Life with Nathan: Week 27 and 28

At Nathan's 6 month doctor's appointment, he was 14 pounds, 13 ounces and 26 1/2 inches. The pediatrician said that we should feed him more solids because he isn't gaining much weight. I don't know where the extra weight would go given his plentiful fat rolls. The pediatrician suggested 1 jar of baby food twice a day. It would probably take me an hour to feed him 1 jar and half the food will end up on his clothes, hands and chair. The most I'm able to get him to eat at one time is 1/2 a jar so I figure that's good enough.

We finally came to the realization that he can't keep sleeping in the fat suit because he'll get too big for it and it's getting too warm now. So we decided to slowly transition him out of the fat suit the 1st week. It was really tough. Without the suit, he didn't have anything to hold back his movements so he's just kicking and turning and can't find a comfortable position to sleep in. We try to put a pillow near him so he can cuddle up to it since he likes to have his face against something. But whenever he woke up he couldn't fall back asleep until I helped re-position him. I felt like he really wanted to sleep on his stomach but he couldn't figure out how, he just rubbed his face left and right against the sheet. Finally towards the end of the first week of training at 5:30am I looked into his crib and saw that he fell asleep on his tummy. I was so happy because he now has another position that he can get comfortable in!

Then the 2nd week of training we decided to let him cry a bit, it wasn't a particular training technique, or even planned really. I was just so tired of the bedtime battle of him waking up crying as soon as I put him down in the crib and then I have to pick him up again. Sometimes it would take 2 hours to finally get him fully asleep. I started dreading putting him to bed because of it. One night we just decided that we can't keep spoiling him and if he just wants to be held, then we need to let him be more independent. Up until recently we haven't really let Nathan cry during bedtime because of his skin. When he gets upset or can't fall asleep he'll scratch and rub his face and it would get so bad that I end up sleeping with him for the rest of the night. But his skin has improved a lot by the time he reached 6 months, praise God. I think the warmer weather and Aveeno eczema cream helped make his skin smoother. The first couple of nights of hearing him cry was really heart-wrenching. Watching him screaming and his face and eyes getting all red and swollen. We'd pick him up every 15 minutes to make sure he's okay and then put him down again. Eventually after an hour of crying, he fell asleep the first night. Then on subsequent nights the crying time did get shorter and he learned to fall asleep faster. By day 4 I think he was able to fall asleep in just a few minutes. SO relieved.

Now the next part is to get him to not wake up so much. Even though he can fall asleep great at 7:30pm, he'll wake up at 11pm, then 1am, then 3am, then 4am, etc. I feel like a zombie sometimes walking back and forth between our rooms. I don't know how he's able to function during the day after waking up so many times! Because I've been so tired I just end up napping with him during the day which has been nice. It probably doesn't help his sleep training because he gets to nap next to me :) But I actually secretly love sleeping with him next to me when I'm not sleep deprived. I love looking at his cute sleeping face and being the first person he sees when he opens his eyes.

New things that Nathan is doing: trying to sit up in his chair

showing interest in grabbing specific things, yup he does like my phone! he's got a strong grip!
fake coughing to get attention - tsk tsk tsk Nathan!