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2008-02-20 - 12:10 a.m.��previous entry��next entry
5 and a half weeks old...
Snippet of a silly conversation between Neil and I, this evening:
9.38pm, Tuesday 19th Feb:
Me: �All our kids are in bed asleep!�
Neil: �I know!�
Me: �Let�s have another one!�
Neil: �No! (guards crotch with hands) I�ll tie me bits up with Duct Tape!�
Hehehehe! He obviously would NEVER Duct Tape his bits (owch!), but the mental image had me laughing till my eyes watered! ;)
In other news, Nathan is doing well. He continues to get heavier - I can tell because today and yesterday I can't get through a normal-length feeding without my arm starting to ache and burn from the effort of holding him in the same position for that long. He's getting such a big boy compared with just a month ago when he was born!
Tonight is the first night he has slept upstairs during the evening, instead of a combination of on Neil's front or in the Moses basket on the living room floor. He began to get difficult to settle in the evenings, and would wake up frequently to feed - which he's doing around the clock still, anyway, but yeah. It was hard to get him to settle by the end of the evening, and we started to notice that it was "normal" for Nathan to be impossible to settle to sleep for like 2-3 hours from about 10.30 or 11pm. We'd walk him, burp him, give him a dummy, let him suck our little finger, etc. Sometimes he was just alert and wanting to make eye contact and make all sorts of shapes at us with his little mouth (soooo cute, and I love it because I know it's the precursor to starting to coo and vocalise at us!). Which was lovely! But other times he was reeeeally tired, yawning all the time, and getting annoyed with the fact that he wasn't asleep (or so it seemed to us). Eventually enough time would pass that he was due another breastfeed really, and so I'd nurse him again and he'd conk right out.
So this evening after he nursed, I took him up to bed (around 8.30 or 8.45pm) and put him in his cot. He is still on his tummy. Last night I was up till 4am trying to settle him on his back in a baby sleeping bag in his cot, but he really didn't want to sleep that way. I swaddled him pretty good and tight, and lay him on his back that way, with a blanket over him (tucked in), and he seemed a tiny bit more settled at first but was fussing and annoyed within a few minutes. I turned him over and he fussed a bit but then went to sleep right away. So I really think I should take him to a chiropractor to get him assessed, just to make sure he isn't a bit misaligned after the fast birth (re. Jemma's advice since this was the case for Jove and treatment really worked). I have no idea how to look into it, or where to look, or how much it costs (and whether we can afford it, therefore), etc. But I think I should look into it at least.
For now, he's on his tummy. He wakes fairly frequently which I guess is a good thing. I lay my hands on him and pray over him every night, that he'll be safe on his tummy. He DOES get too hot very easily on his tummy, which is why I am praying over him. I have found that he only needs a sleepsuit (no vest) and a single flannelette sheet. Even then he can get a bit warm, but he wakes up cross about that if it happens. Last night I think I got it right for him, temperature-wise. He had the sleepsuit and sheet on, but the sheet was only halfway up his back, not all the way up. The room temperature is between 18 and 19 degrees (celsius) so just a sheet seems VERY little to cover him with! But he gets too hot otherwise. Last night, with his sheet not all the way up, he slept over 2 hours straight - his longest stint in WEEKS. He felt a really comfortable temperature when I picked him up. I wonder if he's waking more frequently because he's getting too warm? And why didn't I ever encounter this problem with Matthew, who tummy-slept from about Nathan's age in the middle of summer?!! Maybe Nathan's just a hot baby, compared with Matthew? Anyway. I just know that it isn't safe for babies to get too warm when they're sleeping. So it makes me nervous, and that's why I'm trying to get his layers/clothing right at night.
Anyway, so I took him up to his cot and put him down asleep. He stayed for about 90 minutes, which is about normal for Nathan all round the clock. When he woke, I nursed him in my bed in the dark, and then burped him, nursed him on the other side and burped him again, and then walked him for a while in the bedroom. I kept the lights off. He was awake and a bit fussy, and this is the time he would normally somehow go beyond his "sleep window" and stay awake fussing a lot for a couple of hours! So I reeeeally wanted to somehow avoid that happening! I gave him a dummy for a bit till he spat it out, and then rocked him some more, and gave him the dummy back, etc. Eventually I put him down on his tummy with his dummy in. We use NUK dummies which seem to be the only ones with a perfect shape - moulded to their little faces so that they won't indent if the baby is on its tummy. They are the only brand my babies have ever accepted! We didn't know about that brand when Arthur was a baby so he rejected all the other brands (as Matthew did) and then we gave up and he sucked our little fingers for months instead! Matthew and Nathan have taken to NUK dummies without problems - they're great (as far as dummies go!)!
Ohhh, he's making some annoyed sounds up there. I had better go and see if I can settle him. He only nursed about an hour ago, if not less, so I need to resettle him if I can.
False alarm, still asleep! He was just fussing and squirming to fart - my WORD this baby can fart!! He will often do half a dozen noisy farts each time he stirs in his sleep, and some of them have rivalled the noisiest ADULT farts I've heard, seriously, hehe!
I'm trying to extend the periods between nursing sessions to 2 hours where I can. I really don't think he NEEDS it more frequently than 2 hourly, in fact I am not sure he even needs it 2 hourly (it's awfully frequent!), unless he's having a growth spurt (which he's not right now). On the rare occasion that he gets nearer to 3 hours between feeds, he feeds sooooooooooo well and thoroughly. He usually wants to nurse at least 2 hourly, but he doesn't take so long at the breast (though he still does have a proper feed most times, with 2 breastfuls), and he fusses a lot and brings up a ton more milk afterwards. I wish he'd space the feeds out a little, because it would be so much easier for me, and he seems so much more satisfied with his feeds that way. I'm trying to help him do that a bit by resettling him to sleep when he wakes (if I can), and offering him the dummy instead if it has only been an hour or something.
So, he's upstairs!!! When he's normally fussy and awake! And he has been "in bed for the night" all evening!!! BUT, I have been up there like fifty times already, and he has stirred and fussed a lot. I have replaced his dummy a lot, which I DON'T want to get into, because I'd much rather he doesn't depend on sucking the dummy to STAY asleep - more that it helps him to doze off and then I remove it once he's asleep (like I did with Matthew). This particular baby boy does not take kindly to the dummy being removed during his sleep however! I keep having all sorts of little reminders that Nathan is NOT Matthew, hehe! He's a whole different baby, new and unique, a new challenge even having had 2 babies previously. They are never the same as ones you've already had!
Anyway. Hopefully his sleep will improve in general soon!
He HATES baths. Seriously. And I am super slack on bathing him, like never before (with my others). He got his first bath at 12 days old - TWELVE!!! Poor baby! I did wash him occasionally though! ;) His first bath was in the bathroom sink, as we had no baby baths down from the loft, and the sink did fine for my other boys in a pinch. Oh how he HATED it! He cried like I haven't heard him cry before or since, and he seemed actually terrified of the experience, which I don't recall seeing in my other babies. He did a HUGE "crisis" poo in the towel right after his hair wash, and then a further TWO poos - once when I was drying him, and again just before I got him dressed downstairs. Poor baby! That really showed me he was distressed by it. So he didn't have another bath till a couple of weeks later! That sounds so awful. And this time I bathed him in one of the plastic toy boxes from the toy unit in the living room. I chose a small one, which looks craaazy small to fit a baby in it, but actually it's the perfect size for him to sit in. It means he can have deeper water, and it happens to have a curved back the exact size and shape of his back, so he can sit back into it like a little arm chair with high sides! If only I had another few arms (!) I would take a photo to post here. But his bath times are a challenge! He hated the toy box bath almost as much as the bathroom sink one. I read up on the Tummy Tub (too lazy to link) and was thinking to buy one, but that's when I thought the toy box might do a similar job and it's FREE since we already own it (as compared to the Tummy Tub, which we don't!). It's deep and about the size of his body, so not big and roomy or anything. But he just soooo hates baths. At least he didn't quite seem so distressed this last time, and he didn't poo!
I once read somewhere that if a baby is particularly distressed by baths when newly born, you should give them as few baths as possible in the early weeks to avoid the distress for them. And just top and tail them frequently.
What else?
Nathan has been in the bouncy chair (the Fisher Price Kick n Play thingy) that Matthew used to love! We got it down from the loft, and he sits in it sometimes. Not very often. I used it LOADS for Matthew because it was the only way I could manage to juggle the two little ones sometimes! But so far I am not struggling to juggle the kids because Neil is around all the time.
Today we had an incident or two with the two older boys where Nathan HAD to sit in the bouncy chair (one of the times - the other time he was crying in his cot and we had no choice but to leave him there SCREAMING till he was sounding almost hoarse while we attended a "banged heads" issue with the boys - poor sweet Nathan! HOW I hugged him to me and kissed his little head when I finally got to go and pick him up!). But he seems okay in the chair. He sits and looks at things (not too specifically yet) for a long while without fussing. He sat content while we ate our lunch this afternoon, though I took mine and sat in front of him to eat it. I didn't want him to be on his own! :)
I finally won a BabyDan playpen at eBay for half the price of a new one, yay! It's also very local so we will pick it up rather than pay hefty postage costs. I want to thank Melanie for it. I have hesitated to mention in my diaries in the last month or so, that a couple of my online (met through my diary, that is) friends have prayed and felt that God was leading them to bless us with a gift of money. I wasn't sure if that was something to keep private - though actually, now I think about it, I DON'T want to keep private the fact that God has been faithful to us once AGAIN, and blessed us through generous friends who are faithful to God's calling! Melanie isn't even in the UK! It's amazing to me that God puts us on the hearts of people so far removed from us like this. Anyway, I praise God for you, Melanie (and likewise Meg - thank you again lovely!), because the closing cost of the playpen in UK � was almost exactly the equivalent of the US $ you sent me, and so we haven't had to spend money on something that will make life MUCH easier for us with the little ones! Thank you so much! God is so faithful to us!
We are picking up the playpen this week (or at the weekend), but we have to somehow get rid of a sofa (!) to my brother-in-law's garage, to make room for it. He'll store it for us, which is lovely of him! Then there will be a tiny bit more space, and a good place for the playpen to go, which will house any boy who is fed up with his brother destroying his painstakingly arranged traffic jam or "supermarket car park" of toy cars for the millionth time! Arthur's always begging for a place he can go where Matthew can't reach his cars! Matthew plays with the cars just as much, but often bashes Arthur's game up to get more cars for his own! Or it will be a holding zone for any boy who is being overly aggressive with his brother. Or a safe (ish) place to put Nathan in his bouncy chair so he doesn't get bounced to high heaven by an over-zealous brother, or the vibrating feature switched on and off and on and off and on and off and on and off (ad infinitum).
I can't wait to get that bit sorted! :)
A couple more random photos to catch up - continuing on from the last ones I posted. Nathan was 3 weeks old here. I changed these ones to sepia or black and white:
That last one was taken to sort of show the chaotic "new baby and two toddlers!" surroundings, at the same time as the lovely calm of a sleeping newborn baby snuggled on your front! :) It's chaos but I love it!
Well, it's getting late, so I should get everything ready for the night (nappies, sleepsuits, wipes, cream (still with the sore bottom, though better now that he's wearing mostly Fuzzi Bunz at night - size SMALL, he's outgrown the XS already!), burp towels, extra tops for me, etc!), before Nathan wakes up for his next feed. Which is likely to be very soon. Oh! He is waking up, hehe! I had better go. Will be back with more photos soon.
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