Wednesday, January 21, 2009

A nap sounds good right about now

Im feeling a little scatter-brained today so this will be a short post.

Awhile back I decided to stop letting Josiah sleep in his swing and tried to move him to his crib preferably and my bed occasionally. As it turned out though, Josiah wanted nothing to do with his crib at night time and instead wanted constant access to the milk bar. I've been a walking zombie trying to share a bed with a kid who wakes to eat at least a dozen times in the night. I wouldn't really wake up much when he would cry because he was in the bed with me and all I really needed to do was re latch him. The constant interruptions to my sleep though were horrible. And so it went every night until a few days ago.

Fast forward to about a week ago when Josiah started to really chomp down on me after a few minutes of a feeding. He doesn't have any teeth yet but they are coming and he likes to chew. So in the middle of the night sometime I had had enough and so I got up and put Josiah into his crib with a soother. I fully expected him to pull it out and cry at me to put him back into my bed, but he didn't. There wasn't even a peep from him for a couple of hours.

Being the dense, sleep-deprived person that I am, I didn't even notice that this might be a time to try to get him to sleep on his own. He has been getting easier and easier to put down for naps in his crib, but still I didn't even think about any of it.

Last night though it finally hit me. If I feed him and lay him back in his crib with his soother, he goes to sleep without much fuss. Granted, he still wakes up way too often for my taste, but this is definitely a step in the right direction. Last night he was awake twice between 11 and 8 and both times I put him back in his crib after his feeding. Easy peasy.

Except! I am so much more tired now. I think having to keep myself awake for those ten-ish minutes and then getting out of bed to put him back into his crib is having a bigger tole on me then the constant waking. Im hoping that this is only temporary, but we'll see.

In other news, Josiah had his 6 month boosters yesterday. He was a champ and only cried with the second needle. I gave him some Tempra when we got home, but I don't think he even needed it. He has slept a lot since then, but he has been sleeping a lot anyway for the last couple of weeks so I don't know if that's related. He did really well.

He is 16lbs now, which I thought to be quite small. His length is in the 65th percentile but his weight is only in the 25th. The nurse and I agreed that it probably has something to do with his refusal to eat ANY solid foods and his constant moving. When he sits in his highchair, he does this thing where he pulls himself close to the tray and then throws himself back. Its like rocking, but with much more force. The kid is crazy, I tell ya.

I've tried everything I can to get him to eat but he just has no interest in it. He used to eat rice cereal but he out right refuses to eat it now. I think the trouble started when I had to force his antibiotic on him for his ear infections. He hated the taste of it and hasn't let anything but breast milk (oh and crackers with sugar and everything else a 6 month old shouldn't be eating) enter his system since.

So far, I've tried peas, green beans, sweet potatoes, peaches and bananas. The bananas were both the jarred variety and bits of a fresh one. This morning I let him kind of suck on my banana which he did enjoy, but then he chomped down and bit off a big chuck that needed to be removed from his mouth. When I mushed some up for him though, he didn't want it. All I can do is keep trying, but its getting a little worrisome.

So much for my quick post! I hope you are all doing well and enjoying the feeling of change that seems to be present in both America and all over the world this week.

7 comments:

Just Vegas said...

Have you seen those mesh feeders? (here's one brand http://www.amazon.com/Munchkin-Fresh-Food-Feeder-Pack/dp/B000GK5XY2/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=baby-products&qid=1232547294&sr=8-1)
Maybe he just wants to feed himself?

Mommy Daisy said...

I hope that Josiah's sleeping patterns even out a little more for your sake. We were pretty fortunate that Zachariah slept 8-10 hours at night by the time he turned 4 months old. And by 9 months he was sleeping for 10-12 hours straight...and he still does. But I'm sure things will even out. Babies change their patterns so often, that you never know when it will be better.

I wouldn't worry too much about him not wanting many solids. Keep letting him taste things. It sounds to me like he'll go straight to table foods and not mess with the "baby" food things. And that's fine too.

Kristi said...

I agree with pretty much everything MommyDaisy said! I guess there's no reason to write it out twice.

I hope the sleep issues work out soon. The long nights are the reason I'm scared to have another baby!

Deleted said...

Oooo Cherish I`ve seen those mesh feeders at our big box grocery store and they are pretty effective, Some of my friends use them!

How odd would that be if he went straight to table food..woah! Hope you get more sleep, so we can do something this weekend! :P I`m so selfish :(

xo

Alice said...

i can hardly function when i only get 6 hours of sleep... i am pretty sure i am NOT cut out to have babies :-)

Amanda said...

That is great that Josiah is moving into his crib. Yeah its a pain for you but like you said, hopefully its a step in the right direction.

Wow, he is a stubborn little one when it comes to food. But, keep him trying new tasts. Eventually he'll like something!

Astarte said...

Hooray for his sleeping in his own crib!!! Good for you!

I was always terrible at getting up at night. Once I got up, I could never get back to sleep, and would end up being up practically all night. I'll bet once you can get some real food into him, he'll sleep even better, too. Can you pump and make basically a slurry of rice cereal, like barely even any rice in it, and then build it up slowly over days?