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three months
Holy crap, this past Thursday the prince was three months old.
He likes or does not mind me, his father, snuggling, milk, bath time, standing up on our legs and looking around, kicking his heels against the floor of the pack-n-play, and gurgling and cooing and practicing his vowel sounds with us and his grandmothers (his favorite word is "ghu," not that we know what it means). He dislikes wet diapers, dirty diapers, being cold, being tired, being hungry, and being swaddled - but he's not yet ready to sleep with both arms free, because he startles himself awake after about five minutes. So he has to have one arm pinned. We leave his right arm free so he can get used to unswaddled sleeping; recently he has also been using the opportunity to nom on his hand.
He's been able to get his hands in his mouth for about a month, but now he's doing it all the blessed time and with real intention. He can get a whole hand in there. I've just about given up trying to get him to stop and resigned myself to the fact that we're in a slobbery phase now. He's drooling copiously, and between that and some other indicators I think it's possible these are early symptoms of teething. The wise internet suggests that he might show signs as much as three months before the first tooth actually comes in, and that that's likely to be around six months, so (a) right on schedule? and (b) oh my god, this much drooling (and crankiness, and and and) for three more months?!
We generally put him to bed around 7:30, give or take. (Mostly give. He can't really make it to 8pm.) He generally wakes up once, usually in the sort of 2:30am area but sometimes as late as 4:30, which is the worst possible time because there's no real useful sleep for any adult between that and 6am wakeup. (A few weeks ago for three nights in a row he slept from 8pm to 5am and we thought we'd turned a corner. Alas. On the other hand, two nights ago he woke up at 12:30 and didn't go down again until 1:45, and then he woke up again at 4:30. Thank god that's not normal.) Generally up for the day around 6am. And he's a very sweet kid from 6am to about 5pm. ... Unfortunately, the last couple of hours of the day are developing into a real challenge.
I know there's a "witching hour" when babies sometimes blow their tiny stacks because they're overloaded with all they're learning and how they're growing. But night after night, close to two hours of wigging out is getting really wearing. I'm speaking of times when he's got a clean diaper, he won't eat, he doesn't want the pacifier, he doesn't want to play, he doesn't want to be left alone to kick his legs and look at things, he doesn't want to snuggle - he just wants to yell whether we're holding him or not. Probably what he wants is to go to bed, but we can't put him to bed that early. It's not too late for a nap, provided he hasn't just woken up from a nap at that sort of time.
Napping is a whole other issue. He "normally" these days naps for about one hour out of every two and a half. When he wakes up he's annoyed to be awake - a sentiment I understand and with which I sympathize, but to me that says his naps are not as restorative as they should be; I want him to wake up happy. Changing and feeding him takes about 20 minutes, we spend about an hour playing or talking or generally being in each other's company, and then he's ready for a nap again. Sometimes the nap is as short as half an hour. (His grandmother says sometimes it's as long as two hours; this afternoon he slept for two hours in the crook of my left arm, but only because he had rejected two previous naps today and I wanted him to have slept at all. Ugh.) So I'd like him to sleep longer at nap time, and I'd like his feeding interval to be more like three hours than like two and a half. I don't know how to make either of these happen, so a normal day is like wake up at 6am, eat, nap time at 7:30, wake up at 8:30, eat, nap time at 10, wake up at 11, eat, nap time at 12:30, wake up at 1:30, eat, nap time at 3pm, wake up at 4, eat, nap time at 5:30, wake up at 6:30, eat, bedtime at 7:30ish. Note though that a normal day has never happened. The 7:30 nap usually goes the whole hour. The 10am nap may be about 45 minutes. The 12:30 nap is hit or miss. The 3pm nap is about 30 minutes if it happens at all. The 5:30 nap is rare. I can't go longer between naps because he's tired and rubbing his eyes after being awake for an hour and a half and if I wait too long to put him down he can't get to sleep. (I feel like if the naps were longer not only would there be fewer of them but he'd last longer in between them as well. Augh!)
So what we end up with is, after 5pm, a baby who doesn't know what he wants but is pretty sure it's not any of the things we're trying to give him. If he happens to be hanging out quietly with a toy that will end the minute Himself and I are ready to have dinner, no matter what time that is. And the fussing and hollering is extremely frustrating while it's happening. Both Himself and I have been very short with the baby over this. (We'd never be rough with him or in any way not take care of him, but one's patience does wear thin.) And the frustration and the tension are exhausting. I think I'm managing ever so slightly better than Himself is, except that it makes me unhappy when he's unhappy, and there's no real way I can help solve it. I'm trying to keep in mind that this stage is finite - but a lot of things are finite that are still impossible while you're in them.
This got a lot ventier than I meant it to. Really things are mostly great. The kid is awesome about 21 hours out of every day. It's just the other three (the last two before bedtime and one overnight) are really starting to get to us.
He likes or does not mind me, his father, snuggling, milk, bath time, standing up on our legs and looking around, kicking his heels against the floor of the pack-n-play, and gurgling and cooing and practicing his vowel sounds with us and his grandmothers (his favorite word is "ghu," not that we know what it means). He dislikes wet diapers, dirty diapers, being cold, being tired, being hungry, and being swaddled - but he's not yet ready to sleep with both arms free, because he startles himself awake after about five minutes. So he has to have one arm pinned. We leave his right arm free so he can get used to unswaddled sleeping; recently he has also been using the opportunity to nom on his hand.
He's been able to get his hands in his mouth for about a month, but now he's doing it all the blessed time and with real intention. He can get a whole hand in there. I've just about given up trying to get him to stop and resigned myself to the fact that we're in a slobbery phase now. He's drooling copiously, and between that and some other indicators I think it's possible these are early symptoms of teething. The wise internet suggests that he might show signs as much as three months before the first tooth actually comes in, and that that's likely to be around six months, so (a) right on schedule? and (b) oh my god, this much drooling (and crankiness, and and and) for three more months?!
We generally put him to bed around 7:30, give or take. (Mostly give. He can't really make it to 8pm.) He generally wakes up once, usually in the sort of 2:30am area but sometimes as late as 4:30, which is the worst possible time because there's no real useful sleep for any adult between that and 6am wakeup. (A few weeks ago for three nights in a row he slept from 8pm to 5am and we thought we'd turned a corner. Alas. On the other hand, two nights ago he woke up at 12:30 and didn't go down again until 1:45, and then he woke up again at 4:30. Thank god that's not normal.) Generally up for the day around 6am. And he's a very sweet kid from 6am to about 5pm. ... Unfortunately, the last couple of hours of the day are developing into a real challenge.
I know there's a "witching hour" when babies sometimes blow their tiny stacks because they're overloaded with all they're learning and how they're growing. But night after night, close to two hours of wigging out is getting really wearing. I'm speaking of times when he's got a clean diaper, he won't eat, he doesn't want the pacifier, he doesn't want to play, he doesn't want to be left alone to kick his legs and look at things, he doesn't want to snuggle - he just wants to yell whether we're holding him or not. Probably what he wants is to go to bed, but we can't put him to bed that early. It's not too late for a nap, provided he hasn't just woken up from a nap at that sort of time.
Napping is a whole other issue. He "normally" these days naps for about one hour out of every two and a half. When he wakes up he's annoyed to be awake - a sentiment I understand and with which I sympathize, but to me that says his naps are not as restorative as they should be; I want him to wake up happy. Changing and feeding him takes about 20 minutes, we spend about an hour playing or talking or generally being in each other's company, and then he's ready for a nap again. Sometimes the nap is as short as half an hour. (His grandmother says sometimes it's as long as two hours; this afternoon he slept for two hours in the crook of my left arm, but only because he had rejected two previous naps today and I wanted him to have slept at all. Ugh.) So I'd like him to sleep longer at nap time, and I'd like his feeding interval to be more like three hours than like two and a half. I don't know how to make either of these happen, so a normal day is like wake up at 6am, eat, nap time at 7:30, wake up at 8:30, eat, nap time at 10, wake up at 11, eat, nap time at 12:30, wake up at 1:30, eat, nap time at 3pm, wake up at 4, eat, nap time at 5:30, wake up at 6:30, eat, bedtime at 7:30ish. Note though that a normal day has never happened. The 7:30 nap usually goes the whole hour. The 10am nap may be about 45 minutes. The 12:30 nap is hit or miss. The 3pm nap is about 30 minutes if it happens at all. The 5:30 nap is rare. I can't go longer between naps because he's tired and rubbing his eyes after being awake for an hour and a half and if I wait too long to put him down he can't get to sleep. (I feel like if the naps were longer not only would there be fewer of them but he'd last longer in between them as well. Augh!)
So what we end up with is, after 5pm, a baby who doesn't know what he wants but is pretty sure it's not any of the things we're trying to give him. If he happens to be hanging out quietly with a toy that will end the minute Himself and I are ready to have dinner, no matter what time that is. And the fussing and hollering is extremely frustrating while it's happening. Both Himself and I have been very short with the baby over this. (We'd never be rough with him or in any way not take care of him, but one's patience does wear thin.) And the frustration and the tension are exhausting. I think I'm managing ever so slightly better than Himself is, except that it makes me unhappy when he's unhappy, and there's no real way I can help solve it. I'm trying to keep in mind that this stage is finite - but a lot of things are finite that are still impossible while you're in them.
This got a lot ventier than I meant it to. Really things are mostly great. The kid is awesome about 21 hours out of every day. It's just the other three (the last two before bedtime and one overnight) are really starting to get to us.
no subject
The constant tiredness wears at you more than any torture devised, that is for sure.