...he usually is more like this:
I'm kind of laughing at the fact that just last week, I posted a "Day in the Life" on our typical day around here. Literally the next day, I visited my friend Shauna and was inspired to re-read Babywise (a book both she and I had read while we were pregnant) and work to get Ben on a schedule. Shauna has been working with Bronson and has had success with getting him to sleep for longer chunks during the night. She suggested I start with trying to get Ben into a "eat, wake, sleep" pattern - which is what I have been doing ever since. Sometimes Ben doesn't follow this pattern, but for the most part he does. I realized that he was not getting enough sleep during the day! Now, instead of one marathon nap in the afternoon, Ben naps at (approximately): 9:30 am, 12:30 pm, 3:30 pm, 6:30 pm, and then goes to sleep for good around 8:30 pm. The idea is that you start your day at the same time every day (for us it will be 8 am...until the weeks leading up to my going back to work, when we will move our "start time" to 6:30 or 7) and work to eat, then stay awake for awhile, followed by a nap - cycles of 2 and a half to 3 and a half hours. It really seems to be working so far. Below is the suggested schedule from the book:
2 weeks ago, Ben was suffering from REALLY bad baby acne. I don't have any pictures that show how bad it got, but it was very red and rashy looking. Being the rookie mom that I am, when his "rashy" acne was combined with a fever of 99.4...I started to worry that he was sick. It's amazing all of the things that creep into your mind when something unknown happens with your child. I found myself checking to make sure he was breathing in his sleep (like I did the first few nights). After a long conversation with my doctor on the phone, she suggested that I bring him in to ease MY concerns (as she didn't really have any based on the symptoms that I described). I figured it was WELL WORTH the $20 co-pay to go in and have him looked over. (He was perfectly fine).
Another great thing about taking him in was that we got to weigh him! As of 10 days ago, Ben weighs 10 lbs 10 oz! Dang! I knew that Ben was a good eater, but it was reassuring to know that he IS, in fact, getting all that he needs from me. On a related note, breastfeeding is going very well - much better than I ever thought it would. To be completely honest, I was a little hesitant about how long I would do this for. I still am not comfortable doing it in public (thank goodness for dressing rooms and the Nordstroms ladies' lounge). The thing is, I managed to get down to my pre-pregnancy weight in 5 weeks...without cutting back on what I'm eating AND without much exercising (yet), so I'm thinking that this has played a big part in that. This, combined with how well it seems to be working for Ben, has me much more determined to try to continue when I go back to work. I currently am pumping once a day to build up a supply in the freezer. I hope that since I will only be at the office and away from Ben 3 days a week, it will be relatively easy to keep this up as long as it is beneficial to him. I will keep you posted...
Back to Ben - he is currently wearing 3 month clothing and soon will be able to fit in some of his 3-6 month stuff! It was a sad, sad day when the newborn sizes that were swimming on him at birth become SO snug that he couldn't even straighten his legs! The good news is, we have been lent and given SO many adorable outfits that I am happy each and every time I dress him in the morning!
Remember this outfit? It was the first outfit purchased for
Ben by his Aunt Rachel the day we found out he was a boy!
Ben is now smiling on a daily basis and is starting to make some cooing sounds (although just a few here and there). He seems to be able to see us from a further distance as well. One thing Greg noticed this week is that he LOVES watching the lights from the cars on the street outside his room. I suppose this is one positive thing about the area we live in ;) At night, we will leave his blinds slightly cracked so that he can see the lights coming in through his window. I even went out to the store and purchased a "Twilight Turtle" (same family as the sleep sheep) that projects stars up on the ceiling in his room. He LOVES it!
Oh, and I think I forgot to mention it, but Ben is now sleeping in his crib, IN HIS ROOM, for all naps and at night. It all really happened by accident. The night before we got started on the new schedule, Ben was having a hard time going to sleep. Greg took over, went into his room, showed him the lights from the cars, and then when he was starting to doze off, put him down in his crib. When Greg returned to our room without Ben, I admittedly was a little sad/annoyed. I hadn't really made the decision yet to have him in his own room quite yet. While I didn't sleep very well that night, it has turned out to be a great thing. Ben is getting even more skilled at falling asleep on his own and seems to be sleeping much better in there! We, too, are sleeping better. While I of course still watch and listen to him via baby monitor, it is a lot easier for me to let him babble and watch him squirm around for a few minutes instead of immediately picking him up. This means that Ben will often times fall back asleep, so we are all getting longer stretches of sleep at night now.
Here are some more photos from the week:
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