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2005-06-01 - 11.19pm previous entry next entry
Sleep and solids and hair and stuff
Thank you for all the nice messages about Arthur�s chubs! Hehe! He is scrummy :) Eiluned, thank you for telling me what cariad means! And thank you for calling me it! :)
Well I am so slack at emails and guestbooks once AGAIN. I get so many nice messages and then don�t return the favour, but honestly it�s not personal! I mostly get the chance to read my favourite diaries, and if I don�t then I catch up at the first opportunity. Once or twice I have opened a guestbook to leave a message and then Arthur has woken up, so I never really write them. Sorry to my friends who support me so well and who could also do with my support back � I have plenty of �time� to pray while I nurse Arthur or lie awake trying to get to sleep, so that is my time to lend some support by praying for you. Maybe when Arthur sleeps long and predictable naps I will get more messages written? Although I guess I will probably find something to do with the time, like housework. Ugh, this house needs soooo much work!!
Anyway.
Arthur is signing milk all OVER the place, now that he�s done it once!! The next day he signed it four times over the course of the day, and three times the day after. Today he has signed it countless times. I don�t know if he really wants milk every time that he�s signed it today, but I always offer him some. He seems soooo excited about making the sign � he does it over and over and makes the cutest face, sort of like a michievious grin with his shoulders hunched up and his little fist pumping the milk sign, hehehe! He�s such a cutie :)
We went to see my SIL (Neil�s sister) and her hubby on Sunday � they are expecting their first baby on June 9th � soooo close now!!! I am so excited. I think she is having a girl, but I am just guessing really. She isn�t quite as big as I was at 38 weeks, but her hubby is a reeeally big man. Tall and stocky and heavy. So I figure if they were having a boy, he would be likely heavier than Arthur was, and looking at her, I�m not sure her baby currently weighs what Arthur does. But yeah, guesswork, plus I don�t really know what I�m talking about. So. We�ll see soon!!! It was so nice to visit them! They loved seeing Arthur, and he was terribly sociable as always :) He got to sit on his cousin�s bottom, haha! He sat on SIL�s bump whilst standing on her lap, and of course with the baby being head down, that meant he was sitting on his cousins butt. We had a chuckle about that. And got it on camcorder for when they are cringing and blushing at a large family gathering in their teens. Heh. I am so excited. Arthur�s first cousin. MY first niece or nephew!! Woohoo :)
We saw all round their new house and the decorating they are doing. All their new baby stuff sits around the place in boxes and Mothercare bags. Ahhh it brings it all back! Such an exciting time! They are sooooo excited, and they seemed almost like little children showing us everything, they were that thrilled and eager about it all! It was cute. I feel so old now, even though that was me 7 months ago. I feel like, �Aw, aren�t they cute. They have nooo idea, do they?!� It�s wonderful, but man oh man, nothing can prepare you for parenthood. Even if you get told. Or research it. Or happen to be an easy-going, take-life-as-it-comes person. Or anything. You think you know, but you don�t. But it�s wonderful. I wish I could press rewind and live it again, because I can�t ever be pregnant for the first time and give birth for the first time and be a brand new mummy again. There�s something so extra-special about the firstness of it. But I can�t WAIT to do it all again � I know it will be just as special, just in different ways.
Anyway. It did make me broody as I thought it would, but not as much as I�d expected. In some ways it made me remember how much we�ve been through in the past 7 months (good and bad) and just thinking about it makes me tired, though happy! So thinking of doing it again like, tomorrow, is�. tiring. To say the least!
BIL was holding Arthur on his lap, and we were all sitting round talking about stuff, when we got on to the subject of baby signing. We told them how Arthur just signed milk for the first time yesterday, and all of a sudden Arthur leaned forward on BIL�s lap and stuck his arm out and SIGNED IT!! Clever boy! I don�t know if it�s possible or not for him to understand the word enough to make the sign, just randomly like that, so I guess he coincidentally happened to be hungry. He had not nursed for 3 or 4 hours though, so I�m pleased that he told me about it! We all did the gasp-in-amazement thing and told him he was a clever boy, and I signed milk back to him and whipped my top up and nursed him. They didn�t seem to mind, which is good. I don�t intend to creep off to other rooms to nurse him in family gatherings, so I�m glad nobody in the family seems to bat an eyelid when I whip a breast out! He was too interested in the conversation to nurse properly so he didn�t get much of a feed.
Later we headed home (a 50 minute drive) and it was almost Arthur�s bedtime at that point. It was 2 hours after he had that so-so feed, so he must have been really hungry by then, given that he had a huge gap before it. Poor boy. The saddest thing happened, which I hadn�t really prepared for. On the motorway on the way home, miles from anywhere to stop, Arthur signed milk, clear as day. I couldn�t do squat about it :( Poor Arthur! I didn�t know whether to sign back or not, as I didn�t want to confuse him with signing it and not offering him the breast. In the end I did sign back but said I would nurse him soon. Which sucks, because he can�t understand that. He kept signing it, and eventually cried and cried :( We were about to get to a place where we could stop when he fell asleep. He was so tired. So we kept going. He napped till we got home, and when we got there we changed him for bed and I made the milk sign (he didn�t bother asking this time, poor love), and nursed him in bed. After he finished it was so cute � Neil was standing in the doorway, and Arthur finally popped off the breast after a huge feed, rolled onto his back, saw Neil in the doorway, and gave him the happiest of his huge range of smiles, and made the milk sign over and over at him! He has started doing this after most of his nursing sessions now, especially if he has enjoyed having some milk � he likes to roll away, look me in the eye, smile contentedly and tell me that he�s had milk :) If Neil comes in over the next few minutes he will do it all over again to tell Daddy about his milk too! I take that as a huge compliment, because it�s like he�s telling me how much he enjoyed having his milk and how pleased he was to nurse. It�s almost like a thank-you. It�s so precious. HE�S so precious. Seriously. He did it tonight too before he went to sleep. It�s really special because I have never signed milk AFTER a feed, only before. I like that he wants to communicate to me that he�s had milk and enjoyed it, after he�s done :)
I have signed �more� with him quite a few times now, but I�m discovering that it�s not a particularly easy one to find the appropriate moment for. The only thing I might ask him if he wants more of, is milk. And I�m making the milk sign for that. I don�t want to confuse him and make him think this is a new different sign for milk! Once we used it with a game we were playing, to ask if he wanted more of the game. But really, it�s not very consistent. Neil signed �bubbles� with him as he opened the bubbles to blow some, so I did that today too. But the two-handed signs are difficult, because usually we�re holding something at the same time as wanting to sign about it, or we�re holding Arthur and needing to sign with the free hand, which can�t be done with a two-hand sign. I have signed �daddy� to him a few times, for example when Neil is getting home from work. �Milk� is so easy.
Arthur�s sleep has been weird today. I don�t know why. He has seemed more tired than normal, so maybe he�s feeling a bit off colour? I have been crazy-tired today, so much so that I have not been able to do anything with Arthur most of the day. Which sucks. I get so that I don�t have the strength to hold him for long, or the brain to play actively with him long either. We have spent a lot of today on the bed. Which also sucks. I feel bad, but I am so so so so so tired. Arthur woke around 6am today, and I was just feeling ill with tiredness, so Neil got up with him after they lay in bed for about 45 minutes, and I went to the spare room for more sleep. Neil woke me at 7.45 because he needed to get ready for work. But I just couldn�t stand up for tiredness, so I went back into our bed with Arthur. He seemed sleepy and fussy so I nursed him, and he was asleep by 8.15. Weird time for him to nap. But anyway. I went to sleep nursing him, and he woke at 9am. I couldn�t get my eyes to focus at ALL, I just can�t get over how tired I have been today. Arthur rolled about all over the bed and fussed and that, but I couldn�t stay conscious, and only came round if he squawked or yelled or something. He was fully awake and probably wanting to get up, and I felt bad for that. BUT. When I woke up it was 10.30, and the last time I had looked at the clock it was 9.30. When I looked to my side, there was Arthur, fast asleep! So that�s GREAT because he went to sleep by himself from being awake and active after a nap! And not so good because hmmm, why did he do that? Is he okay? Hmmm. I got up and Arthur stayed asleep till 11.15am! I have no idea when he fell asleep, it could have been 5 minutes before I woke, or an hour. So I can�t really tell how much sleep he has had today.
After that nap, we didn�t do too much. I wanted to take him out but I didn�t have anywhere to take him, and I didn�t have any energy at all. It was raining all day today, and strong winds as well, so that would have sucked for walking. Not that I had the energy for a walk. And there was nothing that needed doing out of the house. So we stayed in. I feel bad (again) because Arthur basically revolved around me today, and I always want it to be ME revolving around HIM, not the other way around. He sat on my lap at the computer for a short while, and I checked my emails and read some diaries. How dull for Arthur. Although he did like patting the keyboard! But the novelty of that activity is starting to wear off these days. And I put the TV on for a while. Which I nevvver wanted to do. But I have. Just so tired. I don�t want to put him down, because then there�s nothing to do but also he�s not in my arms. He has toys, but they can�t keep him happy for long, and I feel like he should be in my arms unless he gets fussy and wants to be put down. Which is never. He loves to be in my arms. But he�s soooo heavy, that I find it hard when I�m tired, to hold him for long.
But by 1.30 he was tired AGAIN, and signing milk, so we went to bed and he fell asleep for 30 minutes. After that he was kind of cranky and although I could make him smile and giggle easily as always, he was not quite as cheery as usual. I blew bubbles for him on the bed, and cracked out a new toy � well, it�s actually the oldest toy he owns, because it was Neil�s when he was a little boy! It is a music box type of thing, where you twist the key at the back and it plays music and a little man with jointed legs dances and makes lots of clattery sounds with his feet. It was bought for Neil in Germany, when they lived there for a while because his dad was posted out there (Army). Neil�s mum kept it carefully all these years because it was Neil�s favourite. It�s still in great condition actually. Anyway when we were last in Yorkshire visiting his parents, she gave it to us to take for Arthur. It has been sitting in a bag since then, and I finally got it out today. Arthur LOVES it!!! But he wants to grab it with both hands and pull the see-through front casing off it and then ram it into his mouth. So it is like wrestling an octopus trying to sit with Arthur and just WATCH the dancing man from a safe distance! He doesn�t like to sit still and watch when he wants to get hold of something!
Anyway, at 3.30pm Arthur was acting increasingly tired and cranky, so I put him back down in bed and nursed him, and he went to sleep. He slept 3.45 to 4.15, and then I nursed him again, thinking he�d be sure to wake up properly after a feed, but he went back to sleep around 4.30, and didn�t wake again till 5.20. Lots of sleep today. I hope he is okay and that this is nothing to worry about.
He is definitely getting better at learning to sleep by himself though, and I am proud that it is a gentle and stress-free process for him with no tears. It�s slow, but I can already see the progress, so that is really encouraging! Last night he woke to feed at around 2am, and Neil changed his nappy before I nursed him. But then he fussed and rolled about and stuff, and I was so tired that I dozed off WHILE he was fussing (like this morning)! When I woke it was 6am, so he had put himself back to sleep even from fussing in the night! Yay Arthur!
Yesterday he had appalling naps � only two 30 minute naps in the whole day! Late in the afternoon I tried him one last time for a nap, but he wouldn�t sleep. I rigged the camcorder up on top of the wardrobe to film him (and me, next to him) in the darkened room, so that I could watch it back later and see if there was anything that became obvious from that different viewpoint that I could change to help him nap. I took 15 minutes of footage, which was so funny when played back with the fast forward button pressed! It was like a time-lapse film, and it was so funny to see Arthur�s movements and his activity at a glance. He rolled this way and that constantly, and never ever stopped moving his feet. They were like little vibrating blurs through the whole clip, hehe! He rolled right and left, from back to front, and front to back, each roll changing his angle and position on the bed, till he had roly-poled his way down his side of the bed to the very foot of it, where he lay on his back holding his feet for a while and rolling now and then, and then fiddled with the wood on the bed-end, and then roly-poled his way back up the bed towards me, where he inched closer and closer until he was latching onto my t-shirt. I nursed him, and that was interesting played back, because he nurses, then leans away, then nurses, then leans away, over and over and over � such a fidget bum! And then it�s really obvious when he�s finally done, because he rolls his whole body away to the other side of the bed, and then more rolling and feet-holding/tugging, etc. He was soooo active and not wanting to sleep! Maybe he is making up for that today? Maybe that�s all it is.
But then he had a great night, as far as these things go for us! I put him to bed a little after 6pm, as he was tired out. He was fast asleep by 6.30 � hooray!! I like 6.30 for a baby-bedtime. I used to feel it was too early, but then The No-Cry Sleep Solution said that babies actually NEED an early bedtime. They do best with a bedtime well before 8pm, apparently, and it says many are actually ready for a night�s sleep at 6 or 6.30. Arthur is definitely one of these. He is tired by 6pm no matter when he last nap ended (even if it ended after 5pm), and is fussing and crying if we are disorganised and get him into bed as late as 7pm. It makes no difference to his wake time, that he goes to bed early. He just needs to end the day at that kind of hour. Otherwise it�s just too long a day. I like to aim for 6.30 sleeping, but lately he gets in bed at that time and it takes him 20 or 30 minutes of nursing and stuff for him to be asleep. When we were trying to leave him to sleep by himself recently, he would still be awake, exhausted and upset around 8pm. Noooo good. He does need a big feed at bedtime so obviously he needs time enough to do that after getting in bed. Maybe I should put him to bed earlier? But then Neil wouldn�t see him after getting home from work. Both my boys like that part of the day, so that�s no good. 6.30, then. That�s the best time. As time goes by I know he will fall asleep quicker, and then he�ll sleep earlier.
But yesterday was good in that I nursed him around 5.30, so he had his big feed early, and only needed a little to help him feel sleepy at bedtime. I was amazed how fast he went to sleep! I took him off the breast before he was asleep, and he didn�t protest, just went off to sleep. He woke briefly at 7 and cried a bit so I nursed him for like 2 minutes and he was asleep again. Then he didn�t wake till 10.30. I am happy because in that time he rolled onto his tummy and stirred, but he just rearranged himself and stayed asleep!!! Yay! This is a breakthrough for Arthur, because all this rolling has been interfering with his sleep lately. Anyway, I nursed him at 10.30 � big hungry feed but only from one side. He went right back to sleep easily. Then he didn�t wake again till 2am! Yay again! And after that it was 6am. Much better.
I don�t know how tonight will go � it�s always a case of wait-and-see. He took ages to fall asleep tonight and I guess it was just after 7.30 when he finally went off. Neil rocked him to sleep and when he stirred right after that I nursed him, but took him off the breast before he was fully asleep. He woke just now at 10ish, and I nursed him. Ten minutes later he rolled onto his tummy and stayed fully asleep!!! Yay!! He rolled with his leg up against the side of the bed (can�t be comfy!) so I went in and lifted his bottom half and laid it straight with his top half, and he lifted his head sleepily, but just put it back down and continued sleeping! I am so thrilled. A few nights ago Neil and I were having a whispered discussion about what to do about Arthur rolling in his sleep, after what felt like the 50th time that he had rolled and woken crying and upset, and then was hard to settle. It just happened over and over. We were debating whether or not to wedge something against him on one side to prevent him rolling onto his tummy, or just to let him roll and wake until he got used to it. It seemed harder to do the latter option, but that�s what we decided to do. He rolled, woke and cried. We nursed or rocked him. He rolled, woke and cried. We nursed or rocked him. He rolled, woke and cried. Etc. We just waited it out. Now, just a few days later, he rolls, stirs, and settles himself back to sleep! Yay! I sometimes do try patting or rubbing his back and shh-ing but he often just cries when I do that, so I mostly nurse him. Sometimes he is in the mood to let me just rub his back and goes back to sleep. I go by his moods for things really.
Ooh I noticed something else about his sleep � well, related to it anyway. As part of his bedtime routine, once I have darkened the room, I always sing the same lullaby in a quiet voice (it happens to be �Speed Bonny Boat� because I find it relaxing) and just lately I have noticed Arthur go noticeably quiet and calm and sleepy while I am singing it. I am usually doing other things too, while I sing � maybe changing him for bed or giving him a back rub or something. But if he�s on his back watching me put his night boots on while I sing, he will watch me closely with the calmest expression, and then start rubbing his eyes. It�s so sweet! And exactly what I�d hoped for. In the night a couple of nights ago, when he rolled and woke all upset, sometimes I rubbed his back and sang Speed Bonny Boat softly, and even if he had been protesting at first, he just came over all sleepy and his head went heavy and dropped back onto the bed, and he went to sleep! So we are making lots of breakthroughs with the sleep. He is definitely learning, slowly but surely, to sleep by himself, and in various different ways, so I am thrilled! I hope it will start to lead to longer stretches at night, for Arthur and for us. I hope that happens soon. But I�m sure it will eventually. Once he has completely learned to resettle himself back to sleep when he wakes at night, I think things will get a lot easier.
Oh I have talked for a LONG time about sleep! And talking of sleep, it is getting late and I don�t want to be as tired tomorrow as I have been today. I had better go to bed and hope for a gooood night! Let me see, were there any other major things I wanted to write about first?
Hmmm�
Oh yes, I am fed up of fiddling about trying Arthur on solids when he is clearly not interested for now. I know he liked banana, but I�m not entirely convinced that his system felt nice the following day or two. I had been starting to feel like, �Oh it has been a few days since I tried Arthur on some solids! I had better get it together and try something else� Which was basically feeling more and more like pressure. And I know he was feeling something close to pressure too, even though I was trying to keep it low-key and fun. So it gives me great relief to have to decided to think no more about solids until he reaches 7 months old. Which is in only 8 days now (wow!), but anyway, I came to this conclusion before the weekend so that gave me 2 weeks of not having to even think about it. Which was nice! And then I will try him on things again. Eventually he will be interested, I figure. If he�s not, after I�ve tried him on things here and there for a week or two, I will leave it again until the next month-milestone. I have been lurking on various parenting boards and reading some very interesting discussions about weaning experiences, and it seems surprisingly common for mothers to just ignore all the pressure and advice, and WAIT till their child seems ready. Which in MANY cases is older than 7 or 8 months. One or two of them had exclusively breastfed babies at 12 months old. Two ladies had babies who only really started taking in amounts of solids worth counting at around 18 months. All their nourishment came from breastmilk. These mothers had their babies� iron levels checked at 9 and 18 months, and they were perfect. So I feel better, and more able to relax about it. Man. There can be a lot of pressure out there. Intended or otherwise. I hope that if Arthur is not interested in solids till he�s like 12 months old, I don�t get flamed left, right and centre the whole while. I was surprised at how relieved I felt to think of waiting. Like a physical weight came off my shoulders. And mothers shouldn�t be made to feel like that about instinctive parenting. Tsk.
Anyway, no solids here! Not till 7 months. And then no pressure, because we�ll see how we go. He is growing enormously still, at the 90th percentile, and obviously needing absolutely nothing more than my milk. I agree that it�s good for babies to experience the textures of food and the social interaction of mealtimes. But Arthur hates the textures. I know babies accept them more as they get used to them when you persist with solids, but he obviously won�t hate them forever, so I should be happy to wait till he�s more interested in feeling new textures. I shouldn�t be all, �No, no! You�ll like that gravely slop against your soft pallet if I persist at putting it there long enough!� I mean, really. That�s what it boils down to, right? I wouldn�t like that. Arthur doesn�t like that. I won�t persist if he doesn�t like it. Eventually it is sure to be an interesting curiosity. He will want to follow it. I wouldn�t blame him if he never had any interest in slop of varying lumpiness, no matter how good it tasted. Even if I have to wait till he�s reached the stage where he gets to pick up food off our plates and eat it as it is � now that would be FAR more interesting and appealing wouldn�t it?! Also better for the social mealtime thing. Urgh. Annoying issue.
I can�t believe there�s only a week left till Arthur is 7 months old! He is almost crawling. He rocks and rocks on his tummy, but not with his knees under him yet. He is pushed up so high on his arms when he rocks, that the only part of him in contact with the floor/bed/wherever, is his nappy. His tummy is clear of the ground now! And his legs are up in the air behind him, as ever! He bounces and bounces like that, not a slow rocking, but fast wobbling bounces! I should get him on the camcorder doing that so I can show you.
Oh we have the cot-bed up at last. It FILLS our bedroom at the end of the bed. I put him in it yesterday as an introduction to the thing, and he smiled and smiled, and did his bounce thing on his tummy in there. But he smiles like that at anything new. He is such a smiley baby. He looked mildly panicked if Neil or I went out of sight, even for a moment. I hate bars on things. I hate how the sides of a cot are a barrier between a mother and her baby. It�s just not natural. So *I* hate the thing, but hey ho. I know it will come in handy at some point. Arthur turns himself around in there on his tummy until he is face-to-face with the side bars, and then tries to lift his hand up to grasp a bar, which makes his head drop suddenly, and WHAM! Big ole red bruise above the eye and sweet boy crying his little heart out :( Stoopid darn jail-bed. He has never had any restrictions around him like that so he is whacking his head on the sides a lot. I know if I leave him in there frequently he�ll get used to the area and how to avoid banging his head, but really. Does that seem remotely natural or right?!! I don�t want to put him in it. Ever. Again. But I know we�ll use it eventually, and maybe even soon. Like when he is crawling OFF the kingsize bed during nap time, heh.
What Neil and I both agree we need, is more space. We have been looking at houses in the property papers, but we can�t afford anything bigger than the house we�re in. Neil has got an offer of a job change in his company, which is GREAT, as it has good prospects further down the line. He is taking it. But there will be no pay rise. In August he does come up for pay review, so maybe he�ll get a little extra then, but the company isn�t doing so well at the moment so he thinks maybe not. Soooo the houses will have to stay in the paper. And we stay here. Which is fine. We have a sweet little house, all of our own. We are a little family. We don�t need anything more. But we choose to family-bed, not use the small bedroom as a nursery. So we need a big master bedroom, and we don�t have one. We need to somehow get rid of our wardrobes in our bedroom, because they take up soooo much room. And then put the bedframe (huge) into storage. We just need an empty room! We would ideally like to put our mattress on the floor and buy a single-bed mattress to lay next to it, and that would become our family bed. We like sleeping on the floor, and our little ones would not come to any harm if they rolled toward the edges. And we would have lots of space in bed! We could co-sleep with two if it came to that. But we need the wardrobe space for all the clothes and stuff that they house, and they won�t fit in any other room. And we can�t store the bedframe easily. And storage facilities cost too much money. So poo. But we�re still working on it. We are both very serious about career-type co-sleeping, hehe! We always planned to co-sleep long-term.
Okay I was meant to be going to bed. Tsk. I�m sure there were other things. But I need sleep now. Will try to update again soon. No photos today � I took a couple at SIL�s but they didn�t come out well. Arthur�s hair is suddenly growing in so fast and thick, so I�ll take some more soon! The hair on top WILL NOT lie flat! It sticks up straight! I figured it would lie down as it got longer, as the sides have done, but the whole of the top of his head is springy, and an inch long! I think he may have my wavy hair, or a tiny part of it, because his hair does go quite curly/wavy in the bath like mine does. Neil�s is dead straight, so it�s not Neil�s hair. Anyway, bed! And more soon :)
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