we have the desktop computer set up and running. So here is Gerrit’s 5th month… a little belated!

Age: 5 months on 27 March 2015
Weight: 18 lbs (a guess)
Height: 26″ (another guess)
Teeth: none
Clothing Size: 6 months & 6-9 months
Diaper Size: size 3
Milestones: going to sleep on his own, laughing, gurgling (all the time), finding his feet, finding his ears

Sleeping: My big fear entering Gerrit’s 5th month was the dreaded 4 Month Sleep Regression. Since Gerrit already wasn’t a big fan of sleep, I was sure this was going to be the end of me. And we did have some rough nights. Thankfully, about a week into the month, we discovered that Gerrit could put himself to sleep. Yeah. How long could he do that and wasn’t telling us?! So that took a huge amount of stress out of my evenings. And then we went back to some rough nights again. But by the end of the month, he seemed to be getting back on track again.

In terms of naps? He started out the month only taking catnaps (about 30-45 minutes long) unless I lay down with him. If I was with him, he could nap for 2 hours or more without waking. During the couple of weeks of restless naps/nights, he would rarely sleep longer than 45 minutes whether I was sleeping with him or not. Now at the end of the month, I typically nap with him for the first nap (which are getting longer again, yay!) and try to get him to sleep on his own for the rest of his naps. It’s a work in progress!

At night, we put Gerrit down around 7pm. We’ve tweaked his nighttime routine just a bit. First I give him his bath followed by applying lotion and putting pajamas on. Then he goes to his daddy for a bedtime story while I put the bath stuff away. After his story, Andrew says goodnight to him, and I take him into the bedroom to put him into his sleep sack. Then I sing him a lullaby while I breastfeed in the dark. Once he’s done nursing, I set him down in his bed. He’s usually pretty much asleep at this point, but if he’s not, he’ll suck on his sleep sack until he falls asleep. If he really wakes up, I let him coo/gurgle/whine for 10 minutes before I head back in to pick him up and get him to sleep. If the whining gets more upset-sounding or he starts crying before than 10 minutes, I go in and get him. I just keep doing that until he’s asleep. Sometimes it takes awhile (one night it was an hour and a half), but eventually he stays asleep. I’m hoping this helps him fall asleep on his own regularly (and for naps).

You may have noticed that we stopped swaddling Gerrit. I first stopped swaddling him during naps; I just put him in a sleep sack. But at night this is how I would swaddle him, since he was too strong to keep swaddled in the Halo ones I was using. Well, one night I decided to just try putting Gerrit to bed in a sleep sack. I would put him in a sleep sack with his arms zipped in. He’s able to get his arms out through the arm holes, but I think he likes having them inside because it provides a little resistance if he startles. He also likes to push the fabric up to his mouth so he can suck on it to self-soothe. This means they get washed pretty frequently (old milk smell… gross), but we have quite a few in different fabrics for different temperatures that we can rotate out.

Anyway, Gerrit still usually eats every 2-3 hours at night. He seems to be reverse cycling, which he started doing awhile ago. In general, I don’t mind it. It keeps me from getting engorged, it means I know he’s getting enough to eat after he has a day of not eating well, and I love breastfeeding him when he’s calm and sleepy. It means he’s not choking because he’s trying to look around instead of eat, and he doesn’t swallow a bunch of air since he isn’t gulping milk down. We’ll see how long it lasts. Hopefully not for months on end, but as long as I’m not working (and can nap), I don’t mind.

Eating: I mentioned in the sleeping section that Gerrit was still reverse cycling at the beginning of the month. I would try to feed him between naps, and he would usually eat for a couple of minutes, but he would eat best when he was going down for a nap. He definitely seemed to eat the most at night though. His best feeding was usually right before bedtime.

I would say Gerrit eats about every 2-3 hours during the day and at night. I’m hoping that he starts stretching out his sleep at night or at least going right back to sleep after feedings.

Mommy Update: Once Gerrit started sleeping better at night, my stress level definitely went down. And when he started waking up all the time, it went back up again. I’ve gotten messages from friends and family offering suggestions, encouragement, and different perspectives, and it definitely helped!

I feel like I’m at a pretty constant weight now. I haven’t had a scale to weigh myself on in awhile, but my clothes all fit the same. I’ve started taking Gerrit out for walks in the jogging stroller, and we both enjoy that time outside. As his wake times get longer, I’m hoping we can walk for longer and maybe start jogging once he’s out of the infant seat.

I’m really starting to enjoy playtime with Gerrit now that he’s getting older! He has started to actually enjoy tummy time a bit more, which makes me really relieved. And he loves grabbing toys and putting them in his mouth.

Best Moments: Playtime with Gerrit. He is getting to be so much fun to interact with! He makes the silliest noises.

Look who's starting to enjoy tummy time! — Look who’s starting to enjoy tummy time!

Likes & Dislikes: Gerrit still really likes standing, but now he also likes taking steps and “climbing” up our torsos. I swear, this kid is going to walk way before we’re ready for it!

He dislikes being left alone. I need to sit and interact with him pretty much all the time if I don’t want to hear him start whining! He also dislikes going to sleep… does that surprise anyone? 🙂

Memorable Events: Gerrit went for his first walks! It was so nice to be outside as the weather warmed up in North Carolina.

Not that we did anything much to celebrate, but Gerrit had his first St. Patrick’s Day:

He also got to welcome his first spring! The weather in North Carolina in spring sure beats spring in England. 🙂

Overall, Gerrit’s 5th month was stressful. I’m not trying to be pessimistic about it, but living out of suitcases in TLF and hotel rooms isn’t much fun. Plus trying to find a house (and bringing poor Gerrit along to see all those houses) and start to get to know the area is tough. But we had plenty of great moments, and Gerrit is proving to have a great personality! We love interacting with him and seeing him learn new things!

4 Month Sleep Torture

March 22, 2015 nk3303 Comments

Yes, we are definitely going through the 4 month sleep ~~regression~~ torture. I had never heard of this whole sleep regression thing until I had a baby and started researching about baby sleep. I was dreading its arrival, and now it is here.

First of all, if you have kids and are thinking, 4 month sleep regression? I don’t remember so-and-so going through that. then you are very lucky. Some kids have a few weeks of slightly disrupted sleep so parents might barely notice it. Others, like mine, use it as a way to test his already stressed out parents. 🙂 I will admit that we were falling into some bad habits before we hit this stage: rocking/patting/nursing to sleep and bed-sharing being the big ones. Not that there is anything wrong with any of these! When I read The Baby Sleep Book by the Sears family, one thing really stood out to me: If you resent it, change it. And when I was reading the book, I really wasn’t resenting any of the things we were doing at the time. But a month later? Resentment is setting in.

Here’s what we are dealing with: Naps have been quite short. 30-45 minutes most of the time. Because Gerrit’s naps are short, he should be getting 4 or 5 of them, I think. But he will take 3 naps and then fight me on that 4th nap. I think he fights so hard on that last nap because he’s already overtired from the previous short naps. So after a day of poor napping, I decide he needs an early bedtime. So we move into the bedtime routine: bath, book, boob, bed. Often he’s so tired that he conks out right away. But then the fun begins. He will wake up 40-45 minutes after he first falls asleep. When he falls back to sleep, we try to get him back in his bed. Sometimes he stays asleep (but wakes up 5 minutes later), but often his eyes pop open and it’s back to square one. So we play this game until 11pm or so when Andrew & I are just tired of it. So we get ready for bed, I pick up the fussing Gerrit, and we all go to bed. Gerrit almost instantly falls asleep then. A little bit later, Andrew falls asleep. And then I lay there awake until 1:30 or 2:00 in the morning. Then there are several night wakings by Gerrit, although I never let him fully wake up. I just open up my top so he can nurse. Sometimes he seems to take a good feeding, other times he’s just nursing back to sleep. But I feel like I’m looking at the clock every 1-2 hours, so I’m not getting quality sleep. Gerrit is up for the day between 7:30 and 8:30. And then the cycle begins again.

I don’t think this setback in his sleep would bother me as much if he hadn’t had those two good nights of sleep. I really thought we were on to something! But when he regressed, I was in tears. Literally. One of those nights, I was sitting on the bed sobbing while rocking a screaming baby. I knew it was affecting my sleep too. Not just sharing the bed with a baby, but me not being able to fall asleep. I think the combination of my sleep deprivation and my building anxiety was making it impossible for me to settle down and relax enough to sleep.

After nearly a week of constantly helping Gerrit get back to sleep, I contacted a local sleep consultant. She offers free 15-minute phone consults to kind of evaluate what’s going on and offer some basic advice. She told me things that I already knew: Gerrit is going through the 4 month sleep regression as well as a big cognitive growth spurt (Wonder Week 19). Her main advice was to keep bed-sharing for right now. She said it was important that we were all getting sleep. Basically, just to hang out in survival mode and see if he gets back on track in a few weeks.

It has still been hard on us. Andrew & I spend most evenings going back and forth trying to get Gerrit to sleep on his own. It definitely causes some tension, because neither of us know what to do to help Gerrit. I’ve gotten advice from family and several friends (I appreciate it, ladies!), but I think I make things worse by trying to implement different techniques all the time. 😦

So now I’m back to tracking Gerrit’s sleep. I really just want to see how much sleep he’s actually getting on a daily basis. In my mind, it just doesn’t seem like it could be enough, so I’m hoping I’m wrong. After day #1 it looks like he is roughly getting 12 hours of sleep a day. Seems a bit on the low side, but the average for his age is 11-14 hours a day. Part of me thinks I should be relieved that he’s in “the window,” but then there’s part of me that worries that maybe that amount of sleep isn’t enough for him.

We are really trying to encourage Gerrit to go to sleep “drowsy but awake.” It’s supposed to teach him to self-sooth rather than need one of us to help him go back to sleep through rocking or nursing. He does better with it some nights than others, and he does better with it for morning naps than afternoon ones. I don’t push it in the middle of the night though. Once I’ve gone to sleep for the night, if he doesn’t easily fall back to sleep in his bed, then he comes to bed with me.

I’m really hoping that he will get back on track after this 4 month age. It will roughly coincide with us moving into a house and FINALLY getting settled here in North Carolina, so we’ll see if things get better or worse for awhile. I’d love to start working on getting Gerrit into his own bedroom (after I decorate!), but I don’t want to do that until he’s sleeping better.

So have any of you had a baby with less than desirable sleep patterns? 🙂 I’d love to hear what worked (and didn’t work) for you!

Daily living · Parenting

I Am Not a Baby Person

March 11, 2015 nk3308 Comments

Yep, it’s true. I really am not a baby person.

Yes, I think they’re cute. And I love buying itty bitty clothes for them. I’ll even hold them and try to coax out a smile. But as soon as they start to squirm and fuss, I get a little panicked and start looking for Baby’s mama. And you will not find me volunteering to change a diaper!

But wait. I have a baby. How can I not be a baby person?! Actually, having a baby was my biggest fear about having a baby. If I could have birthed a 1-year-old, I would have. When I worked at the childcare center on base, I loved working with the pre-toddlers (12-24 month old kids). I occasionally would cover in an infant room, and while I didn’t hate it, I definitely was out of my comfort zone. Especially when it came to handling those little 6-week-old babies. I didn’t feel comfortable giving bottles, burping, rocking them to sleep… So when someone asked me, “Are you ready to have that baby?” I would honestly say, “Nope! He or she can stay in there til the due date!”

So, of course, our baby chose to come 3 weeks early. When I realized that my water had broken, panic ran through me. Not because I was afraid to give birth (I mean, yeah, I was, of course), but because I did not feel ready to actually have a baby in my life! But I suppose I never would have felt ready.

Look at that little guy! I felt so unprepared to care for him. Especially when it came to feeding. I think a lot of women struggle with breastfeeding in the beginning, even more so when they have to deal with something like a poor latch or a sleepy preemie. But we just got through a day at a time, and I guess somewhere along the way, I started feeling a little more confident.

But just a couple of days ago, I felt something that I hadn’t felt before. I have loved Gerrit from the moment he entered our lives, but until the other day, I hadn’t felt that powerful love moms talk about. The love I would describe as “fierce.” I was just watching Gerrit sleep, and I felt this wave of emotion that was love, tenderness, protectiveness… just an overwhelming feeling that I had never felt before. Is it a “mom” feeling or do dads feel it too? I don’t know, but it was amazing.

Here’s my little guy now:

I cannot imagine a single day without him, and I love how he makes me feel. The cuddling and snuggles are wonderful, and I just love being this little guy’s mommy! Gerrit, you have turned me into a baby person after all.