Lots has changed

I've been having trouble finding the time to write. Taking care of 2 kids is busy! But there is a lot to report from the last few weeks. Will continues to grow - not sure his height or weight but he is wearing 3-6 month clothes and he doesn't have a lot of room in them. Leah has definitely grown too - her friend Avery is 39" and I think she's at least as tall - we'll find out when they both have check-ups on July 9.

Leah has also gotten 2 more teeth - her bottom 2 year molars are almost all the way in and her top left has just begun to break through. The top right is not yet visible but I think it's getting close as well. Luckily her night wakings from it seem to have subsided. We did have a period of several nights a couple weeks ago where Tylenol or Motrin were necessary to get her to sleep.

Will is starting to play a little, which makes Leah very happy. He does a little tummy time without a fuss. He looks at things in the activity gym. Today I thought he might be batting at things too - but I'm not quite positive. He definitely follows a noisy toy with his eyes, so Leah can enjoy moving rattles around in front of him and watching him react. She's been showing him some of her toys and stuffed animals and seems to believe me when I tell her how much he likes them.

But the biggest news is that they are now sharing a room. A couple weeks ago I decided to experiment with that at naptime. We had one really successful nap where their naps coincided but didn't quite start/end at the same time - and neither woke the other up. A couple more days of trying that were not quite as smooth, but the important discovery was that Will sleeps better in the crib than the bassinet. Not sure if it's the mattress or the space or what - seems silly since he is sleeping in a swaddle, but I don't think the experience was pure coincidence. So since we wanted to stop having him sleep in the carseat at night, we decided to bite the bullet and try it out. We started it last Friday - a day after his 6 week birthday. Overall it is going very well. He has woken her up several times, but about half of his wakings do not seem to wake her at all, and only a handful of times have we had to really work to get her back to sleep. Usually I can just tell her I'm going to feed him and she should go back to sleep and she does. We have had a couple mornings made earlier by him waking her at 5:30 or 6 and her not really going back to sleep. Now we've decided that if he has a feeding after 5 a.m. or so then he goes into our room - either in the carseat or our bed - to avoid waking her at a time that she thinks is morning but is much earlier than her day would usually start. She has also woken him a few times. A couple nights ago she woke up with a nightmare and we were able to get her back to sleep relatively quickly, but the commotion was too much for him, and once he was awake he was not going back to sleep without a feeding.

For the most part we seem to be on a decent schedule, although of course I'd love for him to sleep longer at night - or to sleep through the night. He's usually having a last feeding around 8 p.m. We do his bath and then top him off and he is asleep somewhere around 9 p.m. Once we are sure he is asleep we put him in the crib. Leah has been going to bed between 8 and 8:30, so she is asleep before we put him in the room. The one time that we brought him in and it turned out she was still awake we just told her to be quiet because we were putting Will in the crib. She was quiet...and went right to sleep as far as we could tell. Will usually wakes up around 2 a.m. for a big feeding. Then he is up anywhere between 4:30 and 6 a.m. for the next feeding. He will go back to sleep at that point, but he's usually up again around 7 a.m. - not that he necessarily needs to eat then but I guess he wants to get up for a little morning activity.

During the day Will is still sleeping most of the time. He has brief periods of awake/alert time before or after a feeding. And his naps are anywhere from about half an hour to about 3 hours. He seems to take his longest naps while parked in the stroller at the playground - as long as it's not too hot out. He's also starting to be able to hang out on his own for a bit. He will lie on the couch or in the crib or on a blanket on the floor for up to 20 minutes now - although sometimes much shorter. That does give me time to do things like make lunch (although not enough time to also eat it). I have still been having to hold him or wear him in the Bjorn at dinner time, but occasionally he'll nap for part of it. Unfortunately getting naps to coincide is still hit or miss. Today it looked like it was going to work out and then Will woke up about 15 minutes after Leah went to sleep.

Will has been having some gas issues. He kicks his legs and screams in pain. Usually I can help him work out gas/poop by pushing his legs up into his belly or rolling his lower body up to above his head - like a roly poly. But sometimes it takes awhile to help him get through it. Poor guy. It seems to be worse lately, and we're not sure whether there is a cause other than just an immature digestive system. Hopefully it will begin to subside soon. We think it's likely to resolve on its own by the time he is 3 or 4 months old.

And last but not least, we've been encouraging potty training more with Leah. I have asked her several times if she wants to try wearing her big girl panties and using the potty. Today she actually said yes. She peed on the potty around 8:30 a.m. and again at 9:15 a.m. But then around 11 she had a big pee accident all over the couch, despite my having asked her approximately every 15 minutes if she needed to use the potty. We cleaned up and put on clean undies - along with some rubber pants. About 15 minutes later she told me she leaked. I tried explaining to her that a diaper leaks but without a diaper it's called an accident. Luckily it was a small one and the rubber pants caught it all. At that point she was as frustrated as I and she told me she wanted to wear a diaper. After naptime we tried again. She picked out some Dora panties and tried using the potty around 3 p.m. (no success). Then around 4 p.m. she told me she needed to poop on the potty - but in fact she had already pooped. Luckily it was fairly solid and I was able to clean her up fairly easily. But I was out of patience for it for the day - so we put on a diaper. Next time we will be spending some time at home we will try again. I think she knows when she needs to pee/poop, but I'm not sure she quite gets the whole potty usage concept.

No time for pictures today - see Picasa for lots of those!

My baby is huge!

Will's 1 month check-up was today. He is growing like a fat little weed! 11 pounds 8 ounces - yes, that is a gain of 4 pounds in 4 weeks! 23 inches long - a gain of 2 inches. He's in the 90th percentile in height, 85th in weight and 75th in head circumference. I can't believe the scrawny little thing I gave birth to has become such a chunk! Of course we're very pleased that he's growing so well.

And we are very hopeful that his size will lead to longer stretches of sleep very soon. He did one 5 hour stretch this week, but generally he does one or two stretches of 4 hours overnight and the rest of the time he's pretty consistently eating about every 3 hours. We are going to try to get him to spend more time in the bassinet - less time in the carseat. That will help when we transition him to the crib - hopefully in a couple of months. And it's good for his development - in addition, we need to start doing some more tummy time so that he can work on rolling.

I've been feeling like his 0-3 month clothes were getting small. He's filling them out pretty well now. But more than that, it is hard to snap the onesies - some brands are already too short. He seems to be long in the torso. I think we may be moving him up to his 6 month clothes in another week or two. Some things he can stay in longer - pants and t-shirts - but the onesies and sleepers are on the way out.

Nothing else too eventful from his check-up. He's healthy...hitting all the milestones. We go back in a month for his first round of immunizations.

Will is 1 month old!

I can't believe how fast the month has gone by. He is definitely growing quickly. His face has really filled out, as have his belly and limbs. And so far that thick black hair seems like it's here to stay! His eyes are still a bit gray, so it's too early to tell what they'll look like - of course they'll be brown but whether they'll be light like Leah's or dark like Shafi's - we'll have to wait and see!

But along with turning a month old, Will has woken up quite a bit in the last week or so. We now get a fussy period from late afternoon through until about 8 or 9. We've instituted a bedtime routine for him now. Either after Leah goes to bed or while Leah has a bath, Will gets a bath. Then he gets his pre-bedtime feeding, dressed and swaddled, burped and down in the carseat for the first "night" sleep. He usually goes about 4 hours from that feeding until the next one. Tonight he ate about 8:10 - so I expect he'll be waking up around 12:10, give or take half an hour.

When we go to bed we will take the carseat into our room with us. And then after his midnight feeding I will try to get him as close to asleep as possible before putting him down in the bassinet next to our bed. If I'm lucky he'll only stir and grunt for a few minutes before sleeping for a couple of hours - generally he goes about 3 hours from that feeding until the next one. Unfortunately he's been a bit more awake after the feeding that's around 3 a.m. But if possible he'll be in the bassinet then too. If a few minutes of trying to soothe him and get him to sleep fail then we either bring him in the bed with us or put him in the carseat. Generally after the 6 a.m. feeding he's more or less up - he knows it's morning. Sometimes he'll doze on top of me or I can get him to conk back out in the carseat swing, but even though Leah has mostly been sleeping until 8 a.m., my day seems to begin around 6 with Will.

He tends to sleep pretty well in the carseat on the stroller when we're out and about, which is great because it means I can take Leah to the playground or wherever else and have some quality time with her. But when we're home, it's a bit harder to get him into a sound sleep...which means it's getting harder for me to get a nap in during Leah's nap...and it's been pretty much impossible for me to make dinner.

So - as always, an infant's schedule is constantly changing, and we'll be rolling with the punches. Fortunately the little cold that Will has had seems to be subsiding. He's still got an occasional wet raspy sounding cough but we're not hearing the congestion in his breathing anymore.

His 1 month check-up isn't until Friday, so stay tuned for his growth and healthy update!

Due to being really busy and really tired, I haven't been able to blog as much as I would like to. And I haven't been posting any pictures here - but check out my Picasa site for lots of photos.